iPhone 3G gets unlocked under 3.0 OS

The iPhone Dev Team has finally released the utility needed to unlock the iPhone 3G under iPhone OS 3.0, which will allow current users in illegitimate carriers to upgrade to the latest version of the iPhone OS, which brings about over 100 new features.

The new ultrasn0w utility is available for download through Cydia and Icy software repositories, which are both installed during the process of jailbreaking. To jailbreak your iPhone 3G running 3.0 OS you need either the Pwnage tool (Mac OS only) or the redsn0w utility, which was already released by the iPhone Dev Team 3 days ago.

Activating a factory unlocked iPhone 3G S doesn't need any utilities of the sort

To make things simpler, here are the most common scenarios that you may encounter with your iPhone 3G and 2G:

YOU HAVE an iPhone 3G running 2.x OS and you are upgrading to 3.x OS

• If you only want to jailbreak (factory unlocked handset or legitimate carrier use scenario) use redsn0w utility (Mac and Windows) AFTER you've updated to 3.0 OS the regular iTunes way.
• If you are using a 3G iPhone unlocked with previously released yellowsn0w and rely on yellowsn0w to obtain cellular service, DO NOT use redsn0w. Instead use PwnageTool to jailbreak your iPhone 3G with a patched 3.0 firmware and then use Ultrasn0w from Cydia to unlock it. If you don't have a Mac handy, you can also download a Pwnage Tool patched firmware uploaded by other users but pick your sources carefully. After you've found such a patched firmware, simply make iTunes use it for updating your iPhone 3G.

YOU HAVE iPhone 2G running 2.x OS and you are upgrading to 3.x OS

• Simply use redsn0w utility (Mac and Windows) for both jailbreak and unlock after you've updated to 3.0 OS the regular iTunes way.

Sony Ericsson Satio (Idou)

Sony Ericsson Satio (a.k.a. Idou) is perched at the top of the touchscreen food chain with an ominous grin. Currently rivaled only by the Samsung Omnia HD and in a way by the non-smart Samsung Pixon12, the 12 megapixel predator readily bares its teeth of incredible multimedia, powerful processing and of course perfect connectivity. There isn't much more to look for in a smartphone except how its potential translates to real-life performance.

Sony Ericsson Satio official photos

The Satio sure is an exciting package but at this point it still needs to live up to its very own spec sheet. This quick preview tries to give you an idea about how the Satio behaves under pressure and warn of glitches (if any) that remain hidden on paper.

Now we are pretty certain you all know them by heart but before we continue let's have a look at the main features of the Sony Ericsson Satio.

Sony Ericsson Satio at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, GPRS/EDGE class 10, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 3.6 Mbps
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar
• Dimensions: 112 x 55 x 13.3 mm
• Display: 3.5" 16M-color TFT resistive touchscreen, 640 x 360 pixels
• Memory: 100MB integrated memory, hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 16GB), 256 MB RAM
• OS: Symbian OS
• Camera: 12 megapixel autofocus camera with xenon flash and video LED flash, geotagging, face and smile detection, Smile Shot, Smart contrast and VGA video recording at 30 fps
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, USB v2.0, GPS receiver with A-GPS
• Misc: Accelerometer for screen auto rotate, FM radio with RDS
• Battery: 1000 mAh battery

Sony Ericsson Satio at ours

Now, as we mentioned, the Sony Ericsson Satio currently has a single strong rival. The Samsung i8910 Omnia HD is a few megapixels short in the still camera department but makes up with stunning HD video recoding.

The Omnia HD is supposed to hit the market as early as this month and the Sony Ericsson Satio release date is still to be confirmed. The autumn sounds like a good guess for the Satio availability, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Sony Ericsson Satio views

Whatever that date may be, one thing's for sure - there's still plenty of time left until the Satio actually makes it to the shelves so new contenders are likely to emerge.

In the meantime Sony Ericsson gave the Sony Ericsson Satio its name (we preferred Idou, really) and announced that they have dropped the Symbian foundation future OS plans and will be offering the Satio with the regular touch-enabled Symbian S60 5th edition that's already used on Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia N97.

Sony Ericsson have done a lot customizing of the OS giving it a distinct SE feel - and we definitely like every ounce of character they put in it. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, join us on the next page where we embark on exploring Sony Ericsson design and ergonomics.

Samsung M7600 Beat DJ review: Scratching the beat

The Samsung M7600 Beat is a DJ. What's on its mind is on its face, a brave stab at not only putting music in your pocket but in your hands as well. The M7600 Beat is quick to claim a territory of its own, where playback simply won't do unless you mix your own music.

The inspired and unmistakable styling, vibrant OLED capacitive touchscreen, sweet clicking TouchWiz and a whole new music experience will make you have a crush or wish you were younger. Meet the first DJ phone.

Samsung M7600 Beat DJ official photos

Key features:

• Stand-out design
• Quad-band GSM and 3G with HSDPA support
• 2.8" 16M-color AMOLED touchscreen display of WQVGA resolution
• 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and VGA video at 15 fps
• Accelerometer for screen auto rotate
• Proximity sensor for auto screen turn-off
• MicroSD card slot (up to 16 GB), 8 GB card included
• Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS support, Google Maps
• Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP)
• DivX/XviD video support
• Stereo FM radio with RDS, FM recording
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Office document viewer
• Smart dialing
• BeatDJ app for scratching and sampling

Main disadvantages

• User interface is quite laggy
• BeatDJ app could've been better and more responsive
• No virtual on-screen QWERTY keyboard
• Limited Flash support in browser
• Poor music reproduction quality

The Samsung Beat lineup has a few pawns on the chessboard already, but the M7600 Beat DJ is different stuff. A touchscreen media gadget with high-speed data, GPS, enhanced video playback and good enough imaging, it's fit to stand its ground even against smartphones with an ear for music.

Samsung M7600 Beat DJ live shots

Walkmans to the left of it, XpressMusic to the right, the Samsung M7600 Beat DJ makes a stand with a truly unique feature and throws a DJ deck at the young. The party is on at the Arena, Samsung spinning

Samsung I8000 Omnia II preview: First look

Gather 'round ye gadget lovers, for the tale of Samsung I8000 Omnia II. It's a tale of PocketPC wisdom and touch wizardry, of big screen and pixel aplenty, of ancestry and identity. Lend an ear to this preview as we try to figure out where this creature came from and where it's heading.

Samsung announced the Omnia HD a few months ago and despite sharing a name with the i900 Omnia, it was more a descendant of the Samsung i8510 INNOV8 with its Symbian OS and strong emphasis on imaging.

Coming a year later, the Samsung I8000 Omnia II is the real proper sequel instead.

Samsung I8000 Omnia II official photo

The number of high-end, touchscreen PocketPC bars is getting ever greater. Off the top of our heads, we could name at least five with WVGA screens over 3 inches and a camera of 3.15 MP or higher. If you include phones with a slide-out QWERTY then the market gets even more crowded. All of these have HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, and sleek UI plug-ins, so this isn't a differentiating factor.

The Samsung I8000 Omnia II roars into action with a 5 megapixel camera, 800 MHz CPU, and a huge 3.7 AMOLED screen and 8/16 gigabytes of internal storage. Here's a quick summary of the main I8000 Omnia II specs.

Samsung I8000 Omnia II at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar
• Dimensions: 118 x 59.6 x 11.9 mm
• Display: 3.7-inch 64K-color WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 480 x 800 pixels, Advanced R touch (Resistive Touch)
• Memory: 8/16GB storage memory, hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
• OS: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with custom TouchWiz 2.0 UI with 3D effects
• CPU: 800 MHz
• Camera: 5 megapixel auto focus camera with dual LED flash, geo-tagging, face and smile detection, image stabilization, Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) and D1 video recording at 15 fps
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP, standard microUSB port, standard 3.5mm audio jack, GPS receiver with A-GPS
• Misc: Accelerometer for screen auto rotate, DivX/XviD video support, FM radio with RDS, DNSe
• Battery: 1500 mAh battery

The thumbable cube launcher engaged on the wide screen

Bear in mind that the device we're using for this preview is in the early stages of development so the software will go even further changes before mass production. That said, let's not waste any more time and check out the contender in the Samsung corner - the I8000 Omnia II. The hardware part awaits you on the next page.

Nokia N97 review: Lock, stock and touch

They don't get any bigger than that. A launch of this caliber can aptly be called inauguration day. The release of Nokia N97 is the Nseries counter-move that geeks have been waiting for since November. Easily one of the most complete smartphones ever created, the N97 has been haunting Symbian buffs' dreams for quite a while.

Nokia N97

We're about to see if this feature-loaded son of a gun is the stuff dreams are made of and if it has the gut to stand up to the best on the market. The 5800 XpressMusic was cheap enough to easily be forgiven a couple of shortcomings but the N97 is not the begging type. Nokia-faithfuls are used to only getting the best treatment, so they won't settle for less with the Nseries skipper.

Key features

• Slide-n-tilt 3.5" 16M-color resistive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and lens cover (VGA@30fps video recording)
• Symbian OS 9.4 with S60 5th edition UI
• Slide-out three-row full QWERTY keyboard
• ARM 11 434MHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM
• Quad-band GSM support and 3G with HSDPA support
• Wi-Fi and GPS with A-GPS (plus 3 months of free voice-guided navigation via Ovi Maps)
• Digital compass
• Class-leading 32GB onboard storage
• microSD card slot with microSDHC support
• Built-in accelerometer
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• TV out
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
• microUSB port and stereo Bluetooth v2.0
• Web browser has full Flash and Java support
• Nice audio reproduction quality

Main disadvantages

• The S60 5th edition UI still has poor ergonomics and is not as thumbable as expected
• Camera features are so two-thousand-and-late
• No DivX or XviD support out-of-the-box
• No smart dialing
• Somewhat limited 3rd party software availability
• No office document editing (without a paid upgrade)

Obvious from the list above, the Nokia N97 hardly puts anything new on the table. It is however a bold try to fit all of today's top features under one hood and offer a nice ride at that. This certainly is an ambitious task by itself but the ever-expectant Nseries fans, who always want something new on their next handset, make it even harder. The Nokia N97 will need to be near flawless to get a warm welcome.

Nokia N97 at ours

Nokia N97 will also be a major test for the still quite young (or immature if you want) S60 5th edition UI. The growing pains were expected and acceptable in the 5800 XpressMusic, but it's been 8 months since. The time is long enough in mobile phone terms and the market leader is simply expected to have had everything figured by now.

Looks pretty good, doesn't it

The disappointing N96 does owe Nokia some and the N97 will - among other things - probably have to cover its debts too. Join us on the next page as we take a peek inside the retail box of the new Nseries sovereign and complete our ergonomics rundown.

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 preview 2: Some sequels are better

Introduction

Following our photoshoot teaser with the M8910 Pixon12 yesterday we are ready to invite you on a second date with this promising cameraphone. This time we hope to show its other side - the one that doesn't necessarily revolve around the camera functionality.

You've all seen that while the gap between cameraphones and the dedicated digicams seemed huge a couple of years ago, it's already closing in fast. The Samsung M8910 Pixon12 certainly isn't a full-time replacement for a camera enthusiast as it lacks the optical zoom and some customization options but it might just do a pretty good on quite a lot of occasions. And the best camera is the one that you always have on you.

We are sure the both flashes will be temptation for many of you especially when the xenon-featured phones were almost forgotten in the last year. The huge count of megapixels plus the wide-angle lens and tons of camera features are something camera geeks can't and won't miss just like that.

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 lifestyle photos

But we've already showed you how it compares photography-wise to some quite unusual peers. This time around we are all set to showing you there's more to it than just a sharpshooter. Let's see go through the Pixon12 basic specs one more time:

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 7.2Mbps, HSUPA
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar
• Dimensions: 108 x 53 x 13.8 mm, 120g
• Display: 3.1 inch 16M color WVGA AMOLED resistive touchscreen
• Platform: Latest TouchWiz 2.0 UI with Smart unlock
• Memory: 150MB integrated memory, hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
• Camera: 12 megapixel auto focus camera with Power LED flash and xenon flash, wide-angle 28mm lens, object tracking auto focus, automatic lens cover, geo-tagging, image stabilization, Smart Auto mode, face detection, Beauty Shot, Smile Shot and D1 video recording at 30 fps with auto focus and face detection
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, TV out
• Misc: Accelerometer for screen auto rotate and turn-to-mute, FM radio with RDS, DivX/XviD video support
• Battery: 1000mAh Li-Ion battery

We only received the Samsung M8910 Pixon12 yesterday but this is our second cover story on it. We're actually working on a full review but that's probably going to be ready no earlier than next week, so in the mean time we though we'd give you some good reading beside all those camera samples yesterday.

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 in our office

A high-end mobile phone is not about one thing only. A high-end device like the Pixon12 should keep you connected (online, texting, talking), it must be easy and fun to use, it should also help you organize your personal life and appointments, and finally, it should be there for you when you want to share your life's most striking moments to friends and family - and be ready to capture them as well.

So this is what an all-in-one mobile is about and we really hope the Pixon12 delivers on as many of those as possible. The notion of the ultimate device is hardly viable anymore as innovation and new features are always around the corner, but if the Pixon12 does deliver on most of those things without huge compromises, then it would be a fine product by our books.

So follow us on the next page for quick tour of the Samsung Pixon12 design and ergonomics.

HTC MAX 4G review: From Russia with love

Guns at the ready fellas, we have a big game in our sights here. The HTC MAX 4G is paying us a visit in an attempt to prove that its relatively low popularity is only due to its very limited availability. With WiMAX connectivity and one of the most complete feature sets in the WinMo realm, it's a claim that might have some credibility.

HTC MAX 4G official photos

The HTC MAX 4G was never bound to stardom, just heading to the right place. Making sense on the right market is what matters here and some handsets can only envy the MAX 4G focus. Having already previewed its Touch HD sibling we are pretty confident HTC know the touchscreen drill. But you shouldn't take anything for granted in this business so a thorough review is certainly in order.

The HTC MAX 4G is a Touch HD - add or take - and that's not a bad place to start. The WiMAX enabled handset skimps on 3G and that might just reduce it to a niche device with limited appeal. Or is there anything else to spoil the package? We are just about to find that out so sit down, take the weight off your feet and get ready to be treated to the MAX.

Key features

• Massive 3.8" 65K-color WVGA display
• Tri-band GSM support
• WiMAX connectivity
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS (by default comes in Russian)
• TouchFLO 3D UI plug-in and gesture controls
• Wi-Fi and GPS
• Qualcomm ESM7206A 528 Mhz CPU and 288 MB DDR SDRAM
• Dedicated GPU (64MB RAM reserved for graphics)
• 3 megapixel auto focus camera
• microSD card slot
• Accelerometer sensor for auto screen rotation and turn-to-mute
• Proximity sensor to automatically turn the screen off during calls
• Touch sensitive keys with vibration feedback
• miniUSB slot and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP on board
• miniUSB to standard 3.5mm audio jack adapter included in the retail box
• Active magnetic stylus
• MS Office Mobile document editor
• Excellent Opera 9.5 web browser
• Free WiMAX plan (Yota Russia subscribers only for a limited duration)

Main disadvantages:

• No 3G
• No Back key
• No dedicated camera key, no flash
• Poor camera performance
• Average display sunlight legibility
• No TV out port
• Video recording flops at CIF@30fps
• Battery life not up to scratch
• Fingerprint magnet front (the back is way better though)
• Too big for comfy single-handed use, on the heavy side
• No FM radio

Clearly designed for one market only, the HTC MAX 4G knows it's never going to have the reach or popularity of the Diamond and Touch Pro, or its 3G twin, the Touch HD. Some might even argue that the MAX 4G is barely first team material, just a sub that comes on in that one game. Well, the fact is quite a lot of handsets refuse it stay where they are supposed to (the handset is exclusive to Yota in Russia) and there may be good reasons why people are sneaking them across the border.

HTC MAX 4G in all its WiMAX shine

So, the MAX 4G units that manage to escape the bear hug tend to get a warm - though not always WiMAX - reception. It's not so hard to believe given HTC's track record and the fact that the MAX 4G is actually a 3G-less Touch HD. There's no doubt the MAX 4G is absolutely on target for its intended market but let's see what it's up against elsewhere. As usual, we start with the retail package and the hardware specs of the device. Join us after the jump for the unboxing of HTC MAX 4G.