Gizmodo: Candybar

LG BL40, Ultra-Wide Touchscreen Phone, Launching Ultra-Soon in Europe and a Month Later in States

Rosa Golijan — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:45:00 EDT

Since seeing the promo videos for the LG BL40 candybar, I've had a hankering to play around with it. The software is impressive, the 21:9 touchscreen display lickable, and it'll be out over the next few months.

According to an LG press release, the lucky folks in Europe will see the BL40 mid-September while other markets will be covered in the month after.

This means that I'll definitely be looking forward to October for reasons other than Halloween this year, but until then I'll be content drooling over the BL40's tasty official shots. [LGE via Boy Genius Report]

The LG BL40 "Long Chocolate" Looks Kind Of Ridiculous In Real Life

John Herrman — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:20:00 EDT

All I can think about when watching this hands-on video with LG's super-long BL40 Chocolate touchscreen phone is that we've been using the phrase "candybar phone" way too loosely for the last few years.

Here's the thing: It's been clear since the earliest teases that the BL40 is a streeeeeetched phone, to the point that LG had to design a few special interface elements to take advantage of—or to work around—the screen's odd proportions. But in promo videos, the BL40 just looked a little, I don't know, bigger. Here, cradled in a young Englishman's hands, this 21:9 chunk of hardware looks more like a compact remote than a cellphone.

That said, the software still looks impressive and runs very smoothly, aside from a little choppiness during multitouch zooming. It's hard to judge such an unexpectedly different device without laying hands on one—it may look a mite silly, but usability is still a total wildcard. [Mobiles.co.uk—Thanks, Daniel!]

Motorola Debuts the W161 and W181, a Pair of Dull-Ass Candy Bar Cells

AddyDugdale — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:52:22 EST

Well, it's Monday morning at WMC 2008 in Barcelona and Motorola has come out of the gate with a... saunter. The W161 and W181, which should be available sometime in the next month or so, look like they are aimed at the cellphone markets in Africa and India. I mean, 465 hours' standby? Full specs for both are below the gallery.

110 x 45 x 15 mm
GSM 900/1800 and GSM 850/1900
Weight 80g
Up to approximately 590 minutes of talk time and 465 hours of standby time
128x128 65K CSTN display screen for an enhanced viewing experience
Clear communication even in noisy environments with CrystalTalk technology
One key access to SMS
500 internal phonebook and 750 SMS inbox storage for messages and phone numbers
Built-in FM radio with stereo support and enhanced FM radio user interface
Messaging via SMS and iTAP™ predictive text entry
Access to 40 downloadable iMelody ringtones
USB 1.1 for charging
Office-quality speakerphone
Rich applications such as 3 pre-loaded games, currency converter and calendar
Sleek licorice and sterling blue candy bar form factor
Chrome navigation wheel
Features 7 African languages for all menu content
Hinglish predictive text for writing combined Hindi and English text messages
70 KB on-board user memory

114 x 43 x 14mm
GSM 900/1800 and GSM 850/1900
Weight 85g
590 minutes of talk time
465 hours of standby time
Large B&W 128x128 display screen provides enhanced viewing experience
CrystalTalk technology
Built-in FM radio with stereo support and enhanced FM radio user interface
200 internal phonebook and 60 SMS inbox storage
iTAP™ predictive text entry for messaging
Optimized ringtones and access to 10 downloadable iMelody ringtones
Office-quality speakerphone
3 pre-loaded games, currency converter and calendar
Chrome navigation
modified ribbed key design
7 African languages on all menu content
Hinglish predictive text for writing combined Hindi and English text messages
20 KB on-board user memory
USB 1.1 for charging

[Motorola]

Mustek DV300T Video Camera Tastes Like Candybars

Sean Fallon — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:40:23 EST

It may not be the best compact digital video camera out there, but if looking like a cellphone were a category that anyone cared about, the DV300T would be on top of the market. The 2-inch LCD screen, the 3.1 megapixel resolution, and the lack of an optical zoom are certainly drawbacks—but you do get 64MB of memory (with SD card expansion), voice recording, MP3 and eBook functionality. Hmmm, wait. That is still pretty lame. However, when a price is released, it should be fairly cheap. That is a plus! [Mustek via OhGizmo]

AT&T Gets the Pantech C150 Low-End Cameraphone

Jason Chen — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:00:14 EDT

If you thought that AT&T was becoming a high-end boutique cellphone shop with handsets like the iPhone and the HTC 8925, Pantech's latest addition to their roster will straighten you out. The C150 is a pretty nice looking low-end cameraphone with a VGA camera, Bluetooth, Yahoo Mail, AOL, Windows Live Mail support, MP3 ringtones, picture and ringtone caller ID and not a whole lot else. It's a candybar phone that measures 4.1 x 1.7 x .49 inches with a 128x160 pixel screen. So don't worry that you won't be able to pick up a possibly free-after-rebate phone from AT&T that doesn't look halfway bad. [Pantech]

LG Shine Goes Candybar, Probably Still Meh

Jason Chen — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:00:43 EDT

If our hands-on with the LG Shine slider was any indication, this Shine Bar may be a phone only fashionistas will pine for. The KE770 is only 9.9mm thick (compared with the 14mm of the regular shine) and has a 320x240 display, a 2-megapixel camera with auto-focus, Bluetooth, 50MB internal storage, microSD slot, and pretty much the same styling we've come to expect from the Shine label.

Although the regular Shine didn't make it over here, the flip version did, which probably makes the chances about 50/50 that we'll be seeing this as well. – Jason Chen

LG offers taster of candybar Shine [Reg Hardware via Geek Sugar]

T-Mobile Ships Samsung t509 Handset, Called Thinnest in US

Charlie White — Thu, 04 May 2006 10:10:43 EDT

T-Mobile is now shipping what Samsung calls the thinnest candy bar cellphone available in the US, the t509, which is just 9.8 mm thick. It has a 1.9-inch 176x220 display, EDGE and Bluetooth connectivity, and can record/capture video.

Now this is one tiny phone. At 4.6" x 1.8" x 0.39" and weighing 2.5 ounces, it goes a long way toward proving that old adage that you can't be too rich or too thin. But wait. There are sacrifices with that thinness. There's just 70MB of internal user memory, and the weak VGA camera has no optical zoom capabilities. But you've gotta love its smart good looks. Its price is not bad, either, starting at $49.99 if you sign your life away with a T-Mobile plan.

Press Release [Samsung]

Sony Ericsson Goes Low-End With K310, K510

Charlie White — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 09:50:24 EST

As part of Sony Ericsson's low-end initiative, three of the cellphones in the group are the K310 (left) and K510 (middle) candybars and the Z530 clamshell. All three are tri-band phones but don't have EDGE support. The K310 has a sub-megapixel camera, 15MB of memory without a flash card slot and a 128x160 65,536 color display straight out of yesterday.

The K510 raises the bar a bit with a 1.3-megapixel camera and a screen that offers more colors but is the same size as the K310. It raises the ante for onboard memory to 28MB and adds Bluetooth 2.0. Both are the same size, about 4 inches tall and -inch thick, and are capable of seven hours of talk time in 360 hours on standby.

Then there's the K530 clamshell phone, also with 2 MB of memory and adds a Memory Stick Micro slot. It has the same 128x160 display as the K310 with a monochrome screen on the outside. All three of these phones will ship during the next quarter.

Sony Ericsson eyes up low-end camera phones [Reg Hardware]