LG KC910: 8 megapixels and widescreen video recording

How vigorous is your phone’s vibrator?

For some unknown reason, Swedes have become obsessed with a new craze called phone racing. Not exactly the latest extreme sport, phone racing involves using your phone's vibration alert feature to do all manner of odd things, from tripping a mouse trap to send the phone flying, to hotwiring a car and having a race with your mate!

As you can see from the video, they really are getting quite creative when it comes to thinking up new ways of destroying mobile phones. The phone's destruction, combined with the amount of texting you need to do to keep the phone vibrating, must surely make this quite an expensive hobby - so not an extreme sport in terms of your body, but certainly extreme in terms of your wallet!

Now one thing they don't answer is which is the best mobile phone for this kind of thing? Surely some phones have more vigorous vibrators than others? Maybe this will be the next battle in the mobile phone market? Forget how many megapixels your phone's camera has, or the size of its screen; what really matters is the power of your phone's vibrator!

Come to think of it, this might just be a ploy by the mobile phone manufacturers to reduce costs, as ramping up the power of a vibrator is far cheaper than cramming more pixellage into your phone!

[Source: PhoneRacing.se]

No more Walkman phones from Sony Ericsson?

Leaked pictures of the Sony Ericsson Remi have emerged, which show a super-thin (10mm) candy bar phone that has overtures of Sony Ericsson's old T610 phone. Looking rather stylish in a minimalistic kind of way, the Remi (which is currently a codename, and not the final name of the phone) will be a mid-range phone, and quite highly specced, with HSDPA and a 3.2 megapixel camera .

In fact most of the features are already on the Sony Ericsson W890, as the Remi is pretty much exactly the same phone, just without the Walkman branding. All of which leads me to wonder quite why the Walkman branding has suddenly been dropped...

Google turns mobile phones into remote controls

Our sister-site MediaMentalism.com, which is undergoing something of a renaissance ("about time," somebody shouted!) has news of a new Google app that enables a mobile phone to stream music, pictures and videos between your PC and any suitably-equipped home device such as your TV or Hi-Fi.

You can use your phone to select videos from your PC, and then wirelessly stream them onto your TV, all via the comfort of your armchair. Effectively, your mobile phone becomes your new remote control.

Of course, not all mobile phones are capable of doing this, but a surprising number are. Read on for more details of what's involved.

Sony Ericsson K800i Review

The following Sony Ericsson K800i review is a little different from other mobile phone reviews across the Web (and certainly different from other reviews we've done here at MobileMentalism). It's a long-term review, showing what the Sony Ericsson K800i has been like to use over the course of six months.

The K800i is a very capable camera phone, being part of Sony Ericsson's CyberShot range, and is now available at extremely attractive prices. To see whether the phone is for you or not, hit the link to read our full long-term Sony Ericsson K800i review.

Sony Ericsson kills Paris and BeiBei

Things really are being all shook up in the mobile phone world. Hot on the heels of Motorola splitting itself in two comes news that Sony Ericsson has canned two of its eagerly awaited smartphones - the Sony Ericsson P5i, codenamed Paris, and the Sony Ericsson G702 (codenamed BeiBei). These phones have been talked about and debated for months now, with people split on whether the liked the design or not.

Clearly the same debate was happening within Sony Ericsson, too, and those people who decided that the phones were not up to scratch won out and killed them. Fevered debate around the blogosphere speculates that the P5i was killed off because its feature-list was already behind that of its competitors even before it was released. This would be bad enough for a low-end phone, but for a smartphone, it's techno-suicide!

However, that's not all - the blogosphere itself may have had something to do with their decision...

Motorola splits in two, but woes only just beginning

Things are looking pretty grim for Motorola. The US giant, which used to be the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, has decided to split itself in two, spinning off the loss-making mobile phone division as a separate company, and concentrating instead on cable-TV set-top boxes, walkie-talkies and handheld scanners.

The reason for this is that the mobile devices division is losing so much money ($1.6 billion in just 18 months) that it's in danger of dragging the company down with it. By spinning the division off as a separate company, it's hoped that it can refocus its energies onto the mobile phone market and turn itself around, while a separate Motorola that focuses on set top boxes and the like will not be hurt should the new mobile phone company ultimately fail.

Sounds simple, but Motorola really has its work cut out - the cost of splitting the company in two is estimated at $750 million, while the new mobile phone company may need up to $4 billion just to stay afloat for the next two years.

More details after the jump.

Sony and Ericsson in split rumour over PSP phone

How's this fore a juicy piece of news? Sony are rumoured to be working on a PSP phone. Nothing new there, a PSP phone's been rumoured for years, ever since the first Sony brand (Walkman) was added to a mobile phone and people started wondering what other brands Sony might offer up.

But note that I didn't say Sony Ericsson are working on a PSP phone - I said Sony.

Amid what analysts are describing as "an increasingly frosty relationship" between Sony and Ericsson, Sony are apparently considering developing a PSP phone all by themselves, leaving Sony Ericsson to develop far-feebler gaming phones such as the F305 that was announced last week.

What vibrating mobile phones were always meant for

You're Swedish, you're bored, and all you have to occupy yourself are a vibrating mobile phone, a condom, some lube...and an idea.

Yes, unlike countless millions of teens across the globe who would perhaps come up with a slightly different idea, these Swedes decided that the best thing to do with such apparatus was to have a race between their be-sheathed mobile phones. Not entirely sure I want to know what the winner received!

As if that wasn't bad enough though, they also devised a sailing contest, rigging up their phones with a splendid looking sail. If you think I'm mad, just check out the vids after the jump (and I apologise now for the extremely bad Swedish renditions of Rod Stewart's "We are sailing"!)

Why the MOTOZINE ZN5 will not save Motorola

After over a year of rumours, leaked pictures and speculation, Motorola have finally announced the 5 megapixel camera phone they've been working on with Kodak. Called the Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5, the new camera phone was seen as a key element in Motorola's fight-back against its competitors, which have been eating up its market share for over a year now.

Is it too little too late, though? Given that most of the other manufacturers have had 5 megapixel camera phones on the market for over a year now, and Sony Ericsson are about to launch an 8 megapixel camera phone, can Motorola's first 5 megapixel camera phone really help the company stem its losses and help it regain the technological lead it once held?

Read on after the jump to find out.