September 2007

BT Group principal research scientist Jonathan Mitchener continues to cast an expert eye over what’s new in the devices market.

For anyone who has accidentally dropped their mobile phone into water, there is now the M500 waterproof wristwatch GSM phone. It‘s a quad mode, Java and WAP enabled wrist phone with a 1.5ins colour touchscreen marketed by SMS Technology. It weighs 60 grams and has built-in music and video player capability. But I’m not sure I want to watch video on such a small screen and it still seems a little strange to charge up my watch.

Whilst on waterproof devices, UK retailer Advanced MP3 Players has launched the SwiMP3, a music player designed for surfers with a long ten hour battery life but only 256Mb of storage. The supplied waterproof earbuds are also supposed to stop water getting into your ear canal.

For those who want to convert their vinyl record collections to iPod use, Ion is launching follow-up versions to the original USB turntable device which connects to your computer and directly digitises to the AAC format used by iTunes. The latest announced models ( iTTUSB5 & iTTUSB10) have in-built preamplifiers and cope with the full range of antiquated record speeds.

Moving on to pictures, and next on my list is the world’s smallest digital camera with a stabilised 10x zoom. The Panasonic Lumix TZ3 has a three inch screen and a seven mega pixel top resolution. It also features a very fast start-up and super quick focus function and weighs just 257 grams. The downside is that it’s not for those who prefer manual control settings - it’s entirely automatic.

Finally, returning to the mobile phone, Motorola’s Z8 offering is now available in the UK and stands out because of its kick-slider design which brings both the microphone and speaker closer to your mouth and ear respectively. The inbuilt hinge gives the phone a distinctive slightly banana shape when open. It has all the usual smartphone features, and includes a 2MP camera. The phone’s focus is all around media control and playback, and the Sky Anywhere application is bundled with it so you can even use it as a remote for your BSkyB set-top box.

Note: While we make every effort to ensure accuracy, BT accepts no responsibility for any information contained in Jonathan’s article, nor does the company endorse any product or service mentioned.