MWC 2011 Awards iPhone 4 Best Mobile Device

Well as you probably know during Mobile World Congress, they usually slap a few awards around to those they consider deserving and this years MWC event isn’t any different with the GSMA awarding the phone of the year award to none other than to Apple’s darling smartphone.
According to an article over on Daily iPhone Blog the GSMA have named the iPhone 4 as the device of the year, with judges commenting that the iPhone 4 has a ” Great screen, sharp design, fantastic materials, and phenomenal ecosystem for app developers. In a tight race, the iPhone 4 built on the success of its predecessors to set the pace for smart phones.”
Which doesn’t really surprise anyone I bet. The award for device manufacturer of the year though went to HTC and the judges commented that the HTC desire ” set the bar for Android phones across much of the world in 2010. Packed with great features, this is an enduring product that has performed consistently well.”
The Best Mobile App award went to Rovio/Clickgamer/ Chillingo for you’ve guessed it…Angry Birds, with the judges commenting, ” This is an application that is simple, intuitive, incredibly addictive, and perfect for “snacking” consumption. It has underlined the importance of the applications market, and helped raise the credibility of small independent developers outside the mainstream.”
App of the year on the iOS platform again went to Angry Birds while the App of the year on theAndroid platform went to Google Maps.

Desktops & Laptops Dying Due to Smartphone Sales

As been said all along that smartphones and tablets are the way forward and so much so that they will kill off desktops and laptops within time, and now it seems to be heading that way according to a new survey.
Apparently and according to The Telegraph more mobile phones were sold that computers last year thanks to a new research and that PC’s were outsold by smartphones in the last quarter of 2010.
With many new smartphones like the Apple iPhone 4 and many Android smartphones that would take ages to list seems to be killing off desktops and laptops, around 100.9 million smartphones were shipped in October, November and December of 2010, whereas only 92.1 million PC shipments were listed.
The above numbers means that smartphone sales were up 87 per cent on the same period in 2009 and only three per cent up for PC shipments.
According to the source above IDC analyst Ramon Llamas said this is the case because PCs andsmartphones serve different purposes.
Many new tablets are being announced of late and these will start to overtake PC sales as well and with smartphone prices falling to an all time low for the buyer it seems desktops and laptops is a dying market. Many smartphones and tablets are being sold in supermarkets such as Tesco’s, which means the market will only get stronger for these devices.
Do you think the desktop and laptop will die a slow death to smartphones and tablets? I would love to know what you think.

Nokia Bubbles – cool way to unlock your phone

Nokia Bubbles is a new app from Nokia BetaLabs which lets you unlock your phone in a totally different way. When your phone is locked , you press the menu button and you see bubbles floating on the screen that let you do various things with it like responding to missed calls or viewing new messages . Watch the video below to get an idea how it works !

You can use the bubbles for the following actions

• Unlock the phone
• View new messages
• View/Respond to missed calls
• Control the music player
• Control the FM radio
• Change profile (profile timing also supported)
• Call/Message your three best friends
• Activate the backlight to use as a flashlight
• Show your current location using Ovi Maps
• Change the background of the Bubbles screen
• Display when battery needs charging
• Display statistics about bubble speed and distance (just for fun)

PR 1.1 Update Released For Nokia N8, C7 And C6-01

Nokia recently released the much awaited PR 1.1 update for its popular Symbian^3 smartphones, the Nokia N8, C7 and C6-01. The new software update enhances the quality and the stability of the devices, in addition to numerous tweaks and fixes. You may not directly see the updated features, but they will surely improve the user experience on your Symbian^3 smartphone. Check out the complete changelog below.

Changelog:

1. Meeting requests can be accepted directly from email invitations;
2. Maps integration in email, which means people can view the meeting location on the map when the address is mentioned in the location field in the invite.
3. For Nokia N8 users:

• New Quick Office 6.4 editor version, which offers editing possibilities and allows zooming in & out in Word documents.
• Three high quality games will also be preloaded on new devices – Need for Speed Shift, Real Golf and Galaxy on Fire. (In some countries, Need for Speed is replaced with Asphalt 5). For current N8 users, these are available for free from Ovi Suite & Ovi Store.

You can easily download the PR 1.1 update from Ovi suite or via. Over-The-Air (OTA). It is advised to backup all you data before updating the device, just to make sure that no important files are lost during the installation.

According to Nokia, “The standard, non-customised version of the software is available from today for the Nokia C7. The software versions for the Nokia N8 and C6-01 will be available early next week. Country (SIM-free) and operator-specific variants will follow soon.”

Full Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc specs released -- plus videos

Sony Ericsson today released the full spec list for their upcoming Xperia Arc, and they aren't leaving much off the table. Highlights include:

• 1GHz Qualcomm processor
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread 
• 4.2 inch "Reality Display" (aka 480x854) optimized for multimedia viewing
• 8.1 megapixel camera with 720p video recording
• Auto focus camera with LED flash
• PlayNow service for "premium" apps and games (not in every market)
• FM radio
• aGPS
• HDMI out
• 512 MB internal phone memory
• 8GB microSD card installed, expandable up to 32GB
• 1500 mAh battery
• 117 grams at 125 x 63 x 8.7 mm

Sony Ericsson isn't leaving much to be desired and the full specs can be found in a press release just past the break along with a number of videos. [Sony Ericsson (1), (2)]