Mobile Phone Reviews

Dan Hesse, CEO, Sprint
Peter Chou, CEO, HTC

Noah gets hands-on with Samsung's new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S. Android 2.1, a 4" Super AMOLED display, and only 9.9 mm thick

What’s S Life? That’s the question Samsung posed, and in its media event this morning, the company answered: It’s the Smart life, silly. That is, they say, if you’re smart enough to get the Galaxy S, which is launching globally (including in the U.S.). 

It features stuff like Daily Brief (which puts several live updating widgets on one page, for a smart view — see? There’s that word again!), fast text input with Swype and, thanks to Android 2.1, Google Maps Navigation. 

Noah’s got the goods with a hands-on demo (so catch it here), but for those who like their cell phone pr0n via still images, here are a few shots of the 1GHz-packing, 16 GB–storing, 4” Super AMOLED–displaying, wafer-thin phone. 

 

 

 

 

Noah gets the unlocked Sony Ericsson Xperia X10a out of the box. SE's first Android phone is real, and we've got a hands-on.

Aaron unboxes the Nokia 5230 Nuron, the latest Nokia device to hit T-Mobile. Is it a keeper, or should it be passed in favor of other devices?

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LG and Verizon Wireless today announced the Cosmos, a low-end device with a full QWERTY keyboard, 1X connectivity (no EVDO), 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, speakerphone, and GPS.  Reminiscent of the LG Rumor, the device will be available on March 25th for $30 with a new two-year agreement.

The full press release is below.  Personally, I like the fact that Verizon is expanding their low-end (read: NON-data centric) lineup.  Anyone planning to pick one up?

VERIZON WIRELESS AND LG MOBILE PHONES OFFER A STRIKINGLY HIP DEVICE AT A HEAVENLY PRICE
 
New LG Cosmos Gives Customers the Universe with Slide-Out QWERTY Keyboard, Built-in Social Networking Features and More
 
BASKING RIDGE, N.J.; SAN DIEGO; and LAS VEGAS – From CTIA WIRELESS 2010®, Verizon Wireless and LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A., Inc. (LG Mobile Phones) announced LG Cosmos™ will be available on March 25 in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com.  Equipped with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for easy text messaging and built-in social networking tools and features, LG Cosmos allows customers to keep their friends in the know while keeping up with life on the go.
 
Key features:
Compact, friendly and stylish candy bar phone with a rounded shape and metallic finish
Web-based e-mail, instant messaging and chat
Text, picture and voice messaging
One-touch speaker phone
Speaker-independent voice commands, including Call, Send Msg To, Go To, Check, Contacts, Search, Redial, My Verizon and Help
Voice clarity – Auto adjust voice clarity based on surrounding noise level
Bluetooth® 2.1 capabilities with support for the following profiles: headset, hands-free, phonebook access and object push
Send calendar events, contact information and print photos via Bluetooth
Dedicated favorites shortcut keys for up to 10 contacts
Micro USB charging port
USB charging via computer
GPS support for enhanced location accuracy
 
Additional features:
Access to Twitter, Facebook®, MySpace and other social networking sites
1.3 megapixel camera that includes:
o    Three different resolutions
o    Zoom up to 2.0 times
o    Noise reduction to improve image quality in low-light environments
o    Image editor that allows users to zoom, rotate and crop any picture
o    Insta-uploading of pictures directly to online albums and Facebook
o    Customizable shutter/cue sound, brightness, white balance, color effects, photometry, self-timer and night mode
 
Pricing and availability:
LG Cosmos will be available on Thursday, March 25, online at www.verizonwireless.com and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores for $29.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement.  Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.
For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.
 
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Media can access high-resolution images of LG Cosmos in the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.)
 
About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s most reliable and largest wireless voice and 3G data network, serving more than 91 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 83,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) and Vodafone (LSE, NASDAQ: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.

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Word is spreading quickly across the blogosphere that the iPhone is now available contract free.  I'm sure everyone's first thoughts are "great now I can get an iPhone on T-Mobile."  Unfortunately, even though the devices will not require any service contract with AT&T, they are still locked to AT&T's network and that means you'd have to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone (at your own risk) in order to get it working with a T-Mobile SIM card.

The price for an iPhone 3GS off contract is $499 for the 8GB variant, $599 for the 16GB, and $699 for the 32GB phone.  It's interesting that Apple is deciding to do this now, especially since the Nexus One just became available (or announced for the near future) on all four major US carriers.

Who's going to buy a contract-free iPhone tonight?  Sound off below!

Via Engadget, MobileBurn

Yep, looks like the Android-powered Dell smartphone rumors were correct.  After months of speculation, AT&T today announced the Dell Aero, Dell's first Android-powered smartphone.  Billed in "coming soon" status, the details are surprisingly sparse at the moment - though the press release mentions a custom user interface of some sort.  As AT&T's second Android smartphone, I hope it's not bogged down with AT&T bloatware and foolish requirements (Backflip, anyone?).

The Dell Aero portion of the press release is below.  What do you say - the Dell Aero, or the AT&T version of the Nexus One?

AT&T also will soon unveil an Android-based smartphone the Dell Aero. This will be Dell’s first smartphone available in the U.S., and will feature a new, beautiful custom user interface developed by Dell and AT&T. To learn more about the Dell Aero, visit www.att.com/aero.

“Our unparalleled choice in smartphones has put us at the top of the industry—and given us twice as many smartphone customers as any of our competitors,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “As the leaders in mobile broadband, we complement our smartphone lineup with the nation’s fastest 3G network and the largest Wi-Fi network in the U.S., with more than 20,000 public hotspots. We’re also the only carrier to offer valuable features like A-List with ROLLOVER, which add even greater value to our products and services. We’re looking forward to bringing these benefits to customers who choose one of the Palm smartphones or the exclusive Dell Aero.”

Who said Palm was going down without a fight?  Sure, they've had their share of financial troubles as of late, but that doesn't mean that they can't play in the same field as the big boys.  Proving that they still have some fight left in them, the maker of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus announced that the two devices would be coming to AT&T later in the year.  The Pixi Plus will cost $49.99 and the Pre Plus will cost $149.99, both after mail-in rebate and new two-year agreement.

The full press release text can be found below.  Now that we have webOS options on the nation's top three wireless carriers, when will we see the option on T-Mobile?  Sound off in the comments section!

AT&T* today further cemented its status as the U.S. leader in smartphones by announcing an expansion of its industry-leading lineup to include the Palm^® Pre™ Plus and Palm Pixi™ Plus. The new smartphones will run on the nation’s fastest 3G network – and take advantage of the ability to talk and surf the Web at the same time. Further strengthening AT&T’s leadership, the new smartphones make AT&T the only U.S. carrier to offer devices representing all major operating systems. The Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus are AT&T’s first smartphones to feature the Palm webOS™ platform.

The Pre Plus and Pixi Plus available at AT&T will be the only Palm webOS devices in the U.S. to support simultaneous voice and data while running multiple applications at once. The Palm Synergy™ feature in webOS keeps your email, contacts and calendars up to date with integration to Yahoo!, Facebook®, Google™, LinkedIn®, and Microsoft® Office Outlook®, all in one view. For more information on Pre Plus and Pixi Plus visit www.att.com/webos.

Palm Pre Plus will be available at $149.99 and the Palm Pixi Plus will cost $49.99, both after a two year contract and mail-in-rebate.

All of these new smartphones feature Wi-Fi connectivity and AT&T customers with these devices will receive AT&T Wi-Fi access at U.S. hotspots included as part of their unlimited data plan. AT&T’s has the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network with more than 20,000 U.S. hotspots.

For the complete array of AT&T offerings, visit www.att.com.

Sony Ericsson's first Android smartphone, the Xperia X10, arrived at my office Saturday - a day late, courtesy of FedEx. I've had a little less than two days now with this unlocked version of the device, and have been using it on AT&T's 3G network. Read on for my first impressions. Unboxing video coming soon - it's a long story, but I made some dumb errors while editing the vid, posted it, took it down, and re-edited. Now it's ready to upload, but as I'm at the airport awaiting my flight to Vegas for CTIA, I can't find a fast enough uplink to get the file up to the cloud. Oh, the travails of modern workflife.

All in all X10 is a nice device that could be very, very nice but suffers from some quirks and minor lags. Sony's custom user interface, comprised primarily of their Timescape and Mediascape apps, is nice but feels less revolutionary now than it looked when the X10 was first previewed some months ago. While the phone is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, it lags while loading certain apps - likely due to a combination of the outdated Android OS 1.6 platform and the network intensive nature of Timescape.

- Call quality is pretty good so far, but the earpiece seems kind of quiet. Voices on the other end of calls have been clear but low-volume; I had to crank the volume all the way up, and at that point could hear the plastic chassis of the X10 vibrating ever so slightly during a call.

- Battery life has been fairly solid, but I'm concerned about drain from Timescape connecting to Twitter, Facebook (and MySpace, if I used MySpace) to pull updates. Timescape is easily adjustable, though, to limit automatic network updates or turn them off entirely.

- The 4" display is very nice to look at. I'm convinced that 3.7" (Nexus One and Droid) is now the absolute minimum size for a high-end smartphone, and 4"+ is the wave of the future. X10's size nicely splits the difference between smaller devices and the slate-like enormity of the HTC HD2.

- While X10's display is capacitive touch, I'm finding it less responsive than best-in-breed touchscreens like iPhone, Nexus One, and Droid. I don't know if it's hardware, software, or a combination of both, but simple button taps aren't always registering for me.

- That said, when the system works, it's fluid and graceful. Kinetic scrolling is nice, SE's visual design is classy and geeky all at once, and photos look great on the 854 x 480 high-res screen.

- Mediascape is a really nice music app - perhaps the best music player to hit Android to date. The Web tie-ins to your local music library are nice (Web search, YouTube search, etc), but what I really like are the graceful but information-filled views offered while browsing your media library and playing individual tracks.

- Timescape is kinda neat, but much more suited to the casual social networking user than the power tweeter or Facebook fiend. Think of it as a much easier to view - if slightly less powerful - Motoblur. While it's nifty to see my contacts' photos along with their latest status updates or messages, I quickly moved the Timescape widget off of my main home screen panel and installed a proper Twitter client to better suit my needs. 

- My X10 came with both the Android Keyboard and something called "Standard Keyboard" pre-installed. Neither is very satisfying. While two-thumbed typing in widescreen mode is pretty nice thanks to the huge 4" display, the keyboard itself suffers from some strange design decisions. Comma and period deserve dedicated buttons, no? Luckily, it's super easy to install a keyboard replacement on Android.

- The device comes with a Sony Ericsson stereo headset but won't work with any of the third party headsets I've tried. Both my Etymotics and a pair of Shures I'm reviewing balked during calls and music playback - something about the "iPhone compatible" connector plug doesn't jibe with the structure of the X10's headphone jack. Standard headphones (without inline microphone) work fine with the phone, however.

- I tried the 8.1 MP camera briefly yesterday and results were pretty good given the harsh lighting conditions.  Video quality seemed quite good. I'll try to upload some shots later today.

- No word on possible upgrade paths to Android 2.1. I'll check in with Sony Ericsson this week.

More coming soon - I've got the X10 in hand for the trip to CTIA.