04Jun
Walt Mossberg does a great review of the Palm Pre today. If you're considering the device or just curious, you should read it
here.
Couple highlights:
"But on June 6, Apple will get a powerful competitor in this category. It's a beautiful, innovative and versatile hand-held computer that's fully in the iPhone's class. It's called the Pre, and it comes from Palm, the company that pioneered the hand-held computer in the 1990s. I've been testing the Pre for a couple of weeks, and I like it a lot, despite some important drawbacks that will have to be remedied."
"All in all, I believe the Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard. It is thoughtfully designed, works well and could give the iPhone and BlackBerry strong competition -- but only if it fixes its app store and can attract third-party developers."
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
Noah gets an impromptu look at Yari, Sony Ericsson's new slider phone with gesture gaming controls. Hide the kids, PhoneDog's going virtual bowling!
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
Noah gets an impromptu hands-on demo of Sony Ericsson's Satio - aka Idou - flagship media phone at a meeting with some SE folks. Satio now comes in red, and features one of the best cameras in the mobile phone game.
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
So, we're not entirely sure what happened between
late May and now (minus the influx of press surrounding AT&T and Verizon obtaining the device next year), but Sprint and Palm seem to be reversing their strategy and downplaying the success of the Palm Pre at launch by telling customers not to expect lengthy lines on Saturday morning.
Palm spokeswoman Lynn Fox encouraged customers to equate success with time and not with the picture of a jam-packed store: "We're not like Apple," she said. Mark Elliott, a spokesman for Sprint, went on to say that Sprint sought to replace the typical "line out the door" mentality with a more personal experience for customers buying the Pre: "What we're trying to do is not have people backed up waiting so customers feel rushed. We want each customer to get the experience."
Whether this is a creative marketing ploy or an actual belief by Sprint and Palm executives remains to be seen, but at any rate, I would still recommend arriving as early as possible. Regardless of how much they would like to, traffic patterns can't be predicted across the US - and hey, it's always good to plan for the worst, right?
Source: New York Times
(Image courtesy of Palm InfoCenter)
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
Though it only applies in the 91 markets that Verizon Wireless is required to divest as a condition of purchasing Alltel, the company has decided to shatter the idea of the industry-standard
two-year agreement, opting instead for a shorter one-year term for its new subscribers. Typically, one-year agreements come with lofty phone prices, but not in this example - in a rather generous move, Alltel has decided to keep the same two-year subsidized device pricing.
The idea of having customers locked in for just one year instead of two may not please the buyer, but at any rate, we're sure it will attract new customers.
Source: Engadget Mobile
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
INQ, the company that has had great success with a branded Facebook phone, has announced a plan to follow up on this with a new Twitter phone. The phone is designed to support easy mobile Twitter use and to attract customers who are regular users of Twitter. It is also designed to be a low-cost handset option for those people who are seeking to get a new phone around the holiday season this year. It is planned for release in the fourth quarter of this year just before the Christmas shopping season.
Twitter is already easy to use on most mobile phones. In fact, it was created to be one of the first big mobile social networks. In comparison to more complex social networking sites, such as Facebook, it is a site that can be easily accessed on most phones. However, INQ says that the new phone will make mobile twitter use even simpler. It will be built right into the phone. Notably, this is an internet-based version of Twitter and not one that’s based on texting. It is believed that the phone will have a full QWERTY keyboard which facilitates faster typing of Tweets.
The phone is supposed to be highly affordable for networks which means that cost savings should get passed on to customers. More importantly, the cost to be active on Twitter will likely be built into data plans to reduce the cost of using mobile Twitter. The phone is likely to be offered through UK-based company 3 and may also be offered through other operators.
Post from Dial-a-Phone, UK's no. 1 for Mobile Phones.
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
We already use our mobile phones to store and listen to music, play video games and watch YouTube clips so it’s not hard to picture a day when all of us are also using the mobile phone to watch movies. New announcements in the industry indicate that downloading full-feature films to mobile phones is an area of cell phone entertainment that is poised for serious growth. That’s not the only way that mobile phones and movies go hand-in-hand; there are also a lot of people out there who are using their mobile phones to make short movies of their own. And even those traditionalists who want to see professional movies on the big screen can’t escape the influence of the mobile phone since there are quite a few movies out there in which mobile phones play a key part in the plot of the film.
Watching Movies on Mobile Phones
The hottest aspect of the relationship between mobile phones and movies right now is the possibility to download and watch movies on many mobile phones. There have been several recent announcements in the industry which suggest that making movies available on phones is one of the next big trends from handset makers. Major announcements in this vein are coming from Sony Ericsson, Samsung and the iPhone.
Sony Ericsson recently generated a lot of media attention with an announcement about a new service called Play Now Arena Movies. This service will allow people with Sony Ericsson phones to download up to five dozen movies per year to be watched on their smartphones. The movies will have to be sideloaded to the phone (meaning that they’re downloaded to your PC before being moved to your mobile phone). The purpose of this is to avoid the varying data charges associated with downloading immediately to the device. At the same time that the company announced its new service, it also announced the release of three new entertainment-specific phones. Two of those phones (the Satio/Idou and the Aino) are compatible with the Play Now movie service. Additionally, Sony Ericsson plans for some of its phones to come preloaded with (more…)
Post from Dial-a-Phone, UK's no. 1 for Mobile Phones.
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
precentral.net, a powerhouse for covering everything Palm Pre, has received their Palm Pre early. To keep our readers in the know, we are posting some of their early review videos. This one highlights some of the Palm Pre Preferences.
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
precentral.net, a powerhouse for covering everything Palm Pre, has received their Palm Pre early. To keep our readers in the know, we are posting some of their early review videos. This video gives an overview of the Palm Pre hardware and a better idea of it's size by comparing it side by side with other Palm devices, an iPhone 3G, the G1, and Touch Diamond.
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
04Jun
Taipei is currently hosting the Computex trade show, which runs from the 2nd to the 6th. The shindig draws announcements related to pretty much anything tech, but computers, peripherals and mobile products are the primary focus. The Computex 2009
website offers a sample of products that represents the diversity of the show content.
I'm interested in the ultra-reflective DSTL1 phone from General Mobile that runs Android (check out Androinica's
coverage), but it doesn't excite me as much as the video below that Noah directed me to over at
Engadget Mobile. Look closely, because not only will you see Inventec's Moblin-powered MediaPhone, but an EeeTop Pc and the Open Frame.
Tags: blog, cell phone news, discussion, mobile
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