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Hands on with the CoolPAD 728 CDMA/GSM smartphone
You'd better have a pretty spectacular product if you're going to put "cool" in its name ("i," on the other hand, can be prefixed to any piece of junk), and Chinese manufacturer CEC Telecom seems to have produced just such a device with their CoolPAD 728. Available through mobile carrier China Unicom, the CoolPAD is a Windows CE-powered smartphone which sports two SIM slots for the ability to run on 800MHz/1900MHz CDMA and 900MHz/1800MHz/1900MHz GSM networks- simultaneously (we're not sure how many people are skillful enough to hold two conversations at once, but the bragging rights alone warrant this feature, we feel). Other niceties include a dual-core 266MHz Samsung ARM processor, 2.8-inch QVGA screen, 1.3 megapixel camera, and a handy, talking English-to-Chinese dictionary. We've got a few more pics of this double-duty mobile, but for the real motherlode you've gotta head over to Engadget Chinese, who went so snap-happy that they needed two posts to cram all the pics in.Read- English descriptionRead- Engadget Chinese photo gallery, Pt. 1Read- Engadget Chinese photo gallery, Pt. 2
GSM operators plan mobile IM standard
As if text messaging didn't lead to enough repetitive stress injuries, the world's cellphone carriers now want you to start using your cellphone to IM. The GSM Association, which represents carriers from around the globe, has announced an agreement among eight major service providers, including T-Mobile, Vodafone and Orange, to develop a common standard for instant messaging. No word on when the new standard, to be known as Personal IM, will be rolled out. There's also no news about whether it will interoperate with any of the IM services already used by millions of people -- and compatible with many cellphone services -- from companies such as Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft. Chances are it won't be, but we'll count on the open source community to fix that as quickly as possible.
