SEOUL, South Korea - Samsung's handset division has been keeping the media busy with product launches in every conceivable market segment over the last few months. Meanwhile, their sales record over the last few months have been impressive as well. With the present economic gloom, the company's high-end offerings haven't fared well in the market, but their budget touchscreen model, the S5230, has been a hit with the masses: a Chinese daily, Commercial Times, has reported that the sales of  Samsung S5230 has recently crossed the one million units-a-month figure.

With a price tag of around US$229-249, the S5230 an affordable entry-level touchscreen phone in market, and with some impressive features such as the audio enhancing DNSe under its hood, the S5230 is making big waves in the entry-level music branded touchscreen segment.

Launched in April '09, competing against the likes of LG Cookie, the Samsung S5230 has been successful in the mass markets with its perfect blend of aesthetics, specifications, and spot-on pricing.

The S5230 sports Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz interface, which Samsung has been actively using in its several smartphones of the Omnia line-up and even on the latest Samsung Jet. Other goodies packed in S5230 include Gesture Lock, Photo Contact Manager and camera Smile Shot, the latter which gave it a clear advantage over the LG Cookie, its nearest competitor, price and specification-wise. However, the LG Cookie packs in a document reader, for the business consumer on budget.

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BARCELONA, Spain - Unveiled in London a week before the Mobile World Congress 2009, the Sony Ericsson C903 Cyber-shot is designed to be a powerful, yet easy-to-use camera-phone.

With a 5 megapixel camera which has autofocus, dual LED flash, video recording, picture and video blogging, SmileShutter and BestPic technologies, face detection, image and video stabilizer, and connectivity to the Snapfish online service, the C903 is indeed a powerful imaging tool.

Among the main specifications of the phone, one can find a 2.4" TFT display with 240x320 pixels of resolution, triband HSPA and quadband GSM connectivity, Bluetooth, TV-out, A-GPS, connection to the TrackID service, and USB connectivity.

The C903 is not a smartphone, although it does offer many desirable applications, such as Google Maps, Wayfind Navigator, YouTube, and others.

The phone has been released in many parts of the world in a version for the North American part, and another for the rest of the world; depending on regional availability, the C903 will retail in three colours: Lacquer Black, Techno White, and Glamour Red; all these are pictured in this review.

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GLOBAL - Symbian S60 has evolved in great terms over a period of time. Each evolution brought different bouquets and brickbats. From a humble software found on Sendo, Siemens, and Nokia phones, it evolved to become one of the most-widely used operating system for phones. In fact, it virtually created the 'smartphone' segment.

Over the years, as competition has become fierce in this industry and technological leaps have taken place, S60 too has moved ahead and progressed. With the introduction of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic aka 'Tube', S60 evolved from S60 v3 to v5. This change in numbers might seem little, but in terms of what it allowed a smartphone user to do, expanded greatly. Still as is the case with all operating systems, people realized that more can be done.

Enter applications, when this wasn't enough, it was the time to go under the hood of  S60 v5 and 'mod' it. Just like how cars are modified, the software is 'hacked' to make it do more than just what it is programmed to do.

Hacking S60 has become the only way to install unsigned applications and change a few settings. But there are risks of hacking a S60 v5 device: if not done properly, it can damage the device. All the forums that show how to hack a S60 v5 device post this warning first. But for all our readers who still feel that hacking is the way to get more out of their device, we have elaborated on the steps. There are a few methods to go about hacking an S60 v5 device.

Before you proceed Phone Report would like to warn you that hacking could damage your device. PhoneReport and its contributors are not accountable for any loss arising due to hacking.

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