Motorola Droid 2 Global firmware update promises better voice quality, sundry fixes
Verizon's been pretty good about keeping its Droid line well-updated in a timely fashion -- if not with the latest Android versions, at least with critical fixes. The trend continues on the Droid 2 Global , where a firmware refresh rolling out now is said to offer "improved" audio during calls, fewer freezes, and a bunch of fixes around the phone's global roaming capability
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: capability, droid2global, firmware-update, mobile, motorola, rolling-out-now, voice quality
Droid 2 R2-D2 falls to $200 on contract
With the original Droid 2 going for $149.99 and the newer, faster Droid 2 Global going for $50 more, the R2-D2 edition -- despite its awesomeness -- seemed a little out of place for a whopping $249.99, putting it out of reach of all but the most die-hard (and independently wealthy) Star Wars fanatics. Well, we wouldn't exactly call it a fire sale, but Big Red's cutting us a break now by trimming the price down to a more reasonable $199.99 -- in other words, you've got to choose between a speedier processor and international roaming capability..
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: capability, despite-its, droid 2, droid 2 r2-d2, droid2, droid2r2-d2, engadget-mobile, entry, fire, more-reasonable, sale, verizon-wireless, vzw
Toshiba TG01 slowly, surely gets hacked to run Android
It's easy to forget about the TG01 nowadays, but bear in mind that Toshiba's WinMo beast from last year was the first production phone in the world to use Qualcomm Snapdragon silicon.
Categories: Android, htc, Mobile Phone Tags: capability, developers, hack, honored, htc, phone, silicon, snapdragon, surely-gets, tg01, toshiba, tradition, winmo, world
Mobiado 105 Damascus handled on video, which is the closest you’ll ever get to one
Mobiado's 105 series of Series 40 -based luxury candybars is nothing new -- in fact, it's quite old -- but as Vertu has discovered over the years, customers that are looking to spend four or five figures on a phone are apparently often uninterested in smartphone capability for some reason.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: 105damascus, capability, damascus, damascussteel, hands, memory, mobile, result, series40, sweden
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 hacked to support multitouch, sort of
So there's no recent sign of an official multitouch update ever coming to the maligned X10 from Sony Ericsson, but you know how it goes: when a manufacturer fails to step up to the plate, a hacker with a heart of gold (or two) usually does so in its place. So it goes in this case, with folks on xda-developers showing off some very, very rudimentary multitouch capability on video
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: become-good, capability, device, engadget-mobile, ericsson, ericsson-xperia, gold, recent-sign, result, sonyericsson, touchscreen, x10, xda, xperia
Nokia C7 has NFC capability, won’t say what it’s for — yet
We like us a little intrigue in our handsets, and we'd say this definitely qualifies: Nokia has apparently quietly slipped NFC circuitry into its just-launched C7 without bothering to mention it in any of the phone's literature. What does that mean? Well, Nokia's not saying, curiously -- but the company has experimented with using NFC for a variety of things over the years, and cashless transactions and contact information exchange are obviously two of the biggies
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: biggies, capability, circuitry, engadget, exchange, literature, little-intrigue, management, nfc, nokia, obviously-two, over-the-years, theories
Samsung Freeform II freestyles its way onto MetroPCS
Don't expect any improvements in the 1.3 megapixel camera, but the reworked Freeform II from Samsung has at least one thing going for it over the model it replaces : a QVGA display. It seems hard to believe, but ye olde Freeform clocked in at just 220 x 176, so 320 x 240 is certainly a welcome improvement
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: bluetooth, capability, freeformii, media-player, metropcs, mobile, model, qwerty, samsung
T-Mobile busts out new prepaid plans with data options, mix-and-match voice and text
Come October 18, T-Mobile USA will be shaking things up in the prepaid market with a handful of new options that finally acknowledge users -- yes, even those on prepaid plans -- are gobbling data in droves.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: busts, capability, droves, messaging, plans, prepaid data, press, resist-the-urge
Casio G’zOne Ravine blasts its way onto Verizon
Alright, Boulder owners, heads up -- your upgrade has arrived. The rumored Casio G'zOne Ravine is now official for Verizon, offering a 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash, noise cancellation, VZ Navigator support, and -- of course -- MIL-STD-810G compliance for resistance to "water, dust, shock, vibration, humidity, altitude, salt fog, solar radiation, and high and low temperatures." Salt fog can be brutal, can't it? It's also got push-to-talk capability over Verizon's EV-DO network, though we suspect that ain't a thing for most would-be Ravine buyers -- serious push-to-talkers have long since rallied around Sprint and Boost, both of whom offered their own ruggedized gear.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: altitude, capability, clamshell, engadget, gzone, mobile, navigator, radiation, result, shock, verizon, verizon-wireless, verizonwireless, vzw
Casio G’zOne Ravine coming soon on Verizon, it seems
Fact: the QWERTY clamshell Brigade is the only Casio G'zOne that Verizon currently sells. Fact: not everyone that wants a G'zOne wants a QWERTY clamshell (well, okay, that's more of a suspicion of ours than a fact, really).
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: capability, casio, continue-being, flip, launch, mobile, not-everyone, phone, vzw