Mobile phone site Omio has been gazing into a crystal ball to divine who’ll be launching what and when over the next few months and it’s come up trumps with a massive release schedule leak. Like all leaks and soothsayery, what we have here is not necessarily 100% accurate but suffice to say if you don’t like spoilers, then look away now.
July is the month of the average feature phone; Nokia’s messaging powerhouse, the E5, is set to make an appearance later this month with the Sony Ericsson W20 (Walkman phone) and Samsung i5500 (Genio Android smartphone) not far behind.
Nokia is still flogging its lame X6 horse with another memory cut due in August in the guise of the Nokia X6 8GB (zzz…). Keyboard fans will be pleased to see the Qwerty-toting BlackBerry Curve 9300 launching in the same month.
In September, Sony Ericsson’s Hazel handset will be making it to market at long last – perhaps it has been planning an autumnal launch to tie in with the name; perhaps would’ve been better not to announce it last Christmas then, eh? Nokia’s not resting on its laurels, with the Nokia X2 hitting the shelves in time for the new school term; its music play abilities and 16GB of storage could make it a hit with the student market.
In the run up to Christmas, mobile manufacturers are understandably pulling out the big guns. HTC has a couple of handsets on its books for October – the HTC Vision is said to be an HTC Desire but this time with added Qwerty goodness (REJOICE!) but the HTC Ace is a bit of a wildcard (see what we did there?) – at least someone is managing to keep us in suspense.
Also due out in October is Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X8, previously known as the Shakira. Presumably this Android handset’s hips don’t lie. Sony Ericsson’s high-spec Walkman phone, the Yendo, will also debut in October. What’s likely to get everyone most excited that month, though, is the Nokia N8. With its Symbian^3 ways and internet hype, we’ll finally get to see if it lives up to our expectations.
It looks like November will be the month of Windows Phone 7, with HTC’s first stab at Win Pho in the shape of the HTC Gold (we’re not convinced by that name, by the way). The Nokia E7 will be rocking an AMOLED screen and running Symbian^3, we’ll try and get excited about it a bit nearer the time. Finally, the Samsung i8700 Cetus is slated for November too; there’s a bit of an absence of Samsung phones in the line-up so far, which could hint at this being a big one… Only time will tell. Time, and sneaky internet detectives.
[Image credit: Steve Snodgrass on Flickr]
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