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Cingular launches their first two UMTS phones
After spending plenty of time with their new 3G HSDPA network to make sure it was ready for the masses, Cingular is finally launching their first UMTS phones capable of using the network. We've heard plenty about the phones before, LG's CU320 slider and Samsung's ZX10 clamshell, but now they're out in the wild and ready to unleash a few extra Kbps on your wireless connection. Both phones are $99 after a $49 rebate, and sport 1.3 megapixel cameras but little else.[Via Phone Scoop]Read: LG CU320Read: Samsung ZX10
Samsung gets busy: T719, P857, D407, T609, Z560, X810 cellphones
Phonescoop has the er, scoop on the line-up of Spring cellphones due from Samsung. In addition to that fat collection announced at 3GSM, four new handhelds are due out in the US (T719, P857, D407, T609) with an additional two heading overseas (Z560, X810). Of note is the thin T719 clamshell (pictured) sporting the actual BlackBerry email interface and even the SureType text keypad design like handsets from RIM. Meanwhile, the P857 should bring a 3 megapixel digital camera to Cingular users. The Z560, then is destined to bring HSDPA to Europe in another thin clam which also features a 2 megapixel camera, big ol' display and touch-sensitive controls on the outside for direct music playback. Click the read link for all the deetz from Phonescoop -- click-on for more pics.
Ma Bell returns: AT&T buys BellSouth for $67 billion
The incest in the Bell family is getting a little out of control, but we're gonna try and break it down for you, being that news just hit the wires that AT&T is buying BellSouth for 67 billion. (Before we get started, we might recommend you hit up The Engadget Guide to AT&T Wireless/Cingular/SBC/AT&T merger mania we wrote last year.) So AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly AT&T), is buying one of the last twp un-amalgamated missing links in the Ma Bell puzzle, BellSouth (the other being Qwest). As you may recall, BellSouth, one of the original 7 baby bells, also owns 40% of Cingular (complementing the 60% once owned by SBC, which is now called AT&T). Thus this sale would effectively transfer ownership of the nation's largest wireless carrier to AT&T. Now, to give this a little context: the only other baby bells left outside the AT&T umbrella in one form or another is Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, which merged with Nynex and GTE) and Qwest (which absorbed US West), neither of which will likely be comin' home to mama. So there you have it, if the SEC approves AT&T's purchase of BellSouth, we once again more or less return to the AT&T of 1984, 'cept now with a little more competition in the backbone and wireless services space. See, with a little of our help you'll know for whom the bell tolls; the bell tolls for Ma.P.S. -Upon closer inspection of their press release, it might seem as though they'll be bringing Cingular under the AT&T brand after all, stating that the merger will "strengthen Cingular through unified ownership and a single brand," and that "simplifying the ownership structure will lead to...a single AT&T brand." Yes, this even though it'd be flying in the face of AT&T's previous statements about keeping Cingular, well, Cingular. Whereas they seem pretty clear about this, we have a feeling all will be revealed tomorrow morning at their webcast press conference at 10:00AM EST.
Carriers hang up on Sling Media mobile service
It seems like a logical extension of Sling Media's popular Slingbox: let viewers watch their home TVs from anywhere on their cellphones, just as the Slingbox already lets them do on their PCs. But Sling has come up against a powerful foe in its quest to bring place-shifting to the small screen: cellular carriers, who are busily cutting deals with networks and other content providers, and don't want to see Sling threaten that income. "We have no immediate plans to run that service," Jeffrey Nelson of Verizon Wireless told Forbes. "What runs on our network are our services." Of course, as more carriers move to 3G platforms like EV-DO and HSDPA, which makes accessing video directly from the internet much more practical, the carriers' official offerings will be less relevant,and Sling -- which has developed a Windows Mobile version of its service -- may well become must-see TV for cellphone users.
Fox launches Mobizzo for mobile content
CBS isn't the only network making waves with mobile content today. Fox has launched its own mobile spinoff, Mobizzo. The company is currently offering a range of content, including ringtones, video clipsand wallpaper, from Fox properties as diverse as Green Day and Family Guy. Mobizzo currently has distribution agreements with Cingular and T-Mobile, and is negotiating with other carriers. Graphics and ringtones are priced at about $1.99 to $2.99 each; monthly subscriptions are $5.99.
Sony Ericsson Z520a clamshell cameraphone reviewed
PC Magazine recently took Sony Ericsson's mid-range Z520a cameraphone out for for a thorough test-drive, and came away impressed with its versatility and gaming functionality, if not its image-quality and data capability. As you're probably well-aware, this flip phone features Bluetooth wireless connectivity, a VGA camera that shoots stuttery 10 fps video at an squinty 176 x 144, interior and exterior color screens, and 16MB of memory for storing games and MP3 ringtones. The phone works especially well with Macs, says PC Mag, syncing easily over with iSync over Bluetooth and playing nice with remote control software Salling Clicker. Quadband GSM is also a plus, letting you do the travel thing with a single handset, but the GPRS-only data support means you'll be visiting a lot of Internet cafes. Overall the Z520a scores a three-star "Good," which sounds like a recommendation to us, considering this phone can be found for as little as $40 with Cingular contract.[Thanks Dave Z.]
LG F9200 reviewed
The LG F9200 just pulled a favorable review over at PC World. This Cingular followup to the LG F9100 is "light and easy to carry" although "chunkier" than the reviewer prefers. While the keyboard on the F9100 was IM only, the F9200's "user friendly" QWERTY now supports web browsing, email, and pretty much anything else -- just not for game play for some reason. Still, with data limited to GPRS speeds and a "grainy" 128 x 160 screen, this devices is less than ideal for those of us in need of some serious smartphone action. Still, as a low cost, simple-to-use messaging device which "plain works" it has it's place. Most likely in your tweeners backpack, but a place nonetheless.
Tatung M1 smartphone headed for Cingular?
It looks like Steve Ballmer's vision of a cheap smartphone future might be coming sooner rather than later, since Tatung's M1 Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphone just got FCC approval, and screenshots in the published manual point to Cingular. The phone isn't exactly a standout in the specs department, with a 176x220 pixel display and no WiFi or EDGE connectivity, but the since Cingular's 2125 currently goes for $200 after rebates, we might just see the M1 at one of the lowest smartphone price points yet.[Via phoneArena]
Cingular teams up with Aicent to offer international MMS
Aicent has announced that have signed a "Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) Interworking Service agreement" with Cingular, fancy talk for a bit of network sharing to allow international MMS service for Cingular customers. Aicent, which already offers GPRS data roaming to Cingular, is helping them with the MMS hookup through North & South America, Europe and Asia, and will begin implementation of the interoperability work immediately.[Via Phone Scoop]
Yahoo! Go Mobile goes mobile with Cingular on the Nokia 6682
Anyone remember those Yahoo Go Mobile phone widgets we were supposed to be getting ala Semel's CES Yahoo keynote? And how they've partnered with AT&T and Cingular to bring this mobile Yahoo vision to life, despite the fact that no one really seems to get what it is they're doing besides embedding some Y channels in cellphones? Well, it's live and officially announced now, everyone, so soon in addition to MusicID and the load of other crap Cingular wants loaded up on your Nokia 6682, you'll have access to the integrated Yahoo web portal with mail, YIM, your addresses, photos (which we hope includes Flickr), and the like. Start your banjos everyone, it's time to go mobile with Yahoo Go Mobile.
Review: Cingular 8125
To say that today's smartphones are as powerful as personal computers were a decade ago is quickly becoming cliché, but that doesn't make it any less true. Witness the Cingular 8125: despite being small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, this powerful quad-band phone packs a 200 MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, enough on-board memory to store scores of MP3s, pictures or videos, and a MiniSD slot to add gigabytes of additional storage, as needed. In other words, the 8125 is a perfectly respectable personal computer that just happens to fit in your pant pocket. And did we mention that this little PC-turned-phone should work on pretty much any GSM network in the free world (providing it's unlocked)? Click on to read our review.
iSkoot links cellphones with Skype
Don't have a WiFi enabled phone and feeling left out of the whole VoIP telephony thing? Well, if you're a Cingular customer and have a Series 60 phone, today might just be your lucky day. iSkoot's announced a new service that will allow Cingular customers to use Skype without using any kind of data connection. Once you install iSkoot's app on your phone, you can use your existing voice connection to connect to their gateway, which in turn links you in to Skype. We know this may sound complicated but it's actually pretty straight forward; if you notice the diagram, you'll see that all of these connections are made by utilizing the latest in smoke-cloud-and-arrow technology. With plans of releasing this software for more platforms (Series 40, RAZR, and Treo at first) and adding support for more services like Google Talk, we can see iSkoot's products becoming very useful -- who couldn't use a break in their international long distance bills? [Via Personal Tech Pipeline]
Global Video Sharing trials over IMS begin
Video Sharing interoperability trials over IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), which is a UMTS implementation of SIP, launched this week bent at least initially on allowing users to send live video during a voice call. The Swedish-led GSMA-sponsored effort spans the US, Europe, and Asia and is meant to ensure future Video Sharing services function smoothly between as many devices and carriers as possible. The support cast includes the usual suspects like the GSM majors (yes, including Cingular) and manufactures such as Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, LG, Motorola, Samsung, etc. Test are expected to be completed by Q2 ’06 but it's anybody's guess when these services might go live.
Cingular's 2125 Windows Mobile Smartphone reviewed
If you've been eyeing Cingular's new 2125 but weren't quite sure how the Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone would hold up with regular use, PC Magazine has a review up of the phone that should give you a good idea of what's what. The good news is that the phone is easy on the eyes; not only is it nicely shaped -- even with that odd hump up top -- but it has a great QVGA screen. The bad news is that WiFi connectivity, which did make it into T-Mobile's SDA phone, isn't present in the 2125. PC Mag was also disappointed by the lack of 3G connectivity, but the phone's EDGE connectivity worked fairly well for them in tests. The phone can get a impressive 14 hours of talk time, with around 9 hours of PDA use, and the Bluetooth and signal strength worked great, though the speakerphone was pretty muddy during calls. Windows Mobile 5.0 does its job fine, and PC Mag found this phone to best its predecessor the Audiovox SMT 5600, but fall short of T-Mobile's SDA due to the glaring omission of WiFi.[Thanks, Dave]
More deets, carrier info on the iPaq hw6900 series
We got our mitts on the highly-anticipated iPaq hw69xx's internal HP spec sheet, and while we knew most of the deets already, we did spot a section listing the numbering scheme for the various carriers that will offer this phone. The Cingular-branded version will be known as the hw6925 with camera and hw6920 without, and Canada will get the hw6945 for Rogers with camera, hw6940 without. A few other tidbits that caught our eye were mentions of A2DP support (wireless headphones are even listed as an accessory) and a feature that automatically stamps each photo with the device's GPS coordinates. Overall, we're getting pretty excited for this Swiss Army Phone, and think we can get over minor annoyances like the square screen and lack of SD/SDIO.
Cingular debuts GlobalConnect world data plan
If you've just gotsa have that wireless data, wherever you may roam, Cingular is throwing down a new global wireless broadband service titled Cingular GlobalConnect to keep the good stuff on tap. The service, which should be available next month, offers up unlimited BroadbandConnect and EDGE data service domestically and 100MB of downloads in Europe and Asia. They're also bundling the Option GlobeTrotter GT MAX LaptopConnect card to pull down UMTS, HSDPA, EDGE, GPRS, and WiFi signals. Of course they're not giving all this bandwidth away, the North America version, which only allows roaming into Canada and Mexico, goes for $110 a month, with the GlobeTrotter card tossed in for $100 if you sign enough years of your life away to Cingular. The Overseas plan will run you $140, but all in all it seems like a rather low-hassle way to get your wireless data on wherever you might be, even if it takes a second mortgage to do it.
Carriers, equipment vendors line up behind Microsoft Direct Push
Microsoft is taking the stage at 3GSM to highlight the company's Direct Push mobile email technology, with announcements from Cingular, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone that they'll support the technology, which enables BlackBerry-style push email on Windows Mobile 5.0 devices. Hardware vendors are also lining up to promote Direct Push, with HP, Asus, Fujitsu Siemens and HTC all announcing support -- not that they have to do anything special to do so, since the function is built into a service pack for Windows Mobile 5.0. Nevertheless, hyping Direct Push is one way for both hardware vendors and carriers to capitalize on the buzz Microsoft is working to build. Hey, it's worked for years for PC makers; why not mobile device makers?
Nokia 6101/6102 review
Our bro Sascha over at PC Mag has a review of the Nokia 6102, a new tri-band (850/1800/1900 MHz) GSM/GPRS/EDGE flip phone from Cingular that's sold by T-Mobile as the 6101 (the carriers like to feel special just like everybody else). Nothing too crazy but Sascha says it's solid mid-range handset that'll give you over ten hours of talk time, and that has specs that are about what you'd expect: a 128 x 160 pixel LCD display, support for both MP3 and MIDI ringtones, an FM tuner, a VGA camera, and enough memory to store a few photos and/or Java games (no Bluetooth, though).
Cingular's 8125 now available to one and all
Alright, we've done enough waiting here, people, and now the wait's over. Cingular's officially launched the 8125 (aka the HTC Wizard) on their site -- yes, for consumers. Expect to pay $350 retail for it with a two year contract, not including that bonus $50 mail-in rebate you'll send in that'll get the cost down to $300.
Cingular 8125 coming soon
Ahhh, the Cingular 8125 version of the HTC Wizard is starting to trickle out for general release (depending upon which market you live in) to fill that consumption void you might be suffering from. That is, if you have the $300 green and wherewithal to commit for 2-years. Come on, take a chance...it's almost Valentine's day and you deserve the kind of gadget-on-man love only this Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphone with quad-band GSM/EDGE and WiFi can do ya for.[Thanks, everyone who sent this in]
