Wow, I wasn’t expecting this! It looks like later this afternoon Nokia will unveil the details of it’s first Windows Mobile powered device, and it’s sounding pretty damn good!

Specs are rumored to include:

• 128MB RAM
• 256MB ROM
• 16GB internal storage
• MicroSD (assume SDHC) expansion
• A-GPS
• FM radio
• DVB-H TV reception
• TV out
• Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• UMTS/HSDPA
• 802.11n wireless networking
• Bluetooth 2.1
• 7.1 mega pixel autofocus camera
• QVGA screen
• Windows Mobile 6

Wow! I expect HTC will be more than a little worried about this. The only improvements that I would be looking for are a VGA/WVGA screen and a hardware qwerty keyboard. In fact, the latter is a deal breaker for me, I could never go back to a software keyboard now!

Price to be confirmed (although it expect it to be big!).

P.S. Happy April Fools day

I’ve just come across this video for the nVidia APX 2500 mobile chipset. This looks to be very early in development, and the device looks oversized at the moment, but WOW! This is definitely the most advanced mobile user interface I have seen yet. If an experience like this makes it to market in the next couple of years, Apple are going to have some serious competition.

I said it in my last post, but I’m going to say it again:

Microsoft, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? nVidia are a hardware company and they can still come up with interfaces of this calibre! I love Windows Mobile as an open, easy to tweak, easy to develop for platform, but I’m starting to crave some finger-friendly usability. Stop relying on your device manufacturers to hack together semi-effective extensions to make their devices competitive!

Also very impressive is the ability to play 720p video and output through HDMI. While not necessary in my mind for a mobile device, it is certainly a welcome extra. Also rather exciting are the 3d graphics capabilities this hardware contains. With the right form factor this could turn into a nice gaming system too.

Check out the videos below to see what I’m banging on about. More details are also available on the nVidia site, including an interesting mention of Windows Mobile???

I came across this interesting video showing off Samsung’s new TouchWiz user interface yesterday. The home screen widgets look very nice, closely resembling Vista’s sidebar. The buttons all seem nice and big and finger friendly, and the style is simple and clean.

The finger scrolling is wrong though, all wrong! I don’t want to push down to scroll down, it feels totally unnatural after using an iPhone and software like Pocket Player. When scrolling with my fingers I want to feel like I’m pushing a surface around, which means if I push down on the screen, the content scrolls up. Plus it doesn’t seem to slow to a stop like it should, again reducing the intuitive, real world feel. Work on it Samsung!

Come on Microsoft, this is the kind of thing we want to see in Windows Mobile 7! You’re the largest software company in the world, how come you’re being left behind???

Oh, and the sound effects are pretty cool too!