Will a 'Green' Phone Help Motorola?

Struggling handset maker Motorola today announced what it's calling the first "carbon neutral phone." The literally and figuratively green MOTO W233 "Renew" is made from 100% recycled materials and claims to be totally carbon free:

New Palm Device to Launch: New Life or Last Gasp?

At this week's CES Palm is set to announce a new smartphone to complement its Centro and Treo Pro offerings. The new phone will reportedly feature the forthcoming proprietary Palm "Nova" OS and have both a touchscreen and a slide out keyboard. It will also promote the newly created Palm apps store.

Friday Mobile News Roundup

The following are some interesting stories that I don't have time to thoroughly "unpack":

Physical vs. Virtual Keyboards on Smartphones

First there was the iPhone. And then in the frenzy of market response came the all-touch-screen BlackBerry Storm. The BlackBerry, which people love because of the scroll wheel and physical QWERTY keyboards, ditched both to compete with the iPhone.

According to Changewave, users are split on the Storm's touch screen:

Nielsen: Top Ten Mobile Phones, Sites

As part of the year end "top lists" ritual, Nielsen released a bunch of US top ten lists. Among those of interest to this blog:

 Mobile phones in use:

Mobile site traffic:

AOL Sees Xmas iPhone Search Surge

According to AOL (search blog) iPhone search traffic doubled on Xmas day, but interestingly:

We did not see a similar increase in traffic for our Blackberry, Windows Mobile or other versions of Mobile Search that day. So if you're following the mobile wars between Apple, RIM, Nokia and Microsoft it looks like Cupertino has the lead.

Based on our logs here's what's most popular among the new iPhone crowd:

• Hardware
• Mobile Platforms

• Read more

RIM vs. iPhone vs. Android vs. WinMo

Changewave has done an interesting analysis of US market trends and user satisfaction, comparing the BlackBerry and iPhone. Here are the charts:

Here Comes the Android G2?

The BGR is reporting on a rumor that by April we'll see a T-Mobile G2. The HTC device would have no physical keyboard, which is somewhat ironic given that this is the main differentiator between the G1 and the iPhone (aside from the open Android market). The G1 is also from HTC.

Samsung to Bring Android Phone to Sprint in Q2

Samsung, maker of the Omnia and Instinct, among other touch-screen phones, said it will offer an Android-based phone in the second quarter of 2009. T-Mobile (which has the current G1) and Sprint will be the US operators carrying the phone.

RIM Results: Q3 OK, Strong Holiday Start

RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, posted Q3 results that were basically in line with expectations (after those expectations were managed downward by the company). Here's the summary of results from Reuters:

RIM said it earned $396.3 million, or 69 cents a share, in the three months ended November 29. That was up from a profit of $370.5 million, or 65 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue was $2.78 billion, up from $1.67 billion in the same quarter of last year.

• Hardware

• Read more