intrigue
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Sprint axes Huawei, ZTE telecom bids due to security fears in Washington?
Huawei might be making inroads into the US consumer smartphone market, but the Chinese telecom supplier's attempts to break into big business have been stonewalled. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that Sprint is excluding both Huawei and competitor ZTE from a multi-billion dollar contract -- where they would have been the lowest bidders -- primarily because of national security concerns. The US Secretary of Commerce reportedly called Sprint CEO Dan Hesse to voice concerns about letting firms with possible ties to the Chinese government supply local communications infrastructure, a perspective also penned by eight US senators back in August. "DoD is very concerned about China's emerging cyber capabilities and any potential vulnerability within or threat to DoD networks," the Department of Defense told the publication, without naming Huawei or ZTE directly. We're not doctors, but it sounds like someone's got a serious case of supercomputer envy.
Nokia Intrigue for Verizon hands-on
Nokia isn't typically known for its virtually non-existent CDMA fare, but the situation's gotten better in the last year or so -- ostensibly to capitalize on Nokia's already commanding position in the Chinese market, but also possibly to help the boys and girls from Espoo win some points with Verizon ahead of the LTE migration. It's no secret that Nokia intends to invest big in LTE, and seeing how Verizon is one of the larger carriers in the world, it only stands to reason that manufacturers would be doing everything in their power right now to get in on the ground floor. To that end, Nokia has worked with Verizon to introduce the 2605 and 6205 in recent months, but let's be very honest -- they're forgettable devices with little to differentiate them from their countless competitors in the dog-eat-dog midrange. They're not phones that you aspire to own. Enter the Intrigue. This is the phone has Nokia screaming "we do give a crap about CDMA" from the tops of the hills; a phone so good, so pretty, and so uncharacteristically Nokia for this market segment, that we're a little bewildered by the whole thing. Read on for our quick take.
Nokia's 7205 Intrigue for Verizon now available
Right on schedule, the Nokia 7205 Intrigue for Verizon Wireless is online and ready for purchase. Price is exactly in-line with expectations as well, at $180 with a two-year contract, plus a handy $50 rebate to bring it down to $130. Design-wise the flip phone is already a long ways ahead of the frumpy Nokia 6205, at a mere 0.55-inches thick, but there's nothing much here to get Nokia's GSM customers jealous -- other than that subsidized price, of course. The handset has a 2 megapixel camera, A2DP Bluetooth, a fancy new homescreen (including Habitat Mode), PMOLED display on the back cover, and a microSD slot.[Thanks, Mark V.]
Nokia Intrigue filtering into Verizon stores, features weird 'Habitat Mode'
We can now confirm that Nokia's long-overdue Intrigue clamshell for Verizon is finally scheduled for release on March 23 in your choice of silver or pink (interestingly, the two colors have slightly different d-pad designs) for $179.99 on a two-year contract with a $50 mail-in rebate, and units are already starting to trickle into stores. That's cool -- it's an attractive phone and we're sure it's going to find some customers -- but the real news here might be the unusual home screen that Nokia has apparently designed just for this device. The company's really laying on the eco-friendly angle thick with the release, touting the ultra-tiny packaging, preloaded WWF wallpapers, green charger, and "unplug" message when charging is complete -- and to go along with the theme, they've created a so-called "Habitat Mode" home screen that organizes your contacts chronologically by when you communicated with them and automatically assigns them environment-themed avatars (which, thankfully, can be replaced). Weird, yes, but it does look kinda cool -- check out more shots of the phone in the gallery.
Verizon's Nokia Intrigue, AT&T's E71, LG Zenon, and others expected shortly
We've stumbled across a... ahem, major national retailer's stock sheet for the next few weeks, and things are looking up -- particularly on AT&T, where we'll have a couple of long-awaited releases. Let's start with the unknown, though: there's a "Jackfrost" due at the end of the month, and without even a manufacturer listed, it's impossible to know what this thing could possibly be. More importantly, though, the long-rumored LG Zenon (which spikes the less-trademarkable "Xenon" spelling we'd seen before) is slated for mid-April, and the even longer-rumored E71x -- which may simply be known as the E71 by the time it launches -- should drop by at the beginning of next month. Moving over to Big Red, that Nokia 7205 Intrigue that's been kicking around in spy shots since the early part of '08 might finally launch in just a few days' time. All told, we have a lot of emotional closure around the corner with these launches, don't we? [Thanks, anonymous tipster]
Verizon rebate form further substantiates four new phones
We've had bits and pieces of this for days now, but it's finally starting to come together. Right in the midst of the year's craziest cellphone show, Verizon Wireless has outed its latest rebate form, which sheds some overly legitimate light on four presumably forthcoming handsets. Casio's Exilim C721, which we've already seen pictured, should arrive mighty soon alongside the LG Versa, Nokia 7205 Intrigue and Samsung's Smooth. Obviously, there's no definitive ship dates and prices listed, but considering that the offers are valid from February 15th through March 28th, we'd say your wild imagination can probably handle it from here.[Via phoneArena]
