iPhone 3G is finally official, starts at $199, available July 11th

It's been a long wait, but Apple finally took the wraps off its 3G iPhone. Thinner edges, full plastic back, flush headphone jack, and the iPhone 2.0 firmware -- Apple's taking a lot of the criticisms to heart from the first time around. Obviously 3G is at the forefront, but they're also making sure it's available all over internationally, works with enterprises, runs 3rd party apps... and does it all for cheaper. Apple claims its 3G speeds trounce the competition, with pageloads 36% faster than the N95 and Treo 750 -- and of course it completely trounces the old EDGE data speeds.Battery life isn't getting put out to pasture though, with 300 hours of standby, 8-10 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk, 7 hours of video and 24 hours of audio. GPS is also a go. Apple is using A-GPS, which supplements regular satellite GPS data with info from cellular towers for faster location. (WiFi data is also worked into the mix, which should give users a pretty solid lock on where the heck they are on this planet.) Unfortunately, as expected there's no front-facing cam, and while its edges are thinner than before it's still about a millimeter thicker at the center (12.3mm over 11.6mm before). Apple hopes to launch in 70 countries this year, with the black 8GB going for $199 and 16GB for $299 in black or white. (Both price points require a contract, of course.) Apple has just hit 22 biggest markets, including the US, on July 11th.

Reference: http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/iphone-3g-is-finally-official/

ASUS LS221H

ASUS is launching what it calls the "world's slimmest" 22-incher. It claims that its LS221H is just 248-millimeteres, ie 9.76 inches at its thinnest point, but unless this thing morphs into a CRT at a moments's notice, we are assuming it meant 24.8 millimetres or 0.97 inches.

Beyond that , we are trusting that the 1680X1050 resolution, 2 millisecond response time, 300 nits of brightness, VGA/HDMI inputs and 4000:1 contrast ratio are all there, but you can never be too careful when talking about the planet's thickest/thinnest LCD.

REFERENCE: http://www.dnaindia.net/ of June 16 2008.

Sony Ericsson F305

Sony Ericsson is having a bit of trouble keeping its newest lineup on the down low, but we suppose that's the price of fame.

Most notable of the new crew is the F305 (pictured), which isn't exactly feature-packed, boasting of mere EDGE speeds, a Memory Stick Micro slot, a 2-inch 176X220 display and some music playback features.

What sets it apart is a built-in accelerometer for motion controlled games. The game-oriented face buttons are also a perk, but we hope this thing has enough processing power to handle something actually entertaining.

The S302 Snapshot is camera-oriented, but only just barely, with a 2 megapixel fixed focus camera, a flash, and Photofix software. You can also shoot video, with 20 mb of built in storage and MEMORY STICK MICRO EXPANSION.