Philips' new 'Xenium 800' touchscreen phone leaks out

If you had a creeping suspicion that the iPhone-esque phone market wasn't crowded enough yet -- you're right. Apparently, Philips is about to throw its hat in the ring with a device called the Xenium X800. The familiar looking unit will sport WiFi, a WQVGA "e2e" (or "edge to edge") touchscreen, and appears to be running a proprietary OS which looks considerably better than most phones in this class. Sure, it's heavily knocking off Sony's XMB and that new BlackBerry OS 4.6, but there are worse offenses that could be made. No word on more detailed specs, but you'll know more when we do. In the meantime, take a look at a few more pics after the break.

[Via Unwired View]

[fred @ May 7th 2008 7:54AM]

Apple Fanatics.....ATTACK!!!!!!

[Johnny Unitas @ May 7th 2008 1:37PM]

ROFL. I mean, as an FP, just too good. :)

[nanobis @ May 7th 2008 8:02AM]

I say bring it on, we need more smart phones on the market.

[Rich @ May 7th 2008 8:04AM]

Even an idiot like me knows that monochrome UIs are not the way forward.

[Kurian @ May 7th 2008 8:17AM]

*a colorblind idiot

[Leslie @ May 7th 2008 8:33AM]

i hate to say, but the D990i SciPhone / HiPhone 2 does the UI so much better :) http://www.chinagrabber.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1607

[Stranger @ May 7th 2008 9:01AM]

I'm with you on this one. While I have gotten used to my PSP and its single-color crossbar I still find it far more easier to use a interface with different-colored Icons.

[SuperDre @ May 7th 2008 9:34AM]

Well, then it's nice to know that this philips has a color display..

[Kurian @ May 7th 2008 8:17AM]

I dont give a fuck about specs. I have a PSP.

As far as external impressions are concerned, the above crap >>>>>>> i Phone

[applefan @ May 7th 2008 9:28AM]

Well does your wonderful PSP have a touchscreen?

An accelerometer?
An iPod?
A phone?
Bluetooth?
A microphone?
Third party apps?

Cause last I heard, PSP's don't have any of those things.

[Kurian @ May 7th 2008 9:36AM]

An accelerometer? Yes. 3rd party.

An iPod? Yes. And with better quality than apple's shitty DAC. Plus it supports loads of other formats with 3rd party mods.

A phone? I have a Nokia 1100. I'd rather not a phone in the PSP.

Bluetooth? LOL. Ancient. Hardly fast enough for a 32player deathmatch. WiFi FTW.

A microphone? Yes.

Third party apps? Yes. More than you can dream of.

[applefan @ May 7th 2008 12:01PM]

You forgot to mention whether or not your PSP has a touchscreen.

[silverblackvoid @ May 7th 2008 1:15PM]

applefan pwnd

[Ace b @ May 7th 2008 6:31PM]

Dude,the psp is good.But it's not that good.

Next generation might be.

[Kurian @ May 7th 2008 11:53PM]

"You forgot to mention whether or not your PSP has a touchscreen."
Yes, 3rd party.

The PSP is just better at everything. Its only not a phone.

[A1 @ May 8th 2008 1:20PM]

>not a phone

Then is it really related?

Thinking about modern phones I guess it is. Sigh.

[Kurian @ May 8th 2008 10:49PM]

What I meant was, all the extra bullshit is simple done better on a dedicated device like the PSP. Let the phone be a phone.

[Alejandro @ May 13th 2008 4:37PM]

Yeah, you're probably right... enough about this convergence bullshit already. It's never going to take off anyway. Right?

While we're at it, let's go back to printers and scanners and copiers and fax machines as SEPARATE business devices!!

Why would people want to carry their lives around in a gadget? Especially if it's gorgeous? naaaaahh!

As for Kurian's third party EVERYTHING on his PSP --yeah, I have a life, so I sort of like things to work OUT OF THE BOX. 3rd party accelerometer? Really? jeez...

[Kurian @ May 13th 2008 10:39PM]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/17/neos-new-psp-motion-sensor/

And it works in many official games with the new drivers.

[leslie @ May 7th 2008 8:27AM]

well, this is actually a cool looking phone...

[Jeff @ May 7th 2008 10:56AM]

I'll Drink to that!

[Big Al @ May 7th 2008 8:29AM]

I'm no Apple fanboy... but I get the feeling that this phone won't have as sleek of an OS as the iPhone. Just makes me wonder why bother putting out a touchscreen if it can't beat the one already out there.

[Stranger @ May 7th 2008 9:09AM]

Because of all the things the iPhone can't do? While it's an excellent phone it's not perfect for the simple reason that everyone has different priorities. Something which I find incredibly valuable on a cellphone is an integrated flashlight. Something which we all know the iPhone lacks. This actually means the iPhone for me is worse than a number of simple $100-phones out there.

[nh @ May 7th 2008 9:45AM]

Really? I thought it was just me. MY SE W800 has an led light option; I can't replace it until another one comes along with this feature. They all have proper flashes now, which are no good as torches.

As for this, I still don't get why a touchscreen is suddenly OK. It always used to be that tactile feedback was important. Can you use this thing wearing gloves?

[applefan @ May 7th 2008 12:06PM]

@Stranger

What do you mean the iPhone doesn't have a flashlight? Go in Installer and download "Flashlight" and you got one! It simply turns the screen white.

And really, you choose your phone based on whether or not it has a flashlight?

[Stranger @ May 7th 2008 1:05PM]

@Applefan

The problem with using the screen as a flashlight is that it uses more power than a dedicated LED but also that the light is much more diffused making it hard to light up what we really wish to look at.

>And really, you choose your phone based on whether or not it has a >flashlight?

I do, I would never buy a cellphone without a flashlight unless the other features are extremly compelling.

[Kate @ May 7th 2008 2:40PM]

Not being able to turn on a steady beam of light with my current phone (Centro) is actually something I really miss.

My Samsung ZH-10 was a total (and I mean *total*) p.o.s., but I liked that flashlight feature.


That said, I think I'm among the ten people left in the world who would be really unhappy if they had to constantly deal with a touchscreen keyboard...what's with the lack of button love these days?

[applefan @ May 7th 2008 8:32AM]

Cool thing about Apple is they pressure the market to create higher quality gadgets for lower prices by releasing awesome expensive gadgets of there own.

[dazepro @ May 7th 2008 8:39AM]

I couldn't agree with you more. Apple comes out with one, I want to emphasize the word "one", phone and the market goes crazy trying to copy it. Every other company comes out with a new model of this and a new model of that, and no one really cares, until now. Why, because everyone wants to see how close or better it can than the iPhone.

[sinjinn @ May 7th 2008 9:08AM]

you guys are stupid.

anything that is succesful has imitators.

eee pc , pokemon , biggy smalls.

[dazepro @ May 7th 2008 11:18AM]

@ sinjinn And that is our point, everyone will continually to talk crap and rag on the iPhone when it is the best phone currently out. So I don't see how you calling us idiots makes any sense, when you say the iPhone is "successful."

[Adam @ May 7th 2008 11:25AM]

untrue dazepro

LG had their Prada released prior to the iPhone. However iPhone did it better, but it wasn't the first. Ergo, one could say LG's line is based off their previous Prada falsifying your claim that EVERY company is out there to copy it.

[sinjinn @ May 7th 2008 2:13PM]

@dazepro

the point is that there have much more sucessful phones over the past year than the iphone , but you dont hear anyone else screaming "copy cat". you know why? because thats the way technology works.

[jethro_static @ May 7th 2008 10:50PM]

Can you use your iphone as modem? My Sprint HTC Touch can connect my lappy to the net anywhere you can make a phone call.

[DiscoCat5 @ May 7th 2008 8:45AM]

i heard a news report today on the intelligence degrading channnel (7) about the iphone coming to australia, and the way they spoke it was like we were all from 1062 and this "thing" had been invented that was the smartest most clever thing in the workld


it has a large demographic
solid marketing
a visually appeasing OS
a decent set of features
and all in all its a pretty good phone
but seriously its not THAT good. there are hpones on the market that are "smarter" than it

[nikster @ May 7th 2008 9:56AM]

no, there aren't. there are lots of phones with higher specs, GPS, whatnot. [though actually very few (none?) with the same amount of memory and the same screen size].

but there are none that can match the pure software power of the iphone's OS. hardware accelerated 3D graphics? used intelligently to make the user interface both efficient and fun?

good luck copying that because that's a 5 year project right there. speaking as a software developer, if you throw everything and the kitchen sink at it, the best you can do is come out with a much _worse_ copy of the original in just 1 year, and maybe a decent copy in 3. we are at year 1, and we are seeing bad copies.

touch screens were a dead idea before the iphone and for a very good reason: they didn't work. multi-touch and the special touch interface Apple created have changed that. but it's a very tough act to copy.

[Chris @ May 7th 2008 12:25PM]

Agree. Apple's phone may not have all of the hardware or even software (copy and paste) features of many phones YET, what they do have is by far the best foundation of software to build from. Android is the only other phone OS that will be able to match it in the forseeable future. Windows Mobile? Forget it. The proprietary software running this phone is not going to be nearly as good or powerful as mobile OS X.

[Pochi @ May 7th 2008 8:45AM]

No... more... fu&%*#ng touch screen... phones....

[Silas Miller @ May 7th 2008 8:47AM]

It looks like the ps3 XMB. Where's my psp phone?

[James @ May 7th 2008 8:53AM]

Noooo!

I still have nightmares about the Philips "Savvy"....

http://www.gsmarena.com/philips_savvy-146.php

I thought they'd given up mobile phones....
This is like bumping into your Ex in the supermarket.

[ard buijsen @ May 7th 2008 9:20AM]

when it says Philips on the front I say do not buy it as the quality is probably dubious to say the least. Not to mention the OS.

[Darwin @ May 7th 2008 9:31AM]

Anyone else been burned by Philips-Magnavox optical players... or anything else technological, for that matter?

[Darwin @ May 7th 2008 9:33AM]

Holding anything Philips/Magnavox-made feels like the tech version of driving around in a Chevy, nay, a Chevette.

[Kei @ May 7th 2008 9:45AM]

looks like they copied Samsung's interface (which came out before XMB or the new blackberry)

[Mam00th @ May 7th 2008 9:58AM]

The HTC diamond is way sexier

[jethro_static @ May 7th 2008 10:56PM]

I second emotion!

[Defferoo @ May 7th 2008 10:14AM]

how is this ripping off sony's XMB again? or any other interface for that matter.... i mean, all we see is a bunch of icons on the home screen... wouldn't that be ripping off every palm device ever created?

[sinjinn @ May 7th 2008 10:58AM]

yeah... theyre rippin off palm. THEYRE RIPPIN OFF PALM!!!

[yuppicide @ May 7th 2008 10:25AM]

This thing is really ugly and Philips suck.

[UnnDunn @ May 7th 2008 10:35AM]

"Touchscreen phone"... is that the official name for this new category of iPhone-wannabes?