Tag: touchscreen
CES 2009: Palm shows off rumoured touchscreen device – the Palm Pre
The rumours were true. Palm’s got a brand new device to go with its spangly new Nova operating system. All we knew previously was that it had a portrait touchscreen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, but now there’s a bit more info to go with it.
That touchscreen measures 3.1″ diagonally, at 480×320 resolution. The slide-out keyboard doesn’t come straight out – it sorta curves. There’s oodles of connectivity – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and EVDO. There’s a removable battery, microUSB connector, support for USB mass storage and – YAY! – a 3.5mm headphone jack.
It’s running the new Nova OS, but more about that in another post. It’ll be available in the “first half” of 2009. In the meantime, for more CES coverage, click here.
(via Gizmodo’s liveblog)
Apple patents 'winter-friendly' touchscreen gloves
Apple has decided to apply for a patent on a means of using a multi-touch device with gloves. Traditional gloves block the electrical impulses from your skin, meaning that a capacitive touchscreen doesn’t get any signal when your mittened hand touches it.
You might be thinking ‘how can you patent a product that’s already on the market?’, but the difference here is that the fingertips of the unconductive outer layer can be drawn back to reveal a more conductive inner layer. Apple suggests this could be accomplished with an elastic ring.
Apple’s patent application (via AppleInsider)
Related posts: DOTS Gloves | Etre Touchy Gadget Gloves
Nokia patent takes E71 and adds swivel screen
Patents are fun. Sometimes they turn into something real, and other times they’re probably just the musings of an over-imaginative designer.
One of Nokia’s recent patents probably falls into the latter camp. It looks a bit like someone’s taken the Nokia E71 and added a wide touchscreen as large as the handset itself which can swivel into position when ready to use…
SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: LG KP500 "Cookie"
In the video above, Zara gets to grips with LG’s rather popular new KP500, or the “Cookie”, as I mocked here. There’s no 3G, or GPS, so I’m not sure how much I could recommend it, but it does have a lovely 3″ touchscreen and an accelerometer. It’s a decent low-end handset, and should come cheap on contracts.
LG KP500
Related posts: The LG KP500 is now the LG “Cookie” and wuvs you very much | LG-KP500: UK’s most affordable touchscreen mobile handset coming October
Porsche Design P'9522 mobile phone launches
This is the Porsche P’9522 – a mobile phone designed by Porsche. I can hear you already thinking ‘it’s got an expensive name on it – the features are going to be practically non-existent’. Well, tell your thoughts that they’re wrong, and should shut up – it’s actually surprisingly high-specced.
The phone case is milled from a single solid aluminum block and a single sheet of scratchproof glass! It’s got a 2.8″ touchscreen OLED display! It’s got built-in Wi-Fi and GPS! It’s got a fingerprint scanner! A fingerprint scanner, for god’s sake!
The bad news? You’re not going to get this in the Carphone Warehouse or Phones 4 U. It’s being sold in Porsche shops and ‘exclusive specialist stores’ only. There’s no price quoted, but we’ll have to assume it’s going to be more than its predecessor, the fliptastic P’9521, which costs €1200 (just over £1000).
Related posts: Porsche Design launches P’9521 high-end handset | Eton launches Porsche Design P’9123 radio with iPod/iPhone dock
Nokia launches N97 – new touchscreen behemoth
Yesterday, Nokia execs teased the world’s tech bloggers by saying that they had a big announcement, and were surprised that it hadn’t leaked. I’m surprised too – the big announcement is the N97. It’s the followup to their brilliant, and ridiculously successful N95, and semi-upgrade the N96.
The specs on this baby promise a lot. It’ll have a 3.5″, 640 x 360 touchscreen display (16:9, not 16:10), a QWERTY keyboard, HSDPA and Wi-Fi, 32GB(!) of onboard memory, a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, “DVD-quality” video capture (eat that, iPhone), and a battery that promises to pump out a day and a half of continuous audio playback. No mention of GPS, but I’d be very surprised if it lacks it.
Best of all, Nokia promises an ‘always-open’ window to the internet and social networking sites. If that integration runs clearly through the phone, it could be very powerful indeed. This is Nokia’s answer to the iPhone. The specs certainly win the day, but can they crack the all-important interface? We’ll have to wait and see.
Nokia N97 (via N96 Bruce Lee edition – enter the handset | MWC 2008: Nokia N96 versus Nokia N95
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic coming very soon, in time for Christmas perhaps?
After a long time waiting, Nokia has finally announced that its Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (“Tube”) touchscreen mobile phone will be available across a number of markets “soon”.
Unfortunately, details are sketchy, and the UK isn’t specifically mentioned in the markets initially listed — that’ll be Russia, Spain, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Finland but hopefully that’s not an exhaustive list.
Coming to the UK? Probably. Before Christmas? Maybe. Price and network? Nothing obvious yet…
SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: BlackBerry Storm Part One
Here’s Susi’s initial thoughts on the Blackberry Storm. On the model we got sent, there’s a bug with the browser, so we can’t give it a proper proper review until that’s fixed, but in the interests of keeping you lot as informed as possible, Susi filmed some thoughts on the build of the handset, and her initial impressions.
Want one? More than an iPhone? Really? Personally, I’m not convinced just yet. Let us know your thoughts on the Storm in the comments.
BlackBerry Storm
Related posts: Technology Deathmatch – Apple iPhone 3G vs BlackBerry Storm | Vodafone taking pre-orders for BlackBerry Storm, still no release date
Fujitsu announces Lifebook N7010 with a second tiny touchscreen
This is the new Fujitsu Lifebook N7010. Its most notable feature is the tiny 4″ touchscreen mounted just above the keyboard. You can use it like a second monitor – dragging programs and stuff down there, or you can use it as an app launcher, or control for DVDs and CDs.
RUMOUR: BlackBerry "Pluto", another touchscreen from RIM
Honestly, you wait ages for a touchscreen Blackberry, and then two come along at once. Hot on the heels of the Storm, comes this – another touchscreen Blackberry device, but this one has a qwerty keypad, too…
