Originally rumored for an announcement as early as tomorrow, icaka over on Esato’s forums is now reporting that Sony Ericsson’s new be-all, end-all superphone — the so-called P5i — has been sent back to the shop for retooling and won’t make a public debut until May or June of next year. While it could be argued that the P1i is hot (or at least warm) off the factory line, a top-5 phone manufacturer certainly can’t rest on its laurels — and if the listed specs here are even close to accurate, they’re staying up on their game: think 2.8 inch VGA display, integrated GPS, WiFi, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, HSUPA (yes, UPA, not DPA), and 128MB of RAM on board. Even better, it’ll all be packed into a slim, light slider form factor that allegedly looks something like this concept art. Sounds just a smidge too good to be true, we know. Then again, by the time mid 2008 rolls around, is there any line item here that shouldn’t be standard fare on a high end handset? Here’s hoping!

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iPhone users make mistakes more often when texting compared to users of phones with hard keys, a new study found.

User Centric tested how many mistakes mobile phone texters make, comparing the results of iPhone users with customers who have phones with full keyboards and those with numeric keyboards. User Centric, a Chicago usability consulting company, studied 20 users in each group.

The study, while based on an extremely small sample size, makes for interesting reading.

The researchers found that while iPhone users entered text as fast as their counterparts, they made significantly more texting errors. iPhone users made 5.6 errors per message, while keyboard users made 2.1 mistakes per message and numeric phone typers made 2.4 mistakes.

The iPhone has only one key. Users type text messages on a keyboard that appears as an image on the phone’s screen.

Surprisingly, the study found that iPhone texters don’t improve with experience. The researchers also asked users in the other groups to send text messages using the iPhone. These novice iPhone users made mistakes at the same rate as people who have owned iPhones for at least one month, the study found.

The iPhone only recently hit shelves in Europe, where mobile phone users have been texting longer and more often than their counterparts in the U.S. The mass market in Europe has been using numeric keypads to text for years and has been largely resistant to change, with many phone users shunning predictive text programs or other texting innovations.

But Apple isn’t the first to introduce a new kind of mobile text-entry system. Digit Wireless has been pushing its Fastap technology since 2001. Fastap is a combination of hardware and software technology that lets phone makers place more keys on a tiny keypad by using raised and lowered keys. The phone maker can choose what letters and numbers go on the keys and how many keys will appear on a phone.

Despite its novelty, Fastap is receiving a positive reaction in Europe, said Mark Connon, CEO of Digit Wireless, speaking during the recent CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment conference. “The iPhone is driving the user interface discussion,” he said.

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Right on schedule, Nokia has announced its latest addition to the multimedia-centric (and game-riffic) Nseries line, the N82 candybar. The phone clearly bears a striking resemblance to its recently announced cousin — the N81 slider — but the N82 ups the ante with a 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens paired with autofocus (naturally) and a xenon flash. Other features include microSD expansion, support for Nokia’s own Ovi goodies, WiFi, assisted GPS, a 2.4 inch QVGA display front and center, and an honest-to-goodness 3.5mm headphone jack like the N95 before it. The GSM / EDGE radio does the quadband thing, but HSDPA’s available only on the 2100MHz band — so North Americans with an appetite for data need not apply. Others can buy the N82 starting today for about €450 ($657).

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