Smartphones

On Tuesday, Sony Ericsson announced the latest addition to its Greenheart series of eco-friendly phones, the Sony Ericsson Aspen. However, it's not the green angle that's catching people's attention (though it certainly is a plus), it's the fact that the Aspen is the first smartphone to run Windows Mobile 6.5.3.

This update to Microsoft's mobile operating system brings additional enhancements to the user interface, including more finger-friendly menus and touch controls and support for capacitive and multitouch gestures. In addition, Microsoft made improvements to the Web browser, so you should see faster page … Read more

During last week's quarterly earnings call, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha indicated that Moto would release at least one handset this year with the same, direct-to-consumer channel used for the Nexus One.

While Jha didn't elaborate on the handset, I imagine that Motorola will want to offer a device at least as powerful as the Nexus One, if not more. And for inspiration, we can look at the Android handsets that the company is introducing overseas.

Though the Moto's Droid and Cliq are its only Android handsets with U.S. carriers, elsewhere it has started pumping out multiple … Read more

On Monday, Verizon Wireless released VZ Navigator 5.0, a new version of its location-based service that brings enhanced navigation tools and more social-networking aspects to the app.

Available starting today on a select number of phones, VZ Navigator 5.0 now offers stranded motorists roadside assistance, so the driver can send his or her position to a dispatcher who can then route help to the location. Another new aspect of the software is Facebook integration. With this feature, users can make status updates right from VZ Navigator with the option to include their location.

Other new features of the … Read more

A new version of Google's Nexus One smartphone will apparently arrive soon for use on AT&T's 3G wireless network.

Customers are already able to buy an unlocked version of the Nexus One for $529. But the Android-based phone, which was launched last month, supports GSM radio frequency bands. The only 3G wireless bands that it supports are on T-Mobile USA's network.

This means that customers wishing to use the "unlocked" phone on AT&T's network can access only AT&T's 2.5G or EDGE network. And even though AT&… Read more

We've heard a few people complain that taking photos initially with their iPhone took a while to get used to because of the awkward placement of the Camera app's shutter button and the shape of the phone. Tapping the shutter button resulted in blurred or out-of-focus photos. So forget about tapping that button; we've got a better solution!

We noted that when taking photos with the iPhone it will not actually take the photo until you release the shutter button. So the key to better photography on the iPhone is to press and hold the button while … Read more

Mozilla has been steadily creeping toward its goal of releasing the first Firefox browser for mobile phones. On Friday, Firefox 1.0 for Nokia's Maemo--previously code-named Fennec--arrived.

Firefox for the Maemo 5 platform has a few interesting conceits that set it apart from other mobile browsers, like Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. Mozilla is banking on the uniqueness of its claim to fame--third-party, customizable browser extensions--to help its browser win mobile market share. Add-ons, after all, helped make Firefox the top browser alternative to Internet Explorer in the desktop space. To punctuate the importance of add-ons for Firefox's mobile browser, Mozilla also pushed out on Friday the general release of its bookmark and history-syncing extension, Weave Sync 1.0, for both desktop and mobile.

Mozilla's accomplishment with a mobile version of Firefox is a mixed one, and not only because Maemo is a platform relatively few people have heard of. Nokia's open-source, Linux-based Maemo operating system supports mobile Firefox on just two devices--the N900 and the N810, an Internet tablet. To make matters more limited, just two days ago Mozilla unveiled a third release candidate with a last-minute decision to pull wholesale support for Adobe's Flash plug-in from the build, citing unhappiness with the overall standard of quality. As an aside, this is apparently a sore spot for Adobe, who became miffed with Apple for excluding Flash in its new iPad device about the same time that Mozilla made its comment about degraded performance when visiting Flash sites.

Yet what kind of mobile browser would Firefox be if users couldn't watch videos or adequately view Web sites that heavily rely on Flash? Not a browser anyone could take seriously.… Read more

Hardware specifications and details surrounding upcoming HTC Google Android handsets are coming to light. Two models in particular, the Bravo and Supersonic, are getting a lot of attention, which leads us to believe an announcement is coming soon. Much like the Nexus One and the Sony Ericsson Xperia 10, the new wave of Android handsets seem to all have two things in common: large screens and plenty of horsepower.

The HTC Bravo resembles the Nexus One, save for a few changes. Like the Nexus One, the Bravo features a 3.7-inch screen with 800x480 pixel resolution, a 5-megapixel camera, and … Read more

We've now had three weeks to play with the Nexus One, aka the "Google phone." After a lot of poking around under the hood, we still think that it's a great addition to the Google Android family and that it deserves our "Excellent" rating. But even so, there are three things with which we're not entirely comfortable.

3G reception and touch-screen Like with our CNET iPhone, we haven't experienced many problems with our Nexus One data connection. It's a little shaky in subway stations and deep inside buildings, but not much more so than other T-Mobile 3G phones. Yet, enough CNET readers have reported problems and T-Mobile admitted as much earlier this month. And earlier this week, the carrier said it is developing a fix, but cautioned that it may not solve the issues of all users. We're waiting to see what happens.

We've also aware that some Nexus One customers are having problems with their touch-screens. We haven't experienced this issue either, but we've heard from a lot of people who have. We tend to think this is more of a teething problem than an inherent flaw in the device, but we'll be watching this as well.

Yahoo e-mail As we've mentioned, we had trouble syncing Yahoo e-mail on the Nexus One when we tried the standard setup. Not only did we receive a message that the phone does not support all Yahoo accounts, but also it wouldn't recognize our user name and password. We finally were able to make it work using the manual setup, though it involved extra steps and information that isn't readily available.

If you're having trouble with Yahoo mail on your Nexus One, and we know that many of you are, try these steps.… Read more

In case you haven't heard, Nokia's launched its answer to Apple's App Store, the Ovi Store. To help kick things off, Nokia and its Ovi Store are giving away an unlocked N97 Mini to one lucky Crave reader (sorry, service isn't included).

Nokia describes the Ovi Store as a one-stop-shop for free and paid content, with support for a range of device types--from smartphones to feature phones. "Globally, Nokia device owners, in more than 180 countries, across more than 100 Nokia device models in 30 languages have access to the Ovi Store," according to … Read more