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You can use your own iPhone to get Virgin's $1-a-year plan
Looks like Virgin Mobile is on a mission to sign up as many iPhone users as it can. The carrier has just announced that you can now bring your own iPhone and enjoy its $1-a-year subscription offer. When the company began exclusively catering to iPhone users in June, it only offered that deal to a limited number of people buying their devices from the carrier itself. According to Virgin CEO Dow Draper, though, the carrier has expanded the offer's scope, because it understands that "many love their current phones or don't want to upgrade yet."
HTC Snap goes on sale in the UK
Want an HTC Snap? Have £289.99, $481, or some equivalent mix of currency? Then you might want to head over to Devicewire, where the first trickles of Snap stock are starting to flow. It seems they've only started with a few dozen units here, and we wouldn't be surprised if they went quickly -- so if portrait QWERTY, Windows Mobile 6.1, and HTC's Inner Circle technology all get you hot and bothered, you'd best place your British order soon rather than later.[Via MoDaCo]
HTC Snap snapped with larger battery, Sprint insignia, June 7th launch date?
Looks like HTC's giving Sprint its own version of the Snap, albeit with some slight modifications compared to the T-Mobile variant. According to the snapshots from PPCGeeks, all specs are pretty much identical except for a 1500mAH battery in place of the 800mAH, a revived Inner Circle, and a potentially nonexistent WiFi component. It also looks like the middle unit has been changed to a more traditional d-pad configuration. The forum poster who uploaded the pics claims it'll launch for a hair under $150 on June 7th, which would be rather odd should another high-profile release date rumor pan out. [Via WMPoweruser]
HTC Snap reviewed: QWERTY keyboard, Winmo 6.1, no great shakes
We know you've been dying to get your hands all over the HTC Snap... oh, wait. You haven't? Well, neither have we -- but no matter, 'cos Smartphone Daily has a review, and they've filled us in on the luscious deets. For the uninitiated, this is a 2.4-inch, Windows Mobile 6.1, touchscreen deficient candybar, and something of a BlackBerry doppelganger (if only in the looks department), featuring WiFi and a camera. Wild, huh? Overall, the reviewer found it to be "decent" -- if you're looking for a "business device," that is. The Inner Circle feature was singled out for some praise: little more than an Inbox filter for your, erm, "inner circle," you have to wonder why a manufacturer hadn't thought of it before. On the downside, he did find the inclusion of a TAB key (where the A key belongs) to be particularly annoying. This bad boy will go on sale this summer in Europe, at which time the S522 (as it's known 'round here) should hit the shops Stateside. One more pic after the break.[Via Slash Gear]
HTC Snap coming to T-Mobile sans Inner Circle?
So the juicy part of this rumor has to be the fact that T-Mobile could get a branded version of the lovely HTC Snap (or rather the US-specific S522, which doesn't carry the Snap name), a belief based on a leaked ROM rife with references to the carrier's name and logo. Of course, seeing how T-Mobile was HTC's partner on the Excalibur / Dash, it makes a lot of sense that they'd want to carry on the portrait QWERTY tradition there with an updated model, which is precisely where the S522 fits into the puzzle. This is where it gets weird, though: the ROM apparently has wiped all references to Inner Circle, HTC's software tweak that lets you selectively filter out emails from anyone not on your whitelist. Why they'd want to get rid of it is unclear since it wouldn't seem to affect carrier revenue in any way, so we're holding out hope that it'll reappear by the time the device ships -- if this rumor even ends up checking out, that is. [Via pocketnow.com]
HTC Snap snaps to life, coming to US as S522
Since the Excalibur and Cavalier, HTC's shown an unhealthy aversion for the immensely popular portrait QWERTY format -- until now, that is, with the introduction of the rumored 12mm-thick HTC Snap. The Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard smartphone features a 528MHz Qualcomm core, 256MB of ROM, 128MB of RAM, 2 megapixel camera, microSDHC expansion, and the requisite QVGA display, all paired with AGPS, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WiFi, and HSDPA data. "What kind of HSDPA?" is the next logical question in that progression, and the answer is that you're looking at two versions of the device: one with 900 / 2100 for Europe and Asia, one with 850 / 1900 for North America (interestingly, the North American version won't be known as the Snap -- instead, it'll simply be called the S522). The new device also marks the introduction of HTC's "Inner Circle" feature, which can selectively pull emails from certain contacts to the top of your inbox -- the perfect way to ignore Terry from Accounting who's been on your case for the past three weeks about filing expense reports. Look for the Snap to launch globally this quarter, while the unlocked S522 hits "during the summer."
Meet Maple: HTC's Cavalier successor caught in the wild
It's been a long time coming, and it looks like HTC's finally gearing up to drop another portrait QWERTY device -- a dominant smartphone form factor that HTC has historically given surprisingly little love. Following the Excalibur (T-Mobile types know this one better as the Dash) and the 3G-capable Cavalier, CNET's Deutschland outpost has learned a bit about "Maple," and what the device lacks in beauty, it looks to make up in pure, raw, unadulterated productivity. You can't rightfully anoint it until you get your hands on it, but from a distance, this thing looks like it has one of the more usable portrait keyboards ever created, a trackball, and a cool new feature HTC is called "Inner Circle," which seems to aggregate communication with people you care about depending on the time of day and day of week. HTC had really been keen on what it's calling "people-centric communication" at MWC, so Inner Circle would certainly fall right into that -- and if you can get over the frumpy exterior, this sucker looks like a solid WinMo-based choice for the suits out there. No word on a release just yet.[Thanks, Phil]
Alltel subject of possible bidding war
Wouldn't it be great if Verizon Wireless or Sprint had features like Inner Circle? Don't get your hopes up just yet as neither are going to start marketing Alltel's ingenious plan, however some insiders (not this one either) think that Alltel might be the subject of a possible bidding war between the second and third largest carriers. If this were to happen and Verizon were to come out on top of everything, that would make them the largest CDMA carrier with close to 70 million customers. Just imagine, all those customers and they still can't manage to get the dead zone around our office cleared up
