Sony announces new image sensors for camera-phones

8-megapixel camera-phones may be all the rage this year, but come 2009, we'll see manufacturers pushing the resolution envelope to double digits.

Sony has announced three new Exmor image sensors and two new lens modules for camera-phones. The type 1/2.5 (7.1mm diagonally) sensor will bring the maximum resolution to 12.25 megapixels (4,040 x 3,032-pixels) with HD video recording capabilities. The two other sensors, type 1/3.2 (5.76mm) and type 1/4 (4.5mm) have 8.1-megapixel and 5.15-megapixel resolutions, respectively.
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Report: Apple struggling with iPhone in India

There is a huge market for mobile phones in India, but according to the locals, Apple's iPhone hasn't even made a dent.

That's the conclusion of a long story published by LiveMint.com analyzing the first few months of Apple's foray into India with the iPhone 3G. Analysts estimate that just 11,000 iPhones have been sold in India since Apple launched in that country in September, which is probably equivalent to a week's worth of sales at the downtown San Francisco Apple store.

It doesn't seem that Apple ever thought it would make a huge splash in India, allocating just 50,000 iPhones to that market, according to the article. Of the 120 million mobile phones sold in India each year, around 6 million are of the smartphone variety, and Nokia owns the market with between 60 percent and 70 percent market share.

Several reasons are given for the tepid debut of the iPhone in India: Price, promotion, and distribution. The authors note that India's mobile market doesn't follow the carrier subsidy model used in most places around the world, and as a result the iPhone is being sold for far more than some had expected after the US$199 (9,500 rupees) worldwide price was announced. Still, that doesn't seem to have been the primary reason for the slow sales, since competing phones are priced about the same as the 30,000-rupee 8GB iPhone, although some think that customers thought they would get the cheaper price and were disappointed that it didn't apply to them.
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A Nokia fat-bottomed phone?

I'm a little tired of the candybars and slider phones that seem to define today's mobile phone appearance. So anything that pushes the design envelope out of the rut without being ridiculously OTT gets my vote. Heikki Juvonen is one such designer who has gone for odd-looking in his Nokia concept phone outing, which, oddly enough, has an aesthetic energy that is both futuristic and ergonomic. The end result is a handset that somehow sits well in the hand without being awkward to handle. Now let's hope Nokia loves this fat-bottom effort just as much to consider it in an upcoming lineup.

Via Yanko Design

Report: G1 costs 10 percent less to make than iPhone

Update: 4pm Wednesday: Let's get this G1 cost thing straight, shall we? Writer Matt Hickey clarifies some of the points he made in the post below and thanks readers for their feedback.

When it comes to the next-gen phone wars, two handsets immediately come to mind: Apple's iPhone and the G1 from HTC and T-Mobile, the first commercially available phone to run Google's Android OS.

The G1 retails to new customers for US$399, while the basic-model iPhone goes for for US$199. Despite those numbers, DowJones, CNN, and iSuppli have discovered, via a virtual teardown, that the G1 is actually 10 percent cheaper per unit to manufacture than Apple's offering, something smug iPhone users are sure to love.

It costs HTC US$144 to make a single G1, whereas the iPhone costs US$160 each. What's not explained is why the G1 sells for twice the cost of the popular iPhone. It could be the 3-megapixel camera or hardware keypad, but the general lack of internal memory (the G1 has 1GB removable, the iPhone has 16GB internal) counters that. Keep in mind that the costs mentioned previously don't factor in things like marketing and R&D.

While this information probably won't change anybody's buying decision, it's still interesting to see exactly how much of your purchase is subsidized by the carrier and how much is just pure profit.

Via CNET Crave

HTC announces first WiMAX handset

Pictured is the new HTC Max 4G. It may look like the Touch HD, but there is a huge difference--instead of HSDPA, it comes with WiMAX instead. Also known as IEEE 802.16e, this wireless standard is touted to be a fourth-generation (4G) wireless technology. Because of its relative infancy (compared to 3.5G), it still has not been deployed in many countries.

Russia is one of the countries adopting the standard and that's where the HTC Max 4G is headed. Yota will be the operator selling it and it has the device's list of specifications up on its Web site. Aside from looking a bit more angular, another key difference from the Touch HD is that it doesn't appear to have a dedicated 3.5mm audio jack. Some of its other features include a 3.8-inch WVGA display, 8GB of built-in memory, GPS and runs Windows Mobile 6.1 OS.

Will it be coming to Asia? That really depends on your country's adoption of WiMAX. So for most of us, the answer is no, for now.

Click for more images

Via ZDNet | Image credit: Yota

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