November 2009 Roundup

30th November 2009

November saw the announcement of some very high-end smartphones, but it also included some handsets for the rest of us.

Smartphones

The Motorola MILESTONE is the worldwide version of the Motorola DROID Android phone, a hugely impressive piece of hardware combined with powerful software and services.. many industry observers thing that Motorola is back with a bang. Another Android phone in the same segment is the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 - a sleek looking device, but questions remain as to Sony Ericsson's ability to deliver. Dell's first foray into the smartphone market is the oPhone-powered Dell Mini 3.. but at the moment Dell will only be applying its own unique interpretation of customer service to markets in China and Brazil. Finally the Emblaze Mobile First ELSE shows that perhaps there is still room for innovation and market success from companies you have never heard of.

Nokia

Lots of releases from Nokia this month, led by the Nokia 6700 Slide S60 phone which comes in a variety of challenging colours. The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition is an attempt to bring mobile free-to-air TV to the masses. The Nokia 7230 is a low cost 3G slider phone that seems to offer a lot of features for not much money, but even that cannot compete with the cheapest Nokia ever, the Nokia 1280. Other value Nokias include the nearly identical Nokia 1616 and 1800 phones, and the Nokia 2220 Slide and attractive Nokia 2690 look to be great value too.

Other news

A huge data theft scandal envelops T-Mobile in the UK, Nokia recalls hundreds of thousands of defective chargers, and Samsung announce their new Bada operating environment.