The Alcatel OT-E206a phone will debut on O2 Wireless soon and is the first phone to be sold from an MVNO in the U.S. The affordable handset is a dual-band GSM phone with basic features. No camera, no Bluetooth, no GPRS and no Edge. Hence the affordable part!
Kyrocera has announced their entry into the GSM handset market with four new handsets the E4600, E3500, E2500, and S1600. All four handsets will launch initially in Latin America.
Looks what we found in the archives of FCC? The highly anticipated Motorola Z9, which has been in the pipeline for quite some time has popped up one again on the FCC website. The slider phone carries an AT&T branding and will also run on the AT&T's 3G network.
While there is no word on pricing or availability, this quad-band GSM/EDGE phone may just make an appearance at CTIA. To get all the dirt on this phone head over to the FCC site.
At Barcelona, Spain Sony Ericsson unveiled two new touch screen based phones, the G700 and G900. The new cellphones claim to be an amalgamation of style and functionality as Sony is calling them “Touchscreen organisers”.
The G700 will launch in Silk Bronze and the G900 will launch in Dark Red and Dark Brown. Both are UMTS 2100 and GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 phones that will be available in selected markets from Q2 2008.
Hop-On Wireless unveiled their new GSM 1883 model, which comes with GPS support. The tri-band 900/1800/1900 MHz handset is targeted at the entry-level user and comes equipped with an embedded SiRF Star III GPS receiver chip. Other features include; full-color screen, gaming capabilities and a 2.0 megapixel camera.
The "Twins" phone by China’s TechFaith Wireless Communication Company has the distcion of being the "World's first WCDMA/GSM dual mode phone” (or so they claim). The handset allows users to load one WCDMA card and one GSM card or to load dual GSM SIM cards.
Other features found on this “dual wonder: include; a 2.0 megapixel camera, MP3 and MPEG4 player, WCDMA modem, along with both video call and dual Bluetooth capabilities.
"Twins has twice the power!" exclaimed Mr. Defu Dong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TechFaith. "International travelers have been gouged by high roaming fees and poor coverage for years. We designed Twins to solve these problems in an affordable, attractively designed cell phone. We expect high demand for Twins based on early feedback and our first mover advantage. TechFaith has secured contracts from Europe and South East Asia, and our first shipment is scheduled for this November."
Western Union Co. has teamed up with several cell phone service providers to come up with a reliable phone money-transfer service. Via these mobile services, one can transfer money from country to country through their mobile phones.
GSM Association, an international trade group of cell phone service providers has been roped in and the group would be headed by Sunil Mittal, chairman and managing director of Bharti Airtel.
"This initiative will bring down the cost of lower-value and high-frequency mobile remittances considerably and also enable smaller amounts to be transferred in a fast and secure fashion, thereby benefiting millions of people in the developing world," Mittal said in a statement.
As you know we got our hands on the new Nokia N95 with 3G a couple of days ago and we've been running it through our usual set of battery life tests to see how the combination of battery hungry 3G connectivity and a higher capacity battery are affecting the phone's performance. Yesterday we found that when browsing the web the N95 with 3G performed about an hour worse than the older N95 that lacks North American 3G and instead uses an EDGE connection. Last night we ran our call time test and found a similar effect. See all our results after the jump.
Over at CatCubed, an avid iPhoneer has posted a howto on a seemingly complete solution for syncing email between his mac, his iPhone and his GMail. He's created a way to track which emails he's read, and also auto archive everything to his much larger 2 GB of Gmail storage. If you're looking to understand, in depth, what happens both behind the scenes and on the iPhone, check out his tutorial.
Motorola, Inc. today announced contracts worth US $394 Million with China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC) for GSM network expansion. The contracts were signed in the first half of 2007 and Motorola has already supplied CMCC with GSM infrastructure equipment such as its Horizon II base stations, in addition to value added services.
"Today's announcement clearly illustrates Motorola's continued success in the GSM market and its position as one of the leading equipment and services suppliers in China," said Ruey-Bin Kao, president of Motorola China. "Our goal is to continue to provide China Mobile with a state-of-the-art GSM network that enlarges its network coverage, maximizes investment and delivers the best services to its customers."
SureType keyboards seem to be the trend among smartphone users looking to keep the typing speed up, but maintain a svelte size. T-Mobile, the first carrier to feature the keyboard tech in the BlackBerry Pearl, adds another Sammy SureType to the fold in the Blast. Other than the keys, the phone rocks a seemingly versatile email client (pop3, imap4, AOL, Yahoo and Gmail), A2DP, microSD, and a 1.3 megapixel camera, but notably missing from the specs is push email. Without push email, nor mention of any operating system in the press release, we doubt the phone will be a proper smartphone, but more of a messaging phone ala Samsung's u740, LG's enV or T-Mobile's SideKick. The phone hits store shelves any day now for $99 with a new contract.
So after the roller coaster ride that Apple stockholders have enjoyed the last couple of days lets look a little closer at the numbers. AT&T reported on Tuesday that they activated 146,000 iPhones. This sent Apple stock plummeting as it fell short of the somewhat ridiculous expectations of analysts that ran as high as 500,000 phones sold. Apple came out the next day and announced that they had sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours, a figure almost 85% higher than AT&T's activations number. The speculation on why the discrepancy existed has gone far afield, as some argue that a combination of activation problems and people seeking to sell the phone on Ebay might be the issues. Although we're sure that both of these items contributed, the truth is that there is no way that there were 124,000 activation problems + disappointed ebay sellers. People seem to be missing the obvious reason for the discrepancy, online sales. Phones sold through Apple's online store during the period would obviously not be activated by AT&T as buyers would not receive them for at least a week, if not longer. Although we understand that its fun to whine about activation problems and speculate about how broken hearted Ebay sellers were, lets have some common sense here.
We noticed last week that we'd become somewhat of an iPhone centric blog. Sure, the iPhone is great, but now we've taken a few days off of reporting every little twist and turn in the iPhone saga an instead bring back iHype. Today, the iPhone now runs third party apps, plus off-the-shelf iPhones are succeptible to some pretty invasive hacks, and how much is AT&T giving back to Apple for that locked-phone goodness?
The HTC Cavalier, the update of the T-Mobile Dash, just hit MobilePlanet if you feel like getting your import on. Sure, it's more expensive than the WonderPhone's 4GB model, but if you really feel the need to be on the bleeding edge, the DoPod version will cost you $565.
Blast that Boy Genius. Just as we were about ready to pack up for the weekend, he drops this bombshell: The Motorola Marco. Boy Genius speculates that this lovely looking phone (essentially the Z3) running JUIX will hit T-Mobile@Home, but regardless the phone's two-megapixel camera and pretty exterior won't likely hit store shelves till after the RAZR2's marketing blitz is over, which the Boy Genius speculates should be next year.
Wow, while we can't confirm the news, sounds like someone in the UK is actually using an iPhone over Vodaphone's network. Essentially the user used the previous iAsign exploit to unlock the phone from using the bundled SIM card from AT&T (a feat we documented a few days ago.) The user then replaced the SIM with another AT&T SIM that just happened to work with Vodaphone, and Voila!
The user says Visual Voicemail doesn't work, which makes sense, but all other services work. The phone still has the AT&T logo in the upper left corner, but regardless, some progress toward unlocking the iPhone. Good news for UK residents on importing the phone too.
Word on the street is we'll see HTC's Kaiser replacing AT&T's 8525 as the 8925 pretty soon. The Kaiser, if you're not up to your HTC internal name scheme, is the slide-and-tilt successor to phones like Hermes and Titan (AT&T's own 8125/8525, and Sprint's Mogul.) Some are reporting it'll hit in August 2007, but we, like many other mobile phone sites, don't think AT&T would risk dampening the iPhone's appeal so soon, but rather a September / October date seems more likely. Regardless, HSDPA and a hefty 128MB ram upgrade are on the way as well as Windows Mobile 6 to eat up the extra ram.
More madness from the crazy Canucks at RIM, as they (expectedly) unveil their first BlackBerry supporting WiFi, the 8820. The GSM phone sounds like a typical 8800 series BlackBerry, what with the full QWERTY keyboard and whatnot, but this BlackBerry is more than just WiFi, it rocks built-in GPS, microSDHC slot (supporting cards up to 32GB), but notably missing from their press release is mention of a camera. We're not sure whether that's on purpose or not, but the thought of using WiFi with UMA kind of makes up for it. Nothing screams "awesome" like using your home WiFi network to make calls, and while AT&T hasn't formally announced their UMA plans, we don't think it'd be too much to speculate they'd be releasing some sort of plans in the coming weeks. RIM says the 8820 will hit AT&T before the summer is out.
Samsung seems to occupy a large chunk of time during our workday, typically because every time you turnaround the company unleashes some sort of new handset. This time, through some unscrupulous BGR ways, we're hearing about the T429 and T729 phones slated to hit T-Mobile next month. The two are pretty standard fare, with the T429 looking like a refresh of other Sammy sliders already on the market. The t429 sports Bluetooth, an IM client to take all your SMS messages and otherwise is a standard cell phone and hits August 20th.
The T729, aka "Blast," looks to be a bit more interesting with a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and a sure type keyboard. Not too many sure type keyboards outside of the Blackberry Pearl (which we're oh-so impressed with) so always good to see another manufacturer venture into the QWERTY / keypad game. The T729 comes your way August 1st.
We told you earlier about the iPhone hack to add custom ringtone support to the device, and now we've gone and hacked it ourselves. The result? Custom ringtones, but we did screw up our second attempt since we sent an old configuration file to the device. All in all, we did end up succeeding without further compromising the phone. Check out the video embedded below:
Yesterday, a YouTube Video of a guy putting a custom ringtone on the iPhone started spreading around the interwebs, and now you too can put your own ringtones on your $600 wonderPhone. HackTheIphone details a 23 step process for bricking customizing your iPhone. Fortunately for you adventuresome warriors out there, HackTheiPhone reports everyone who's tried has successfully restored their iPhone using iTunes, so while we can't endorse such wholesome hackery, it might be worth a shot. We'll try to convince our resident iPhone maven, Alfredo, to let us brick customize his personal iPhone and report back, that is if we can get past his iron-clad grip on his new baby.
Oh yeah, and this hack is for Intel-Mac users only, so if you're wholly subscribed to the gospel of Jobs, or haven't repurchased hardware in the last six months, you're out of luck.
Samsung and AT&T rolled out a new phone for the budget concious consumer and sure, it doesn't look like much, but at least it doesn't cost much either. The quad band wonder has Bluetooth, a VGA camera and some speakerphone love. Phones don't get much cheaper, as the SGH-A437 costs $69. The phone is available now and comes in Red, Gold and Grey colors.
We told you earlier about how enterprising hackers are trying to unlock and otherwise crack Apple's mighty iPhone, and to that end hackers have released the first firmware image containing the iPhone's OS and other default settings. Just think, someday the iPhone could support other GSM networks, stereo bluetooth or even install OS level third party applications. Oh, the possibilities.
Don't expect any of those hacks to come soon, and even when they do come, they'll likely void your warranty.
A MacWorld writer believes he may have the world's first Dead on Arrival iPhone. Dan Moren waited in line and brought his phone home, only to find that it was unresponsive. He plugged it into the dock, briefly saw the Apple logo, and then the screen went dark, "seemingly forever."
He says all CPR attempts on his iPhone have failed, and Apple's troubleshooting has not fared any better. He hopes that the battery may recharge if he keeps the iPhone plugged in to the AC adapter overnight, but he expects he may hear that inevitable flatline anyways. Hold back the tears, Moren. We are all praying for you.
Update: Jim Dalrymple, also from MacWorld, was unable to activate his own iPhone, and is also considerably upset. Anti-MacWorld conspiracy, anyone?
Update 2: After spending a good amount of time contemplating life and finding peace with his dead iPhone, Moren has discovered numerous ways to utilize your new $600 paperweight, if you're one of the unlucky who's iPhone is iDead.
-Stare into the inky blackness of the dead iPhone screen
-Straighten that wobbly kitchen chair
-Bait to lure unsuspecting iPhone wanters down a dark alley and take their wallet
-A make-up mirror
-Conversation piece
-Blunt object to brain people with when the conversation turns to "Hey, is that a dead iPhone?"
-Make phone calls... to the dead
Moren has made a Genius Bar appointment for tomorrow. It will be the first test of how well Apple deals with dead iPhones. Stay tuned.
We know you've been waiting for this moment as much as us, but the YouTube video above is our first known unboxing video of the legendary iPhone. Not much more to say, other than watch the video. Oh, and don't worry, we'll have our full comparitive review coming in a few short hours, so stick around.
Yeah, it's time for those long awaited still pics of the iPhone. We'd love to be more poetic, but let's be honest, you're here for the shots. More after the break. Oh, and don't worry, we'll have our full comparitive review coming in a few short hours, so stick around.
As we've been standing in line for over twelve hours now, we're pretty sick of talking about / hearing about / thinking about Apple's wonderPhone. It's only six more hours and we'll all have them to play with. Just in case you're not down for some mobile OSX love, one of our favorite Windows Mobile devices just saw a pretty significant drop in price, maybe due in part to the launch of the wonderPhone. Head to AT&T (and step in front of the line waiters) and pick up an 8525 from HTC/AT&T for $299. If the iPhone doesn't quite tickle your fancy, the 8525 might be a good place to start looking for a replacement.
The Boy Genius uncovered an Apple & AT&T training manual detailing the iPhone launch from AT&T's perspective. The document details the AT&T sales strategy from walk in through activation. Every AT&T employee will as you to perform a pre-paid credit check to ensure you can afford the phone. If you fail, you've got two options: One, you could pony up $250 for a prepaid plan as a security deposit, or two you can apparently activate the iPhone as a GoPhone using PickYourPlan. That means no contract, no deposit, and also no fee for canceling service. Now, to figure out exactly how to make my credit awful in the next day or so.
The
The Alcatel OT-E206a phone will debut on O2 Wireless soon and is the first phone to be sold from an MVNO in the U.S. The affordable handset is a dual-band GSM phone with basic features. No camera, no Bluetooth, no GPRS and no Edge. Hence the affordable part!
Kyrocera 
Looks what we found in the archives of FCC? The highly anticipated Motorola Z9, which has been in the pipeline for quite some time has popped up one again on the FCC website. The slider phone carries an AT&T branding and will also run on the AT&T's 3G network. 
At Barcelona, Spain
As you know we got our hands on the new 
Over at CatCubed, an avid iPhoneer has posted a howto on a seemingly complete solution for syncing email between his mac, his iPhone and his GMail. He's created a way to track which emails he's read, and also auto archive everything to his much larger 2 GB of Gmail storage. If you're looking to understand, in depth, what happens both behind the scenes and on the iPhone, check out his 
So after the roller coaster ride that Apple stockholders have enjoyed the last couple of days lets look a little closer at the numbers. AT&T reported on Tuesday that they activated 146,000 iPhones. This sent Apple stock plummeting as it fell short of the somewhat ridiculous expectations of analysts that ran as high as 500,000 phones sold. Apple came out the next day and announced that they had sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours, a figure almost 85% higher than AT&T's activations number. The speculation on why the discrepancy existed has gone far afield, as some argue that a combination of activation problems and people seeking to sell the phone on Ebay might be the issues. Although we're sure that both of these items contributed, the truth is that there is no way that there were 124,000 activation problems + disappointed ebay sellers. People seem to be missing the obvious reason for the discrepancy, online sales. Phones sold through Apple's online store during the period would obviously not be activated by AT&T as buyers would not receive them for at least a week, if not longer. Although we understand that its fun to whine about activation problems and speculate about how broken hearted Ebay sellers were, lets have some common sense here.
We noticed last week that we'd become somewhat of an iPhone centric blog. Sure, the iPhone is great, but now we've taken a few days off of reporting every little twist and turn in the iPhone saga an instead bring back iHype. Today, the iPhone now runs third party apps, plus off-the-shelf iPhones are succeptible to some pretty invasive hacks, and how much is AT&T giving back to Apple for that locked-phone goodness?
The 
Blast that Boy Genius. Just as we were about ready to pack up for the weekend, he drops 
Wow, while we can't confirm the news, sounds like 
Word on the street is we'll see 
More madness from the crazy Canucks at RIM, as they (
A 
As we've been standing in line for over twelve hours now, we're pretty sick of talking about / hearing about / thinking about Apple's wonderPhone. It's only six more hours and we'll all have them to play with. Just in case you're not down for some mobile OSX love, one of our favorite Windows Mobile devices just saw a pretty significant drop in price, maybe due in part to the launch of the wonderPhone. Head to AT&T (and step in front of the line waiters) and pick up an 8525 from HTC/AT&T for $299. If the iPhone doesn't quite tickle your fancy, the 8525 might be a good place to start looking for a replacement.
The