New to UK shores for the summer are Sony Mobiles’ series of flagship handsets for 2012. Though the Sony Xperia S was released in March, we’re yet to have the Sony Xperia P and U available in the UK. In terms of entertainment, what features can we expect across the three handsets.

Google Play

All three devices are available on Android. Though the Xperia S came pre-loaded with Android Gingerbread OS, Sony is currently in the process of rolling out the tasty Android Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade. The Xperia P and U are expected to arrive with Android ICS straight out the box. All this talk of Android means access to Google Play. Originally named the Android Market, Google Play currently has over 450,000 apps, 3 million books, thousands of movies and millions of songs. That should keep you busy!

Music and Video Unlimited

The Sony Xperia range goes one step further and offers an unlimited service to the Sony Entertainment Network. Sony state their handsets come with a 6 month free trial of Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited. This gives you access to a healthy 15 million audio tracks and 80,000 movies to gorge upon.

PlayStation Certified Gaming

Being Sony, the mobile manufacturers have a great collection of retro games in their back catalogue. The Sony Xperia S is the only handset that is PlayStation Certified, giving access to one of the greatest games console franchises of all time. With a surplus of PS1 games to choose from, you really get the opportunity to thrash out some top notch gaming against the muscle of the 1.5 GHz dual core processor of the Sony Xperia S.

The Sony Xperia P and U are expected to reach the UK this summer. Once confirmed you will be able to get your hands on them from One Stop Phone Shop. For the meantime, check out our Sony Xperia S deals.

If you’re new to smartphone technology, the vast quantity of apps available; some 1 billion across all OS platforms can seem a little bit daunting. How do you know which are the essential apps to get you started? Fear not, as we delve throughout the online stores and markets to bring you 3 essential apps every smartphone user should have on their device.

Instagram

Using your smartphone’s camera, Instagram can transform any of your amateur snaps into a professional masterpiece. Simply choose a photo, throw in a range of hip and trendy filters, select a border and share with friends across your favourite social networking sites. It’s that simple! There’s a real sense of community on Instagram too as loading up the app, brings you the latest snaps from your friends and fans.

Angry Birds

Perfect for when you’ve got some spare time on your hands. Angry Birds has swept all markets as the most successful game of all time. If catapulting birds through tactical trajectories to destroy the infrastructures of green pigs isn’t your cup of tea, then I really don’t know what is! The latest instalment, Angry Birds Space, holds you up against a variety of gravitational zones. With a vast number of levels, this is a game that will certainly keep your feathers flapping.

Shazam

Ever found your new favourite song, only to not have a clue what it’s called? Don’t live your life in mute! With the Shazam app, just hold your smartphone to the speakers for less than 10 seconds and Shazam will identify the song name and artist for you. You’re even provided a link to purchase the track. It’s a fantastic app albeit the death of the music round at the pub quiz.

So we’ve covered 3 essential apps for you to get started on your app adventure. Covering music, games and photo apps, we hope these are just the beginning of the fantastic apps you can use to get the most out of your smartphone.

With Angry Birds Space, the new Angry Birds title released last month, the feathered fiends may well be thinking they’re king of the playground. In recent weeks however, we’ve seen the arrival of a major new app that has been challenging the supremacy of the furious fowl.

The rise in popularity of Angry Birds saw digital underdogs Rovio propelled into the big league thanks to a fun, simple game that’s as addictive a prawn cocktail Pringles. Draw Something creators OMGPOP may have a company name like a swooning teen at a Beiber gig, but they’ve hit the big time by creating an app that is entertaining and engaging, and will have you hooked from the off. Draw Something has lead to OMGPOP scoring the top spot on the Apple and Android charts in 84 countries, before selling the game to social gaming giants Zynga for a cool $200 million dollars. And all this within the first six weeks of launch.

The secret of Draw Something’s success is its social aspect. You’re not playing against a computerhere, you’re playing with your friends. Zynga have a proven track record with online social games,with titles such as Cityville, Farmville, and Words With Friends all proving to be huge successes on the Book of Face. Log into Draw Something for the first time, and you’re presented with the option to synch the app with Facebook.Play against someone in your own home, or get back in touch with your friend who immigrated to Australia last year. Either way, once yourlist of available friends has appeared, you can pucker up and kiss your free time goodbye.

They joy of Draw Something comes from the creative potential coupled with this type of social gameplay. It’s not just about doodling a quick scrawl to get your word across, you can take your time to create your own personal masterpiece, obsessing over your rendition of a chicken as though you were Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. With his finger.

There’s no competitive element to Draw Something. Each game sees you and your friends playing to complete the challenge together, with each victory bringing a number of coins and an extra tally in your unbroken run of successes. Use your coins to buy either bombs, which will explode superfluous letters during a difficult guess, or new palettes which will add extra colours to your repertoire. Extra colours will add to your artistic potential as well as making certain subjects easier to draw – try sketching the Incredible Hulk before you’ve bought some green. When each turn earns a maximum of three coins, the price of bombs and palettes, (bombs – 400 coins, palettes – 249 coins) may seem a little unattainable, but after a couple of addictive drawing sessions, you’ll be surprised how quickly the coins mount up.

Clearly this kind of game benefits from a large screen, so check out our range of tablets as your potential perfect canvas. Budding artists would also benefit from the Samsung Galaxy Note which lets you create your masterpiece on an ample 5.3 inch touchscreen with its own stylus pen. One Stop Phone Shop carries a whole range of desirable smartphones, but when it comes to picking the best handset for this particular app, we’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Nokia have filed an idea to the US Patent and Trademark Office for vibrating magnetic tattoos for your smartphone. The tattoo made of ferromagnetic metal ores, would be sprayed or stamped  onto a user’s skin and would notify a user of smartphone updates via vibrations. Nokia suggest this tattoo could send a variety of pulses; either single short bursts or multiple waves to notify the user of text updates, missed calls or if the smartphone is running low on battery. The tattoo could be applied to the abdominal, fingernail or arm area, and the Nokia patent suggests the tattoo could be invisible.

Is it a step too far to be permanently attaching your smartphone to your arm? With smartphone addiction on the rise, mobile users are already twitching for their cherished devices, checking for Facebook updates and feeling lost if they leave the house without their phone. This form of tattoo would mean the smartphone user is always switched on and unable to get away from their smartphone. Will this magnetic tattoo patent become a reality? Nokia are currently unable to confirm if they will follow up this patent application with further research, but the interest is there to make it a reality. In a few years, I doubt Nokia will be alone in their quest to find new ways for user and smartphone interaction.

The first version of Angry Birds literally rocked the entire gaming world. Players, both young and old, were hooked on to the game within a matter of days. The excitements of playing each level to surpass your own expectations, beat all odds, and finally get through to the next level proved to be a winning formula for Angry Bird developers, Rovio. The idea of giving people a few annoyed birds to throw around and literally tear the place apart in a bid to knock green pigs has certainly been accepted well by people from all walks of life. But Rovio has taken their passion for destruction to another level. They’re coming out with Angry Birds Space, a new version that is set to add to the excitement and fun of the previous Angry Bird version.
Their collaboration with NASA helped Rovio develop Angry Birds Space. NASA hopes to see children learn the laws of physics with the help of the game and maybe even inspire them to enthusiastically pursue a scientific career. Not just on contract phones, Angry Birds will on March 22nd is its official launch date of the game on the Android platform, iPhone, iPad, Mac and PC. The game will also be released on other platforms very soon. A demo will be displayed on the Samsung Galaxy Note.

What does the game feature?

This one question has been driving the whole world crazy for quite some time now.

The new version features 6 brand new angry birds and super powers. Because Angry Birds Space is being launched with the space theme in mind, users will be able to play 60 zero gravity levels at launch and several more will be introduced later. In the previous version, gravity would force the angry birds to be lobbed in a curved trajectory. However, since the new version is projected in space, the angry birds would be lobbed in a straight path rather than slinging up and then down. All said and done, the anticipation and thrill is building rapidly for the launch of Angry Birds Space.