Capcom's amazingly popular fighting game, Street Fighter IV, has made its long-awaited iPhone debut. To every button masher's joy, the game didn't disappoint, turning out an exciting beat-em-up that's bound to subject your poor handset's touchscreen to relentless abuse.

Graphically, the game has more in common with older versions of the franchise, rather than the 3D Street Fighter IV you will find on current-gen home consoles. They're not bad, far from it. In fact, this is one of the most attractive-looking fighting games I've seen on a mobile platform to date, even on an iPhone 3G (where I played it).

How about the buttons? Surprisingly enough, they work well. There will likely be some getting used to, especially if you're a hardcore player, but it's not as bad as I originally imagined. In fact, I was pulling off mildly difficult combos in well under 30 minutes - a feat considering everyone I know kicks my ass on SF4. You get an onscreen joystick for movements, plus four buttons - punch, kick, special move and charge. Yes, Capcom decided to leave out the low and medium strikes, which sucks a little. Regardless, there's still plenty here to waste entire days on (not hours, but days).

The special move button, by the way, is kind of a cheat, but you can turn it off in the preferences, as well as rearrange the button placements if you so wish. You also get "revenge" and "super" meters that charge as you get beat up or pile on the hurt, respectively. Once either is full, you can simply touch them to perform a special attack. The ease by which you can do that is a bit of a turn-off, but it's a minor annoyance on what's an otherwise excellent implementation.

You can play as one of eight familiar characters in seven different environments. Game modes include Tournament (where you fight multiple matches), Dojo (a training mode for your character), Free-Sparring (for testing out an opponent), Training Room (where you can practice your combos) and Versus (against a human opponent over Bluetooth).

If I had any real complaints, it would be the common iPhone problem of my fingers getting in the way of the action. It can get irritating, especially for a fast-paced horizontal game such as Street Fighter 4. While I do think the price is a bit steep at $9.99, it is one of the greatest action games of all time on your iPhone, so that should count for something.



What tastes better than a cookie? A freshly-baked chip, of course. Maybe that's what LG was thinking with their brand new touchscreen based off of the popular Cookie (over 12 million units sold). Billed as the LG Cookie Fresh GS290, the phone just received its official stamp today.

The handset sports a largely youthful form factor and appears to be angling for the entry-level slice of the market. It sports a 3-inch TFT resistive touchscreen with 240 x 400 resolution, an accelerometer for auto-rotate and a "cartoon UI," as with the Cookie Plus.

Details of the Fresh GS290 include a 2.0 megapixel camera module, stereo Bluetooth, complete messaging capabilities (SMS, EMS, MMS, email), social networking integration, FM radio with RDS, a 3.5mm audio jack and microSD card expansion (up to 8GB). There's no 3G or WiFi, though, so you're stuck with GPRS/EDGE for connectivity.

The LG Cookie Fresh GS290 is slated for a European launch sometime this month and the rest of the world later in the year. It is expected to be released alongside the slightly more feature-rich Cookie Plus, although no pricing details have been announced yet.

On a side note, this battle of the Korean cheap-ass touchscreen phones between Samsung's ever-growing Corby line versus LG's similarly-multiplying Cookie probably won't end soon, would it?

[via Unwired View]

Fashion phones usually come with a premium.  Not the "catwalk-ready" Samsung S7070 Diva, a female-friendly, style-centric touchscreen device that has just been announced for the UK market.

While it fancies itself a "fashion mobile," the phone's general design actually doesn't veer far from Samsung's normal touch candybar aesthetic.  In fact, the shape and layout are pretty much identifiable with the company's roster, with only the pearl white front panel, jewel-like center button and the 3D quilted back setting it apart.

Details of the Samsung Diva include a 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen (with 320 x 240 resolution), a 3.2 megapixel camera (with a couple of arty effects, such as beauty shot and lomo), stereo Bluetooth, built-in DNSe, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity (no 3G or WiFi) and microSD card expansion up to 8GB.  It runs the standard TouchWiz UI, features social networking integration (Facebook, Twitter and MySpace) and comes with an HTML browser.

Carphone Warehouse will be distributing the handset in the UK and are bundling a limited amount of gift bags for early customers.   Each bonus bundle will come with various cosmetic products from Benefit, including portable concealer kits and cream-to-powder finish foundations.

The Samsung S7070 Diva will be available for free from both T-Mobile and Orange, provided you agree to a two-year service contract.  You can also get it for only £130 with no contract.

[Carphone Warehouse]

Nokia has announced a new phone for T-Mobile USA, the first carrier-supported handset from the manufacturer to come with free voice-guided navigation (via Ovi Maps 3.0) in the States.  Called the Nokia 5230 Nuron, the device will be a full-fledged touchscreen smartphone running Symbian S60.

With the GPS feature as its biggest selling point, the handset will come preloaded with maps of the US, Canada and Mexico, along with easy download access to 180 other maps via the Ovi service and the Lonely Planet guides.  It will also come preinstalled with the Ovi Store app, which gives users access to Nokia's application and content storefront.

The Nokia 5230 Nuron doesn't veer away from its European version, featuring a 3.2-inch touchscreen (with 360 x 640 resolution), a 3.2 megapixel camera, a 3.5mm audio jack, stereo Bluetooth and microSD card expansion.   It boasts fast HTML browsing via 3G and full messaging support (including IM and corporate mail), apart from the usual niceties offered by Symbian S60.

No official pricing has been given, with availability vaguely stated for "the coming weeks."  According to rumors, though, T-Mobile might be offering the Nuron for as low as $69.99 on contract, which is a huge value, especially with free GPS software and a full smartphone OS in tow.

[Nokia Press Release]

LG Telecom has just introduced the follow up to the LG Arena.  Originally rumored to be the Arena Max LU9400, the touchscreen feature phone has dropped the Arena branding and will simply be known as the LG Maxx LG9400.

While not a smartphone, the company has seen fit to equip the device with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8650 CPU (which, by the way, is different from the chip that the Nexus One and the LG eXpo are using, which is a QSD8250).  Yes, a high-end processor for a handset that's not running a full-blown OS.  We're not sure why they did it, but you should expect speedy performance from the top to bottom of the feature set with something this powerful.

Details of the LG Maxx include a 3.5 inch WVGA touchscreen display, a 5.0 megapixel camera module, a finger-touch mouse control, aGPS, Wi-Fi and mobile TV (T-DMB).  It's running what appears to be an updated version of LG’s S-Class 3D UI.  Other features include DivX support, HD video decoding and, presumably, an HDMI out (where else would you watch 720p movies, after all).  By the way, the QSD8650 comes in CDMA and GSM flavors, so it should be safe to assume we're bound to see this outside South Korea as well.

The LG Maxx LG9400 should be available within the first quarter, although pricing details remain sketchy.  It will come out under the fledgling LG Telecoms first (presumably to drive a few new customers to the country's smallest carrier), before being picked up by both SK Telecom and KT.

[via Telecoms Korea]