July 12, 2007
Filed under: Peripherals, Nokia
A Chinese manufacturer by the name of Yoobao decided to concoct a battery for
Nokia's N95 that crosses the line of "freakishly gigantic." With stats that see capacity upped half again from the standard in-box battery (that's a total of 1,400 milliamp hours, mind you), it's anything but easy on the eyes -- but we just
know there are some owners out there willing to make the sacrifice to own The N95 That Wouldn't Die.
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
July 3, 2007
Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, LG, Verizon Wireless, 1xRTT, EV-DO, CDMA
It looks like
Verizon and
LG are gearing up to release to their latest addition in the
Chocolate lineup, the
VX8550. This round, the VX8550 is sportin' two new colors than before -- this time "black cherry" and "blue mint" will make your mouth water, and lets not forgot the traditional black. The device is expected to hit the street around around July 9 and cost $100 with a two year contract. There's even talk about reducing the cost of the music essentials kit that includes a microSD card, data cable, Bluetooth headset, and a gift card for music. Could this be Big Red's attempt to persuade consumers away from
AT&T's music phone for their own latest addition?
We hope not.
[Thanks, HTC Kid and SC]
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
June 14, 2007
Filed under: Handsets, RIM, Telus Mobility, 1xRTT, GSM, EV-DO, CDMA
Telus customers who can't part with their
BlackBerry when they travel across the pond could rest easy when the
8830 was listed as coming soon on their website. As of yesterday, the price was $199 with a three year contract, had a 50% discount on international roaming through October, and was launching June 22. As of today, though, it was changed to $499.99 (ouch) with a three year contract and they removed the launch date. No word on what caused the surge in pricing but inquiring minds want to know. What gives, Telus?
[Via
BlackBerry Sync]
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
June 8, 2007
Filed under: Handsets, HTC, Telus Mobility, Windows Mobile, 1xRTT, EV-DO, CDMA
Our favorite Canadian carrier,
Telus, is launching another HTC product before everyone -- this time it's the the
Libra running
Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard. Featuring a full numeric keypad and a slide down QWERTY keyboard, a 2 megapixel shooter, microSD expansion, and stereo Bluetooth, this device is built to please. Click on through for more pics!
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
June 6, 2007
Filed under: Handsets, Palm, RIM, Samsung, UTStarcom, Verizon Wireless, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, 1xRTT, EV-DO, CDMA
Please, we beg of you, take these dates with the proverbial grain of salt -- but according to sources, the dates draws near for what could be one of the busiest phone launching quarters for The Network ever. Word on the street is that several phones should be launching shortly including UTStarcom
Libra at the end of June, the
Palm Treo 755p, UTStarcom
Titan,
Sierra Wireless 595U USB aircard, and the
Motorola Q9M (aka
iPhone Killer) rounding out the month of July. A few other honorable mentions we'd like to throw in for ya: looks like the
Samsung I760 might be forced to downgrade to
Windows Mobile 5.0 in order to make the summer launch schedule, the
Treo 800W is on track for late August and
BlackBerry Pearl
8120 some time in the fourth quarter of the year. Not a bad list, eh?
[Thanks, Jesse and HTC Kid]
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
June 4, 2007
Filed under: Culture, Messaging, Misc
Voting might be something that we take for granted (unless it's the
Engadget Awards,
song requests, or
American Idol) but everyone likes to take a stand for something and have their opinion heard. Residents from Xiamen, a city in the southeastern province of
China, protested the building of a new chemical plant by sending over one million text messages to the city government. The chemical plant would produce paraxylene which is used in production of plastics, polyester and film. The Center for Disease Control states that the stuff could be dangerous in long term exposure, even causing death and or affecting the central nervous system. Needless to say, the council decided to halt construction after "careful deliberation."
[Via
textually.org]
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
June 4, 2007
Filed under: Handsets, RIM, Misc
Over this past weekend, BlackBerry customers received a little treat if they're using Gmail or Yahoo! Mail accounts. RIM updated their BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) for what should be all service providers in North America from 2.1 to 2.3. With RIM's latest endeavor to reach a common ground for BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Service) functionality for the BIS subscriber, customers should now be rocking two-way wireless synchronization of deleted emails, auto forwarding from BIS email addresses, as well as read / unread message counts. From what we can tell, the upgrade went smooth with no issues -- which is exactly how BlackBerry users like it.
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
June 3, 2007
Filed under: Culture, Messaging, Misc
Leave it to the
Japanese to be at the forefront of having the latest
bleeding edge service for their customers. In the United States, we're lucky to get a
calorie count of our meal when we go to our favorite restaurants. In Japan, though, all they'll need to do is snap a picture message of their meal and send it the Public Health Offices in Osaka, and ta-da -- the calorie count is give to you. Albeit, it's three days
after you ate. Not exactly real-time, but at least you'll how bad you were to your body a few days back..
[Via
Slashphone]
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
May 31, 2007
Filed under: Handsets, Others
A new concept cell phone from Syntes Studio that's called the "Domino" might be giving the current crop of thin phones a run for thier money. With a retro, 80s style to it, the Domino might be called "
svelte and
sexy" in some circles. Stylish? Yes. Functional? Don't expect to crank out tons of
text messages on it. With such details as what features that will be supported and even what networks it will even run on, don't expect the phone to show up anytime soon (oh, and yes, there are the requisite dots on the keys to complete the domino theme).
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
May 31, 2007
Filed under: Culture, NTT DoCoMo
In the fierce world of wireless competition, companies fight tooth-and-nail for customers in a desperate attempt to raise
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). Customers are naturally looking for the best deal, and with multiple carriers selling the same or similar handsets, the consumer's decision carries a lot of weight. The same problem that exists here in the States is even more prevalent in Japan where the country's largest carrier,
NTT DoCoMo, attempts to pack cell phones with such features as bar code scanners,
TV receivers and gaming devices. All those goodies cause manufacturing costs to soar in excess of $600, requiring the carrier to discount the handset heavily to prevent customers from getting spooked at the store. Sounds like a steal, right? Not so much. All these subsidies end up
costing the companies around $16 billion a year which in turn leads to higher plan prices to recoup the blown revenue from the devices. All in all, it's a vicious circle -- but hey, at least it's a technology-laden one.
[Via
textually.org]
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Posted by Michael Caputo under Mobile | Comments (0)
