When the main business is wrapped in emerging markets, Nokia is therefore best to know a little KIRFs one thing – they are cheap clones of the handset that our Chinese friends often an end more quickly than the time it takes to ship the Nokia handset after notification. The members of the Nokia Board, Esko Aho, says that one in five mobile phones now sold worldwide (mainly in Asia, Latin America, and in some parts of Europe) is an illegal or unauthorized clone. certainly we saw over itself when browsing the Shenzhen market in China. Gartner claims the number even higher than 20 percent. Although we do not spoil it KIRFs their nasty software, comically similar branding (Nokla!), and the cheapo materials, clearly they have become a very serious problem for top-level mobile phone manufacturers. How do we see a serious January 27, when Nokia will publish its fourth quarter results.

One in five mobile phones sold KIRF, said Nokia had originally appeared on Mobile Phone Street. Mar 21 January 2011 07:57:00 ET Please see the

Todd Barnard

Amazon MP3 app hits BlackBerry phones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though the final nail in the Microsoft Kin coffin has yet to be tapped into place, the software that made the pair of ill-fated handsets strangely compelling will soon get the axe. Come January 31st, Kin Studio will be no more, effectively neutering existing Kin phones by removing them from the cloud. They’ll still be able to make calls, send SMS, email, browse the web and even stream music via Zune Pass, but their formerly live homescreens will become lifeless, stripped of social networking functionality — and will actually remain stuck on their very last status update, much like a broken clock. Their online repository of pictures, videos and contacts will cease to exist, though you can back them up to a personal computer if you act now. Thankfully, Verizon seems to understands that not all Kin customers will be happy with a zombiephone, and has taken a drastic measure to help them out — through March 31st, 2011, Kin owners can trade it in for a free 3G phone of their choice. How kind. Find full Verizon FAQs on the transition at our more coverage links.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Kin Studio closing January 31st, Verizon offers free phones to affected customers

Kin Studio closing January 31st, Verizon offers free phones to affected customers originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Dec 2010 13:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unfortunately, the crazy rumors that Google’s Nexus S would ship with a dual-core Orion processor didn’t pan out, which means we’re still waiting for a smartphone to ship with honest-to-goodness multicore silicon of any sort; it’s still unclear just how soon we’re going to see that wild dream come to fruition, but RIM’s Mike Lazaridis is talking like he wants to take the lead in making it happen. At D:Dive Into Mobile this evening, Waterloo’s outspoken co-CEO went on record that they’ll be taking the PlayBook’s QNX platform to smartphones just “as soon as [he has] dual core baseband CPUs,” though power consumption remains a limiting factor. At any rate, RIM seems to be fully acknowledging now both that QNX is a little too beefy for today’s smartphones and that BlackBerry OS isn’t quite beefy enough, which leaves these guys in a bit of a pinch until the dual-core revolution takes hold.

RIM’s Mike Lazaridis: QNX coming to BlackBerry phones when dual-core processors are ready originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 20:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Holiday spirit over in Best Buy land must mean “getting rid of old stock by discounting it.” The Droid Incredible and Xperia X10 are among the handsets to be featured in the big retailer’s December mobile sale, which will involve offering up four free phones each day (one for each carrier) at a price of $0 upfront and subject to the usual two-year agreement. LG’s Optimus T and Optimus S will also get their moment in the spotlight this month, though the discount there isn’t exactly massive when you consider that the S started life costing $50 on contract. Speaking of S-branded Android phones, wasn’t it Best Buy that first leaked out the next Nexus? Now that‘d be a holiday offer worth talking about.

Continue reading Best Buy Mobile will offer free smartphones, mostly Android, every day in December

Best Buy Mobile will offer free smartphones, mostly Android, every day in December originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 03:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Step aside, Sony Ericsson, your Xperia Pureness has been beaten at its own game by an enigmatic new handset that Lenovo has been showing off over in China. The above images come from a Beijing fashion event, where Lenovo chose to debut its S800 featurephone with a color translucent display. It looks to still be at the concept stage, one that not many of these luxury items seem to ever exit, but lest you think it’s not for real, the models showing it off at the show were photographed backstage using the lustworthy piece of glass to do whatever it is that models do with their phones. Check out the links below for more.

Lenovo teases S800 phone with translucent color display, won’t let anyone touch it originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re hoping he wasn’t speaking out of turn here, but for what it’s worth, Palm developer advocate Josh Marinacci has said on stage at webOS Developer Days today in New York that webOS 2.0 will be coming to “all” Palm devices in “the coming months.” Now, we’re going to go ahead and assume he’s not talking about your Treo 650, your Palm III, or your LifeDrive, but we’re taking that to mean that Pre, Pixi, Pre Plus, and Pixi Plus owners on all carriers around the globe can expect official upgrades for their phones — and hey, considering how mild of an upgrade the Pre 2 is (and the fact you can’t get it on some of the older devices’ launch carriers), that’s fantastic news. Follow the break for Marinacci’s full presentation from the event.

Continue reading webOS 2.0 coming to ‘all’ Palm devices in the coming months

webOS 2.0 coming to ‘all’ Palm devices in the coming months originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Someone’s found their way into an internal database and pulled out details on three Verizon phones — the Samsung Continuum, Samsung Zeal and Motorola Citrus, all of which will reportedly drop on the 11th of next month. We don’t have any reason to doubt that, as all three showed up on a recent rebate, but there’s more to these leaked screens than a release date. For instance, the Continuum will apparently sport a Swype virtual keyboard on top of a 3.4-inch Super AMOLED screen, to say nothing of that secondary display, and the Motorola Citrus explicitly doesn’t support tethering. The Samsung Zeal, meanwhile, isn’t a modern smartphone at all, but rather a dual-hinge device with “magic” e-ink keys that change from a standard dialer to a four-row QWERTY layout. Isn’t it nice to have all that sorted out?

[Thanks, Gavin]

Verizon nabs Samsung Continuum, Zeal and Motorola Citrus on November 11th, according to gushing leak? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, you may or may not have noticed that this morning, Apple updated its own Apple Store app for the very first time, and version 1.1 has a little surprise. That’s right, in the ‘Reserve Products’ screen, the much delayed white iPhone 4 shows up as an option. Now, before you lose control of yourself, keep in mind that you can’t actually reserve one… yet. Of course, this could just be some sort of cruel glitch in the system, or it could be a tiny bit of evidence that the white iPhone is actually, finally on its way. At the very least, we know that Apple’s still thinking of it… just like us.

White iPhone 4 evidence shows up in Apple Store app’s update? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s mad, monied quest to “free the TV apps” may not stop at your couch — the electronics manufacturer says it’s looking to loop in cell phones as well. “We plan to have a single platform for Samsung TV and phones,” a VP told Reuters, without providing further details. We have to wonder if it might cross swords with the Media Hub video-on-demand software the company’s pushing in the tablet and smartphone space. No word on when we’ll find out.

Samsung plotting a single platform to connect TVs and phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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