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LG Arena officially lands on AT&T for $199
No surprise the LG Arena has finally arrived on AT&T after we saw those spyshots earlier this year -- although it is packing AT&T Mobile TV, so that's a nice touch. Everything else is as predicted: 3-inch WVGA screen, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, GPS, and WiFi. Of course, you will be spending $199 on a two-year contract for a poorly-reviewed year-old featurephone when this hits on February 26, so that's probably a mistake, but at least the gratuitous spinny-cube effects of LG's S-Class UI will keep you distracted as you wander aimlessly through the wreckage of our once-proud civilization. There is also a web browser.
AT&T touts Opera-powered full web browsing with new phones from Samsung and Pantech
AT&T wants you to know that you don't need a smartphone just to get a rich, full web experience from your handset -- theoretically, anyway -- with the introduction of four new models from longtime partners Samsung and Pantech alongside a new featurephone browser. First up from Samsung comes the Flight (pictured left), billed as a "next-generation messaging device" on account of its full QWERTY portrait slide paired with a full touchscreen up top; it'll be available next month for $99.99 on contract after rebate -- that is, if you didn't buy it on Craigslist already. That silvery slate in the middle that's more likely to be catching your eye is the Mythic, rocking TouchWiz on a 3.3-inch display along with AT&T Mobile TV, making it a fitting successor to the Eternity and big brother to the Solstice; like the Flight, it swings onto retail next month, but you'll be paying a stiffer $199.99 on contract after $50 rebate. Turning our attention to the Pantech side of the table, we've got the Reveal (pictured right) that lets you have it both ways with a numeric keypad up top twined with a QWERTY slider underneath. It's 3G-capable, AT&T Navigator-equipped, and available for your enjoyment on October 18 in red and blue. Finally, the Impact (not pictured) has an OLED touchscreen up front, but when the texting gets hot and heavy, the phone opens up to reveal a second display along with a QWERTY keyboard. It'll be available in pink and blue, though neither pricing nor availability are being announced just yet. Gluing everything together is AT&T's new mobile browser, described as "a rich hybrid experience that gives you a HTML experience similar to your PC browser at home" that "works really well on a feature phone." Additionally, users visiting att.net from their PCs will be able to send bookmarks to their phones' mobile portals -- kind of a neat trick, especially when you're trying to minimize the number of URLs you have to mash out on an on-screen keyboard. Of course, featurephone browsers have a reputation for generally sucking, so considering that AT&T bills its new line of devices as "full web browsing phones," it'll be interesting to see how close they actually come to delivering on the claim; it's said the phones use "advanced data compression from Opera Software," which we're thinking is very likely some variation of Opera Turbo -- not a bad start.
AT&T adding four temporary Mobile TV channels to show every March Madness game
It turns out that MediaFLO's US network might not be as close to operating capacity as we'd thought, because AT&T wants to bring you live broadcasts of every single game of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship this month on its Mobile TV system -- and in order to do so, "up to four additional seasonal channels" will spring out of thin air to pick up the load. For non-basketball lovers, it's great news because no other programming will be killed off to accommodate it, and for basketball lovers, it's good news because... well, it's a lot of basketball we're talking about here. The special channels should spring to life on March 19 when the first round of the tournament kicks off.
LG's CB630 "Invision" coming to AT&T Mobile TV in August
So, we figure one of two things has happened here: either the Samsung Access has been a solid seller for AT&T, leading the carrier to request a near-clone from competitor LG -- or LG saw the Access and felt compelled to provide a clone of its own volition. Either way, the CB630 Invision is getting to the AT&T Mobile TV fight a little late, because we're actually hearing that the Access is already scheduled for an official sunset (not Sunset) on August 24, along with the Sony Ericsson Z750, Samsung SLM, and the Mobile TV-less version of the LG Vu, the CU915. We're also hearing that it'll launch on August 13 for $99.99 on contract with a $50 rebate, so getcha popcorn ready, people.[Thanks, anonymous tipster]
Hands-on with the LG Vu, Samsung Access, and AT&T Mobile TV
These days, voice is the tip of the iceberg. Carriers are always -- and we do mean always -- looking for crafty ways to boost their average revenue per user, and with everyone and their brother offering an unlimited voice plan at this point, it's about data and value-add services more than it ever has been before. To that end, Verizon and AT&T have embraced MediaFLO as a way to keep their subscribers entertained on the road to the tune of a few extra bucks per month. AT&T's service, simply christened Mobile TV, has just launched with a pair of devices from Samsung and LG; naturally, we wanted to know whether the phones were worth the $199 and $299 AT&T's asking, respectively -- but perhaps more importantly, we had to figure out whether the service was worth sucking another $15 a month out of our already-strained wallets.%Gallery-22593%
Panasonic turning cellphone, gas pump into your next Plasma
We kid you not. Panasonic is working on a new low-voltage (1.5v) plasma technology which it says will rival OLED displays in brightness, thinness, and contrast. Better yet, Panasonic claims that its plasmas can be manufactured for "much less money" than OLEDs. Panny already has plans to include their new plasma displays in cellphones for use with AT&T's Mobile TV service, gas pumps, ATMs, and on HP printers under a new exclusive two-year deal. Color us impressed if the new displays look anything like the 3.5-inch, 854 x 480 pixel Viera phone instead of that anemic looking phone pictured above which accompanied the press release.
