Phone and communications

While our colleagues were off interviewing Lewis Hamilton, the multimedia team were getting hands-on with perhaps the most impressive BlackBerry ever.

Our video report gets up close and personal with RIM's new creation which we think is first real "Apple iPhone killer" to hit the touchscreen scene.

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Samsung held out a bit longer than LG and its Renoir to launch its first 8MP touch screen offering, the equally silly named Pixon. Creative catastrophes aside is the Pixon a mobile phone Picasso or more of a street sketcher?

You'd be forgiven in thinking that the Pixon is a Renoir tagged with the Samsung logo in terms of looks. Measuring in at a mere 1.5mm thinner that the veteran (time moves quickly in the tech world) Renoir it's the slimmest 8MP cam-phone available. Decked out in Samsungs must-have black attire, it sits pretty in your palm and has a much better feel than the tacky LG offering.

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Sony Ericsson has unveiled the W705 Walkman mobile phone, with high end audio playback and Wi-Fi connectivity.

It's hardly been the surprise of the year, given we revealed the handset's launch yesterday, but the phone that's been codenamed 'Rika' has finally stepped blinking into the spotlight.

Featuring the usual gubbins we've come to expect from this range - PlayNow, Shake Control, SensMe - it also packs Wi-Fi for web browsing in hotspots and downloading large files.

Chat to your PC

It also packs DLNA connectivity to allow you to send files between it, your PS3, your WMP11-enabled PC and a whole host of other DLNA certified products.

It has a 2.4in screen with the now commonplace accelerometer for auto-orientation, and a 3.2MP camera with up to 3.2x digital zoom. ... read more »

Vodafone today confirmed to TechRadar that the BlackBerry Storm, RIM's first touchscreen handset, will go on sale from 14 November.

Potential Storm owners (Stormies) will be able to pick up the handset from Vodafone stores as of this date, which means similar scenes to those when the T-Mobile G1 and the Apple iPhone were launched.

Independent purchase

Phones4U will be the independent supplier of the handset, and it began taking pre-orders recently.

Stormies will also be able to get their handsets online from this date as well, which will be free on a £40 per month contract. ... read more »

TechRadar was at Vodafone's launch of the new BlackBerry Storm 9500 handset this morning, and we got a chance to quiz Lewis Hamilton on how he found the latest addition to the BlackBerry family.

"I have looked at the iPhone, but with the BlackBerry Storm you actually have to press the screen to press the buttons," Hamilton said, somewhat obviously,

"For me, I like the Storm, it feels faster, smaller and lighter," he added. "I have pretty much mastered the keyboard, so I can talk to you while sending a message to my brother and say I am talking to Stevie [Steve Ryder, the presenter for the event]."

Storm over the iPhone ... read more »

We at TechRadar are real nose-pokers. New G1 launch? We're there. Apple's newest iPhone out? We bring it to you.

So it will come as no surprise when you see we've had a hands on with RIM's newest Blackberry baby, the Storm 9500.

The first thing to note is while this handset features the first touchscreen from RIM, its design was specified by Vodafone, so the mobile network is obviously taking some of the kudos for what is a very slick handset.

The home screen is similar to the 'normal' BlackBerry experience, and the four buttons at the bottom, the BlackBerry key, return, call and terminate combine with the touchscreen to allow interaction with the device. ... read more »

Another interesting application has popped up on the Apple App Store that allows you to send fake phone calls to yourself, presumably to get you out of a spot of bother.

Made by a company called Magic Tap, the app comes in at under a dollar – it's US made – and will look like whoever you program it to say will be ringing you.

Fake Call

Called aptly Fake Call, the call won't cost you anything as it doesn't actually pick up on the other end, but who's do know you are not speaking to yourself when you answer the phone?

Quite who will buy this app, TechRadar is not sure, but if you've got a rubbish meeting that you really want to get out of, or a date that's going that little bit wrong, then Fake Call may well save your bacon. ... read more »

A new study by research firm NPD shows that the humble Bluetooth headset is this Christmas' LEAST desired bit of tech, much to the chagrin of Nathan Barleys across the land.

Flat-screen TVs and mobile phones are still up near the top of the tech popularity charts, but the desire to buy items such as audio speakers, desktop computers and SatNavs is falling.

Do I REALLY need?

NPD analyst Stephen Baker, makes sense of the findings, noting that "GPS may have some demand issues. If you are looking at necessity versus discretionary, that is a category that is not very well-penetrated, which is in its favor. But the negative part is people saying: 'Do I really need this'?" ... read more »

A Korean woman has filed for divorce after she found out her husband had been texting "flirtatious messages" to an ex-girlfriend.

The woman, named only as Shin, started monitoring her husband's phone after she became suspicious that he was having an affair.

Textual relations

The husband, a 31-year-old man named Park, tried to hide his phone affair with his ex-girlfriend by changing her name on his phone to that of a man.

Shin, however, was savvy enough to realise that the texting was still going on and within six months both parties filed for divorce.

It was the woman who won the divorce case, even though she was looking at her other half's phone without consent, and had even set up a file on her computer titled 'husband observation'. ... read more »

Budding DJs (assuming they have an iPhone or iPod Touch) are one step closer to being able to ditch those pesky flight cases full of decks, records and god knows what else thanks to a new piece of software recently made available through the Apple App Store called 'Virtual Deck'.

Once downloaded for £2.99, Virtual Deck enables users to upload samples or tracks from a Mac or PC to their iPhone or iPod Touch and then mix them into a live set.

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