Android-running LG Optimus Me P350 goes live

LG has just unveiled another Android-running addition to their smartphone lineup. The LG Optimus Me P350 is supposed to be a slightly cheaper and more youthful looking version of the popular LG Optimus One.

Coming in a variety of bright colors the LG Optimus Me P350 runs on Android 2.2 Froyo and packs excellent all-round connectivity. There's 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS on board as well as a microUSB port and Bluetooth.

     
LG Optimus Me P350

LG left us guessing about the size of the HVGA LCD screen and chose not to reveal the CPU and RAM of the device either. Seeing how closely related the Optimus Me and Optimus One are though we can suppose a 600 MHz CPU and 512 MB are some pretty safe bets.

The available colour versions

The back of the LG Optimus Me P350 sports a 3 megapixel camera, though we cannot confirm its video recording capabilities just yet.

We are expecting LG to reveal all those currently unknown specs, along with the Optimus Me P350 shipping schedule and pricing in the coming weeks.

Get Facebook for Feature Phones for your IQ challenged phone

Facebook launched an official Java app that's universally compatible with a wide range of feature phones. Facebook also made arrangements with 14 carriers for free online access through the app.

Today almost every smart gadget has access to Facebook. But since the smartphone market is smaller than the feature phone market, the next logical step was Facebook to go Java and jump onto the cheaper phones.

The Facebook app for feature phones is compatible with a wide range of phone models and you can get if from this mobile address: m.fb.snaptu.com/f.

Facebook has made arrangements to ensure a head start for its app. A deal with 14 separate carriers ensures that their customers will browse Facebook fro free through the app - at least for the first three months.

The carriers that participate right from launch are:

• Dialog (Sri Lanka)
• Life (Ukraine)
• Play (Poland)
• StarHub (Singapore)
• STC (Saudi Arabia)
• Three (Hong Kong)
• Tunisiana (Tunisia)
• Viva (Dominican Republic)
• Vodafone (Romania)

Carriers soon to follow:

• Mobilicity (Canada)
• Reliance (India)
• Telcel (Mexico)
• TIM (Brazil)
• Vivacom (Bulgaria)

Yeah, we know, it's a short list, but Facebook is negotiating with other carriers as well so expect this list to be expanded. Until then, you can still use the widely free image-less Zero Facebook found at0.facebook.com if your phone has even a simple HTTP browser.

Six HTC smartphones and a tablet leak, geeks leap with excitement

The pre-MWC rumor marathon continues. In today's episode we have five Android-running HTC smartphones, a Brew-based handset and a tablet. And even thought there's not much we can give you in terms of specs we've got plenty of official shots for you to feast your eyes on.

Large screen is what the first two devices have in common. Both of them are following the HTC Desire design traditions and one seems to have no keys on its face. Still we can find a good reason for all that bezel if there are no buttons so our money's on the render being incomplete.

  
The upcomming HTC flagships

The other three Androids are obviously headed to China, so we cannot be certain if they will be unveiled at the MWC. We have the China Telecom version of the Desire HD and the mid-range A3360 TianShan and A3380.

   
The three China-bound HTC smartphones

The final HTC handset for today is a sleek looking successor to the HTC Smart. Running on the Brew mobile platform it's supposed to help deliver the Sense UI experience to a wider audience.

 
HTC Smart successor

Finally, a word about the upcoming HTC tablet, which is reportedly named HTC Flyer. Rumor has it that it will be running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, while a 3.0 Honeycomb update is going to be delivered when that version of the OS becomes available.

The HTC Flyer is supposed to start shipping as early as March in the US (with worldwide availability following in Q2) so an announcement next month seems imminent. And apparently there's more where that came from - HTC has plans to introduce two more Honeycomb-running tablets somewhere in the middle of this year.

T-Mobile officially confirms Galaxy S 4G and Sidekick droids

T-Mobile USA has officially confirmed two new 4G droids will be joining their lineup - the Galaxy S 4G and the T-Mobile Sidekick. Unfortunately, all the image material we have is a leaked slide with a couple of blurry shots.

While the two phones are part of an official T-Mobile press release, the details about their specs are quite scarce. Both will have HSPA+ connectivity (not 4G strictly speaking), they will run Android and both are "coming soon" but that's about it.

We previously saw the Galaxy S 4G leak as the T-Mobile Vibrant 4G. So its specs aren't much of a mystery - they're probably the same as the rest of the Galaxy S phones, except the 4G connectivity in the form of 21Mbps worth of HSPA+.

As for the T-Mobile Sidekick, things are much more vague - Sidekicks were originally produced by a company dramatically called Danger, but later they were acquired by Microsoft and tasked to create the ill-fated Kin phones.

It's official that the new Sidekick will run Android (instead of the old Sidekick OS). It's not clear who will make it though - but from that blurry shot it sure looks like Sprint's EVO Shift 4G by HTC.

T-Mobile will be adding a couple of Android tablets too, the Dell Streak 7 and the T-Mobile G-Slate tablet, which will run Honeycomb.

Nokia N9 to come at the MWC with a 1.2 GHz CPU, 12 MP camera?

With the MWC fast approaching, rumors about the MeeGo-running Nokia N9 are starting to intensify again. If the Finnish source is to be trusted one of the most hotly anticipated smartphones of this year will make its debut at the congress in less than a month.

There will also be some serious hardware under the hood. Apparently the Nokia N9 will be the first Nokia smartphone to pack a 1.2 GHz CPU. The machine-translated source mentions something about it being an Intel Atom, but we can't imagine a way of stuffing the good old x86 Atom in a smarphone. Instead our guess is the N9 is based on the Intel Moorestown platform, which is essentially a smartphone SoC (system-on-a-chip) with an Intel Atom core as its heart.

Next, the Nokia N9 is supposed to have the same 12 megapiexel camera as the N8. Considering the qualities of the large-sensor unit inside the Nokia Symbian^3 flagship, that's just excellent news for all cameraphone lovers. Top of the line smarphones haven't been doing too great in the camera department recently, so the N9 might be the first true all in one device.

The final exciting Nokia N9 rumor is its LTE connectivity. Even the source claims that this isn't confirmed yet so you need to take this with an extra pinch of salt.

There's less than four weeks remaining until the MWC kicks off so we'll find if the rest of it is true pretty soon. Here's hoping that the whole list gets confirmed!

Source (in Suomi)