In terms of new customers, the prepaid business has been a bright spot in the wireless industry (GigaOM Pro, subscription required) as the economy has sourced, but rivalry among carriers has led to all-you-can-eat plans for around $50 per month that have lowered their annual revenue per user. Virgin Mobile hasn’t benefited as much as rivalsT racFone Leap Wireless or Metro PCS when it comes to adding customers, but has still managed to boost its profits. It reported net income of $19.1 million in its fiscal 2009 first quarter compared to $4.7 million in the first quarter of 2008, a 301 percent gain. Meanwhile, Sprint’s own financial results were grim.
Sprint, which reports second-quarter results tomorrow, added 764,000 prepaid customers to its Boost Mobile subsidiary during its first quarter but saw 1.25 million post-paid subscribers — the source of the big money for any carrier — removed from the books. It posted a net loss of $594 million and blamed its continuing problems on the economy. Boost has helped Sprint’s business, but it also brings in less money for the carrier with annual revenue per user (ARPU) for prepaid subscribers at $31 vs. $56 for a postpaid subscriber. Boost also operates primarily on Sprint’s iDEN network, which it acquired when it bought Nextel in 2005.
The iDEN network has had problems keeping up with the volume of text messaging engaged in by Boost subscribers, leading to complaints that Sprint says it has since resolved. However, since Sprint recently signed a deal to outsource the day-to-day operations of its network to Ericsson, it might make sense for Sprint to shift its Boost brand over to the EVDO network and gradually shut down the iDEN network to consolidate operations and costs.
The Virgin deal may force Sprint’s hand, as it will mean the carrier has two separate prepaid brands running on different networks — a cost drain in a highly competitive business. When asked about the likelihood of consolidating networks, a Sprint spokeswoman said in an email that the two networks would remain separate. “We intend to keep Boost and Virgin Mobile USA operating as separate but complementary brands in the marketplace, each focused on a different end of the customer base,” she wrote. “Boost and Virgin Mobile USA will balance different offers and styles to appeal to different customer demographics.”
Following the close of the transaction, Sprint’s prepaid business will be led by Dan Schulman, currently Virgin Mobile USA chief executive officer, who will report directly to Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel’s president and CEO. Schulman will be responsible for the business strategy and growth of the prepaid segment, while Matt Carter, who leads Boost Mobile, will report to Schulman.
All credits and information was found by gigaom.
Both 8GB and 16GB discounted models still requires a two year AT&T service plan.
The refurbished iPhones have been previously owned -- returned within the 30-day trial period -- and are either unused or lightly used.
Each phone is tested and loaded with the latest software to meet current factory standards and carries a warranty of 90 days or more.
AT&T initially cut the price of refurbished iPhones to $99 last December.
The second-generation iPhone 3G was release in June 2008, and featured built-in GPS for tracking applications, improved audio, a flush headphone jack, an integrated camera, Wi-Fi connectivity and 3G Internet -- twice as fast as the original iPhone.
The refurbished iPhone 3G is available for $49 with a two-year AT&T contract while supplies last.
Last month, AT&T released Apple's third-generation iPhone 3GS.
By Sean Captain – LG is very enVious these days. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one.) Along with a new touchscreen version of its dual-screen flip phone, the company introduced an upgrade of the classic design. The new enV3 opens up to provide a larger screen, at 2.6 inches with a higher resolution of 320 by 240 pixels. On the outside, a four-way touchpad replaces the old up and down arrows, allowing you to control more functions--such as selecting music playback--without opening the phone.
From the outside or the inside, the enV now allows you to post directly to a blog via your phone. Configure the service on Verizon's Web site (as it's the exclusive seller of all enVs) and it will automatically route your posts to any or all blog services that you specify.To further enhance the entries, you can add photos from the new 3-megapixel, autofocus camera, lit by the newly included Xenon flash.
And if you're too busy typing to talk a call, you can screen your incoming with the same iPhone-like visual voicemail that LG first offered on its Voyager phone.
Available since the end of May, the en V3 sells for$80 with a new contract.
All credits and information was found byubergizmo.
There are two main reasons for that: 1.8" drives are very slow, which makes them undesirable for computers. They are also bigger and consume more power than flash, making them undesirable for CE devices. Finally, 32GB or 64GB is "good enough" for a whole lot of customer who would rather have a device that is smaller, with a better battery life.
How much bigger can the iPod classic grow in capacity? The last study that we looked at indicated that most users have less than 4GB of music. Video changes the game a bit, but to what extent? Apparently, Samsung is not finding buyers with its 250GB drive, so that could be a good indicator…
All credits and information was found by ubergizmo.
The Padded Holder with Tilt Swivel is custom made with a neat and discreet design. It tilts 15 degrees in any direction for optimal viewing. Your iPhone 3G S easily slides in and out of the holder.
The Padded Holder with Tilt Swivel and Charging/USB Cable has a cable permanently attached to the base so when your device is slid into the holder it connects to the cable. Then the cable can either be plugged into your car’s 12V power outlet or any female USB connection. You can easily slide your iPhone in and out of the holder. The Holder angles 15 degrees for optimal viewing.
The Holder with Tilt Swivel and Pass-Through Connector will make docking and undocking, your iPhone 3G S, easier and more convenient. Attach your stereo cable, charging cable or any other iPhone compatible cable, to the bottom of the holder, to create a docking station. Your iPhone 3G S is conveniently on the dash within easy reach and slides in and out of the holder with one hand. The holder is custom made with a neat and discreet design and tilts 15 degrees, in any direction, for optimal viewing.
The Adjustable Holder with Tilt Swivel and Pass-Through Connector has all the benefits of the above Holder with Tilt Swivel and Pass-Through Connector plus it is designed to accommodate your encased iPhone 3G S. This Adjustable Holder will adjust from a width of 2.3″ (60mm) to 3.2″ (82mm).
The ProClip Vehicle Mount provides the mounting platform to attach any of the ProClip holders. The ProClip Vehicle Mount is the only vehicle specific, consumer installable mounting bracket in today’s global market. The mount clips into the dashboard seams, providing a very sturdy and tight fit. Average installation time is 2 minutes. No dismantling of the dashboard is required and there is no damage to the vehicle’s interior!
Guess there is a little bit of something for everyone, unless you don’t own a vehicle, of course, then you’ll just need to stash your iPhone 3G S into your pocket while you get about on public transport.
All credits and information was found by coolest-gadgets.
You could choose how many speakers you wanted, along with adding a couple of things you might not expect. Things like a light to give a nice glow along with your tunes, as well as an air purifier. Adding an air purifier to it would make it so that you didn’t have a separate purifier cluttering up your desk. The design was created by Sang-hoon Lee. It may never make it to an actual store, but it’d definitely be nice if it did.
All credits and information was found by coolest-gadgets.
Specs at a Glance
The HTC Diamond2 runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with HTC's TouchFLO 3D UI. It has a 528MHz Qualcomm CPU, 512 megs of flash storage with an SDHC microSD card slot under the back cover to beef up storage, 288 megs of RAM, WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR with a complete set of profiles including support for tethering (not that you'd want to tether on EDGE) and A2DP Bluetooth stereo. It weighs only 4.15 ounces and measures 4.25 x 2.09 x 0.54 inches making it a mid-sized smartphone.
Web and Talk
The Diamond2's Opera Mobile web browser is excellent. It's one of the few mobile web browsers that doesn't have us pining for the iPhone and Safari. It manages faithful desktop rendering on most full HTML sites and is considerably more quick and stable on the Diamond2 than the original Diamond (the browser could slow the original Diamond to a crawl). You can scroll by dragging a web page with your fingers and it has kinetic scrolling (fast swipe=more page scrolled). Given the display's small size relative to its high resolution, you'll generally have to zoom in if you wish to tap a link. To zoom, tap the display or use the hardware zoom bar which works quite well. Since this is a resistive touch screen that lacks multi-touch, there's no pinch-zoom with two fingers.
Email is the usual Outlook mobile with HTC's attractive skin on top. It's much the same as last generation TouchFLO 3D: the home screen email tab shows envelopes with letters poking out, and these represent your email messages. It supports Exchange, POP3 and IMAP email plus attachments, SSL and advanced server configurations. While not the prettiest email client among mobile platforms, it is one of the most robust and powerful.
Voice quality on GSM/EDGE is very good and volume is a bit above average. If and when a US 3G version hits the market, we'd expect even better voice quality since 3G uses higher quality voice codecs. Reception is average and a tad better than the original Diamond on EDGE. Alas, there's no voice dialing, so you'll have to purchase a 3rd party application for voice dial and command but speed dial is a standard feature of the OS.
GPS and Camera
HTC's unlocked phones haven't impressed us when it comes to GPS performance. The Diamond2, like the Touch Pro2 shows great improvements and we got fairly quick cold fixes outdoors and had no problem getting a warm fix indoors. Forget a cold fix indoors though. The GPS can use aGPS data to improve fix times and the Diamond2 has HTC's usual QuickGPS application that downloads GPS data once per week. The phone comes with Google Maps, but no commercial software with spoken turn-by-turn directions. You can use the Windows Mobile navigation application of your choosing, and since the phone has a microSD card slot, it's not a pain to use Garmin Mobile like it was with the original Diamond.
The 5 megapixel camera is a big step up for an HTC Windows Mobile phone. The Touch HD sported a 5 MP camera as well, but US HTC models have topped out at 3.2 MP. The autofocus lens is small and can't compete with the Carl Zeiss lens used on Nokia N Series smartphones like theN97 and N85. It does take sharper pictures than the 3.2 MP Touch Pro 2 and much better shots than the US Touch Pro first gen (aka Fuze on AT&T). The Diamond2 can capture VGA video with audio, but fps top out at 15, again falling behind Nokia's 5MP cameras.
Conclusion
If you're a Windows Mobile or more so, an HTC TouchFLO 3D fan who doesn't want a hardware keyboard, the Touch Diamond2 is well worth a look, especially if a US 3G version hits the market. We're impressed and pleased with the high resolution 480 x 800 pixel touch screen, but at 3.2" it doesn't hit the sweet spot as does the Touch Pro2 and the even larger Touch HD. Text is small in the web browser and finger control isn't as smooth since the targets are smaller. On the upside, the Diamond2 is quick and responsive, and the graphical user interface doesn't bog down despite all the TouchFLO 3D high res graphics and animations. The phone is stable and has enough power to play QVGA to VGA video if you keep the resolution under 650 to 750kbps. Voice quality is very good and data speeds over EDGE aren't all that slow. We'd have given the Diamond2 a 3.5 star rating if it weren't for the lack of US 3G.
Price: ~ $550 US unlocked with no contract
All credits and information was found by mobiletechreview.
He was behind the branding of the Sony Walkman back in 1979. Don’t forget that before the Apple iPod, the Sony Walkman brand was king. The name “Walkman” was pretty much the generic term for a tape or CD player. Mr. Ueyama also has some other impressive credentials such as being the personal advisor for Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson and was the representative for Lady Margaret Thatcher for ten years.
Right now, ZAGG is far from a household name, although their invisibleSHIELD is quite popular in geek circles.We've tested out some of their headphones and they’re pretty good. With the addition of Mr. Ueyama, ZAGG will be able to expand its market by using his connections. Don’t be surprised to see ZAGG products prominently displayed in Virgin Megastores sometime soon.
All credits and information was found by gadgetell.
ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC
* Sprint Music Store SM , allows users to wirelessly download full-length songs directly to their phone
* Sprint TV® with an extensive selection of live and on-demand programming
* MP3 player with microSD memory card slot with up to 16GB card capability
* Stereo Bluetooth and 2.5 mm headset jack allowing users to listen to music in stereo (sold separately)
PRODUCTIVITY
* Sprint One Click is a customizable home screen allowing consumers to get text messages, web access, MySpace friend requests, email, entertainment and more within a click of their home screen. Plus, it can quickly be personalized with the things they use the most
* Sprint Navigation with GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn driving directions, one-click traffic rerouting and more than 10 million local listings
* 2.0 MP camera Camcorder with Sprint PCS® Picture Mail to shoot, share and print high-resolution digital photos instantly
* Easy, one-touch access to all your personal and work email including AOL/AIM, Yahoo!, Windows Live (Hotmail and MSN) and more
* Record a voice message and send it to as many as 25 friends at once, without even making a call
* Built-in productivity tools such as planner and scheduler, memo pad, world clock, alarm clock, calculator and more
SPECIFICATIONS
* Dimensions: 4.06 x 1.89 x 0.63 inches; 3.7 ounces
* Display: 1.20 x 1.60 inches TFT (240 x 320 pixels QVGA and 262K vibrant colors)
* Standard Lithium (LiIon) battery: up to 6 hours continuous talk time*
* Talk times will vary depending on phone usage patterns and conditions. Battery power consumption depends on factors such as network configuration, signal strength, operating temperature, features selected, vibrate mode, backlight settings, browser use, frequency of calls and voice, data and other application usage patterns.
All credits and information was found by mobiletechnews.
Check out the change log below:
Final Thoughts
We'll publish our full review in the coming days, but suffice to say we really like what the Dash 3G has to offer. It's got a great QWERTY keyboard, plenty of features, a good GPS, 3G and what we assume will be a reasonable price.
All credits and information was found by mobiletechreview.
