BlackBerry Storm 3

And as if the revealing of the 2011 series of BlackBerry phones – the Torch 2, the Dakota and the Apollo Curve weren’t enough, now the curtain from the BlackBerry Storm 3 has been lifted as well.

It surely looks like RIM is trying very hard not to lose its customers as well as attract new ones. If the information that has been sent to BGR could be trusted, the new BlackBerry Storm 3 looks like a pretty powerful device.

The Storm 3 will feature a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen with the highest resolution for a BlackBerry phone ever – 800x480 pixels. Still unknown is whether the Storm 3 will feature the SurePress display or not. From the leaked photos of the device it seems that it will feature the trackpad that RIM’s customers have been used to.

Also impressive are the 1.2Ghz processor and 512MB of RAM that should give plenty of power to the device. On board is a 5MP camera capable of 720p video recording, 8GB storage, Wireless N connectivity and Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR.

The usual accelerometer, magnetometer, microSD card slot and proximity sensor are present as well. Juice will be provided by a 1230mAh battery. OpenGL ES 2.0 suggests the Storm 3 should have a more advanced GPU on board, but we’ll wait for an official word from RIM on that.

The device will run the new BlackBerry OS 6.1, which has the 3G mobile hotspot feature. Reportedly, the device is aimed to launch in September this year with a couple of variations around the world.

1.2Ghz BlackBerry Torch 2 ,11mm-thin Curve Apollo

That nice BlackBerry Dakota yesterday is obviously in for some company. We just spotted a couple of new devices by the company, leaked in all their press glory and full specs. Meet the BlackBerry Torch 2 and the Curve Apollo.

It seems BlackBerry plans to go big has some big plans for this year. As much as we appreciate their service, you can't deny they've been offering only under-spec'd, over-priced handsets lately. But they've obviously had enough of that.

BlackBery Torch 2

The next generation of the BlackBerry Torch (aptly named Torch 2) will double the processor clock speed of the original to the whopping 1.2 GHz.

The new uber-BlackBerry will also have a 3.2-inch VGA screen, 8 gigs of storage, 512MB RAM, Wi-Fi, GPS, a digital compass, a proximity sensor and a 5 megapixel camera. The NFC support comes as an unexpected bonus.

The Torch 2 will run the BlackBerry OS 6.1 and will launch in Q3 (at least in the AT&T network in the US).

BlackBery Curve Apollo

If the recently leaked devices are anything to go by, BlackBerry is on the way of bumping the base specs throughout its portfolio. The Curve line isn't quite known for its high-end features or performance, but the leaked Curve Apollo surely has some nice specs - at least on paper.

Here's what the next generation BlackBerry Curve will look like. Preserving the traditional look, the new BlackBerry Curve Apollo is trendy and modern at the same time.

The BlackBerry Curve codenamed Apollo has a HVGA display (480 x 360 pixels), a Marvel Tavor MG-1 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, Wireless N, GPS, and again, NFC connectivity. We did a little digging on that CPU and it seems it's the same Marvel core used on all previous BlackBerries, but it's now clocked at 800Mhz instead of 624Mhz. We hope that will be enough to pull a nice performance under the new BlackBerry OS 6.1.

Finally, the BlackBerry Curve Apollo is only 11mm thin and has a 5 megapixel camera with flash. We don't know any more details about its availability just yet.

Samsung S5260 Star II

It's hardly a surprise Samsung is preparing a successor of its top-selling feature phone - the original Star. The leaked pictures of the new S5620 Star II show a compact white handset with Bada-ish UI skin.

Samsung S5260 Star II packs a 3-inch capacitive WQVGA display, a 3 megapixel snapper, Wireless N, Bluetooth, FM radio and microSD card slot. We bet there will be a 3.5mm audio jack too.

Samsung S5260 Star II

The Star II runs the latest TouchWiz interface, which looks much like the Bada OS. It's still a feature phone.

The Star II will be available this February in the Netherlands for only €125. We are waiting to see the official announcement soon.

Nokia E6-00 QWERTY with VGA screen

A leaked Nokia XML and a Picasa album confirmed the existence of a new Nokia smartphone. Nokia E6-00 is a Symbian^3 device with an 8 megapixel dual-LED assisted camera, that will surprisingly pack a VGA display.

All Symbian^3 devices so far have come with the nHD resolution (640 x 360 pixels), which is slightly lower than VGA (640 x 480 pixels). The OS limitation were quoted as the reason behind this, but maybe Nokia is about to find a way around it.

The other known Nokia E6-00 specs include 3G with HSDPA, Wi-Fi and stereo speakers. Rumor has it that the handset will come in the traditional bar form factor and will pack a QWERTY keyboard, but right now we are unable to confirm either of those.

That shot on the left is just a quick mockup so don't take it too seriously. We still don't know how the device will look. The Picasa account that confirmed the existence of the phone, only hosted some camera samples with the EXIF listing the new Nokia handset as the camera. Currently, all pictures from the account have been removed but some of those have been copied here.

An announcement at the MWC next month seems likely, so we guess we'll find out pretty soon.

Samsung Galaxy Mini phones

Just days after another photo of the Samsung Galaxy S2 leaked, two new baby Galaxy phones get their photos out in the wild as well. The Galaxy Mini S5570 and S5830 both run Android 2.2 Froyo and are expected to be showcased at the MWC ’11.

The Galaxy Mini S5830, which honestly looks way too iPhone-ish, features a capacitive touchscreen with an HVGA resolution (480x320 pixels). It also sports a 5MP camera with LED flash, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0.

While the S5830 is sleek-looking and means business, its brother, the Galaxy Mini S5570 is the funkier member of the Galaxy Mini family. With its green accents all around the sides and the curved back it definitely looks fresh and flamboyant. As for the specs, it will feature a capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 240x320, Wireless N, and Bluetooth 3.0.

Proper specs, availability and price information for these Galaxy Mini phones should be announced at the Mobile World Congress in February.

LG Optimus 2X in Quadrant benchmark

LG Optimus 2X, the first smartphone with the dual-core Tegra 2, was one of the spotlights at CES 2011. Here's the first public record of its performance under the Android Quadrant benchmark. We gotta say it's pretty good even though it's still a pre-production unit.

Mind you, the Quadrant software isn’t still up-to-date with the dual-core craze and recognized the processor only as single-core. Still, the LG Optimus 2X, which by the way, is running Froyo 2.2, smashed the available single-core competition, scoring the mind-blowing 2391 points.

The LG Optimus 2X is currently available for preorder. We can’t wait to get our hands on it.

P.S. We just an on-site video from CE 2011, which showed the Motorola Droid Bionic do the same benchmark. It achieved pretty much the same score, so we guess that's the general performance you should expect from the Nvidia Tegra 2 platfrom on other devices as well.

If you're interested, you can see the Droid Bionic do the Quadrant on video on YouTube.

GSmart G1310 dual-SIM Froyo phone

It’s been a month since Gigabyte announced their GSmart Rola phone and now the company is getting ready to launch the GSmart G1310 dual-SIM device running Android 2.2 Froyo for a decent price.

The GSmart G1310 features a 3.2” capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 320x480 pixels and a 5 MP camera with autofocus. It all sounds great, until we get to the processor. The G1310 features the same Qualcomm MSM7225 CPU clocked at 528Mhz, 512 MB ROM and 256 RAM that are found in the GSmart Rola.

As connectivity goes, the G1310 is well covered with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and GPS (with aGPS support and digital compass). Two color variations will be available – champagne gold and pearl white.

The GSmart G1310 will launch in Eastern Europe in Q1 this year with an expected price of €199.

Samsung Galaxy S2

More rumors about the successor of the Galaxy S appear on the radar. This time a Korean newspaper focuses our attention to the Galaxy S2 by “leaking” a photo of it, accompanied by some specifications.

It’s logical to assume that Samsung is going to announce the successor to the Galaxy S at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. However, we are not exactly sure whether it’s going to look like this.

A couple of months ago we reported yet another rumor of the Galaxy S2 from what looked like Sammy’s leaked slides. Though the credibility of the slides is yet to be confirmed, we'd bet our money on the design offered there to be the real European-spec Galaxy S2. But who knows, that one here may be a regional version for either S. Korea or the US.

The new Samsung Galaxy S 2 photo and the shot from the first leak

Back to the leak at hand, according to the Korean newspaper, the Galaxy S2 is going to run the latest version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread, powered by a dual-core processor with unknown clock speed, a 4.3” sAMOLED plus screen (that's the next generation) and an NFC chip.

Whatever the truth about the Galaxy S2 may be, we’ll provide full coverage from the MWC 2011 so you’ll be the first to know everything about the device as soon as Samsung announces it.