Check out these new Curves

We may get a wide variety of mobile phones fast in Asia, but when it comes to BlackBerry handhelds, users in our region always have to wait a while for the US and Europe to get their "CrackBerry" fix first. Anyway, Research In Motion (RIM) today announced the availability of the BlackBerry Curve 8310 and 8320 devices in Singapore.

The Curve series of push-email handhelds, starting with the 8300 model, are meant to be more consumer-friendly but still feature a full QWERTY keypad unlike the other mass-market model, the BlackBerry Pearl. Features like a built-in camera and a 3.5mm audio jack for plugging in wired headsets set the Curve series apart from the regular BlackBerry devices meant for business users.

The 8310 comes with built-in GPS while the 8320 offers built-in Wi-Fi. And no, you can't have both options together as that's not available on any Curve device. Because of the consumer slant, these new BlackBerrys are less stoic looking and come in colors like silver and gold rather than just basic black.

Both devices will be available from the three operators in Singapore within the next two months though StarHub customers will only be getting the 8320 and not the 8310. We are still awaiting information about pricing and its wider Asian availability from RIM.

Photos: Hands on with the Porsche P'9521 phone

No, you're not imagining things. Porsche Design has made a mobile phone and it's not just a piece of rubbish with a Porsche logo on it--it is in fact a rather nifty clamshell handset. Crafted out of sturdy aluminium and mineral glass, the Porsche P'9521 isn't for the faint hearted, weighing 137g and measuring a somewhat chunky 47mm wide, 90mm tall and 18mm deep.

Inside, this phone packs enough features to scare off any other car-inspired phones--including a fingerprint reader, which doubles up as touch-sensitive scroll interface for navigating through the menu or your pictures.

On the back, the Porsche P'9521 sports a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus and dual LED photo lights. You can spin the P'9521's screen 180 degrees as you would with a tablet laptop and use the larger main screen as a viewfinder.

Click here for more photos.

Via CNET UK Crave

HTC Juno is officially the T-Mobile Shadow

We've talked about the HTC Juno before when it was spotted in China, and then again in some poorly taken shots together with a BlackBerry Pearl. Well, it's now official from T-Mobile, and will be called the Shadow.

The US operator plays down the technical features of the Shadow and instead focuses on this new handheld's user interface. Even though it runs Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the Shadow's default screen looks nothing like it. Instead of the regular (and boring) Today screen, this PDA-phone has the myFaves home screen from T-Mobile which uses graphical icons to give access to common features. To further reinforce its not-for-boring-businessmen image, T-Mobile even gave it the tagline "The official phone of fun".

For those interested in the specs, the Shadow is a quadband phone with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It has a slide-out keypad with a QWERTY layout similar to the BlackBerry Pearl and HTC Touch Dual--two letters to one key. A QVGA display is found on the front, while a 2-megapixel camera is positioned on its back. HTC has not launched this device separately from T-Mobile in the US, so we won't be seeing it in Asia at the moment. But given that the HTC Touch Dual has almost all of its features and more, that may not be a bad thing.

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Crave UK visits Nokia's R&D facility

Remember we wrote about the Symbian S60 platform going touchscreen not too long ago? Well, our privileged colleagues at Crave UK had the opportunity to visit Nokia's R&D facility in Oulu, Finland, recently where they caught a quick demo of the S60 Touch user interface. The new platform allows for multiple ways of interaction, including using a stylus for handwriting recognition and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Those lucky people even got to see Frankenstein robodog wagging an Internet Tablet head. Gee. More pictures here.

Sony Ericsson K850i available in stores

The wait has finally ended. Sony Ericsson has announced that the highly anticipated K850i Cyber-shot phone is currently available in all Asia-Pacific markets at a recommended retail price of S$898 (without plan). We've just received our commercial review unit and a full review of the camera-phone will be coming up early next week. For now, content yourselves with our hands-on of the K850i here. While you're at it, check out our first looks video, too.

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