The Europe/Asia (WCDMA 2100) version of the Nokia N80 has been FCC approved. The test report indicates that the test device (Nokia N80-1) is a five band (GSM850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100) mobile phone with GPRS, EGPRS , Bluetooth and WLAN. It's model number is RM-92, the N80-3 which was previously FCC approved was RM-91.

The inclusion of the fact that the device will carry "WLAN" is interesting, because of the lack of such a description in the N80-3's test report. It's probably not really important, but perhaps Nokia refused to disable the WLAN functionality for Cingular (similar to how the WLAN is available in the HTC Tornado but disabled in Cingular's 2125) - and so the phone went from being listed on Cingular internal servers to ship from 21st Jan, to being cancelled.

Also, quite a nice manual is available from the FCC. And there's no sign of any request for short-term confidentiality in sight! Read more of our Nokia N80 coverage here.

You may have read that Siemens believes North American telecoms operators could shift to the GSM mobile standard from the rival CDMA system.

It would be nice if they said why.

While we agree with the points that Christoph Catselitz made, they're totally irrelevant with regard to that prediction.

We think Christoph (head of Siemens AG's mobile networks business) is just trash-talking, because Siemens mobile has been newly acquired by Benq (Brave Benq!), and Benq's collection of CDMA phones is not particularly great. I can't even find a listing of Siemens's CDMA-only phones.

And of course, in 2001, in articles titled "Siemens storms U.S. mobile market," Florian Seiche (vice president and general manager, Siemens mobile phones, Siemens Information and Communication Mobile Group) said: "The U.S. market is moving toward GSM as the technology for wireless."

Sound familiar? Note that currently 50% of the US market is CDMA.

We really liked Quartz by Elements Interactive when we reviewed it - we rated it "Highly Recommended."

While that's not available for free, Elements Interactive has just released a free holiday follow-up, Quartz X-mas, available here. This is becoming a bit of a tradition - last year they released a holiday themed Li-Nuggz. (Still available.)

If you don't want those (or have them already!) - Nokia also has released it's traditional Christmas game. Pity about the adverts.

Pretty good stuff. A mobile friendly version of the popular Google gmail service has launched, with the following features:

• Quick links that identify addresses and package tracking numbers in emails and displays them to the right of users' Inbox so they can more easily access maps, directions, or tracking information with a single click.
• Gmail Web Clips, which appear at the top of the Gmail inbox and enable users to read Google News, a friend's blog, or any RSS or Atom feed from their Gmail account.
• Anti-virus protection that automatically scans messages with attachments.
• The ability to view attachments in HTML instead of downloading to the desktop or mobile phone.
• A vacation auto-responder, which enables users to automatically notify people when they're away from email or unable to respond.
• The option to create contact groups (one of the most highly-requested Gmail features)

Check it out now at: http://m.gmail.com. The address works even on a normal computer, and if you have a g-mail account you can sign right in. (Look here if you haven't got one yet - 2674MB free!)

[via ]

We did expect the Nokia 6280 to arrive (it hasn't) - but we're extremely surprised that the L'Amour Collection (Nokia 7360, Nokia 7370, Nokia 7380) has come.

Quite nice, really. None of them is an Nokia N80, but they're still pretty nice phones.

The most attractive one (in our opinion), is the Nokia 7370, which has a svelte (88 x 43 x 23 mm, 73 cc 104g) figure, and a gorgeous (2" QVGA) screen. Pity about the other specifications (1.3MP camera, 10MB memory, with no memory card slot.) Maybe the floral etched trim and fabric faceplates will help?

Look out for them to appear before Christmas near you. (Only applicable for geographical locations where Nokia usually ships Europe/Asia phones; they are all GSM 900/1800/1900.)

And why are we so surprised? Well - Nokia delivered early. They were expected only in Q1 2006.

DigiTimes reports that Microsoft wants to see Windows Mobile smart-phones on the market for under $300, to boost the company's share of the mobile-device operating system market. ODM handset makers are not optimistic about accomplishing this anytime soon.

The Register also suspects that this will be hard: "The difficulty is the inherent cost of feature-rich phones, and the need to get the sales volumes that will allow the economies of scale necessary to get the price down without sacrificing too many features. Nokia can do it, but it's questionable whether the much smaller Taiwanese firms, with far weaker brand recognition, can do so."

We're not quite sure why Microsoft really cares about the specific figures of their market share. Sure - Nokia has the lead - but the fact that Palm recently chose Windows Mobile rather than Symbian should have helped Microsoft focus a little - upon making Windows Mobile the only choice for all high-end smartphones; trying to increase volumes instead makes it seem as though they want more revenue from the product, (we wonder how much of that $300 dollars is taken up by the windows mobile operating system itself) or that they have self-esteem issues.

Maybe the revenue reason is the correct one, what with the losses from each Xbox 360 sold. They're probably regretting not selling the Xboxes on eBay - or maybe they are, which is why retail shops seem to be dry.

[via All About Symbian]

Sprint Nextel Corp. is expected to announce on Monday that it has begun selling a service which allows users of its mobile video phones to watch full-length movies, television shows, concerts and comedy specials.

Provided by vendor MSpot, the service offers unlimited shows and movies for a monthly flat fee of US $6.95, on top of regular service charges.

Given this price point - we wonder how much Vodafone is going to charge for a roughly equivalent service. US $6.95 is almost - tempting. Looks like the subscription model for Mobile TV is about to become mainstream.

[via ubergizmo]