Rumors are circulating that Sony is planning to develop a combo gaming and cell phone device. Japanese Business daily Nikkei reported that Sony is putting together skunkworks team to develop this gadget that will marry the PlayStation Portable gaming consoles with the Sony-Ericsson mobile phone handsets.

O RLY? Can Sony take on the iPhone? Neither their Walkman or Sony Ericsson phones do that well at all in the US market. Personally, I’d like to see more Ericsson phones in the US market, I’ve had an Ericsson phone and I was really happy with it. But the general attitude towards Ericssons are “meh” at best. What could help this phone is if it gets the same all access to the PlayStation gaming network like their other handheld gaming systems. They also have to go up against the big wall of iTunes.

However, this isn’t the first time that Sony’s had designs on this kind of hybrid device. From Businessweek:

“Rumors that Sony was working on a PlayStation cell phone first cropped up two years ago when Sony’s engineers filed a patent describing such a gizmo. The Internet rumor mill went into overdrive again in April, after Kazuo Hirai, who had led Sony’s video game division, was named as the head of a broader portfolio of networked products and services. The PlayStation Network is Sony’s biggest success story in online services. Under Hirai, the PlayStation group has rolled out online downloads of music, movies, TV shows, games and created a content platform for developers to create applications and games, sell videos, and post trailers and sneak previews. It’s clearly the model that Sony wants other divisions to emulate.”

With some phones such as the LG Versa trying to capture the gamers with it’s gamepad module, we see that companies are hoping to catch gamers’ attention. We have yet to see if they will bite.

[via businessweek]

Thanks to Verizon for sending me there Htc Touch Diamond. Check out the Specs Below.

2G Network GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900
GSM 850 / 1800 / 1900 – American version
3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100
HSDPA 850 / 1900 – American version
Announced 2008, May
Status Available. Released 2008, May
Size Dimensions 102 x 51 x 11.5 mm
Weight 110 g
Display Type TFT resistive touchscreen, 65K colors
Size 480 x 640 pixels, 2.8 inches
- TouchFLO 3D finger swipe navigation
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Touch-sensitive navigation controls
- Handwriting recognition
Sound Alert types Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, MP3, WAV, WMA ringtones
Speakerphone Yes
Memory Phonebook Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records Practically unlimited
Internal 4 GB storage, 192 MB RAM, 256 MB ROM
Card slot No
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
HSCSD No
EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, miniUSB
Camera Primary 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus
Video Yes, CIF@30fps
Features OS Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
CPU Qualcomm MSM 7201A 528 MHz processor
Messaging SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games 1, motion-based + downloadable
Colors Black
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support
Java Yes, MIDP 2.0
- Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer)
- Voice memo
- MP3 player
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 900 mAh
Stand-by Up to 285 h
Talk time Up to 5 h 30 min

MY overall rating of the phone is a 4  out of 5 stars.

Pros:

• Large touch screen
• touch flow UI
• Windows mobile 6
• Great Battery Life
• Verizon Service
• Accelerometer
• Built in Games
• 3.2mp camera
• Sleek Design

Cons:

• No Qwerty keyboard
• No port for headphones while charging have to use extension.
• Freezes at time

After taking this phone out the box i was very impressed. Windows mobile 6 looked very sexy with the touch flow 3d interface. In the programs menu, It comes packed with alot of programs like  Office Mobile,Adobe reader LE, YouTube App, Internet Explorer(2ND web browser, This phone ships with opera as the default web browser).

Typing a long text message with this phone can get very annoying to me. With the built in hand recognition tool in the message software  makes it sorta fun.  I guess i would have to say this isn’t the phone for a business man who sends lots of emails a day.

The 3.0  megapixel camera also impressed me. I love the panorama mode where you can take  3 photos and make them in to one landscape photo.

Listening to music and charging this phone can be a difficulty  this phone only  has 1 port. This is the charger/headphone. There is an adaptor that come with it, but why carry around a bulky adapter.

The Battery life , In three words “is KICK ASS” i left this phone on for about 2 weeks not doing anything(no programs or anything)  and just as im typing this review I’m getting a low battery notice.

So Overall I rate this a  4/5 … This Phone is avaliable now through Verizon!

TheGadget411.com reviews LG VERSA On The Money Shot from TheGadget411 on Vimeo.

@lizmoney on twitter reviews the LG Versa and the Gaming Extension. Also she tell of the Giveaway that thegadget411.com is hosting .

Check us out shoot us a email. liz@thegadget411.com twitter.com/lizmoney twitter.com/TheGadget411 Correction: Thanks to verizon wireless for this review!

Ok, I drive a Nissan Versa, and so I’m kinda partial to this phone just because of that random fact.
Randoms aside, The LG Versa will come to Verizon later on this year and it’s a truly different little phone, with lots of neat little attachments to come, for those who like to carry a lot of stuff with them at all times.

The standout here, as you can see, is the detachable QWERTY keyboard module, which is just one of a number of promised detachable modules for the phone, including a gamepad, a pair of speakers, and an internet module with integrated WiFi. Unfortunately, there’s still no word on a release date, but these pics would seem to suggest that it’ll be coming sooner rather than later.

Those pics above come courtesy of HowardForums member Snap315, and article via engaget.