Samsung has officially announced an oddly-styled Android smartphone.  Called the Samsung Gem, it bears a cheeky diamond-shaped home button and a similarly-framed camera lens cutout.

Aimed at the entry-level market (according to the Samsung page), the handset is the same one previously leaked as coming to Verizon Wireless in the US.   It ships with a rather disappointing Android 2.1, although the decent-sounding specs should more than make up for it.

Details include a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display (480 x 272 resolution), a 3.2 megapixel camera module, Bluetooth 2.1, 124 MB of onboard storage and microSD card expansion (up to 16GB).  Action is managed by an 800Mhz processor (billed as "the fastest" on the entry-level category), which should let you work through Android 2.1 without any hitch.  Based on the specs list on the Samsung page, the device won't be getting WiFi, 3G nor GPS.

Phone dimensions are 4.48 x 2.18 x 0.48 inches, with a weight of 3.85 ounces.   As for apps, you'll get the usual Google fare, along with both Swype and Social Hub on board.

No word on pricing or release date for the Samsung Gem SCH-i100.  Expect it soon, though, either for free or at sub-$50 on a two-year contract.

[Samsung]

LG has announced a new budget Android smartphone.  Called the LG Optimus Me, it's a small touchscreen slate bearing a youth-oriented design.

Set to be released in a variety of colors (the product photos show it in black, blue, gray, pink and red), the handset is supposed to be even cheaper than the already budget-friendly LG Optimus One.  Compact and styled with rounded corners, it sports 113.5 x 59 x13.3 mm dimensions, with a weight of 130 g.

Like many low-end Android devices, the LG Optimus Me comes with a smallish display of unspecified size (most likely, this is between 2.8 and 3.0 inches, though).  Instead of the usual 320 x 240 pixel resolution, though, this one gets a bump up at 480 x 320 pixels.  Other details include a 3.0 megapixel camera module, aGPS, WiFi, 3G with HSPA, Bluetooth 2.1, 140MB of internal storage and microSD card expansion.

No word on the Android version, but sources gander it will likely ship with Android 2.2 Froyo.  The phone will come with a 1,500 mAh battery, rated at five hours of talk time and a little under 19 days of standby.

There's no specific release date or pricing, as of now, for the LG Optimus Me.  With the MWC fast coming up, though, we're sure the rest of the details should be filled in soon enough.

[via FoneArena]

You recently bought a new phone from Verizon before the whole iPhone 4 business was announced.  And you're pissed.  Because you've wanted in on the iOS action, but have been leery of signing with AT&T.  Well, the Big Red has an offer.

The good news: Verizon will give $200 gift cards to customers who swap their current phones for the iPhone 4.  The bad news: You'll need to pay the full unsubsidized iPhone price to get it with your existing contract.

Additionally, it's only available to customers who bought a new handset from the carrier (smartphones, feature phones and certified pre-owned models all qualify) between November 26 and January 10, and  only for accounts with five lines or less.  You will also need to return your current phone and pick up your new Apple smartphone by February 28.

Those that don't meet the November 26 cutoff with an active contract can also opt to trade-in, although you'll get a variable-priced gift card (computed, depending on whatever parameter they want to use) for your efforts.  All transactions must be done with Verizon Wireless directly, either online or through their retail stores.

The Verizon iPhone 4 will debut on February 10, with pre-orders available to existing customers starting February 3.

[via Cnet]

Chances are, the Samsung Chat 350 won't receive all that much of an unveiling.  It's just a compact messaging feature phone, after all.    Now that someone managed to leak details of the handset, you may as well consider this as official an announcement as you can get.

The likely third phone in the Chat series (which Samsung irritatingly continues to refer to as the Ch@t), it sports similar dimensions and styling to the Samsung Champ 3300.  Except this one takes on a landscape slider form factor, coming with a flush-looking four-row QWERTY keyboard in tow.  Oh yeah, it's thicker, of course, measuring in at 100 x 52 x 16 mm.

Details of the Samsung Chat 350 include a 2.4-inch touchscreen display (320 x 240 resolution), a 2.0 megapixel camera module, Bluetooth 2.1, an FM radio and microSD card expansion (up to 8GB).  Neither 3G nor WiFi are onboard, so you're stuck with GPRS for data connectivity.

According to the source, the phone will be running a proprietary UI software (not TouchWiz), much like the other phones in the series.  Since this isn't an official announcement, there's neither pricing nor release date.  With a product shot like that, though, expect this to hit the budget section in your local carrier's roster soon.

[via Samsung Hub]

Looking for an all-in-one app to help polish up your axe skills?  Try the Planet Waves Guitar Tools, which crams an impressive amount of content to aid in your ever-improving fretboard mastery.

Designed to be useful for beginner to intermediate musicians, the app has a library of over 7,000 chords, complete with charts and a listening feature (you can hear the chord by "strumming" the touchscreen).  Searching for a chord is particularly clever, giving you a scrollable fretboard right on the screen.  Place your fingers on any part of the virtual fretboard and the app will automatically bring up the corresponding chord.

Planet Waves also includes thousands of scales, modes and arpeggios, each of which you can choose for your practice sessions.  Pick one and go to work on your progressions using the app's scrolling virtual fretboard -- you don't even need to be on a real guitar to get your practice time in.

There's also a tuner with two modes -- a strobe and a needle, both of which come with dozens of presets.  It uses the iPhone's built-in mic and operates much like your standard low-cost tuner.   Additional features include a metronome and search service for locating  music teachers and stores in your area.

Planet Waves Guitar Tools crams a hefty amount of guitar-playing content.  If you're a beginner or intermediate player, we can't imagine you needing any other resource than this app.  Even more advanced players might actually find it somewhat beneficial. You can get it from the App Store, priced at $8.99.

[Planet Waves]

Samsung has officially unveiled the successor to one of its most successful feature phones.  Called the Samsung Star II S5260, the handset comes with the same touchscreen form factor, along with a whole slew of attractive features.

Like the original Star which sold over 30 million units, the new device brings a whole host of talents that should help close the gap between smartphones and regular feature phones.  It runs TouchWiz UI 3.0, with full support for widgets and  QuickType, which offers a faster way of typing than your standard virtual QWERTY keys.

Details of the Samsung Star II include a 3-inch touchscreen display (480 x 272 resolution), a 3.2 megapixel camera module and microSD card expansion.  Similar to the older model, there's no 3G, but there's WiFi to help tide your hankering for high-speed data access.

For instant messaging, it comes with Multi IM 2.0, which allows you to chat across multiple platforms, including Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk, AIM and Facebook Chat.  Samsung staple SocialHub is also onboard, along with dedicated Facebook and Twitter apps.

The Samsung Star II will be available starting February.  Germany gets it first, along with the rest of Europe, South America, India and the Middle East after that.  No official pricing has been announced, but reports are pegging it at €125 (around $170).

[Press Release]

Billed as a "social data-powered GPS tool," Localscope is not the kind of thing you'll immediately figure out at first glance.  Once you get the hang of it, though, the data-aggregating AR app is an extremely useful tool for getting acquainted with the area around you.

The app draws from a variety of data sources, combining inputs from your iPhone's GPS, along with information from maps, social media websites and search engines.   Combining all those parameters, it allows you to get a clearer picture of the establishments in your surrounding area -- all easily accessible with a quick search on the app.

During first launch, Localscope gives you a searchbox and a list of common categories (e.g. Banks, Hotels, Restaurants…).   Tapping on a list item or typing a search term will take you to a screen that displays nearby results.  This can either be shown as a list, on a map or an augmented reality display (for the latter, you put the phone up and markers will be shown around what the viewfinder captures).  While viewing the results, multiple icons appear at the bottom of the screen, allowing you to view results for that specific category or search term from a variety of web services (namely Google, Bing, Foursquare, Twitter and Wikimapia).

The actual app is sufficiently polished, with plenty of little touches that make interacting with it feel natural and very intuitive.  There's also a pin option, so you can mark locations in the map (helpful if you don't like having to search all over again).

Overall, Localscope feels like a proper AR tool for finding locations and establishments within your vicinity.   While it's not all that unique (you've probably tried some apps that do offer similar features), it's plenty useful for the 99-cent download price.

[Cynapse]

With smartphones dominating the mobile landscape, it's easy to look past the ever-improving range of feature phones out there.  For those who don't need a smartphone, but could use a touchscreen in their lives, the LG Cosmos Touch should provide quite an attractive option.

Physically, it's a very compact messaging device for a handset that pairs both a touchscreen and a sliding QWERTY keyboard.  We like the soft feel of the primary material, as well as the rounded corners that make for a stylish design.  Display is a 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen (400 x 240 resolution) that, unfortunately, lacks the responsiveness we're used to with most modern phones.  Brightness and colors are all nice, though.  The four-row sliding horizontal keyboard is comfortable to use and plenty roomy, which is a surprise for such a small device.

As a phone, the LG Cosmos Touch made for average calls.  Voices came through loud and discernible, although there is noticeable static that creeps up on occasion.  Those on the other end reported a rather poor experience, claiming that our voices sounded hollow.  Speakerphone experience was similarly average.  Battery is rated at 6 hours of talk time.

All the usual phone features are onboard, including a variety of calling options, PIM tools, Bluetooth, voice recording and basic messaging.  Since this is a messaging-focused phone, more advanced communication features are offered, too, including mobile email (for POP3 accounts), IM (AIM, Yahoo and Windows Live) and SocialBeat (a social networking app).  There's no 3G or WiFi, though, so data is slow, even when working with light text transmissions.

There's onboard GPS with VZ Navigator, a wireless web browser and a rather basic music player.  Camera is a similarly basic 1.3 megapixels.  As expected, pictures are one of the weaker points, so forget using this for any involved image capture endeavors.

Overall, the LG Cosmos Touch is a strictly midrange messaging phone for casual use.  While we love the touchscreen and keyboard combo, it's quite lacking in features for more involved business use.  Plus, we think the price is a bit too much at $79.99 with a two-year agreement.

We've got a new batch of leaked phones today.  Like always, we’re bundling them in one post, so you can read the juicy bits all in one place.

Blackberry Storm 3

BGR got the dibs on this new touchscreen smartphone from RIM, complete with dark photos and a full specs list.  According to the blog, the handset will sport the largest display from the carrier yet -- 3.7 inches (800 x 480 resolution).  Other details include a 5.0 megapixel camera module (with 720p video recording), the usual array of sensors, 3G with HSPA, WiFi, mobile hotspot, 8GB of onboard storage and microSD card support.  Core hardware is a 1.2GHz processor, with 512MB of RAM, running Blackberry OS 6.1.  Availability is being predicted for September, which is an eternity by technology standards.

Nokia X7

Up next is the Nokia X7 and it's one of the few smartphones from the Finnish manufacturer to get a stateside outing.  Expected to be announced at MWC, the leaked photos have it decked in AT&T branding.  Known details include a 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display, an 8MP camera with dual-led flash, a 3.5mm headset jack and dual speakers.  No clue as to what version of Symbian it's coming with.

Samsung S55 Galaxy Mini

Like your smartphones tiny and compact?  The Samsung S55 Galaxy Mini might catch your eye, with its small display (likely 3 inches with 320 x 240 resolution), WiFi, Bluetooth, microSD card support and an unspecified camera in the rear.  The cute little smartphone reportedly runs Android 2.2 and could cost less than $200 with no contract.

New numbers released by ComScore hint at why Verizon campaigned so hard to get the iPhone in its stead.  Its users are rich and loyal -- the very kind of customers any carrier could ask for.

According to ComScore's data, majority of iPhone users fall in some of the most desirable age bracket for marketers, apart from having household incomes that are equally attractive.  But, that's not really a surprise.  We've all, pretty much, known about that a long time ago.  Instead, the question that's lingering on everyone's mind is: What does the Verizon iPhone 4 mean for AT&T and Android?

AT&T's Woes,

AT&T has the largest US smartphone share at 38%, with Verizon tailing behind at 27%.  A lot of the disparity obviously has to do with subscribers who chose the once-exclusive iPhone over other offerings on the market.

Over the past year, though, AT&T has seen that market share eroded by 7%, all while Verizon (bolstered by its Droid line) saw theirs rise by 4%.  It's a worrisome trend for the carrier, especially now that customers can get the same Apple smartphone from a reputedly more reliable network.  It will be ironic, though not surprising, to see a lot of  iPhone users under AT&T make the switch to a different carrier for essentially the same device.

Android's Future

Between August and November, Android managed to increase its US market share by 6.4 percentage points, all while the iPhone's numbers held steadily.  Of course, RIM still has both platforms beat, but that could all change drastically once the Verizon iPhone 4 rolls out.

If Verizon can manage to give the new batch of iPhone refugees better service than AT&T, we might see a big shift throughout the course of the year.  Worth watching.