SmartZone
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Gigabyte's S1200 and Smart Zone user interface on video
Same story, different company: yet another Windows Mobile ODM has broken down, taken the plunge, and invested some cash engineering its own unique skin for the platform. This time around it's Gigabyte's GSmart division with its "Smart Zone" UI, and to kick it off on the right foot, they're grafting it onto the all-new S1200. We spent some time fiddling with the S1200 at MWC today, and we're actually pretty impressed; it's sleek, a wacky thin 11.4mm, narrow enough to comfortably fit in the smallest hands, and feels pretty well-built -- and with full HSPA and a 3.1-inch WVGA display, it's spec'd with the best of 'em. Gone are Gigabyte's days of chunky plastic, thank goodness.We talked to Gigabyte about its announcements, and it turns out they've designed both Smart Zone and the S1200 with aspirational feature phone users in mind -- these are people who might not otherwise consider a smartphone because they're worried about sacrificing style and ease of use in the process. To that end, the skin definitely seems to get the job done. The transition animations got choppy in places, but we felt immediately at ease with the swipe gestures for getting to different screens, and the graphics look particularly superb at these resolutions.The S1200 launches this quarter in a variety of colors (it's fashion-friendly, after all) with WiFi, a 528MHz Qualcomm core, 3 megapixel autofocus cam, a microSD slot to bump up the storage to something more usable than the 256MB built-in, and -- perhaps most importantly -- upgradeability to Windows Mobile 6.5. Follow the break to see it in action!%Gallery-44997%
Gigabyte to debut GSmart S1200 WinMo phone and more at MWC
Gigabyte is understandably saving most of the details for its official announcement at Mobile World Congress, but the company has let out word that it'll be introducing three new series of phones at the big show, which it says fall under the Multimedia, Business, and Style categories. The former of those will apparently include the MS820, which made a brief appearance last year, as well as an all new model with "higher specifications." Gigabyte is even less specific about its new business offering, with it only saying that it'll be "something very different to what they have before," but it does thankfully have quite a bit to say about the GSmart S1200, which fills out the company's style quotient. As you can see above, this one's a touchscreen phone, and runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 with a new Gigabyte-developed interface atop it dubbed Smart Zone. At 0.43-inches, the phone is also reasonably slim, and it doesn't look to be too underpowered with a 528MHz Qualcomm 7200A processor under the hood. More details as we get 'em.
Comcast announces web-based SmartZone communications center
While there's nothing all that unique about it, Comcast seems to be hoping that its just-announced SmartZone communications center will be enough to keep some of its customers from jumping ship. It'll let the company's 12 million high-speed Internet subscribers and 3 million digital phone subscribers access both their email and voicemail from a central website, and let 'em "experience" so-called visual voice mail, which includes things like a viewable call history and the ability forward voicemails as an email. Put together with the help of HP, Plaxo, and Zimbra, the service will also give you a centralized address book, instant messaging, and customizable news, weather, and other information. According to Reuters, Comcast is also hoping to integrate SmartZone with its TV service and Pivot cellphone service, which would certainly make it a tad more interesting. In the meantime, you can look for the standard web-based service to roll out "later this year," with it set to be available at no added cost to subscribers.[Via Reuters]
