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asia posts

Garmin-ASUS nuvifone G60 spills loads of Linux-laced screenshots

by Darren Murph posted Jul 23rd 2009 @ 5:51PM

Yeah, we've seen our fair share of glimpses at Garmin-ASUS' nüvifone G60, but with the Linux-based phone just weeks away from shipping over in the Far East, these last minute looks are becoming all the more tantalizing. A reviewer over in Malaysia managed to spend a bit of quality time with the handset, and while he's still waiting for his official review unit, he managed to snag a litany of screenshots that gives us a fantastic idea of what to expect from a user interface perspective. We have to say -- we kind of dig the whimsical look at a glance, but it makes us wonder just how serious of a smartphone this thing really is. With Android already out, does this UI look like it has the chops to compete? Hit the read link and let us know.

[Via GPSTracklog, thanks Rich]

Garmin-ASUS nuvifone M20 and G60 shipping to Singapore in August

by Darren Murph posted Jul 17th 2009 @ 9:33PM

After a patently absurd amount of delays, it actually feels like the Garmin-ASUS nüvifone tandem is approaching a proper launch. Whether or not anyone actually cares anymore, however, remains to be seen. Across the sea over in Malaysia, one particularly lucky soul seems to have stumbled upon both the Linux-based nüvifone G60 and the WinMo-powered nüvifone M20, and he claims that both handsets will be shipping en masse to the region "within 30 days." Best of all, that totally jibes with what we've heard directly from Garmin today, which has informed us that the smartphone will be in Singaporean stores in August, with a few other Asian nations seeing it in late July. Now, if only North Americans could look forward to the same...

Nokia's Comes With Music service plans world tour

by Darren Murph posted Jan 20th 2009 @ 3:01AM

Nokia's all-you-can-eat Comes With Music service has been humming along quite nicely across the pond, but until now, we've been left in the dark about its plans for world domination. No more, as a recent Reuters report has it that the unlimited music service should be headed to Australia, Asia and Singapore later this quarter and Latin America / USA sometime this year. We're also told that more corners of Europe should get served in the future, though no window of time was handed out there. It should be interesting to see if any carriers jump in to subsidize these, but our gut feeling says they'll be sold for a premium unlocked at your nearest Nokia flagship.

[Via UnwiredView]

Sony Ericsson gets real with PlayNow Kiosk mobile entertainment service

by Darren Murph posted Jan 16th 2009 @ 10:44AM

Sony Ericsson is trying just about anything to garner revenue during these less-than-stable economic times, but we just can't imagine this one gaining any sort of traction worth gloating about. Nearly a year to the day after PlayNow Arena broke cover, SE is officially rolling out PlayNow Kiosk in the Asia Pacific region. Put as simply as possible, these kiosks will be situated in over 80 Sony Ericsson stores in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia (during the first wave of rollouts), and users wielding SE handsets can plug in to browse / download TV shows, games, ringtones and music. Details around exact content choices and pricing are still being kept under wraps, but so long as our favorite EMF tracks is on there, you'll see nothing but smiles from us.

[Image courtesy of Canada]

iPhone nano now rumored for June, Unicorn delayed again until September

by Joshua Topolsky posted Jan 13th 2009 @ 12:57PM

Ready for more iPhone nano rumors? Good, because apparently the Chinese trade paper Economic Daily News is now reporting that Taiwan Semiconductor Company (TSMC) will be handling chip manufacturing for a low-cost device being referred to as... you guessed it: the iPhone nano. While the paper has a fairly good reputation, it is filtered through the lens of DigiTimes on our end, so as usual, take it with the required grain of salt. Still, the source is calling a June launch of the handset on the heels of an order for the components in March. The time frame is reasonable enough, and if history is any lesson here, Apple loves to intro iPhones in the Summer. Given that China has yet to see a deal for the iPhone proper, and a lower-cost entry may be perfectly tuned for vast Asian markets, the nano could gather in a whole new fold of users (and the smaller screen would be less of an issue given the need for character recognition). That theory falls in line with statements from analysts, though as always, putting too much stock in any of this speculation could be hazardous to your health. Just ask Steve Jobs.

[Via AppleInsider]

Sharp lays out global expansion plans

by Darren Murph posted Dec 9th 2008 @ 5:01PM

With Nokia bidding Japan a fond farewell and the national handset market at large expected to shrink, Sharp is laying out plans to expand elsewhere in Asia in order to keep its profits from hitting undesirably low levels. At a recent press event in Tokyo, Sharp's Masafumi Matsumoto explained that "it is our solid policy to expand our overseas business," noting that it was "aiming for an overwhelmingly large share of about 30% in the Japanese market." Moreover, he proclaimed that it was hoping to "increase overseas unit sales to a level on par with domestic unit sales over time," pointing to nations like China and other "emerging markets." Reportedly, the company is hoping to leverage existing sales channels for its AQUOS TVs in order to move more handsets abroad, and not surprisingly, it'll probably look to low-cost devices for most of the growth. Good luck out there, Sharp -- it's a vicious world.

[Via WMPowerUser]

Sharp's 9225H brings the flip-open QWERTY action to Softbank

by Darren Murph posted Oct 12th 2008 @ 7:06PM

Not that we haven't seen relatively ho hum handsets get cracked open to reveal their sunny side (and full QWERTY keyboard) before, but Sharp's newly unveiled 9225H does more than just look pretty in two positions. Unwrapped at CEATEC 2008, the Softbank-destined mobile packed a 3.5-inch VGA screen internally, an inbuilt 1seg TV tuner, multimedia player, e-mail functionality, 2-megapixel camera and a microSDHC slot for loading up additional Iron & Wine tunes. There's no mention of a price, but feel free to head to the read link if you're in search of more images.

[Thanks, Mark]

Samsung's Soul gets candybar'd, called Soulb

by Darren Murph posted May 29th 2008 @ 12:45PM

Remember that U800 we peeked in the middle of last month? Turns out, that very mobile is the one pictured above, though it now has an official moniker to round things off. In an attempt to migrate the Spirit of Soul (Samsung's words, not ours) to the candybar design, the Soulb was born. The handset checks in at 9.9-millimeters thick and features a 3-megapixel camera (with Power LED flash), document viewer / editor, web browser, multimedia player, Bluetooth 2.0, FM radio (with RDS support), 1GB of internal memory and a microSD slot just in case. It's also noted that the Soulb will be available in Soul Grey, Platinum Silver, Metallic Black, Soul Pink and Amethyst Violet for an undisclosed price, but things aren't looking too swell for North Americans. Germans will get first dibs when it lands in "early June," while just about every region save for NA gets it shortly thereafter.

[Via phoneArena]

MWG shows first new phones in post-O2 era

by Chris Ziegler posted Jan 3rd 2008 @ 1:49PM

After O2 dropped its Southeast Asian outpost at the side of the road, we weren't terribly sure whether it'd be able to flourish -- let alone survive -- without the mothership's lifeline. Turns out they're at least giving it the old college try, though, with new models appropriately dubbed "Zinc II" and "Atom V" (notice that the "Xda" branding of old has left the building). We know this courtesy of Expansys' Hong Kong outpost, which has done us all a favor by posting preorder pages for both devices; we only have renderings at this point, but they look pretty legit and realistic. Both devices feature quadband GSM and triband HSDPA (nice!), 256MB of ROM and 64MB of RAM, integrated FM radio, WiFi, and GPS. The Atom V is the slightly higher end of the two -- despite a slightly lower price -- thanks to a 3 megapixel cam around back (versus 2 for the Zinc II) and an Intel core clocked 20MHz higher than the Zinc II's Samsung silicon, though the Zinc II should win some hearts and minds with its semi-automatic sliding QWERTY pad. If Expansys is to be believed, the Atom V will run HK$4,775 (about $612) while the Zinc II will set you back HK$5,305 (about $680) when they're available.

[Via the::unwired and MoDaCo]

Read - Zinc II
Read - Atom V

DoCoMo and other Asian carriers eyeing FCC auction?

by Paul Miller posted Dec 11th 2007 @ 6:15PM

Everybody is sworn to silence until the auction is over, so we won't be seeing much more information about this until it's all over in the spring of next year, but for now it's still fun to speculate. Business Week is doing quite a bit of that speculating as well, with word that DoCoMo, KDDI, SK Telecom and even China (through the T-Mobile and Global Tower invested Blackstone Group) could be chipping in a few billion here and there to spice things up for Google and friends in the 700MHz C Block auction. DoCoMo, which got burned in the US a while back with pre-Cingular AT&T Wireless, mentioned to Business Week that it'd be interested in partnering with Google for its wireless network, and the other carrier might not be talking but have to be at least considering the possibility of being involved in US wireless data in a big way, and KDDI has a history of being chummy with Google in Japan. The word is that average North American data service bills are less than $10 a month, and are expected to grow to $38+ a month by 2012 -- and who wouldn't want in on that action? As growth slows in Europe and Asia, it seems only natural for the innovators over there to head over here and kick things into gear, but we'll try not too far ahead of ourselves.

[Via The Inquirer]

O2 Asia is dead, long live MWG

by Chris Ziegler posted Nov 2nd 2007 @ 1:31PM

First, the bad news: the rumors have turned out be true, O2's pulling out of its Southeast Asian biz. Now the good: rising from the ashes is a new operation, MWG, that looks ready and willing to carry on with O2 Asia's product lineup. In fact, MWG's website says that they've outright inherited O2 Asia's entire management team, so really, it's the same company in shiny new clothes. Current offerings include the Xda Atom Life, Xda Flame, and Xda Zinc -- not a bad start, if Windows Mobile is your thing -- and they're promising "an exciting roadmap" through 2008. Best of luck, fellas!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Nokia, Shockwave ink deal to bring games to handsets

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 21st 2007 @ 10:04PM

Shockwave, purveyor of its "Shockwave Mini" games to Verizon handsets in these parts, has entered an agreement with Nokia to offer some of its mobile entertainment through portals in Europe and Asia. Though it's not clear whether the games will eventually be bundled with phones (Nokia's own Snake in its various forms will always be near and dear to our hearts), it looks like the initial offerings will come through the manufacturer's Content Discoverer app. A quick game of Sumo Swinger, anyone?

O2 reducing Asia Pacific presence, to eventually withdraw?

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 12th 2007 @ 8:33PM

Though it doesn't even operate any networks of its own in the region, O2's Asia Pacific outpost has been known to release (or tease us with) some of the more lustworthy Windows Mobile devices out there. They apparently aren't lustworthy enough, though, with DigiTimes reporting that O2 is looking to reduce its footprint in that part of the world or -- horror of horrors -- withdraw altogether. The company has apparently stopped placing orders and taking delivery of existing ones from its Asian ODMs -- Quanta, Gigabyte, and Arima -- a pretty solid reversal from its recent trumpeting of four new Windows Mobile-based models for the second half of the year. O2 naturally claims that it's simply "adjusting its product strategy" and has no plans to withdraw, but with no new hardware in the pipe, what else could it possibly mean?

[Via the::unwired]

O2 Asia has four Windows Mobile models for 2H, ASUS left out

by Chris Ziegler posted Jun 26th 2007 @ 6:01PM

O2's Taiwan and Hong Kong chief has reaffirmed the company's long-standing commitment to rolling out Windows Mobile devices, recently commenting that it'll roll out four new models in the second half of 2007. That's good news for Quanta, Arima, and Gigabyte -- the ODMs taking on those orders -- but O2's partnership with ASUS has been scrapped, allegedly because it adopted Intel's 3G chipsets for its models when Qualcomm's are considered to be snappier. All four new models will rock out with Windows Mobile 6; one will be an entry-level piece with EDGE data while the other three will all burn rubber with downstream speeds of "at least" 3.6Mbps. At least this explains O2's untimely cancellation of the Xda Zinc, we guess.

[Via Pocket PC Thoughts]

HTC Touch to launch first in Taiwan, US bound by year's end

by Darren Murph posted Jun 12th 2007 @ 3:01PM

Good news for those of you in Taiwan (and America, too) who can't wait to get acquainted with HTC's Touch, as its creator has reportedly announced that it will be deployed shortly in its "home base," with an American launch to go down before the dawn of 2008. Peter Chou, chief executive officer at HTC, has purportedly stated that it would "only be fitting if the first country in Asia to sell the Touch was Taiwan," and also noted that Chunghwa Telecom would be its "exclusive partner in distributing and retailing the handset" in that country. On the home front, all we know is that the Touch should indeed be found on American shelves before the year's end, but here's to hoping it's closer to today than December 31st.

Read - HTC launch in Taiwan
Read - HTC launch in USA