As a new year (and a new decade) fast approaches many are feeling the need for a new phone to mark the occasion. While 2009 has seen some phenomenal phones be released, from the HTC Hero to the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, the big phone companies still have plenty more surprises waiting to be emptied from their festive sacks to welcome in the New Year. Here are some of the top phones we are hotly anticipating for release in early 2010, and by the looks of these early signals it will certainly be a year to remember.

Samsung Diva Range

Samsung will be kicking off the New Year with the launch of their ‘Diva Collection’. This will be a range of new phones following in the footsteps of the Sony Ericsson Jalou, aimed primarily at the style-conscious female phone user. Which is a shame, because I have personally taken a shine to the Samsung S7070 Diva’s pearl white quilted battery cover, but shall have to restrain myself from purchasing the handset because it is a ‘ladies’ phone’. On paper the S7070, and its sister handset the S5150 Diva, do little to really standout from the plethora of touchscreen phones being released at present as their hardware features seem to offer little new. Where these two handsets are really making their mark though is outward appearances, as they are certainly the two best looking midrange touchscreens and provide a welcome deviation from the bog-standard black handset design that makes it difficult to tell one phone apart from the next.

Emblaze Else

Newcomers into the mobile phone market, Israeli company Emblaze, look set to make waves with their debut handset the First Else. Emblaze has pulled out all the stops and has seemingly tried to throw as much technology at this phone as possible. With a 3.5″ capacitive touchscreen (with very nice resolution of 854 x 480), the Else will run on the Access Linux Platform and has a very sexy user interface that some onlookers are likening to something out of a sci-fi movie. In fact, the Else should be a phone to watch out for, for this simple reason alone, but with 3G, a 5 megapixel camera, graphics acceleration and a specially created Emblaze app store, could this be the much prophesised and long overdue ‘iPhone killer?’ We shall have to wait until the second quarter of 2010 to find out.

Dell Mini 3

Another debut entry into the world of mobile phones, this time from veteran PC manufacturer Dell: the Dell Mini 3. Recent years have seen a mass crossover of electronics companies dipping their toes into alternative markets, from Apple releasing the highly popular iPhone, to Nokia treading the water with its new Booklet 3G netbook. Some are claiming this to be a potentially dangerous move for Dell, who enjoy great success in the world of home computers but are perhaps not so welcome in the already overcrowded mobile phone market. However, these sceptics said the same thing to Apple and they were proven wrong, not only did Apple make a significant impact on the market they also in many ways pushed themselves straight to the forefront. The new Dell handsets may not be as revolutionary as the iPhone was however, and will initially only see release in China and Brazil. No release in Europe or the USA has been announced by Dell just yet, and this will perhaps hinge on the success of the phones in China and Brazil.

Sony Ericsson Pureness 2

The first Pureness has only just seen the light of day and already Sony Ericsson has announced a sequel. The Pureness has emphasised ‘text, talk and time’ and draws its inspiration from simplicity. The Pureness has received criticism for being a very basic phone which it undoubtedly is, and the only way Sony Ericsson has managed to get away with selling the handset in ’boutiques’ for hundreds of pounds is its revolutionary transparent screen. This admittedly is a technological breakthrough but whether this phone will prove to be all that successful remains to be seen, and the only way Sony Ericsson could justify a sequel is to provide another ground breaking innovation. The principal drawback of the Pureness is the fact that the transparent screen is limited to a monochromatic display, so perhaps Sony Ericsson has developed a way to add colour to the sequel? I don’t know, I’m just speculating.

So there are some phones to watch out for this New Year, but no doubt these are just the tip of the iceberg. And if these are just the tip then 2010 will be a very exciting year for the world of mobile phones.

Tags: Dell-Mini-3i, Emblaze-Else, Samsung-S5150-Diva, Samsung-S7070-Diva, Sony-Ericsson-Pureness-2, Sony-Ericsson-XPERIA-Pureness

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Mobile Phones Coming Soon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.