January 2010 Roundup

31st January 2010

The start of the calendar year kicks off with CES in the United States, but most manufacturers really kick off their year in February at the Mobile World Congress event, so overall January is still traditionally very quiet.

Apple iPad

One of the most anticipated releases for months, the Apple iPad is a scaled-up version of the iPhone or iPod Touch. Bringing the ease of use of the iPhone to a much bigger device certainly makes the iPad very interesting, but a lack of support for multitasking and Flash will limit the appeal.

LG GW990

Much smaller than the iPad, but still much larger than a standard mobile phone, a preview of the LG GW990 shows a device that is much more suited to mobile web browing and video playback than a standard smartphone.

Android

There was also a lot of hype this month about the launch of the Google Nexus One, a powerful Android handset made by HTC but sold directly by Google. Another Android phone is the Motorola Backflip, which takes the existing DEXT and gives it a novel multifunction keypad. The Motorola MOTOROI is a very high-end Android device headed for Korea, but one that contains technologies that the rest of the world should see in 2010 and beyond. Taking a very different approach to design is the LG GT540 which manages to look great and provide a rich feature set at the same time.

Samsung

A series of three phones designed for social networking, the impressively named Samsung Shark range of devices is a lot less impressive when you look at the specifications.

Other Handsets

We haven't seen many Symbian phones from companies other than Nokia lately, but the Sony Ericsson Vivaz shows a refreshing approach to touchscreen smartphone design. HTC also showed the HTC Smart, which is not only a new handset but it comes with their own operating system, and aims at opening up new markets for HTC.

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