Anyway, this is the fourth bada-equipped phone to be announced and the second to make it to European shores, following the original Wave and its Wave 2 and Wave 2 Pro siblings announced at CommunicAsia earlier in the year. The Wave 723 sits somewhere in-between the Wave and the Wave 2s, and here are the key specs:

• A 3.2″ touchscreen with a 240 x 400 pixel resolution.
• 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and an LED flash.
• GPS.
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0.
• 3G.
• bada OS with TouchWiz UI.

The Wave 723 will also have a 3.5mm headphone socket and a microSD card slot, plus the battery cover will be made of metal and the phone will have a leather flip cover for protecting the touchscreen when it’s not in use. As it’s a bada device, buyers will be able to download a variety of applications from the growing bada application store.

A price of €240 has been placed on the Wave 723 by the Wall Street Journal, while Samsung have announced that the phone will be available in Germany during September, with other parts of Europe to follow, before finally spreading out to Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Electronista, who shot the video, say the gentleman in question works for a mobile operator in Sydney, Australia, and was out and about doing some real-world testing. When confronted, he responds that the tablet has a 7″ screen, is Android-based and is ‘awesome’. He also says that it’s ‘different’ to the experience of using an iPad, which is interesting.

The question-too-far turned out to be whether the tablet was using an ARM processor, something which it’s widely expected to do, with the employee replying that he ‘couldn’t talk about it.’ Take a look at the video below to see the 7″ tablet in action, but you’ll have to raise the volume level to keep up with the conversation.

It’s expected that Vodafone will be carrying the Galaxy Tab when it’s released in the UK, and the official announcement could come as soon as the IFA show starting on the 3rd September.

We’d love to say it’s looking its best too, but as is often the case, the pictures are on the blurry side. We’re not going to complain though, as a fuzzy glimpse is better than no glimpse at all, and the i917 is shaping up to be a good looking piece of hardware.

The leaked phone is said to be an AT&T model headed for the US, however with rumours that Windows Phone 7 will come to Europe first, we imagine the Cetus, named after a constellation of stars in the Northern sky, will be out here too. The previous leak also indicated that it was destined for North America, so we could be looking at a US-exclusive.

The specification is still relatively unknown though, with talk of a 4″ screen, a 1GHz processor and a 5 megapixel camera all being possibilities. It’s probably not going to be too long until we get some official answers to put an end to the speculation.

• Open the application list.
• Choose “voice command”.
• Select “settings”.
• Choose “adapt voice”.
• Follow the on-device instructions for customising voice commands to your voice, accent and pronunciation. The device will then be ready for you to use.
• To use voice dial, open up the application list again but this time choose “voice dialer”.
• Say “call” and then say the name or number that you want the phone to call. The call will be placed.

Two tips that you should know:

• You can say “dial” instead of “call” when using voice dial and the call will still be placed.
• If you want to call the last person that you have called on the phone, simply say “redial”.

The European Mobile Phone Award was given to Sony Ericsson for the excellent Xperia X10 Mini, and is probably the most important mobile phone award of the night. It’s also clear evidence that the opinion of what makes a regular mobile phone is changing, as the X10 Mini doesn’t have a physical keyboard and still runs a smartphone OS! We love the little Android phone and agree that it deserves this degree of recognition.

On to the European Smartphone 2010-2011 Award, which Samsung accepted for the i9000 Galaxy S! Last year’s winner was the Apple iPhone 3GS and a few months back the iPhone 4 was surely the odds-on favourite for this category, however ‘antennagate’ doesn’t seem to have done them much good, and Apple have been usurped by Android. Great news for Samsung and the superb Galaxy S!

The European Social Media Phone 2010-2011 award also went to Samsung, but for the S8500 Wave, the first device to use their in-house bada operating system. Aside from these two, Samsung also gathered up awards for European Advanced Compact Camera, European Blu-ray player and European 3D Solution too.

Other awards went to LG for the European Green Mobile Phone, given to the LG GD510 Pop, presumably based on the optional solar panel available for the device, and Apple, who took home the European Tablet Award for the iPad. Although there probably wasn’t much competition in that category!

Not only that, but it looks like Vodafone will be adding the Tab to their line-up, so it’s safe to assume they will be offering a 3G tariff for the new device, in the same way they did for the Apple iPad. However, will they be selling the Galaxy Tab in-store considering that they weren’t able to swing with Apple?

Finally, a more complete specification of the Tab has come to light after some firmware for the tablet was discovered! We now know it will have the product number of the P1000, a 7″ screen with a WVGA – 480 x 800 – resolution, an ARM11 1Ghz processor, a 3.2 megapixel camera and a front-mounted video call lens, GPS, Wi-Fi and most likely, Android 2.2. Other software will include the Swype keyboard and importantly, Flash.

Although it seems probable that we’ll see the Galaxy Tab at IFA, that doesn’t mean it will launch then, so we’re still without a release date or a price. Is anyone already saving up for this, or does the tablet market not hold any interest for you?

Busy People Aren’t Using Diaries … But They Should!

Unfortunately, many people have stopped using diaries due to social networks and blogs. However, a personal diary can offer benefits that a public diary cannot. So how can you fit diary writing into your already busy life? Take it mobile. A neat feature of the Samsung Galaxy S called Mini-Diary makes this really easy.

How to Create a Mini-Diary on Samsung Galaxy S

To make an entry in your phone’s Mini-Diary, follow these steps:

• Open your application list.
• Select “Mini-Diary” from the list.
• Choose the option to “create a diary”.
• Note that the date and weather will appear automatically in your diary entry. However, you can change them manually if they are incorrect or if you want to alter them for any other reason.
• Add a photo to start your diary entry. Simply tap “add a photo” and take a picture with your phone’s camera to add it to the mini-diary entry. Pictures are worth a thousand words so use the Samsung Galaxy S camera to snap a photo of what you want to remember. This may be the person you’re with, the location you’re at or something that inspires you. Note that you can also add a photo that is already stored on your phone if there’s an image there that suits your diary entry.
• Next select “add a memo”, this allows you to add text to your entry.
• Make sure that you save your entry.

Look Back Over Your Mini-Diary Entries

It can be beneficial to review what you’ve written in your diary from time to time. To do this on your Samsung Galaxy S all that you need to do is go to the Mini-Diary in your application list and choose the entry that you wish to look at.

A Note on Publishing your Mini-Diary

It’s worth noting that you can easily publish your mini-diary entries to share with others.

• Go to MENU.
• Select “my files”.
• Choose “images”.
• Then “my photos”.
• Select the photo that you want to apply the effect to.
• Press the edit button which looks like a pencil writing on the screen.
• Click “edit” and then “effects”.
• Select the effect that you want.
• Choose the variation that you prefer.
• When the picture is edited the way you would like, press “files” and choose “save as” so that you can keep the original picture as well as the new one. Enter a file name and save.

The intention is to launch the device internationally by the end of the year, although there are no pictures or spec list for the phone at this stage. The phone will use a special panel that will give the 3D effect without the need for 3D glasses, which to us sounds like the same parallax barrier technology demonstrated by Motorola on their 3D MT810.

What Sharp did say is that the phone would ‘likely have a 3D camera’ too. As cool as that sounds, we’re not entirely sure how they plan to do this and keep the device at a sensible price-point. With single-lens 3D photography only just becoming available on consumer digital cameras, costing £300 or more, exactly how much would a miniature lens and sensor cost, and how much of an impact would it have on the final price of the phone? We’re happy to be proved wrong, but the key words in Sharp’s statement could prove to be ‘likely to have’.

In addition to the previously mentioned Motorola MT810, Samsung launched the W960 3D phone in Korea back in May.

However, the moments that it did hang around was enough for the specification to be noted, so here is the proposed feature list for one of the first Samsing phones to use Windows Phone 7:

• A 4″, 800×480 pixel resolution AMOLED touchscreen.
• A 5 megapixel camera and front mounted VGA lens.
• Wi-Fi.
• FM radio.
• GPS.

Naturally the Cetus will have Bluetooth too! What the leak didn’t supply us with was an image to put a face to the features. The entry did state that the Cetus was destined for North America though, so at this stage anyone based elsewhere will have to hold their excitement in check.

The phone is also known as the SGH-i917, but as for anything else – if it has a keyboard, the processor, release date or price for example – we’re going to have to wait for Samsung to make it official.