Acer announces nameless 4.8-inch Android smartphone; April 2011 launch

Acer announced Tuesday that it will launch an Android smartphone in the second quarter of 2011. The massive device will feature a 4.8-inch 1024 x 480-pixel touchscreen display, a 1GHz processor, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, HSDPA 14.4, DLNA, Dolby sound and more. According to Acer, the device will be “100% phone and 100% tablet.” No pricing was announced for this tall drink of water but more details should trickle in over the next few months. Hit the break for Acer’s press release.

Nokia: some N8 units have a ‘power management’ issue

Following widespread reports, Nokia confirmed on Thursday that some of its N8 smartphones are faulty. The response comes following reports from N8 owners around the world claiming that their devices inexplicably died. Users all complained of similar symptoms — the device wouldn’t reboot, take a charge or even power on after the failure. As some speculated, Nokia confirmed that the issue is related to power management. Thankfully, the issue does not affect all N8 handsets and as Nokia’s statement points out, faulty units will be replaced under warranty.

Tips to save battery power on your phone

Normally a smart phones battery holds up to 2 days max. But here is some tips to save battery to get double the battery life.

1. Screen Brightness 15%
2. WiFi = OFF
3. GPS = OFF
4. Auto-sync = OFF
5. "Enable always on mobile" = OFF
6. Background Data Usage = OFF
7. Use only 2G Networks = YES

Remember also if you play music, videos or games it takes more battery.

Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta available for Android

Opera has launched Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta yesterday, the popular browser for smartphones, for Android.

Opera 10.1 Beta for Android brings several improvements to the browser such as pinch zoom, visual tabs, SVG support and Opera Turbo which compresses web data on Opera’s servers, speeding up browsing and saving you bandwidth. But it won't launch on my HTC Hero! I will see if they will send a update for Opera Mini to work on the HTC Hero.

You can grab Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta for Android from the Android Market or at http://m.opera.com/next

Blackberry Torch (Bold 9800)

The BlackBerry Torch or Bold 9800 is a great device that gives other phones a run for their money. What makes it so exciting is that it maintains its Blackberry heritage while running on better software. Under the hood, we get a 624 MHz Marvell processor, 512 MB internal memory, 4 GB internal storage, the BlackBerry 6 OS, a 3.2-inch high-resolution display, a 5.0MP camera, and a heck of a lot more. Sounds
great, but then there is also the free Instant Messaging, Internet Browsing, Facebook, Twitter and E-mail that you get when you subscribe to the Blackberry Service every month.

But no iPhone Killer for the Blackberry yet!

Concept: Fluid Wearable SmartPhone by Dinard da Mata

Fluid reminds me of Nokia Morph. It's a smartphone that uses flexible
"OLED" technology. Fluid provides mobility and ease in handling its duties. You can wear Fluid as one of your fashion accessories, this wearable gadget is certainly won't take space in your pocket, you can wear it as a bracelet. Unfortunately there's no further information regarding this phone design.