TryPhone makes cell phone shopping easier

If you want to try out a mobile phone before buying it, you have a few options. One of them is to borrow a friend's, though you need to have a friend with the model you want. Another is to swing by a shop to fiddle with it while under the uncomfortable scrutiny of a mobile phone salesman. If neither of those options appeals to you, perhaps TryPhone will.

This new Web site has virtual mobile phones which run like the actual devices. When you click on a phone model, an image of the device loads on your browser with buttons you can click on. You can then operate the image as if it were a real phone, going into menus, pretending to make a call. It operates only up to a few menu levels deep, so not everything works. But we found it good enough to get a decent feel of the interface.

The models listed are US-centric and aren't very plentiful. The homepage says more handsets will be added weekly. Some of the mobiles already available online are the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl and HTC Shadow.

It's a good idea, if you ask us. We were only a tad disappointed that it didn't show what's behind our LCD monitor when we hit the camera button on the virtual phone.

TryPhone | Via Cool Hunting

Prada is happy to go for the silver

It will take more than the iPhone for Europeans to give up on Prada. Even with a price tag approaching $900, more than 700,000 of the touch-screen designer handsets have reportedly been sold.

It was only a matter of time, therefore, that LG followed the traditional path taken by all luxury phone makers: Put out a special edition. Slated for 18 continental countries, the "Silver Edition" will come with a QWERTY keyboard and a bevy of accoutrements, including a matching pair of earphones and a leather case, acccording to MobileWhack.

It just goes to show that, once again, all that glitters isn't gold.

Via Crave CNET

Maria Sharapova now Sony Ericsson's global ambassador

She's turning 21 in April this year, loves Snickers bars and was in Singapore recently for an exhibition match with Anna Chakvetadze. She's none other than Russian tennis star, Maria Sharapova.

The highly profiled player today pledged her allegiance to Sony Ericsson. Besides undertaking a series of new consumer-brand campaigns off the court, Sharapova will also be working with the Japanese-Swedish company's designers on "a range of products and accessories," according to the press release.

Guess what phone she's using now? The Sony Ericsson W350i. What did you expect?

Correction: We were just alerted to the press release dated 8 January that Canon USA has extended its global marketing relationship with Maria Sharapova until 2010. Changes have been made to the original article.

Philips Xenium lets you talk forever (almost)

The one thing that impresses us most about Philips' Xenium range of mobile phones is its uber-long battery life, some models with a standby time of up to two months on a single full charge. Of course, the actual performance is dependent on each individual's usage pattern. Suffice to say, that amount of uptime on a handset is still pretty darn long.

So when we got news that there's a new Xenium 9@9k on the block with a talktime of 17 hours and standby time of up to two months, we weren't surprised. The rest of the features are pedestrian and pale in comparison to the impressive battery life. For the record, the 9@9k also plays MP3 music (35 hours straight on a single charge), comes with an FM radio and a microSD expansion card slot.

There's also the Xenium 9@9u with a slightly inferior standby time of up to one month and maximum talktime of 8 hours, but comes with a marginally better feature set. That includes quadband GSM connectivity, Bluetooth stereo A2DP, a 2-megapixel camera, FM radio and a microSD card slot.

Both phones are currently available in countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Pictured is the Xenium 9@9k

Neonode plans to bring N2 to Asia

We've written about Neonode's N2 before, but availability info was very much up in the air at that point of time. Well, things look a little brighter now that we know the handset may be coming to Asia, though the Swedish company didn't reveal any more details. The tiny touchscreen phone (47 x 77 x 14.7mm, 60g) is currently being showcased at CES. Features include a 2-inch 176 x 220-pixel optical touchscreen display, quadband GSM network connectivity, 2-megapixel fixed focus camera, miniSD expansion card slot and a 3.5mm audio jack via an adapter.

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