ZTE announces Blade 3...

ZTE has announced the third iteration of the company's affordable Blade series, the series has so far offered low-end specs to pursue a low price. However, the Blade 3 offers a bigger screen and larger internal storage than it's predecessor. The device also offers 4 capacitive buttons rather than the 3 physical buttons offered before.

The Blade 3 packs a 4-inch display with WVGA resolution (480x800), powered by a Qualcomm single-core processor clocked at 1GHz with 512MB of RAM which runs Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich". Camera's include a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera but no front-facing camera. 4GB of internal storage is offered and can be expanded by MicroSD card (up to 32GB).

The handset will make it's way to the UK likely under the name Orange San Francisco 3 but exact dates are unknown but once the device does hit the UK it should be price around £110-£150.

Motorola introduces entry-level MotoSmart...

Today, Motorola has introduced a entry-level Android smartphone, the Motosmart. This phone doesn't have much to shout about given it's specs however it's going to retail in the U.K. for £99.99 on PAYG or £7 on a pay monthly contract which justifies the low level specs featured.

The phone packs a 3.5-inch QVGA (320x480) display powered by a single-core Qualcomm (MSM7227 to be exact) processor clocked at 600MHz with 512MB of RAM. The phone has a 3-megapixel rear-facing camera that lacks a flash. There is 165MB of internal storage with a MicroSD slot to expand it by up to 32GB. The phone runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread and won't be updated due to hardware incompatibility. The 1400mAh battery should see this phone lasting approximately 2/3 days depending on usage.

This is a great phone at a fantastic price but Huawei's G300 from Vodafone which is available at the same price on PAYG (and even cheaper now) gives you more value for money. However Motorola's MotoSwitch  software makes this an ideal choice for first time smartphone buyers.

Samsung announces Omnia M...

Samsung have announced a new Windows Phone based device, the Omnia M and is said to be coming to the U.K. pretty soon. However, you'd be forgiven to think that this phone has almost same specs as the 2010 Omnia 7, because well, it does.

The Omnia M packs a 4-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 480x800 giving out a pixel density of 233PPI. The device runs on a Single-core 1GHz processor with 384MB of RAM. Cameras include a 5MP rear-facing camera capable of shooting 720p videos and a 0.3MP front facing camera for video calls. The device has 4GB of internal storage which can't be expanded and runs on 7.5 Mango.

Overall, this phone is a very minimal upgrade (or should I say large downgrade?). Specs like these used to be mid-range but I see them as low-range nowadays. The only way of telling the Omnia 7 and M apart is the physical look of the device which does look very nice, fitting in with the design of most phones produced by Samsung.