Monthly ArchiveDecember 2009
General News & Nexus One & photo gallery & release date & specifications & video 31 Dec 2009 12:12 pm
Google Nexus One FAQ: Pricing, Videos and Photos
With just under a week before Google makes the Nexus One official, many rumors have been circulating the interwebs leaking inaccurate information on the device. Now is the time to set the record straight with the Nexus One FAQ, a complete breakdown of everything we know about the device to date.
Price
The Nexus One will not be subsidized by Google. Instead it will be offered for $180 on a 2-year service agreement with T-mobile or $530 sans contract. Additional terms have been disclosed by Google which indicate that if you sign up for a contract and purchase the phone for $180 then cancel within 120 days, you will be charged the remainder of the phone’s cost ($350). The bottom line is that if you buy the phone under contract you will need to keep it for at least 5 months before cancelling, effectively deterring would-be eBayers from buying and reselling the device.
Rate Plans
There is only one plan for the Nexus One, the $79.99 Even More 500 Minute Plan with Unlimited Text and Data. T-mobile wants all Nexus One owners to full embrace their new plans and completely forget about the Charles Barkley and Catherine Zetta-Jones My Faves marketing campaigns. Of course higher rate plans are acceptable since you might need more than 500 minutes, but the $79.99 per month plan is the minimum. If you want to get around the enforced rate plan, simply buy the phone unlocked on eBay and slip your SIM card in the device.
If you are on a Family Plan, Flexpay, SmartAccess or KidConnect you must buy the phone unlocked and unsubsidized for $530.
Limits
There is a limit of 5 Nexus Ones per Google Account. This will help Google keep the device from being shipped outside of the United States. Purchases can be made at T-mobile stores or online at google.com/phone. From here on out we will use the Nexus One name, the device will not be called the Google Phone as we previously indicated.
Photos
Here’s a collection of the Nexus One photos that have been released to date. The gallery starts with the first blurry images, followed by some images of the Android UI and concludes with the latest images just released today.
Videos
To help get you through the next few days before the Nexus One launches, we’ve rounded up some extensive videos showcasing the device in action.
[via Engadget, BGR, MobileTechWorld, Gizmodo]
CES 2010 & Motorola & Motorola Mirage & Motorola Shadow & las vegas & rumors 31 Dec 2009 11:48 am
Motorola’s big CES 2010 device announcements
Rumor has it that Motorola will be making two device announcements on January 6 at CES 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first device is allegedly landing on At&t, with the most likely prediction being the Motorola Motus (At&t’s version of the Motorola CLIQ). The second device is expected to launch on Verizon Wireless and will most likely be the Motorola Calgary (OLED screen, soft keyboard). Of course all of this information is open to interpretation, but Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry has plenty of reasons to believe it will happen.
In other Motorola news, the manufacturer is reported to be releasing another high-end Android smartphone in the Chinese Mobile Market. After announcing the Motorola XT800, Motorola MT710 and Motorola XT701 last week, the Motorola Shadow (Mirage) is now expected to follow. The Motorola Shadow, also known as the Motorola Mirage, features a 4.3-inch WVGA resolution display making it the Android equivalent of the HTC HD2. The device is rumored to feature a HDMI video out, 8-megapixel camera, 1080P HD video playback and measure just 9mm thick.
[Via BGR, Barron's, UnwiredView, Mobile01]
DTV & LG & LG DP570MH & LG Lotus 31 Dec 2009 11:33 am
LG brings US Digital TV to LG Lotus
Mobile TV has always been something of a dream for most of us living in the US. Sure there is VCast, Sprint TV and At&t Mobile TV, but when I think of mobile TV I’m looking for a Digital Antenna on a cell phone receiving broadcasts the same way my HDTV would Over the Air (OTA). Next week when LG arrives at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) they will bringing two such devices, a LG Lotus with Mobile DTV capabilities and the DP570MH, a portable DVD player with DTV tuner. It is also rumored that several other manufacturers will unveil new cell phones with DTV tuners for the US Market.
[via AkihabaraNews]
Mobile Minute & Nokia & The Morning Mobile Minute & gsma & mobile world congress & orange uk 31 Dec 2009 10:11 am
The Morning Mobile Minute: New Year’s Eve 2009
Ready to break open that bottle of bubbly and start ringing in the new year? Well before you do I have a few tidbits of information making mobile headlines this morning. Let’s get right into it with news coming from Nokia Conversations. Over the past few weeks Nokia Conversations has been doing a poll to determine the best app from 2009 and the winner is Gravity, the most popular S60 Twitter App. Coming in second place was Nokia Photo Browser and in third is Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0. For a bit more details about the voting and links to each individual app hit the link above.
Mobile carrier Orange UK has announced that they will launch mobile HD Voice in 2010. According to their press release HD Voice will be a new standard for the UK telecoms industry with trials beginning early in 2010 and a full rollout by the end of 2010. HD Voice uses the WB-AMR (Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate) speech codec. This provides excellent audio quality due to a wider speech bandwidth of 50–7000 Hz compared to the current narrowband speech codec of 300–3400 Hz. The WB-AMR (Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate) delivers significantly enhanced sound quality whilst utilising the same network resources.
LG has announced that they will not have an exhibition on the floor of the Mobile World Congress in 2010. The movie is said to be part of their new event strategy and represents a shift in their marketing initiatives overall. It has been reported that they still will have a presence at MWC in meetings, hospitality and speaking in conference sessions.
The GSMA formally responded to the news that a hacker had broken the encryption (A5/1 Algorithm) being used by GSM networks. They released the following statement:
All in all, we consider this research, which appears to be motivated in part by commercial considerations, to be a long way from being a practical attack on GSM. More broadly, A5/1 has proven to be a very effective and resilient privacy mechanism. By comparison, inexpensive and readily available radio scanners could be used to intercept calls on the analogue cellular networks that pre-dated GSM and which did not use encryption.
So that wraps up 2009 ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have enjoyed the ride and thank you for making Cellfanatic a success. As always there are plenty ways to stay ontop of the Cellfanatic news and reviews: follow us on Twitter, subscribe by Email, subscribe to RSS, watch our videos on YouTube or simply check out the Morning Mobile Minute or This Week in Cell Phone News summaries.
Nokia N73 themes - N95 themes- Free N81 - N86 themes & Nokia themes 31 Dec 2009 08:46 am
Animated Snowman theme for Nokia N95 N73 N81
Nokia N97 themes - Nokia 5800 Themes & Nokia themes 31 Dec 2009 08:45 am
Xmas spongebob Theme for Nokia 5800 XM – Nokia N97 – X6
Reviews 30 Dec 2009 11:13 pm
Google Nexus One docs get leaked: $530 unsubsidized, $180 with plan
Further details about the Nexus One have emerged since we reported about its exclusivity with Google this morning. It will be apparently be sold by Google for $530 unsubsidized, and $180 with a T-Mobile plan. If you do sign up for a plan and cancel within 120 days of purchase, you’ll have to cough up the remainder of the total cost of the phone — $350, or return the phone to Google. The leaked docs also offer the following tidbits
Reviews 30 Dec 2009 11:10 pm
LG to introduce two new mobile DTV devices slated to arrive in the US in 2010
LG Korea unveiled two new mobile DTV devices that are headed for the U.S. in 2010. The first is an upgraded version of the LG Lotus equipped with a long antenna and an integrated digital TV tuner. For those that have forgotten this rather forgettable phone, the original LG Lotus is a boxy QWERTY clamshell that launched on Sprint in late 2008. And, if a boxy cell phone with an ungainly antenna doesn’t suit your fancy, then perhaps a shiny, black portable DVD player with a built-in 800 channel DTV tuner may. No word on pricing or availability but both devices are expected to get the official nod from LG’s US division at CES 2010 next week in Las Vegas.
Mobile Minute & Nokia & Sprint & The Morning Mobile Minute & boost mobile 29 Dec 2009 12:28 pm
The Morning Mobile Minute: Nokia, Sprint and Boost Mobile
As the year winds down so do the daily press releases we become so accustom to receiving from major wireless carriers and manufacturers. Today’s Morning Mobile Minute looks to be the shortest to date, but that shouldn’t take away from a few tidbits of quality material.
Today, Nokia filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging that Apple infringed Nokia patents in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computer. Apparently the claim stems from seven Nokia patents which are being used by Apple to create key features in its products in the area of user interface, camera, antenna and power management technologies. Since Apple is also countersuing Nokia for patent infringement I’ll take a wild guess and predict that this whole fiasco ends in a draw, but in any event there could be serious legal ramifications so the news is press worthy.
Sprint has decided to issue a press release this morning outlining how their plans and apps can save you money. Highlighted in the press release is ShopSavvy, an Android application for price comparison which makes use of the camera and barcode reader on the HTC Hero and Samsung Moment; ScanLife, a 2D barcode scanner which does pretty much the same thing for non-Android device; and Dealert, a deal tracking application for the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi (as well as any future webOS devices).
Last up this morning is a press release from Boost Mobile who announced that ‘International Connect’ now includes unlimited calls to Canada and landlines in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. Earlier this year Boost Mobile added the ‘International Connect’ $10/month add on to existing unlimited plans, but up until today it did not include calls to landlines in the countries mentioned above. The plan still includes unlimited international text messages worldwide from U.S. and unlimited international walkie-talkie from the US, Canada, and Baja California (Mexico) to Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Chile.
There are plenty ways to stay ontop of the Cellfanatic news and reviews: follow us on Twitter, subscribe by Email, subscribe to RSS, watch our videos on YouTube or simply check out the Morning Mobile Minute or This Week in Cell Phone News summaries.