Vodafone flips stake in China Mobile for a cool $6.6B originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though the standard GSM technology path has always been (and will likely always be) Nokia’s bread and butter, Espoo has warmed to the idea of alternatives in the past couple years — they’ve ended up establishing a reasonably decent lineup with Verizon in the States, and for China, TD-SCDMA is the name of the game these days. To that end, the company has received its membership card to the TD Forum in the mail (finally joining its Nokia Siemens joint venture) and announced two new candybars: the X5 and C5. Actually, it’s a bit unfair to call them both “new” since the C5′s already seen an international introduction, but the X5 is a fresh design that mimics the design of its X3 and X6 cousins with a 5 megapixel cam and 2.4-inch QVGA display, becoming the company’s first S60 device with support for TD-SCDMA to deliver on a promise made back in 2008. Interestingly, China Mobile’s C5 is quite a bit different from the version you’ll find elsewhere, rocking an entirely different ID and enjoying an additional 1.8 megapixels in its camera sensor for a grand total of 5. The X5 should start to filter into the market this quarter, while the C5 come in the third quarter. Follow the break for the press release.

Continue reading Nokia cozies up to TD-SCDMA some more, launches China Mobile versions of the X5 and C5, joins TD Forum

Nokia cozies up to TD-SCDMA some more, launches China Mobile versions of the X5 and C5, joins TD Forum originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If we need another reason to be envious of Chinese residents, it’d be the premium treatment that they’re getting from Dell these days. Spotted on Chinese mobile regulator TENAA’s website are two 3G phones from seemingly different design departments — the never-before-seen Mini 3T1 (pictured) is a “TD-SCDMA / GSM dual-mode cellphone” that “supports HSDPA,” dons a 2-megapixel camera on the back plus a front-facing one, and we’re betting on Ophone for the OS; the second device is the familiar Mini 3iX (an exotic cousin of AT&T’s Aero) that will sport the same old WCDMA radio. No word on availability of either handsets in China yet, but hey, who cares when the Streak is on the horizon?

Dell Mini 3T1 and Mini 3iX 3G phones spotted with Chinese mobile regulator originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC says its growth in the US is ‘faster than others’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Apr 2010 11:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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China Mobile given OK to set up shop in Taiwan originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Big doings over in Barcelona today. Twenty-four telecom operators, with the support of the GSMA and three major hardware manufacturers, have formally announced they will come together to form the Wholesale Applications Community. Essentially, the goal of the alliance will be to create a viable, cohesive and open industry platform for mobile app developers. Members of the Community will include AT&T, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, TeliaSonera, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone among others, and they’ll be supported in their endeavors by LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. The total customers of the group is about 3 billion, giving WAC (our name) some considerable — albeit theoretical for the moment — power. The group plans to work on coming up with a standard for working across platforms over the next twelve months. WAC’s website just went live a bit ago — there’s a link to it below — and the full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Twenty-four telecom operators unite to form Wholesale Applications Community

Twenty-four telecom operators unite to form Wholesale Applications Community originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As Google and China trade blows on the global stage Lenovo just keeps on truckin’ with its plans to launch the Android-powered LePhone in China and overseas. Samsung and Motorola you’ll recall, already bent under Google’s pressure and agreed to delay the launch of their respective handsets in China last week. Lenovo execs are planning for a hat-trick launch in May on China Unicom, China Mobile, and China Telecom with a rest of world launch expected later in the year. Lenovo shareholders also approved the company’s planned buy-back of its mobile handset division today, making them just the latest tier-1 PC maker to join the smartphone party. Picture of the LePhone with its optional keyboard accessory after the break.

Continue reading Lenovo LePhone launching in Le May

Lenovo LePhone launching in Le May originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RAZR. KRAVE. MOTOROI. SHOP4APPS? We think — nay, we hope — that we’ve at long last reached the nadir of Motorola’s naming convention and are finally on our way up from the depths of marketing hell now that the company has announced its new Android app store for China. We’re not totally clear on why these guys need this on top of the Android Market and China Mobile’s own Open Mobile System initiative, but for what it’s worth, Chinese buyers of the XT701, MT710, and XT800 will have yet another way to find, buy, and store purchases for their phones.

Perhaps the more interesting part of the announcement, though, is that Motorola is adding the capability to choose a non-default (read: non-Google) search provider on these phones. For all practical purposes, Baidu is China’s Google, anyhow, with a commanding market lead — so it probably makes a lot of sense for locals to be able to route searches through them, never mind the fact that it gives Moto an escape hatch for sidestepping the drama going on right now. An Android phone tightly integrated with Google search isn’t so useful if Google leaves the country, right? Look for both of these services to be available via over-the-air updates in time for the Chinese New Year — January 26.

Motorola bringing SHOP4APPS app store 2CHINA, adding workaround for Google spat originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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China is one of Motorola’s last safe havens for Windows Mobile-powered devices, but even the Far East is falling to the inevitable onslaught of little green robots — one need look no further than the XT701, MT710, and XT800 for evidence of that. That leads us to believe that the company’s 2010 haul of smartphones for China will be primarily Android-based — particularly in light of China Mobile’s commitment to it through Open Mobile System — expanding on comments in Korea this week by Moto’s GM of the mobile devices business that there will “probably another four or five [smartphones] later” in the region following the recent announcements of the MT710 and XT800 and the upcoming launch of the XT701. Considering that China continues to be a stronghold for Moto, we’re not surprised to see so much of the company’s product R&D dollars go that way — as long as the rest of the world ends up getting some trickle-down benefit, of course.

Motorola China has a bunch of smartphones on tap this year originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bell Labs spearheads Green Touch initiative to improve network energy efficiency originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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