Sony Ericsson’s eco-loving Naite now available from Sony Style
Following availability on Rogers by just a handful of days, Sony Ericsson is now talking up availability of the simple Naite candybar down south of the border -- but it's not through a carrier this time. Instead, you'll need to stroll into your local Sony Style store (or order online) to get it unlocked and unsubsidized. Oftentimes that's a brutal situation financially, but seeing how the Naite is a rather low-end device, these guys are charging just $159 for the privilege of using a device touting a case made of 50 percent post-consumer recycled plastic and an ultra-eco charger
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: engadget-mobile, naite, privilege, rather-low-end, sony, sony-ericsson, sonyericsson, sonystyle, style, time
Qik Premium: video downloads, higher quality, Nokia only for now
Qik has finally gotten around to charging its customers this week with the announcement of Qik Premium, a new service that employs both a new phone client and some tweaked back-end stuff to offer users a handful of new features. The biggies appear to be MPEG-4 video downloads straight from the uploaded segments on Qik's site and some sort of higher-quality transcoding algorithm with faster playback that won't be available to standard, non-paying folks. That's not all, though -- Qik Premium is the gift that keeps on giving, because they're working on the ability to upload videos from your phone's in-built camera app next
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: engadget, engadget-mobile, keeps-on-giving, month, mpeg, ovi, premium, qikpremium, release, result, segments-on-qik
Vodafone turns recycled phones into geek chic
Perhaps giving up on extracting every last juicy nugget of copper, tin, and awesomeness out of customers' trashed phones after they've been turned in for recycling, Vodafone is turning to a decidedly more low-tech solution: jewelry. As of next month, it looks like some Voda locales will be getting baubles fashioned from old handsets' green innards -- not to say we've ever necessarily wanted a Terminator-esque owl hanging from our keychain, but at just 120 koruny each ($6), we might be convinced to buy anyhow
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: circuitboardjewelry, engadget-mobile, getting-baubles, green-innards, keychain, recycle, recycled, recycled phones, recycledphones, trashed-phones, turns-recycled, vodafone
For Rogers, HTC Magic + Sense = Magic+
Thought that one of the first major Android devices in the world would go away without a fight?
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, htc Tags: different-roads, engadget-mobile, limited edition, magic, meet-the-magic, phone, result, rogers, sense, senseui, web
Samsung Caliber coming to MetroPCS, TouchWiz in tow
It's not every day that a carrier exclusively offering contract-free service spits out a full touchscreen device, so the freshly-announced Caliber from Samsung becomes a pretty interesting proposition for MetroPCS customers. Although it lacks EV-DO Rev
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: all-stuffed, breaking-news, breakingnews, caliber, engadget-mobile, mobile, pipe, samsung, samsung-caliber, service-spits, still-makes
Emporia Solid and Elegance hands-on
Emporia landed at MWC with a couple sets geared specifically to the elderly, the Emporia Elegance (pictured left) and the aptly named Solid. Both of these freshly launched phones are targeted squarely at your grannie's generation, that's to say they include large easy to read fonts, huge keys, and a pretty slim feature set. The Elegance will ship in both black and white, features a 1.8-inch OLED high contrast display, an extra loud ringer, hearing aid compatibility, and 900 / 1800 GSM
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: contrast, elegance, emporiaelegance, engadget-mobile, extreme-sports, grannie, landed-at-mwc, launched-phones, mwc, mwc 2010, result, Ringer, solid
Mexican 3G auction attracts phalanx of bidders
Mexican wireless regulator COFETEL probably has peso signs in its eyes this week on news that 17 -- yes, fully seventeen different firms have filed the requisite paperwork to participate in upcoming auctions for 3G services in the 1900MHz and AWS ranges.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: auctions, cofetel, companies, different-firms, engadget, engadget-mobile, iusacell, mobile, result, spectrum
Telstra boasts it’s got the first live HSPA+ Dual Carrier network
It may not be the fastest live HSPA network today , but Telstra -- a carrier with a history of world's firsts -- is touting that it's now the first operator on the face planet to flip the switch on HSPA+ Dual Carrier, the very same tech that Ericsson has been demoing recently. That means that customers will be able to expect about double the peak 3G speeds they get today (so Telstra claims) once they latch onto Sierra Wireless' new modem, expected to be available "later this year." The fun doesn't end there, though: Telstra says this is just the first stop on a wild ride up to 84Mbps once MIMO is added into the mix with expected commercial availability in 2011, cutting deeply into the territory enjoyed by first-gen LTE networks.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: 42mbps, double-the-peak, dual carrier, dualcarrier, engadget-mobile, entry, hspa, hspa+dualcarrier, media, mobile, result, smurf-blue
O2 scores exclusive on HTC Smart
Carrying HTC's very first feature phone exclusively: a blessing or a curse?
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other, htc Tags: average, average-crappy, engadget-mobile, entry, exclusive, feature phone, italy, norway, result, telefonica
Sprint standardizing on RealNetworks’ platform for music delivery
Even in the face of an endless torrent of free and subscription music services that are doing their best to effectively soak up the world's 3G bandwidth, carriers are showing no sign of giving up the fight for a piece of the audio download revenue pie; indeed, three of the four US nationals run their own branded (or co-branded) services. Sprint happens to be in that group , and they're looking to present a slightly more unified front by bringing tracks, ringtones, and ringback tones under a single roof that'll be managed by RealNetworks' Media Entertainment Platform.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: audio, bandwidth, Delivery, engadget-mobile, experience, fight, giving, media, mobile, more-compelling, music-delivery, real, realnetworks, result, specific-date