Worldwide cellphone use hits 60 percent, developing nations largely to thank

Outfits like Nokia have been just rolling in profits from selling oodles of low margin handsets in developing nations across the globe, so it's no shock at all to hear that those very countries have propelled the worldwide usage tally well above the 50 percent mark. According to a wide-ranging United Nations report, around six in ten people across the globe now use mobile phones, and as expected, fixed line subscriptions have increased at a much slower pace. If you're wondering just how significant this figure really is, chew on this: in 2002, just under 15 percent of the global population used a cellie. Impressive, eh?

[Via TG Daily]

Rumor: LG Rumor 2 rumored to replace Rumor

The original Rumor's starting to get along in the years now, and considering the overwhelming popularity both of the genre (cheap texters) and the device specifically, it only stands to reason that Sprint and LG would be hard at work in the labs cooking up a successor. Rumor has it (please, someone stop us) that the Rumor 2 might come along some time this Spring -- and while we don't know much about the technical capabilities of the device, we wouldn't be surprised to see the new model gain EV-DO, maybe a 2-ish megapixel cam, and of course, the envy of every Rumor owner. Or is that "the enV" of every Rumor owner?

[Via Unwired View]

Motorola ZN300 gets unofficially official, is surprisingly nice

First in the "we're surprised they did it" category today is Motorola's ZN300, a handset that doesn't look even a little like a RAZR. We knew you could do it Moto, and congrats on what seems at first glance to be a pleasant departure form the rehashes we've seen so much of lately. The ZN300 is a slider set with quad-band GSM, CDMA, and TD-SCDMA, which makes this set a shoe-in for China mobile. Other notables include 8 MB (hopefully a typo for 8GB) of built in memory that can expand to 32GB, 3 megapixel camera with 8X zoom, Bluetooth, and styling that finally may make some people take notice. Sure this handset may not deserve a ZOMG!, but hey, we're happy to see something, anything, new from these folks. Follow on for a wee gallery.

[Via UnwiredView]

Mio launches the Explora K70: beauty, 3G, and GPS abound

Mio's rumored Explora K70 is sitting pretty at CeBIT, and while we wait for the full hands-on treatment, we thought an introduction to what appears to be a stunningly loaded GPS phone was in order. Network connectivity is a blow out in the K70 with quad-band GSM, triple-band HSDPA / HSUPA, Bluetooth, WiFi, and GPS which is handled by Qualcomm's gpsOne chip. The 3.5-inch touchscreen display is a 400x240 WQVGA number, a 3 megapixel camera hides around back, a jog dial's included for quick scrolling, and it is all powered by Windows Mobile 6. Looking at the spec sheets it seems there will be two different SKUs, a handset-only package and a "Full SKU" that includes in-car charger, device mount, and so forth. We're suitably impressed, expect more news including dates and pricing as soon as we can get them.

[Via GSMArena]

Motorola Touch ZINE HD is likely fake, hearts break around the world

We knew it was too good to be true. Don't get us wrong, this new ZN300 is alright, but Motorola knows as well as we do that this isn't the device people are looking for Schaumburg to produce right now; the company's engineering talent isn't in question, but what the people want is a superphone that proves there's some design talent in the house, too. That's why this supposed Touch ZINE HD got such a strong positive reaction the past few days that we'd all held out hope that there was a shred of reality to it, but unfortunately, Androidphones.com makes a very convincing argument that it's almost certainly poppycock: looks like our boy Yury Cassini here took the back of a ZN5, combined it with the blanked front of a E8, and -- voila! -- there's the device the Android-loving world is waiting for. In our last piece about this device, we implored to Moto that "if this isn't real, can whatever it is you're working on right this second and do precisely this instead," and as we sit here with broken hearts and shattered dreams, the advice most definitely stands.