Samsung Mobiles India today unveiled its latest creation, the Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone, which is the upgrade of Samsung Galaxy S announced last year. The phone will be hitting the markets next month and is priced at Rs 32,890 for the 16 GB version.

Although there are both 16GB and 32GB versions available internationally, but for reasons untold, the Galaxy S 2 will only be available in 16GB capacity in India. There is no official word from Samsung on the future availability of the 32 GB version.

The Galaxy S2 is based on Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and has a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) Plus display, which is better than the conventional AMOLED displays in terms of contrast ratio and colour reproduction.

The S2 also features an ARM cortex A9 based 1.2 GHz dual core Processor and a dedicated graphics chip from ARM MALI. A 1 GB RAM has been included for better functioning. The phone comes with HDMI and USB for on the go connectivity as well (Separate accessories needed to be purchased to use these features as they do not come as a part of the handset bundle).

It features an 8 Megapixel back camera which is capable of full HD 1080 video recording, and a 2 megapixel front facing camera. S2 will have support for Near Field Communications or NFC as well for mobile transactions.

The Galaxy S2 will be up for prebooking form tomorrow (Thursday) onwards through the Samsung online store for a token amount of Rs 1,000.

Samsung has also tied up with Vodafone to launch this phone in India. Hence, you can also buy this phone from Vodafone stores from June 3 onwards. Vodafone will be offering a complimentary 1GB per month 3G data usage for the customers of Samsung Galaxy S2 for the next six months as a part of the deal.

Users can also wait a little further as the Galaxy S2 will go for sale through all Samsung stores starting June 9.

The latest upgrade of Windows Phones 7 will bring about 500 updates to the operating system, its creator, Microsoft has announced.

The updates, dubbed as the Mango update, will be announced in New York later today. The company will also provide details on the companies who will be producing Windows Phones and the associated carriers.

“We have a big launch event to talk about the next release of Windows Phone tomorrow (Tuesday) so that information will be, uh, forthcoming, including some of the particulars about who’s going to be building Windows Phones and which carriers will be offering them here in Japan,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive officer, during the Microsoft Developer Forum at Shinagawa Intercity, Japan on Monday.

The latest announcement is in line with The Mobile Indian’s earlier report.

Ballmer also expressed hopes that developers would create fun applications around the live tiles, the widget like appearance that makes the Windows Phone home screens beautiful. The live tiles also allow the users to link to a deeper page of an App from the home screen itself, thus enabling easy access to the users.

The number of updates, 500, announced is huge so it may be possible all may not be covered in today’s New York event.

On Skype, he said, “Helping people communicate is an important part of what Microsoft does and Skype will help it achieve that goal.”

The most common of these processors are Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, Texas Instrument’s OMAP 4 and Samsung’s Hummingbird. The main advantages that smartphone users can expect from multi-core chips include faster web page loading, better performance, a better gaming experience, smooth user interface and better multitasking. Increasingly, smartphones can be used to watch television, and can play and capture full high definition, or 1080p Resolution video.

Features such as DLNA media streaming and HDMI output allow users to watch videos from their phones on their televisions. Forget the DVD player, the phone is all set to work as a most versatile media player, and this is just one aspect of what can be done using phones based on multi-core chipsets .

Hard core gamers would love the extra layer of detail in game graphics and the speed with which games are rendered on phones.

Some smartphones such as Motorola’s Atrix fit into a dock that has a keyboard and monitor so that they end up working like computers.

Most high end smartphones run on these chips. All the big manufacturers – from Apple to Motorola to HTC – are making phones using 1GHz processors. In the run up to the transition towards dual core chips, Nvidia is the company which managed to garner most attention by coming up with dual core Tegra 2 chips. In fact, the tablet version of Android, version 3.0 or Honeycomb, has been designed around it, and this operating system is capable of running several applications at once.

This doesn’t mean that other dual core chips are far behind. The TouchPad from HP is likely to use a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, whereas Acer will use a 1 GHz Snapdragon for its Iconia Smart tablet. HP’s TouchPad will be based on webOS operating system, and Iconia Smart will run on Android. BlackBerry PlayBook from Research In Motion runs on QNX operating system powered by a 1 GHz dual core OMAP 4 processor. The smartphones using dual core Tegra 2 processors include Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X, and Samsung Galaxy S II uses a similar Processor produced by Samsung itself.
Multi-core phones are not going to arrive in the market any time soon, but this technology has been demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress. The actual performance of three or four core processors in phones remains to be seen, and their arrival may take some time. The companies which have announced multi-core processors include Freescale and Marvell. Nvidia is also coming up with a quad core chip known as Kal-El.

So one thing is for sure, mobile hardware is moving ahead at great speed, and to keep up with processing requirements, more and more cores are simultaneously being used in phone processors. Anything is possible on smartphones, and if there is something users can’t do, they just need to wait.

While Sony Ericsson might still be planning to pump some life in its Cyber Shot brand, Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp has become the world’s first handset maker to launch a smartphone with a 16 mega Pixel camera. The device is called Aquos Hybrid 007SH and runs on Google’s Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system. The smartphone is perhaps the world’s first Clamshell Android smartphone.

It will have a 3.4 inch LCD display capable of reproducing 3D imagery though its stereoscopic vision, which means that users will not be required to wear glasses to view the 3D content on this phone.

The manufacturer has also made this phone waterproof to protect it in various situations, but the idea behind making it a clamshell phone is still unknown.

Aquos Hybrid features a secondary or external auxiliary screen that can display information such as messages, incoming calls and so on. The phone has a mini HDMI port and an inbuilt digital TV tuner for mobile TV on the go.

However, an Indian spokesperson for Sharp said the company has no plans to launch any such smartphone in India but added that it may launch new phones by the end of this year or by early next year.

The spokesperson said that Sharp aims to be one of the top handset players in the country.

Aquos Hybrid will go on sale in Japan through Softbank shops, which will take prebooking orders starting in June this year, and will deliver the phones towards the month of July and later.

However, whether the Aquos Hybrid will arrive in other parts of the world still remains a mystery.

Nokia, in order to unite the minds of its 1.4 billion users across the globe, has announced the launch of its unique initiative called “Invent With Nokia”.

Under this initiative, users and thinkers are required to submit their invention to Nokia. If selected, Nokia will award a really handsome sum to the person whose invention or design is chosen for the patent.

“If you have a genuinely useful and innovative idea that could be turned into a product or service by Nokia &#151 whether or not you are a full time inventor &#151 imagine the feeling of having your vision realized by a company such as Nokia that can make it happen,” said Nokia through its official blog on the occasion of the launch of invent with Nokia.

“To submit your idea, you will need to register over at www.inventwithnokia.com and provide us with non-confidential information about your idea or invention,” it added.
All the users need to do is register themselves at the website and submit their invention or idea along with a four month non disclosure agreement.

Nokia will decide to go ahead with the invention or else the same will be conveyed to the user. If selected, Nokia will get the invention patented and will give a cash prize to the person presenting the idea.

The new concept is an innovative way of employing users from around the world to do thinking for Nokia and doing something for the other billion users.

MAXX Mobiles, a handset maker, has launched a new gaming
phone. The new MAXX GLO MX388 comes with 250 preloaded games and dedicated gaming buttons.

It has three changeable A-cover shells, a 1.3 mega Pixel camera, a free 2 GB memory card, FM radio, and MP3/MP4 player. Besides, users have the option to expand its external memory up to 8 GB.

The phone is JAVA enabled and has Bluetooth for communicating with other devices.

MAXX GLO MX388 is packed with games across categories like action, racing, puzzles, adventure, fighting, shooting and sport. Some preloaded games are Super Mario, Pacman, Race, Trojan and Battle City. The battery has a capacity of 800 mAh.

At the launch of the phone, Ajay Agarwal, chairman and managing director of MAXX Group, said, “Gaming has developed at a rapid rate in India and we expect significant growth in the coming years. The tech-savvy Indian youth are now demanding entertainment at their fingertips even when on the move. We would like to take advantage of this trend by reaching out to the Indian youth with yet another cost-effective mobile phone that promises to satisfy their craving for mobile gaming.”

GLO MX388, which is priced at Rs 2,361, will be made available first in Mumbai, followed by other cities in India through MAXX Mobiles’ distribution network.

MAXX has a presence in about 25,000 retailer outlets across India through its strong dealer distribution network supported by more than 500 after sales service centers. The company sells its brand of mobile phones and accessories at Planet M, Tata Croma, Hyper City, Star Bazar, Mobile & Gadgets, Indian Naval Canteen, Kings Electronics, Hotspot, Reliance Web World and NEXT electronics.