BlackBerry Pearl 3G hitting Telus next month for $30
We've been surmising that RIM's brand-spanking-new BlackBerry Pearl 3G has a decent shot at becoming a runaway hit if carriers can offer it for peanuts, and Canada's Telus is off to a good start with the announcement that it'll hit for CAD $29.99 (about $30) on a three-year contract starting next month. It looks like these guys will only be offering the 20-key version, but there'll be a choice of two colors: black and pink, a Telus exclusive (only within Canadian borders, we'd assume). Without a CDMA version of the phone in sight, what do you want to bet they're thanking their lucky stars they've got their HSPA network up and running now?
Categories: BlackBerry, Mobile Phone Tags: 20-key-version, been-surmising, black, engadget-mobile, entry, media, news, phone, result, telus
Samsung Exec launched for US Cellular, suggests WinMo ain’t dead yet
You probably won't hear Microsoft lauding this thing too much -- it's got bigger fish to fry at the moment -- but Samsung and US Cellular have just teamed up to launch the i225 Exec, a simple Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard-based smartphone with a portrait QWERTY keyboard. It's got a 2 megapixel camera and microSD expansion up to 32GB (assuming you can actually track down a 32GB SanDisk card ), but otherwise, this is about as straightforward and basic as a modern smartphone can get -- no frills, just straight-up touchscreen-free legacy WinMo action. It's available right now for $99.95 on a new two-year contract after $70 rebate
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: engadget-mobile, entry, exec, jsp, microsoft, mobile, phones, qwerty, result, sch-i225, uscellular, windows mobile 6.5, winmo 6.5, wm6.5
RIM’s BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 lets you stay tied to your desk without being tied to your desk
Though the Bold 9650 and Pearl 3G are clearly the big announcements out of Orlando at RIM's WES conference this morning, there was a third bit of news in the mix, too -- with a decidedly heavier enterprise slant, that is. BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 extends the existing product with SIP support, allowing calls to transition seamlessly between cellular and WiFi networks. What's more, it'll work on pretty much any open WiFi hotspot (subject to enterprise policy, we're assuming), so this is just about the best way in the business to keep you desk phone with you at all times.
Categories: BlackBerry, Mobile Phone Tags: BlackBerry, engadget-mobile, enterprise, entry, existing, mobile, orlando-at-rim, pbx, rim, voice, wifi
Palm’s Pre Plus and Pixi Plus coming to France next week
Hey, France, you really want to rub some salt in AT&T customers' wounds for no reason other than the fact that you're feeling scrappy?
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: alright-then, browsers-come, custom-goodies, engadget-mobile, entry, extensive, helps-customers, hotspot-network, palm, pixi plus, pre plus, these-devices, using-the-phone
Palm deploying crack team of kind strangers to give you stuff
If you're walking around with your Pre or Pixi prominently displayed and some dude comes up to you and tries to hand you a bag, don't freak out: odds are you've merely been selected for one of Palm's "random acts of wow." The company is playing coy about where these people are or for how long the promotion is going to last, but apparently they've got people all over the world on the prowl for Palm users that look like they could use an accessory or three, with gifts ranging from stickers all the way up to pricey Touchstones and everything in between.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: acts, engadget-mobile, entry, gifts, odds, over-the-world, palm, stickers, touchstones
Verizon down in Wyoming, Colorado, parts of the Midwest?
We're getting a boatload of tips this morning that Verizon service has been down in Wyoming, Colorado, and parts of the Midwest this morning. An article posted on Wyoming's thetrib.com cites a "technical snafu" overnight at a Colorado-based switching center as the culprit with plans in place to have everything back up and running by late morning Pacific Time today, but we're curious who all has been affected -- Midwesterners in particular, have you gotten dragged into this nonsense? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Verizon down in Wyoming, Colorado, parts of the Midwest?
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: been-affected, colorado-based, engadget, engadget-mobile, entry, mobile, Switching, technical
HTC Legend gets firmware update in Europe, reunites with missing apps in Market
Attention, possessors of the European HTC Legend ! Have you noticed a handful of missing apps in the Market, namely Twidroid , Layar , MySpace Mobile , Barcode Scanner , Google Goggles , FxCamera , and so forth? The brilliantly quiet HTC has finally come to light with the bizarre offending bug -- camera incompatibility
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, htc Tags: bizarre, engadget, engadget-mobile, europe, google-goggles, htc-legend, incompatibility, legend, mobile, offending-bug, ota firmware update, otaupdate, over-the-air, receive-the-ota, result
PSA: we’re broadcasting our feed on Twitter now!
Over the past few weeks, we've had a number of folks reach out and implore us to broadcast our standard RSS feed over our Twitter account the same way our colleagues at Engadget and Engadget HD do.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: engadget-mobile, engadgetmobile, mobile, psa, steady, steady-stream, twitter
Vodafone’s Sure Signal femtocells see a couple days of outage
Wireless customers around the globe with femtocells securely stowed in their homes might start to take five bars of signal strength for granted, but there are still plenty of gotchas; your internet service could go down, for example, taking your phone with it -- and it turns out that your carrier can inadvertently bring it to its knees on occasion, too. It looks like a whole lot of Vodafone's Sure Signal-branded units in the UK have been acting up the past couple days due to network registration issues; new and existing Sure Signal customers alike have been affected, turning homes back into the barren, 3G-less wastelands they were before the device existed. Most (if not all) of the Sure Signals are now back in action, but considering that the outage lasted a lot longer than a few brief moments, let's hope that the Voda techs behind the scenes learned a lesson or two in the process.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: engadget-mobile, entry, femtocell, homes, lesson-or-two, mobile, outage, result, signal-branded, signal-strength, sure signal, suresignal, vodafone
HTC wants some help naming a phone, turns to Facebook users
HTC is known for being one of the more prolific codenamers in the entire wireless industry, going all the way back to the early days with unforgettable devices like the Canary and Blue Angel, but let's be honest: thinking up awesome names for all these phones when you're pumping out dozens of models a year gets tricky after a while. The English language is only so big, right? On that note, HTC has turned to its Facebook followers to come up with a name for "something new" that it's got cooking in the labs right now, and the choices are "Jovi," "Zeal," "Wildfire," and "Festi." Of course, we think that the nature of the device plays a big role in our choice (Jovi would be a good name for a washed-up phone with last year's specs, for instance), but the company isn't revealing an iota of detail about it, so we've gotta do this blind
Categories: Mobile Phone, htc Tags: Angel, awesome-names, Choices, codename, engadget-mobile, entry, facebook, htc, mobile, nature, Poll, result, something-new