Gym rats and music lovers now have two new Sony Ericsson smartphones to choose from. Making its debut yesterday is Xperia Active, a ruggedized model that sports a dust proof and water resistant shell. While sweating it out, you can continue to swipe on the screen, which SE says works perfectly even when the screen, or your finger, is smeared with water and sweat. But before you take to the pool, be warned that the Xperia Active is only water-resistant, not water-proof, so the usual precautions apply. …

Here’s a treat for those interested in shooting 3D pictures or videos – a phone that doubles up as a 3D camera as well as a player that shows the stereoscopic 3D images without having you wear those dorky glasses.

The Evo 3D from HTC is essentially a fully spec-d out smartphone (think the HTC Sensation), plus two 5-meg cameras stacked on its back to take 3D images. There’s also a 3D screen that lets you view what you have shot, along with support for 3D movies and games like Green Hornet 3D and Spider-Man: Total Mayhem HD that HTC has pre-packed on the phone. …

Okay, so you’ve just bought your spanking new Samsung Galaxy SII (read review) but hate it that Samsung has put in those kiddy icons along with a lot of junk from your telecom operator?

Fret not. There are ways around these little annoyances, as I found out as a Nexus One user who is used to configuring everything to his whim. After all, it’s my phone. …

Samsung has sold 3 million of the Galaxy SII in just 55 days, making its latest top-end phone its fastest moving one and possibly winning over lots of new Android converts from folks not keen on waiting for the Apple iPhone 5 expected in September.

Even in Apple-crazy Singapore, the Korean electronics firm took just a week to sell 10,000 units of the costly S$998 phone, it said a statement yesterday. The figure will delight the three telcos here, which are understood to have committed to larger than usual amounts of the phone. …

The followup to one of the most popular Android phones last year is proving to be a good one for Samsung, as the Galaxy SII was sold out in Singapore over the weekend.

No numbers from Samsung Singapore folks yet, but they must be beaming with smiles at the “unexpected” sales at launch, while waiting for more stocks to arrive “in the next few days”.

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After Huawei released its MediaPad and Nokia unveiled the N9 in the past two days, there was quite a bit of anticipation when the media turned up this afternoon at Sony Ericsson’s global launch, held on the sidelines of the CommunicAsia show.

Unfortunately, the high-end gizmos some of us had hoped for were not there – we had to contend with the mid-range Xperia ray and the ruggedised Xperia active, along with a low-end messaging-centric model called the txt. …

I’ll be honest I wasn’t the most excited when I headed to HTC’s launch of the ChaCha Facebook phone today. How would it hold a candle to the dual-core-powered phones boasting large screens that are coming out just about now, I had asked.

Well, the answer is the interface, ease of use and most importantly, value to first-time smartphone users. …

HTC has the knack for creating little unique selling points for what would otherwise be vanilla products. It’s Sense UI for Android phones, for instance, is one of the best around and heartily recommended by reviewers.

With HTC Flyer, the Taiwanese company has once again brought something different to differentiate itself from all the “me-too” Android tablets flooding the market. For one, HTC is building in what they call the HTC Scribe, a proprietary pen input method.

But here’s the million-dollar question: is it worth the steep S$1068 price tag?

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No sooner have we talked about Samsung’s Nexus S being the first to sport the new Android 2.3 Gingerbread software in Singapore has Google said it would be updating the original Nexus One with the new operating system. …

Singapore Nexus One users awoke this morning to see their phones telling them of a system update, but ended up disappointed that it was just a small step up to Android 2.2.2, instead of the much-awaited Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) update.

The small over-the-air update, which brings the phone’s build number to FRG83G, brings no new UI features but includes under-the-hood bug fixes such as an SMS routing issue that reportedly sends messages to wrong parties (like your boss). …