Ladies, look out. Samsung has just launched two new fashion phones targeted at the girl-on-the-go who wants to look good with her gadgets. Yes, the L310 and L320 clamshell phones sure seem like fashion statements for the fashion conscious woman. The L310 clamshell, available in black and gold, is a tri-band handset with a 1.8 inch TFT display that has resolution of 176 x 220 pixels.

What makes it so feminine (aside form the fact that it simply looks like something a girl would buy), are the applications that Samsung has thoughtfully incorporated into the device – including apps that assist in shopping and counting calories. It’s a very compact handset (with dimensions of 93.4 x 44 x 17.9 mm) and is equipped with Bluetooth and USB 2.0. It has a 2 megapixel camera and microSD card slot, and supports GPRS and EDGE for internet connectivity.

Unwired View has come out with some spy shots of what could be the next Sony Ericsson Cybershot phone. They got their images and info, a chinese website, which provides some details as to its possible specifications. With Sony Ericsson updating their Walkman line at CES, I say it’s just about time they do the same with their Cybershot line of phones. Based on what Unwired has gathered, it’s a 5-megapixel camphone with auto-focus and flash. The display is a 16M color QVGA and will come with a built-in GPS sensor. Looking at the images provided, it’s like a redesigned T650i with a ton of imaging features if it is expected to carry on the Cybershot title in its name. Design-wise, nothing seems to stand out at the moment, but since these are still unconfirmed and more importantly, unofficial, so nothing’s for sure until it’s finally released. Heck, we don’t even know what name it will have, but if we were to follow Sony Ericsson’s numbering scheme, possible model names are K870i, K830i or K780i.

Even though the ball is on the cusp of dropping in Times Square, the suits at the FCC are still hard at work determining what we are allowed to enjoy (and what we are not). The latest pair of mobile phones to survive the gauntlet known as the FCC is the Samsung 820SC and the Samsung M130L.Pictures are pretty hard to come by of these two handsets, but we did manage to find out a few details surrounding their specs and features.

For starters, the Samsung 820SC is definitely a GSM/EDGE phone and it’ll rock Bluetooth. Following in the same philosophy, the entry-level Samsung M130L will also have Bluetooth, but its cellular connectivity is restricted to 850/1900 GSM/GPRS. Super stringent confidentiality restrictions have been put in place, so Samsung doesn’t want us to know any more about these phones for now.

Samsung has revealed its newest addition to its SGH line of cell phone with the SGH-i780 on the final day of CES. This Windows Mobile-powered device is packed with features with a full QWERTY keyboard and touch screen. It supports triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE at 900/1800/1900 MHz and single-band UMTS/HSDPA at 2100MHz.

The connectivity side passes the test with WiFi of 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. The long-rumored GPS is indeed included, which is fast becoming a standard on high-end smartphones. Another interesting feature is an optical mouse, although no details are available on its utility. The 2.55-inch touchscreen display boasts a resolution of 320×320 pixels.

With cell phones growing in sophistication at an increasingly rapid pace (remember when you used them to only make a phone call?) will be the next big feature consumers will be shopping for in 2008 and beyond. Taking a cue from the boom in consumer-orientated GPS devices made by market leaders and   says that mobile phone manufacturers  will be looking to make GPS technology a standard feature in all future cell phones. “In the years to come navigation-enabled mobile phones will be used for auto navigation, pedestrian navigation and many other types of location-based services,” says Dr. Egil Juliussen, principal analyst for TRG. “This opens up a new world of services and capabilities.”

Worldwide portable navigation market will grow from 50 million units in 2007 to more than 500 million units in 2015, says TRG. The market is currently split between portable navigation devices and navigation-enabled mobile phones, but the mobile segment is projected to rapidly start outselling dedicated PNDs next year.” Dedicated PNDs are mobile devices optimized for navigation while mobile phones with navigation are optimized for communications, which gives them an advantage in the emerging new world order for navigation,” Mr. Juliussen concludes.

mmO2 today unveiled a new and exclusive mobile publishing service which for the first time allows users to send large documents at 3G speeds over their existing GPRS medium-speed mobile data connections.Called DocRocket, the service uses advanced imaging technology, and has been developed by LizardTech, a leading enterprise content management software and services company, and brought to market for the first time by source O2, mmO2’s rapid development initiative. DocRocket will transform business processes for companies with mobile workforces, and help drive GPRS take-up and mobile data usage among corporate customers.The service can achieve phenomenal compression rates, of more than 1,000 times, and can compress any type of colour document, drawing or photograph, while maintaining the quality and integrity of the original information.

For example, a 100 page colour document compressed using DocRocket can now be accessed in 4.3 minutes via GPRS - previously it took 14 hours to download when compressed using Adobe Acrobat over the same mobile network.Selected pages can be viewed without downloading the entire document, allowing huge manuals to be browsed easily and cost effectively. DocRocket not only saves download time and costs; it enables companies with large field workforces to work in new and more efficient ways.Automotive repair workers using DocRocket can access every type of car manual, at the scene of a breakdown, almost anywhere in the country. This will increase the possibility of fixing the problem on the spot and reducing towing costs. Engineers can use DocRocket to access any plan or map in the field so they do not have to return to the office to get a paper copy or load an electronic version onto their laptop. Utility workers can use DocRocket to access any cable and duct print from every street. In addition, these corporate documents can be stored centrally, making it quick and easy to update and distribute new versions of these files.

Samsung and have teamed up to release the highly-marketed Samsung Juke SCH-u470. This phone features an innovative “switchblade” design, 2 GB of flash memory, Bluetooth support, and GPS capabilities. The Samsung Juke is a very affordable alternative to other  on the market which typically cost hundreds of dollars. The Juke is affordable, but it also doesn’t have many of the same capabilities as the more expensive alternatives. The 0.8 inch Juke is a relatively thick phone, but it makes up for that with its 1.2 inch skinny width. This cell phone features an innovative way to open the phone. By touching the edge of the phone, the top layer flips open like a switchblade.

This is a very cool innovation, but I don’t know how durable the mechanism that controls it is. I can easily see this process failing after a year or two down the road with frequent opening and closing motions. This phone is being marketed as a first and a cell phone secondly. The Juke has 2 GB of internal flash memory, and it works seamlessly with Windows Media Player 11 to download music to the device.  

It works pretty well through this device, although the Juke sports a more uncommon 2.5mm headphone jack instead of the more popular 3.5 mm jack. The Juke does support, though, so this may not be a problem for you. The Juke does come with a pair of earphones, but as you might imagine, they don’t produce stellar sound quality - as most stock headphones don’t.