2009 March 13 | Loo-Lee.com

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13Mar

More Madly Expensive Phones

Industry, News No Comments

We’ve reported on insanely expensive electronics before, but despite the very best efforts of America’s banks there are still rich people in the world. Rich, stupid people.

1. Diamond encrusted iPhone 3G

We remember the good old days, when diamond-encrusting a digital assistant would have seemed insane. Now it’s just boring, and anyone who can spend five grand on nothing but showing off and STILL be boring is Captain Tragic of the Too Damn Much Money Army.Like many of the other claims, widgets and add-ons the 3G diamond-deal has been ported over wholesale from the original iPhone. The only new things are our resignation to the fact that some people can (more…)

Post from Dial-a-Phone, UK's no. 1 for Mobile Phones.

Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile

13Mar

How to Make your Mobile Phone Last for a Long Time

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Most people don’t keep their mobile phones for very long. There are a lot of good reasons for this, the best one being that mobile phone technology gets improved upon so quickly that you truly will only have the best phone if you replace your model on a regular basis. The general consensus is that it’s a good idea to keep your cell phone for about one year before you get rid of it and upgrade to the newest model. However, some people would like to be able to keep their mobile phones for longer than that.

If you’re interested in being someone who doesn’t just hop on the bandwagon of the hottest new phones but rather who makes your mobile phone last as long as possible before replacing it then follow these tips for extending the life of your mobile phone over time.

Keeping your Mobile Phone Hardware Protected

The first thing that you need to do to make sure that your phone lasts a long time is to make sure that you’re protecting the hardware itself. To do that, you’ll want to do the following things (more…)

Post from Dial-a-Phone, UK's no. 1 for Mobile Phones.

Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile

13Mar

Android Apps Online and Open

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If you’ve paid for T-Mobile’s exclusive G1 phone, you can now pay extra for applications on the Android Marketplace - and remember, this is a privilege that iPhone users have “enjoyed” for some time. T-Mobile have certainly remembered that, as they’ve aimed their marketplace at Apple like a giant open-source gun and are hoping to fire at that juicy app revenue stream.

T-Mobile’s secret weapon: no approvals process. If you make an app, you can stick it online and charge what you like for it within seconds. Unlike Apple’s approvals process, which has been likened to jumping through black hoops in pitch dark while concussed by thrown rulebooks written in invisible ink. Instead T-Mobile hope to attract devs with the increased freedom, and rely on an eBay-like customer feedback system to screen out the worst of the inevitable crap that will result.

Post from Dial-a-Phone, UK's no. 1 for Mobile Phones.

Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile

13Mar

Three New XpressMusic Phones from Nokia!

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The fruit of Nokia’s ‘Your Music Phone is Ringing’ cryptic landing page, which mysteriously appeared on their site at the beginning of the week, was revealed on wednesday. Despite some speculation the announcement would only be about the Comes With Music store, we’ve been treated to three new XpressMusic mobile phones!

Starting at the top, we have the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic. Here’s a look at the standout features: (more…)

Post from Dial-a-Phone, UK's no. 1 for Mobile Phones.

Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile

13Mar

Stewart skewers Cramer: Palm stock up 40% for week

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The two halves of that headline are only linked in that they both have to do with money, and that Apple figures into the story of each half at least a little bit. Jon Stewart used an Apple-related video clip as part of his assault on Jim Cramer on last night's Daily Show, and Apple ... well, Apple fits into just about every angle of the Palm story this year.

That said, cue a more clever headline: Pre-monition? Pre-mature? Pre-dominate? Just-another-Pre-tender?.

Palm's stock closed at 8.39 in after-hours trading Friday and was up nearly 40% for the week, according to Yahoo! Finance. The stock was also upgraded to "Outperform" by one of those places that may or may not have helped destroy credit in America (I honestly have no idea how finance works and/or which banks are Good Guys or Bad Guys).

Palm started out at 6 even on the left side of Yahoo!s chart and wound up at 8.39 way over on the right; that's a gain of $2.39 for the week, or about 39.8%. In other words, if you'd bought $600 of Yahoo stock first thing Monday morning and sold it last thing today, you'd now have $839 minus comissions. And when I saw if you'd bought it, you know I'm looking at my wallet and thinking about my own "expert phone guy" self. Heh.

It's funny, too, because Palm held a pretty ho-hum Pre Webcast for media this past Tuesday just a few hours after Apple announced, well, that they will be making an annoucement (iPhone-related media event set for next week) ... and the blogs seemed to be pretty excited about the Apple pre-preview-announcement. Did you see how I worked "pre" into that last bit there? Totally Pre-cious, right?

Apple stock, by the way, was up from 85.73 to 96.30 for the week, or just over 11%.

Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile

13Mar

Music cards and cell phones: A good deal?

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I'm always looking for ways to add music to my cell phone. Seriously, cell phones have more and more expandable memory - at least that of many portable MP3 players - and the MicroSD memory cards are becoming more and more affordable. For example, you can get a 4GB card for $15. That's a lot less than an MP3 player. So what can you do with all that extra space?

I'm all about the music and I had some Sony MusicPass cards and once I figured out they were DRM free I thought I can use them anywhere - even a cell phone. I went to the site, entered the code, and downloaded the music. Once on my computer, I used a card reader to copy music from my computer to the MicroSD card. I put the card in the cell phone and viola I had quite a few albums at my disposal. Fast and simple to do.

Better yet, I put the same MicroSD card into a BlackBerry 8900 and was able to assign songs from that card as ringtones for different contacts in my address book. Of course, I can still download those songs to an MP3 player as well or as many cell phones as I want. Buy once, use often and on multiple devices. Pretty nifty. When it comes to cell phones the possibilities are there to make it the all-in-one device that you want it to be, sometimes you just have to think outside the box to make that happen.

Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile

13Mar

Zer01 Mobile: Unlimited 3G data and VOIP voice for $70/month

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PC Mag's Sascha Segan has the scoop on what could be the best deal in cell phone service from the hottest carrier you've never heard of. If it pans out.

Zer01 Mobile is promising contract-free, unlimited voice and 3G data for just $69.95/month, "on a network as broad as the one owned by AT&T." As Segan explains, "That's because, in many ways, the network is AT&T's." Zer01 apparently has a sort of a roaming agreement worked out with AT&T to get data from your smartphone to AT&T's network to Zer01's own IP backbone. From there all voice calls are made via VOIP (think Skype), which allows the carrier to save money - and pass the savings along to consumers - by way of avoiding traditional GSM voice call protocols.

Zer01's website currently allows you to pre-register for more information, and lists "I Have a Phone" and "I Need a New Phone" as options, with the latter showing a few HTC Windows Mobile devices as coming soon. Segan writes that the carrier's dialing software is now compatible with Windows Mobile 6 phones "but will work in the future on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Java and even on jailbroken iPhones, Zer01 chief executive Ben Piilani said." The monthly plan promises to work with smartphones and also offer unlimited international calling for an additional $10/mo.

Zer01 will be at CTIA in Las Vegas next month. So will I. I'll hunt 'em down and let you know what's what. In the meantime, read Sascha Segan's article and then check out the Zer01 Mobile website for more details.

Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile

13Mar

Weekly News In Review: Alltel launches LG Banter, Sanyo SCP-2700 spotted in the wild

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Since we can't actively cover every news article that breaks (as much as we would love to), PhoneDog compiles various announcements and press releases that have been published throughout the week and places them in one easy to read article. Enjoy!

Alltel launches LG Banter
Alltel has beaten Sprint to the punch and officially launched the LG Banter, the company's version of the LG Rumor 2. Features include QVGA display, a 1.3 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, and a microSD card slot with support for up to 16GB. The device is available online and in retail stores for $39.99 on a two-year agreement.

Sanyo SCP-2700 spotted in the wild
Spotted in blue and pink, the first Sanyo QWERTY device has been spotted in the wild with a rumored $39.99 price point. Exact specifications and launch dates are not known at the moment. Via Engadget Mobile

Official firmware upgrade released for BlackBerry Bold and Storm 9500
The BlackBerry Storm 9500 and the BlackBerry Bold have both received official software updates, courtesy of Vodafone and AT&T. The Storm's new official OS is 4.7.0.113, while the Bold's new official OS is 4.6.0.247. Both official updates can be downloaded here. Via PhoneArena

Sprint to end commercials featuring CEO Dan Hesse
The third largest wireless carrier will end the commercials with CEO Dan Hesse. The advertising hope was that Hesse would be recognized as a prominent public figure, such as Microsoft's Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, however it appears to have been unsuccessful. Sprint has not yet announced its latest advertising campaign. Via BGR