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InterDigital sells nearly 2,000 wireless patents to Intel, pockets $375 million
InterDigital (we interviewed its CEO last week) is selling off around 1,700 wireless patents and applications to Intel for $375 million. The company is making good on its promise to monetize its vast portfolio of IP, including technologies relating to 3G, WCDMA, HSDPA, HUSPA, LTE and 802.11 WiFi connections. It's a short in the arm for Intel's burgeoning wireless arm, which recently outed its first handset, the San Diego. It'll also strengthen the hand of the company in any litigation relating to the technology should the lawyers come knocking. So far it's not clear if the company is retaining an interest in the files its sold off, but we've reached out for comment and will let you know when we do. Update: The company let us know that it's not retaining any interest in the patents that it's selling off. It also mentioned that the 1,700-strong portfolio equates to around eight percent of the company's overall IP holdings -- a number that it generates roughly every 18 months.
HTC Desire C hands-on (video)
HTC gave us a quick session to play around with its latest handset, the Desire C. No, it's not part of the consolidated One series, nor is the company revealing precisely what that "C" stands for -- heaven forfend it's "cheap." While a humble 320 x 480 touchscreen and 600MHz processor might not set many smartphone obsessives' hearts a' racing, it still manages to eke out a HTC Sense-skinned Android 4.0 UI -- no mere feat, in our opinion. A 5-megapixel camera and expandable microSD slot are some other welcome specifications and it's all wrapped up in an attractive matte finish -- you can take your pick form black and white in the UK. Catch our quick video run-through of the sub-$300 handset right after the break.%Gallery-155700%
HTC Desire C gets official 'First Look' video and UK pricing
Just a day after being papped in Portugal, the HTC Desire C has turned up in this official video. There's not much new info to take away, bar a quick glimpse of the Sense interface. T-Mobile UK, however, has also been in touch to let us know its pricing for the phone. Pay monthly users can get the handset for free as long as they are willing to cough up £15.50 a month for two years, or snap it up sans commitment on Pay as you go for £169.99 (about $270). Both options being available early next month. Update: We've added the PR after the break.
HTC Desire C spotted enjoying the Portuguese sun
Vodafone Portugal was so excited to hear about HTC's Desire C that it added it to the company's summer brochure -- despite it not being officially announced. The catalog reveals that the low-end handset will arrive with a 3.5-inch, 320 x 480 display, a 600MHz processor and a 5-megapixel camera. It'll run on the country's 3.5G network (HSDPA to you and me) and you'll find Ice Cream Sandwich sharing the room on that 4GB of on-board storage. It's also reported to have a 1,320mAh battery and will retail for €200 ($260) once it's finished enjoying the Iberian weather.
Faux G: New "4G" indicator on iPhone 4S is the tip of a standards iceberg (Updated)
Update: See discussion of the ITU's "sliding scale" of 4G below. Commenters have pointed out that since 2010 the standards organization has acknowledged that 3G evolutions can reasonably be called 4G. References to 4G vs. IMT-Advanced have been clarified. In a rare move of capitulation to a carrier, Apple caved to pressure from AT&T and made a controversial change in iOS 5.1 last week: an iPhone 4S on AT&T now reports a "4G" network rather than the old 3G signal. This change has been expected since October of 2011, but that doesn't mean it was uncontroversial. Reactions to the switch were mixed. Some people suggest that the terminology is largely meaningless anyway, so the relabeling doesn't matter; a wireless standard by any other name will still download as sweetly. Others were affronted by Apple failing to stand firm and stop iOS being infected by AT&T's marketing pixie dust. Some easily swayed folk even took to Twitter to congratulate Apple on delivering a 4G upgrade to their existing handsets, apparently not understanding that this change is nothing other than nomenclature. The iPhone didn't get any faster in this update; all that changed was the graphical indicator on the phone. So who's right? I suspect it's probably obvious, but I'm in the "this is wrong and annoying" camp, and I think the people on Twitter overjoyed at an upgrade they didn't get are supporting my point. I'm going to set out my argument; please feel free to wade in in the comments and make your opinion heard if you disagree. A small disclaimer In order to give you some context around what has happened here, I'm going to briefly summarise the history of how wireless communications standards are created. This necessarily involves some alphabet soup, I'm afraid, as everyone in the wireless game dearly loves their TLAs (three letter acronyms), ETLAs (Extended Three Letter Acronym), and DETLAs (Doubly Extended Three Letter Acronym). Bear with me, or if it gets too much, skip the next section. Readers with experience in this area will notice me glossing over all sorts of details. I'm just trying to provide enough background to make the rest of the story comprehensible, but if you think I left out anything important, please leave a comment and tell me. For clarity, note that I am concentrating on GSM and its derivative technologies, and omitting the various CDMA flavours used by Verizon and Sprint in the USA and a modest number of other wireless firms world-wide. Suffice it to say that the roughly the same standards process happened on the CDMA side of the fence. Standards & speeds: a brief history of wireless There is a famous quote misattributed to Albert Einstein which goes like this: "you see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." Since the first analog wireless telephones appeared in the 1980s (retroactively called "1G"), there have been many attempts by various bodies to design standards for the non-existent cat. The idea was for everyone to be using the same cat; that way, manufacturers could exploit economies of scale. This would mean cellphone companies could make fewer models that worked in more places in the world, infrastructure vendors could manufacture interchangeable cell towers and radio stacks, and end users could move their cellphones between countries or between operators within the same country. As Patrick Bateman and Gordon Gekko were yakking on brick-sized Motorola DynaTacs connected to 1G networks, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute were looking ahead and developing Groupe Spécial Mobile, which would later be renamed Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). GSM was by far the most successful second-generation wireless (2G) standard. Even as consumers were becoming familiar with the technology, however, the next global standard -- Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) -- was being developed. This time, the process was world-wide (as opposed to GSM, which was developed by European companies) and led by the International Telecommunication Union or ITU. The ITU is the United Nations agency charged with coordinating standards for digital communication among all member nations. Lather, rinse, repeat: as gadget blogs filled up with brand new 3G handsets in the early 2000s, the ITU pushed on and defined target goals for next-generation networks to hit. These were defined in a standard called IMT-Advanced, which was finalised in 2008. (The standards process churns slowly; the actual specification for IMT-Advanced was finally adopted early in 2012.) IMT-Advanced specified some aggressively high targets for bandwidth: 100 megabit/sec downloads when the mobile device is moving fast (e.g. in a car) and 1 gigabit/sec when stationary or moving at a walking pace. Even Apple's mighty new hardware interface standard, Thunderbolt, can only manage 20 gigabit/sec -- and that has a wire. IMT-Advanced, the true successor to 3G technologies, is what we originally thought 4G would be... but 4G turns out to be a marketing sticker rather than a technical standard. Where the rubber meets the road The original IMT-Advanced standard put out by ITU wasn't a fully fleshed-out, technically implemented solution. Rather, ITU standards are sort of like aspirational goals for technology vendors to achieve. While ITU's busy brains were drafting the IMT-Advanced standard, telecoms companies and consortiums like the 3rd Generation Partnership Project were beavering away on new solutions like LTE and WiMAX. The first generations of these technologies didn't meet the requirements for IMT-Advanced, but new versions known as LTE-Advanced and WiMAX Release 2 will eventually hit the numbers. Meanwhile, of course, mobile vendors have mouths to feed so they need to keep selling us shiny geegaws. We saw lots of intermediate standards pop up between vanilla UMTS 3G and true IMT-Advanced. I've already touched on current generation LTE and WiMAX, which were new technologies; these come in between 3G and 4G, but closer to the latter. There were also a few "UMTS-on-steroids" solutions developed, such as HSDPA and HSPA+. Again, these enhance data speeds over and above what the initial versions of 3G could offer, but far short of the requirements for IMT-Advanced -- and rather closer to 3G performance than they are to "4G." An iPhone 4S on HSPA+ has a maximum theoretical download speed of 14.4 megabit/sec; that's just 1.5% of the speed that IMT-Advanced demands of 4G. The new iPad with LTE tops out at 73 megabit/sec; fast, but still only 7.3% of the original target for IMT-Advanced ("4G"). All this has happened before These intermediate standards are a replay of what happened with 2G. Initially, GSM's data component, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), could only offer a paltry 9.8 kilobit/sec of data speeds -- no one saw mobile data coming when GSM was being laid down, so it wasn't a priority. When smartphones started to appear and it became clear this wasn't enough, but before 3G standards were anywhere near complete, we saw mobile vendors design and deploy High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD) and then the torturously-named Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution (EDGE). HSCSD boosted download speeds to 57.6 kilobit/sec and EDGE as high as 386 kbit/sec. This led to EDGE often being referred to as "2.5G", as it was said to be a halfway house between 2G and 3G. Apple coded the original iPhone OS releases to communicate to the customer if they were on a GPRS network (with a dot) or a EDGE one (with an 'E') -- the difference is significant, and the user has a better experience if he or she knows what performance to expect before using the device. Enter the marketers Following this pattern, we could reasonably expect the faster-than-3G slower-than-4G standards like HSPA+ to be called "3.5G", or even "3.1G". Some people do that, but it wasn't enough for the marketing departments at some big cellular operators. It's always easier to sell things to people when you don't have to make them read a post as long as this one before they understand what they are buying, and it's even easier still when you've taken the last number and turned it up one louder -- hence digital camera's megapixel myth. AT&T and Verizon were quite keen, to say the least, on warping the term "4G" to apply to these new 3.5G standards. So they did just that, without as much as a by-your-leave, starting in 2008. Sprint Clearwire was the first to jump the 4G hurdle, then Verizon and Metro PCS, and eventually T-Mobile (branding similar HSPA+ technology to what AT&T now offers in the iPhone 4S as "4G"). None of these networks met the IMA-Advanced speed threshold, nowhere near it -- but that did not stop the carriers from taking advantage of the lack of a technical standard for "4G" to gain some branding bonus. There are any number of Android handsets supporting HSPA+ that now are branded and marketed as 4G; last year's Samsung Focus S continued this into Windows Mobile 7. Now Apple has joined in, in a surprising move, seeing as how it is normally lauded for being immune to carrier interference. Update: As commenters have correctly pointed out, in 2010 the ITU let out a heavy sigh and acknowledged what carrier marketing had already done to confuse the marketplace. The organization allowed that 4G, while not formally defined, might as well be used to refer to upgraded 3G technologies like HSPA+ rather than only to the IMT-Advanced superspeed standards. Since 4G has no official meaning within the standards process, one can't say authoritatively that the indicator is technically wrong; only that it is decidedly confusing. Make no mistake -- what's happened in iOS 5.1 on the iPhone 4S is an AT&T change only. If you're anywhere else in the world, on any other network, and enjoying a full-speed HSPA+ download to your iPhone 4S, the indicator will say "3G" and not "4G." Only AT&T gets this treatment (so far). Even worse, Brian Klug of Anandtech discovered that even plain-jane UMTS 3G reports as 4G now -- so the new "4G" indicator can't even be used as a meaningful guide to when you are getting HSPA+ speeds. It just means you're on AT&T's network and you're getting better than EDGE speeds. The disappearing "Enable 3G" slider That's not the only thing that changed in iOS 5.1/iPhone 4S settings to suit AT&T, as it happens. The "Enable 3G" toggle in Settings.app has disappeared for AT&T customers on the iPhone 4S too, despite having been present in previous versions of iOS. This switch allowed device users to force the phone off the 3G network and on to the older EDGE standard; this was used for a couple of reasons, including improved battery life or getting "lifeline" data service in highly congested cell environments. Older iPhones demonstrated noticeably better power performance on EDGE versus 3G. This is another piece of carrier politics in action, in my opinion. AT&T wants to clear customers from its old 2G/2.5G networks as fast as possible, so it can potentially close down old cell sites and prepare to re-use the cell bands for something else. As such, it's not in the company's interests to allow customers to disable 3G data altogether, as that binds them to the 2G/2.5G network. I should note that this customisation isn't exclusive to AT&T iPhone 4S units, however. I use Three here in the UK, which (unusually) has no 2G network of its own; it rents 2G capacity from a rival operator to fill in coverage holes, and runs a (pretty substantial) 3G network of its own. This means that customers with "Enable 3G" set to off cost Three money, as they are effectively roaming onto a secondary network for all their data. I can't remember when I last saw this slider in my Settings.app, but it was some time ago. Granted, I've never been terribly eager to use that on/off switch anyway. I've occasionally used it to try and eke out the last 10% of my battery, but it's not a setting I've found much reason to toggle. If this adjustment is going to put a major crimp in your iPhone usage, please let us know. Wrapping up Hopefully, I've convinced you of one of two things in this post. Either a) you are affronted that AT&T's marketing folks can redfine the capabilities of the iPhone 4S like this or (more likely) b) you just don't care very much about technical definitions and think I'm talking rubbish -- or perhaps c) you skipped over most of the article on your way to the comment box to tell me I'm a nerd. Let me put it another way: until last week, an iPhone 4S on AT&T showed 3G; today, it shows 4G instead, even though the speed hasn't changed. That's highly confusing to users, which is the exact thing Apple is supposed to be great at never doing. On those grounds alone, this is an objectionable change. Even worse, Apple now sells an iPhone 4S that reports itself as 4G and an iPad that's directly marketed as 4G... but the iPad's download speeds are five times faster than the iPhone's. Obvious! I can certainly understand that Apple wants to show users whether they are connected to a vanilla 3G network or a fancy HSPA+ one; the speed difference is considerable. Other handsets (like my ancient 2006-era HTC Tytn, which runs Windows Mobile 6) handle this by switching the network indicator to 'H', analogous to the 'E' that iOS shows for EDGE. I think it's disappointing that Apple made this change, particularly as we've all been so positive in the past at how it has successfully resisted carriers' habits of fiddling with things. Hat tip to Jon Silva for the image
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2, Galaxy mini 2 officially revealed, launch first in Europe
While we get ready for MWC to begin Samsung is apparently next to reveal a few new handsets, as it just posted the details for its new Galaxy Ace 2 (left) and Galaxy mini 2 (right). Like their earlier incarnations, the Ace 2 has the best specs of the two, with a dual-core 800MHz processor, HSDPA 14.4 connectivity, GPS/GLONASS, 1,500mAh battery and 4GB of internal storage hiding behind its 3.8-inch WVGA screen. The mini 2 has HSDPA 7.2Mbps connectivity, an 800MHz CPU, 1,300mAh battery and 3.27-inch HVGA screen. Both will ship with Android 2.3 this spring, with the Ace 2 hitting the UK in April and mini 2 coming to France in March before beginning a global rollout. Check after the break for the press release with full specs.
Huawei Ascend G 300 doesn't settle down at the FCC as it's only for tourists
Huawei was cycling past the FCC's ominous Washington bunker and dropped off a basket of muffins and its latest phone. The Ascend G 300 U8815 is the latest handset to undergo the Area-51 style autopsy by our boys in blue. Sadly they weren't feeling generous enough to take the usual array of pictures, so we've had to do with pouring through the test reports. We've gleaned that it's running GSM 850/1900 and 900/2100 3G bands as well as the usual WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth gear. Those who know your bands will have noticed that the phone isn't compatible with the 3G in the us, so it probably won't arrive on sale on these shores -- except in the shirt pocket of the odd trans-continental traveler.
LG Optimus L3 appears in Sweden, packs entry-level style
It's not every day that we come across an entry-level Android smartphone from LG, especially one that packs this much style. The LG Optimus L3 (aka E400) recently popped up on Swedish retailer CDON's website and appears to be slotted right below the Optimus Hub (successor to the highly popular Optimus One). Specs include Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with LG's Optimus UI, a 3.2-inch QVGA (that's 320x240 pixels, ouch) capacitive touchscreen, a three megapixel camera, dual-band (2100 / 900MHz) HSDPA 3.6Mbps and quadband EDGE connectivity, WiFi / Bluetooth / GPS / FM radios and a microSD card slot. While there's no word yet on what kind of processor powers the handset, we're guessing it's likely the same 800MHz CPU found in the Optimus Hub. Availability remains a mystery, but the Optimus L3 lists for 1290SEK (about $192) contract-free. See, style doesn't always have to cost a fortune.
Samsung outs revamped Galaxy Ace Plus: bigger screen, worse resolution
Samsung clearly didn't spend the holiday season kicking back listening to Dick Clark, or else it wouldn't be able to show off the revamped edition of the Galaxy Ace: the Galaxy Ace Plus. Unimaginative names aside, the budget blower gets a speed bump, to last year's minimum spec -- 1GHz processor, five megapixel camera, 3GB internal memory, HSDPA and a 3.65-inch HVGA (320 x 480) screen (really, Samsung?). You'll get the same combination of Gingerbread and TouchWiz, so you might have to go elsewhere if you wanna upgrade to ICS. The cheapie phone will go on sale this month in Europe, Russia, Latin America, Asia, Africa and China, we guess retailing in the same bracket as its predecessor. Head on past the break to read all about it in a combination of words and punctuation we like to call a press release. Update: The phone's resolution hasn't changed in the update, but the screen size has, which means the pixel density is now worse than before.
Option XYfi mobile hotspot tours the FCC, HSUPA in tow
What you're looking at above is a render of Option Wireless' XYfi mobile broadband hotspot; currently being reviewed by the folks over at the FCC. Dawning the model number GI0643, the XYfi packs quad-band 2G and tri-band 3G GSM radios -- complete with UMTS, HSDPA and HSUPA goodness. The filing doesn't clue us in on which network (if any) will be carrying the XYfi, but it does indicate that your WiFi-enabled peripherals will be able to connect via 802.11b/g/n. The request letter was submitted this past July, but now that it's in the public's view, it ought not be too long before you find the unit gracing a store shelf. One burning question remains: who let Motorola Mobility's marketing team name this thing?
Motorola Pro+ 4G rides into Canada November 7th, will kick off shoes and stay a while
We knew it was planning to grace Europe and Asia with its presence this month, but now we're hearing the Motorola Pro+ 4G is ready to make its North American debut at Bell Canada. We're not seeing any large differences here compared to the overseas model, though the addition of "4G" to the title is an obvious exception. The device offers a 1GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, Android 2.3, a 5MP camera, 3.1-inch VGA (640 x 480) display with Gorilla Glass, HSPA 14.4 (hence the "4G" name) and a lot of Enterprise-friendly security features. We know it'll be hitting shelves on November 7th, but no price has been announced so far. To find out the full shebang, head south for the press release. Update: We've confirmed with an inside source that it'll sell for $349.95, but there's no word on whether subsidies will apply for long-term contracts.
Samsung Galaxy W gets the FCC once over (again), appears ready for AT&T
In a Samsung Galaxy soon coming your way, are a stable of alphabetically ranked handsets. Among these newly hatched Korean mobile offspring is the 'W' line -- meant to imply wireless wonder. Well, wonder about its US bow no more because that handset -- previously announced for the British Isles -- is getting a double take at the FCC. The time 'round, the Commission's filings reveal GSM / WCDMA 850MHz / 1900MHz bands, making this variant prime for Canada's networks and our own AT&T -- at speeds of 14.4Mbps down. We know from previous reports that this 3.7-incher sports a Super LCD display, in addition to a single-core 1.4GHz processor, 5 megapixel camera, 4GB of storage, WiFi and Bluetooth. Now, all we need to complete the picture is an official announcement and an offering in virgin white. Check out the source below if spectrum testing rings your bell.
Elektrobit's Specialized Device Platform tailors Android devices for security-minded markets, won't hem pants
The defense industry may already have its share of deadly high-tech toys, but when it comes to the latest in mobile, it's often left to watch from the highly-secured sidelines. Enter Elektrobit Corporation with a just announced Specialized Device Platform that crafts made-to-order, Android-based devices for the public safety, security and aforementioned defense markets. Citing its lower cost, faster development approach, EB's service marries the "best of the traditional mobile world... with product-and industry-specific features" so clients won't have to deal with last year's Android OS. Oh wait, actually they will. The currently on offer Froyo-flavored, 1GHz single-core OMAP3 model packs a WVGA capacitive touchscreen (either 4-, or 4.3-inch), 5 megapixel camera, VGA front-facing camera, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS with quad-band GSM, tri-band UMTS / HSDPA and CDMA2K / EVDO support. Clients interested in a 700MHz LTE, Gingerbread option -- that's right, no Ice Cream Sandwich -- will have to hold off until the first half of 2012, when the company's 1.5GHz dual-core OMAP4 models will be available for production. Alright, so these specs aren't exactly bleeding edge tech, but hey -- who needs a quad-core phone when you've got this.
HTC Status review
For many smartphone users, a quality keyboard is the only feature that truly matters. These passionate devotees will proudly live and die with their thumbs blazing, and for of all RIM's recent troubles, it's currently floating on a life preserver: a compelling handset with a portrait QWERTY keyboard doesn't exist for Android. The HTC Status ($50 on contract) attempts to succeed where others have failed, and -- if it's any good -- could entice many BlackBerry-toting teens that want a new handheld fixation. They rarely bother with email, as text messages and Facebook reign supreme for communication. To that end, the Status promotes itself as the perfect phone for Facebook users, but is the integration truly useful, or simply a chintzy add-on? More so, can HTC successfully marry Gingerbread with an upright keyboard? Join us after the break to learn whether we "Like" the HTC Status. %Gallery-128742%
T-Mobile brings 42Mbps HSPA+ to 56 new markets, now tops 150 locales
True to its promise of bringing 42Mbps service to 150 million Americans by mid-year, T-Mobile will double its 4G speed in 56 additional markets today -- thereby surpassing its self-imposed goal (and leaving the door open for greater ambitions). Of course, the Category 20 Rocket 3.0 USB modem is currently the only way to experience this brisk performance, but the magenta-clad carrier seems intent to bring a 42Mbps HSDPA smartphone to market by year's end, or much sooner. Cities such as Ann Arbor, Baltimore, Boise, Boston, Charlotte, Hartford, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Washington D.C., may count themselves among the fortunate, where T-Mo-packing citizens should benefit from the network's newly increased capacity and reliability, whether or not they're wielding ZTE's stick. A complete list of cities is included in the PR just beyond the break.
Infuse 4G coming exclusively to Rogers, its first 21Mbps smartphone
If you're of the gambling type who wagered on Samsung's Canadian launch partner for the Infuse 4G, you can settle up those bets: the phone is coming exclusively to Rogers this summer -- and it's shipping with Gingerbread. For those familiar with AT&T's story, it should come as no surprise that the carrier quickly highlighted the Sammy as its first smartphone capable of pulling in 21Mbps -- good luck attaining those numbers, though. Sadly, the release date and price of this 4.5-inch beast remain up in the air, but that might just be an opening for some high-stakes speculation.
Samsung Infuse 4G is AT&T's first 21Mbps smartphone
AT&T has been adding a little dash (and asterisk) of 4G to all its phones as of late, but not all of those handsets are created equal -- the Motorola Atrix 4G, HTC Inspire 4G and HP Veer 4G are technically capable of only HSDPA Category 10, which equates to maximum download speeds of 14.4Mbps. Not so for the new Samsung Infuse 4G, as it's been boosted to HSDPA Category 14, which bumps its particular flavor of 4G up to 21Mbps. That has AT&T playing in the same arena as T-Mobile, assuming that your local cell towers have the fiber backhaul in place... and assuming that T-Mobile doesn't make good on promises to deliver some 42Mbps (HSPA+ Category 20) handsets before AT&T catches up. And yes, the uploads should be fine, too -- AT&T says the Infuse 4G supports HSUPA Category 6, which should give us maximum rates of 5.76Mbps when firing files into the clouds.
Froyo-based LG Thrive becomes AT&T's first prepaid smartphone, ships April 17th alongside Phoenix
A G2x they ain't, but AT&T's newest duo from LG should certainly satisfy the cravings of less-demanding Android loyalists. Along with every other carrier in the world, Ma Bell has decided to pick up a couple of Optimus One variants, with the LG Thrive being christened as the operator's first prepaid (GoPhone) smartphone. Aside from a tweak in hue, the postpaid Phoenix is the exact same handset, with both offering a totally familiar 600MHz processor, 3.2-inch (480 x 320) touchpanel, Android 2.2, a 3.2 megapixel camera and unlimited WiFi usage on the entire national AT&T WiFi Hot Spot network. Those opting for a contract-free affair can select the Thrive for $179.99, while the dark blue Phoenix will run $49.99 and demand two years of your cellular soul. In related news, AT&T is introducing a new prepaid data package with the LG Thrive, offering 500 MB of data for $25, with the fully skinny detailed just after the break.
Samsung to release two Bada 2.0 handsets with NFC in Q4, software update in July?
Some of you Samsungers are probably anticipating the snazzy Wave 578 due out in May or June outside the US, but the sad news is it won't be shipped with the upcoming Bada 2.0 OS. Fret not, though, as Russian blog Bada World claims to have obtained some juicy details that'll cheer up Bada fanatics. The above slide -- apparently sourced from a Samsung France conference from a few days ago -- lists a pair of new but unnamed handsets that'll pack the new software, along with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, Bluetooth 3.0, and the seemingly trendsetting NFC. The difference between these two phones? One of them appears to be the flagship Bada 2.0 model, which expects a September launch with a 3.65-inch HVGA display, a 5 megapixel main camera, plus a VGA secondary camera. The second device will follow a month later, sporting a smaller 3.14-inch QVGA screen and just a 3 megapixel imager. In related news, TNW India reports that Bada 2.0 will be "first experienced in India" around July, though no hardware is mentioned here. This could imply that existing Bada users in India -- where Samsung's R&D develops 30 percent of Bada applications -- may be one of the first to obtain the 2.0 update, and it shouldn't be long before the rest of the world get their share of this piping hot pie. Anyhow, be rest assured that we'll keep our eyes peeled open for more Bada 2.0 news -- it'll be interesting to see where Samsung's next big push will take us.
Vodafone R201 mobile WiFi hotspot review
Mobile broadband has come a long way since the early (and expensive) attempts at integrating 3G modules into laptops; today, cubicle dwellers are liberated by cheaper mobile data, along with the abundance of 3G dongles and the emerging mobile WiFi (ergo "MiFi") hotspot devices. It's no secret that Huawei's been flirting with both Three and Vodafone for some time, but it was only recently that the manufacturer also made a MiFi -- the R201 -- for Vodafone (the carrier's lesser-known MiFI 2352 in Spain is from Novatel). The question is: does this new HSPA MiFi have enough meat to steal the limelight from Three? Read on to find out.%Gallery-100673%
