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While endearingly janky devices like the Nokla E97 aren’t usually to be found on Western shelves, that could change thanks to a key High Court ruling in the UK. The case had been brought by Nokia, who alleged that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in the UK had acted unfairly when allowing a shipment of counterfeit goods bearing Nokia’s trademarks free passage through the country after discovering they were not intended for sale there.

In fact, HMRC decided that, since a UK trademark would require an intention of trading, items not headed for UK shelves could not be seized. The shipment was allowed to continue on its way to Columbia, and Nokia brought the case before the High Court arguing that HMRC had interpreted the Counterfeit Goods Regulations in an “unduly restrictive” manner.

The courts decision in favor of HMRC was tempered by the judge’s admission that the situation took advantage of a legal loophole, and that he hoped it would be closed as soon as possible.

Sony Ericsson have done it again, they are currently creating another touch phone. Sony Ericsson are trying to give a new lease of life and reinvent Android, Windows Mobile alongside symbian Foundation for its smartphone.

The picture shows the Sony Ericsson Jalou, this model runs S60 5th Edition as does the Satio. The Jalou also has GPS, a form of HSDPA and WiFi. As we are all aware Sony Ericsson have a big fan base as they create beautiful devices.

Do you think that the world is ready to take on two of Sony Ericsson’s Symbian-based smartphones with touchscreens in upcoming months?

It looks, judging by these images, like someone has been faxing something they shouldn’t have, but when the leak is a detailed spec-sheet for the BlackBerry Tour 9630 we won’t quibble over it coming on thermal paper. According to MobileSyrup’s source, the Tour 9630 will arrive on Canadian carrier Bell in mid-July, bringing with it an HVGA 480 x 360 display, 3.2-megapixel autofocus camera with flash, quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 2100MHz UMTS/HSPA and 800/1900MHz EVDO Rev.A.



There’s also GPS and A-GPS, a 35-key QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth 2.0, 3.5mm headset port and microUSB port. No sign of WiFi, but you do get a microSD card slot (under the battery cover), 256MB of internal memory and a 1,400mAh battery.

The whole thing measures 112 x 62 x 14.2 mm and weighs 130g. While we’re excited for our friends up in Canada, we’re perhaps a little more keen to see whether - as the leaked inventory details suggest - the BlackBerry Tour 9630 arrives on Verizon Wireless in the US on July 13th.

BenQ have become the latest netbook manufacturer to throw their hat into the Android netbook ring, as well as confirming their plans to produce smartphones running the open-source OS. The new hardware should arrive on the market sometime in 2010, though BenQ are keeping specification details for both netbook and smartphone close to their chest.

The company recently announced their latest netbook, the JoyBook Lite U121, which offers either Windows XP or a Linux OS. Based on Intel’s Atom Z520 processor, it’s unclear whether BenQ’s Android netbook will similarly use the Intel range of chips or take advantage of one of the low-power ARM-based CPUs that have been shown to be powerful enough to load Google’s platform.

Acer recently confirmed that they would be offering a dual-boot Android/XP netbook in Q3, seeking to distribute the machine through partnerships with carriers. An ASUS Eee PC based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and running Android was also demonstrated at Computex.

Is this a photo of the new iPhone? It’s a question we’ve asked surprisingly few times over the past couple of weeks, given the proximity to Apple’s WWDC on Monday (which SlashGear will be live-blogging at http://live.slashgear.com/) and the spate of rumors throughout May. Now, a Spanish site has released what are claimed to be shots of the upcoming model, complete with shifted ports, new controls and a tweaked chassis.


As well as a different shape to the casing, and an apparent matte finish as has been rumored, the “leaked” photos also show a fascia redesign with two slots at the top of the handset. There’s also a discrete LED indicator embedded in the front panel.

The headphone socket has also seemingly moved, from the top edge of the handset down to the bottom as on the iPod touch, and there appears to be a button on the lower right-side edge of the handset that, given similar controls on other cellphones, could be a camera button. The lower slot on the fascia could be front-facing camera, its been suggested, with the LED an indicator as on the iSight webcam embedded into MacBook notebook displays.

Acer have brought their F1 Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone to Computex, and there’s finally a spec sheet to go with the prototype. We now know that the F1 is based on Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor - the same as Toshiba’s TG01 - paired with a spacious 3.8-inch WVGA touchscreen and 5-megapixel autofocus camera.


There’s also an always-welcome 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the phone, and the camera has a flash to accompany it. The front controls are touch-sensitive, plus there’s a front-facing camera for video calls, GPS, WiFi and support for up to 7.2Mbps HSDPA.

Acer are talking about potentially putting their own shell on top of Windows Mobile 6.5, but nothing has been decided. Apparently the F1 will be reaching shelves by Christmas, but there’s no word on what this flagship Acer smartphone might cost.

When your first handset looks set to rack up close to twelve months of delay, you may as well announce a few more. That seems to be the attitude at Garmin-ASUS, who are conveniently forgetting all about their much-postponed nuvifone G60 and instead are talking about their upcoming Android smartphone, set to arrive by the end of Q1 2010.

Garmin - who have been a member of Google’s Open Handset Alliance since December 2008 - were initially tipped to be offering an Android device sometime this year. While company executives now say that the phone “could come a bit earlier” than the end of March 2010, it doesn’t seem likely to beat that timescale by a full three months, especially given Garmin-ASUS’ ongoing issues.

The duo have declined to comment on how much the Android smartphone might cost. However they have confirmed that the GPS will be used for geotagging photos and for offering other location-based services.

Nokia have announced that their N97 flagship smartphone will go on sale worldwide this month. No word on pricing for any of the 75 countries that will soon be getting the 3.5-inch touchscreen handset, nor specific availability dates, but the UK will apparently get it on unlocked and SIM-free from Nokia themselves as of June 19th.

SIM-free, the N97 is priced at around £500; that will be followed by a June 26th launch on the various carriers in the UK, with no word on pricing but a clear possibility of picking up the N97 free with a sufficiently expensive tariff. The N97 is already available to preorder in the US, priced at around $455 after discounts.

Your money gets you a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, S60 5th Edition OS, WiFi, GPS, HSPA and of course that 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen. However we’re also wary of the potentially low-powered CPU Nokia have fitted the N97 with; we’ll have to wait for the final model to see if that undermines the smartphone.

The unlocked version of HTC Touch Pro2 is now available in the States. The phone comes with a sliding QWERTY keyboard, a 3.2MP digicam with auto-focus, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, a microSD (HC) card slot, an FM radio with RDS and a 528Mhz Qualcomm CPU. You can also get the speakerphone system called “HTC Straight Talk” for conference calls.