October 2011 Roundup

1st November 2011

October was a very busy month in an otherwise quiet 2011, with several major handset announcements and stories that made the headlines.

Apple

It seems like an age ago now, but at the beginning of the month Apple announced the new Apple iPhone 4S which has already started shipping. Although almost identical to the iPhone 4 from the outside, inside this is a significantly upgraded handset. Sadly, the day after the announcement Apple's founder and former CEO Steve Jobs died after a long period of ill health.

Nokia

A hugely important month for Nokia with the announcement of two new Windows "Mango" phones, the elegant Nokia Lumia 800 which shares a lot of design details with the N9, and the Nokia Lumia 710 which offers almost the same features but for a lot less. Nokia were very busy this month, also showing off the Nokia Asha 300 touchscreen monoblock phone, the elegant but inexpensive Nokia Asha 303 QWERTY equipped touchscreen feature phone and the low cost Nokia Asha 200 and 201 messaging devices. Symbian also got a look in with the colourful Nokia 603 smartphone. At the grimmer end of the scale, the Nokia C2-05 slider and X2-05 monoblock phone take two interesting existing handsets and then remove all the best bits.

Motorola

Motorola's new flagship device, the elegant and ultra-slim Motorola RAZR is a powerful device with a striking physical design. Positioned a little bit below the RAZR is the Motorola ATRIX 2 which will be available everywhere except in Europe. Motorola's industrial product division showcased the enterprise class Motorola ET1 Android tablet which is very different from consumer devices.

Other manufacturers

Another handset that hit the headlines this month was the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the world's first Android 4.0 smartphone and a big and powerful device as well. HTC announced a scaled-up version of their Sensation handset with the HTC Sensation XL. Finally the BlackBerry Bold 9900 gets blinged up with the Porsche Design P’9981 Smartphone from BlackBerry which some people may find a bit gauche.

Other news

Also this month, Sony announced that it was to buy Ericsson's share of Sony Ericsson, making the company a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony and effectively ending the 10 year joint venture.

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