T-Mobile Pulse Mini does cheap, tiny, prepaid Android for Europe
By Chris Ziegler 
posted February 22nd 2010 12:09PM
posted February 22nd 2010 12:09PM
posted February 22nd 2010 12:09PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
i want one, it's as simple as that
@DeFcOn +1
Its a winner, assuming it has a decent memory for apps...
@unwynd
RAM should be 256MB in total, and ROM 512MB (maybe 300MB left) and SD card reader.
@DeFcOn me too if it had wifi and gps. I'd rather wait for some HD2 kirf with android.
@DeFcOn
The problem isn't the app storage, it's the QVGA screen. The Android Marketplace requires you to _explicitly_ confirm that your app is QVGA-compatible or it just won't appear in the store. No override for pro users, either - as far as your device is concerned, the app doesn't exist and (outside of rooting), there's nothing you can do about it.
That's what happens on my Tattoo. I've had to pirate loads of Android apps I would otherwise pay for because they're just not on the store. The only way to get them is to install from a downloaded .apk, which means downloading an illegal version. The stupidest thing is that most of the apps I download this way work just fine on my QVGA screen - they just don't declare it in their manifest files.
@DeFcOn T-Mobile Pulse Mini will be available starting April, for only £99.99 on pay as you go – coming with Android 2.1 from start.
The features of T-Mobile Pulse Mini include: 2.8 inch HVGA touchscreen display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3.5mm headset jack, 3.2MP camera, and MicroSD card support (up to 16GB) Latest: http://bit.ly/tmobile-pulse-edition-examined
wow android 2.1 stocked straight away this looks like a great phone for the masses...
i hope it as Wi-Fi
awww android nano awww
It's with 3.5mm jack and MicroSD slot (max16GB) so it's nice little mp3 player with phone option inside. And that price is so effin beautiful for this kind of device.
@artissco I don't think it will be a very good MP3 player. I've got a pulse and the audio output is very noisy. My previous phone (Nokia 6300) was the same. The iPod Touch I briefly owned was much better, but nothing has beaten the otherwise fairly budget Creative Zen I bought a few years ago which is completely noise free.
@Timmmmmm
woahh i have a pulse too :) and i have a zen as well :)
the sound quality is a little loud on my pulse, and 2.5mm jack? 0.o
@Timmmmmm
All that noise is down to the 2.5" headphone slot, they were never designed for quality just for headsets.
Wish it was coming to the US!
Also how does pre pay work with a data plan? I pay 30$ a month for each of our two iPhones. Is it the same in the uk? Expensive data plans that is.
@Tangerinescream
Data plans range from 5 to 15 euros a month.
(In the Netherlands, that is)
And yeah, both this and the original Pulse are great devices with an astoundingly low price.
@Tangerinescream
In the UK you usally get free data if you top up x amount per month. O2 do one for £30
@Tangerinescream
In Europe data plans come cheap.
For example a pay monthly deal at tree is £15 ($24) and that includes free texts and data(18 months).
It's cheap.
@Skinksallad
thats not a pre pay.
@Tangerinescream I pay £20 every 6 months for data on T-Mobile
Also I have to pay another 30$ a month for unlimited texting. I guess I just don't understand prepay. I always thought it came with minute and no texting or data services.
I am really jealous. My family plan for two iPhones costs 270$ a month with unlimited texting 1400min rollover and n&w free.
@Tangerinescream
I'm in the US and have TracFone prepaid. I don't do data, but texts are charged as 1/3 of a minute. Depending on who sends/receives they are sometimes free. I bought a Motorola with a camera for $25. It was a special promotion, double minutes for life, so if I buy 100 minutes, it registers as 200, etc.
@Tangerinescream Pretty cheap. I pay £20/mo total incl unlimited data, no minimum term.
@Tangerinescream
Nothing unusual here, you can buy a load of good phones for £100-150 on payg. Then add the services you need, usually £5 for each ie text, calls, data.
Clever ones amongst us can easy unlock it and install a generic firmware and your off to the cheap phone races.
@Tangerinescream I'm using a sort of prepaid contract (12 cent per minute/SMS, contract 0 € a month), the internet flatrate is 8,50 €, but limited to 200 MB. After that the connection is slowed down to GPRS speeds. VoIP is allowed, so I use that a lot as that is much cheaper.
Darn you Europe and your ability to acquire cute Android phones!
@Herrera91 If it is coming to the UK in April, units will start to show up in Hong Kong shortly thereafter. $155 is worth it to see what Android 2.0 can do!
@rpahk That's for sure! Just wished it would come to the States...but one can hope...
Hopefully they will fix that clock app before it launches. The analog seems to be showing 11:05 and the digital shows 22:00 PM.
@Paco
digital clock = local system time
analog clock = user set time of friends in another time zone... you know some people dont like to call thier friends in another country at 3 am in the morning...
...nub
Who needs contracts anyway?
That's an awesome little phone. I think Europe should embrace this. Android is really promising and as a G1 owner, I love it. How can you beat it for that price?
Am I the only one or does anyone else feel that the screen seems to be too small to type.. Alsoi i don't see an external keyboard..
@Siddharth
If it does run 2.1 you don't need a keyboard, it would all be voice input. :)
@kiden
Lol so you basically talk to ur phone if you need to text someone?? :P
@kiden
only the Nexus One has voice input atm
@patriick
wonder if google will hold features back to give the nexus and advantage over the desire?
@nabberuk
I think voice input need an extra noise cancellation mike and only the Nexus One has this. Not sure if the feature is limited to Google or the Nexus One tho.
@nabberuk:
I'm sure that the htc desire also has the voice to text feature a la the nexus one. The only things that separate the nexus one from the desire are- the optical trackpad, htc sense and a slight boost in RAM.. Coming back to the topic, I think its gonna be really awkward to talk into ur phone speaker everytime u need to text esp when ur in public and are having a private text conversation..
@patriick : Where are u getting ur info. abt the desire NOT having a noise cancellation mike??
@Siddharth I think it's a resistive screen, though I'm not sure. So maybe you could use a stylus to poke at the tiny keys.
@Siddharth
chances are itll have a different keyboard that does T9 or suretype (or whatever its called) built in
nice. can we get something like this on Metro-PCS? $40 for unlimited everything.
@ror Actually they have a separate smartphone plan for just $50... so I'd love to see something like this for MetroPCS.
This phone is only $150 off contract, the Nexus One is freaking $530 off contract (along with every other US smart phone), we really need some competition in the contract less phone market here.
@reallynotnick The N1 will be just as expensive, if not more expensive in Europe. The reason this phone will be cheap* is because it IS cheap. Probably not bad, but the N1 is really an entirely different beast.
*In the UK at least... there the Pulse was sold for a much lower price point at T-Mobile than in Germany (T-Mobile too).
@kadajawi
I figured someone would say something like that.
Let me clarify, I don't expect the N1 to be $150, I just expect it to be between like $300-$350. Look at products like the iPod Touch, you can get a 32GB iPod touch for $300 and we all know Apple has high profit margins, there is less then $50 worth of parts between an iPod Touch and a phone.
Basically all phone makers are guilty of overcharging for unlocked phones, my friend just lost her phone and had to pay $200 for a dumb phone that was way cheaper then the Pulse Mini.
$155 and 2.1 out the gate for a prepaid phone! US carriers need to sign up for this class and take notes!
@Caprice Dates Seriously. I'd love having these options. Oh well until then we can just dream about the day phones on plans like this one come over here.
We can ebay it at least here in the states. Hopefully the price there won't pull a jack on the wallets