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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
Bringing wireless to the disconnected: internet tales from the South Pacific
"We only have dial-up here. You'd be shocked at the speeds. [Laughs.] But it's okay -- as long as I can send and reply to email, I'm fine with it."Those were the words spoken to me just weeks ago by the absolutely precious owner of Litia Sini Beach Resort on the extreme southeastern tip of Upolu. For those unaware, that's Samoa's most populous island (~135,000 people) -- a sliver of lush, mountainous land dropped almost perfectly in the center of the Pacific Ocean. I chuckled a bit upon hearing it, immediately realizing that I had a connection in the palm of my hand that was 20, 30, perhaps even 40 times quicker than what this business owner was relying on. She paused, as if to collect her thoughts before going into a familiar spiel about the resort's amenities, and then drew my attention to the display of her laptop. "It's still a draft for now, but this is the new tsunami evacuation plan that we're working on. Soon, we'll have this in each fale. It's taking a bit of time to get right, as the drawings are actually done in New Zealand."I nodded my head in understanding, immediately thinking that this must be in reaction to the catastrophic tsunami of September 2009, caused by a magnitude 8.1 submarine earthquake that hit barely 100 miles from the very spot I was sitting. It was the largest quake of 2009. The entire resort was leveled. Dozens upon dozens were killed. And here we were, over two full years later, and the evacuation schematics are still in "draft."
Engadget Giveaway: win a Samsung Galaxy Note, courtesy of Bell Canada
To celebrate Bell Canada's improved Mobile TV service -- which is particularly nice on a large display -- we could think of no better way than to gift a Samsung Galaxy Note to some lucky Canadian. So how do you win the Note with its beautiful 5.3-inch Super AMOLED display and crazy fast LTE? All it takes to enter is a comment posted below, the ability to follow the rules outlined in this article and that you're a Canadian. Yeah, that's right, our first Canada-only contest -- and no we're not hating on anybody, them's just the rules this time. So apply northern friends and good luck! Leave a comment below. Any comment will do. Duplicate entries will be filtered out and discarded, so adding additional comments won't increase your likelihood of winning. Contest is open to all residents of Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad. Winners will be chosen randomly. One winner will receive one Bell Canada Samsung Galaxy Note. If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Bell Canada service will NOT be included. Also, Samsung, Bell and Engadget are not held liable to honor warranties or customer service. The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here. Entries can be submitted until March 10, 2012 at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
iPad 4G plans and pricing revealed (update)
Wondering how much you'll have to cough up each month, and just how much data it would net you if you opted for a 4G model if Apple's new iPad? Well, the image above should tell you all you need to know. AT&T will have three options, starting at $15 for 250MB, $30 for 3GB and going up to $50 for 5GB. Verizon simply skips out on the bargain bin plan, assuming you'll be wanting more if you dropped the extra dough on an LTE-enabled iPad. Big Red kicks things off with a $30 2GB option before jumping to $50 for 5GB and $80 for 10GB. Now, that may sound like a lot of money but, remember, there's no contract to sign here.Update: AT&T has reached out to us to identify an inaccuracy presented in Apple's graphic. The $30 price tier comes with a 3GB data plan, rather than 2GB as originally stated in the article. Apple has yet to update the information on its website.
New iPad has 'world ready' 3G, LTE for Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus and AT&T
At Apple's ongoing press conference, the company has just revealed its new retina display-equipped iPad will feature high speed LTE connections on Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus and AT&T networks, as well as 3G that works around the world. It brings "the most bands ever", but it looks like we'll still be looking at separate devices that work with either Verizon and AT&T, but not both. Besides the 3.1Mbps EV-DO and 7.2Mbps HSPA that were on the iPad 2, the new slates add 21Mbps HSPA+, 42Mbps DC-HSDPA and 73Mbps LTE connections. Not sure you need that speed on your tablet? Maybe your other devices will appreciate it, since these also have personal hotspot functionality built-in.For more coverage of Apple's iPad event, visit our hub!
'4G' Sony Tablet P coming to AT&T on March 4th for $400
Sony's odd, dual-screened, folding Tablet P is finally getting a "4G" version here the US, courtesy of AT&T. In this case, those 4G speeds are being "delivered" by an HSPA+ radio, a fact that carrier managed to bury in the PR. The Honeycomb device will be bringing its unique set of 5.5-inch screens to Ma Bell starting March 4th for the rather steep price of $400 with a two year contract. If you don't want to sign your soul over you can pick one up unsubsidized for $550, which is still quite a bit less than the cost of importing one of its £500 UK siblings. Check out the complete announcement after the break.
Samsung's Exhilarate $50 AT&T LTE phone hits the FCC
Samsung's Exhilarate was first announced back at CES as AT&T's first sub-$50 LTE phone. It also apparently meets a variety of sustainability and environmental standards, but the FCC wasn't concerned about if it was made of bamboo when it shredded the handset for the public's good. Our boys in blue lab coats were more preoccupied with the internals and despite the small on-contract cost of the device, it's certainly packing some hardware. Beneath that 4-inch super AMOLED display are GSM, WCDMA, LTE Bands 4 and 17, HSPA, GSM, GPRS and EDGE modems as well as the GPS, NFC, Bluetooth and WiFi modules we expect all self-respecting handsets to carry. Given that this emerged from Washington this morning, we can imagine this to start arriving in stores very shortly.
Broadcom releases new Ice Cream Sandwich-optimized chipsets at MWC
Broadcom's taken the chance to bust out some killer new internals for Android phones here at MWC. The new range of SoCs are optimized for Ice Cream Sandwich, based on single or dual-core 40-nanometer ARM Cortex A9s. The BCM21654G has a 1GHz CPU, integrated HSPA modem and VGA video support, it's likely we'll see this popping up in budget phones. The romantically named BCM28145 and BCM28155 are dual-core chips with HSPA+ modems and can handle 720p and 1080p video respectively. All dual-core chips will come with a "videocore," a third low-power chip to handle video playback without occupying the main CPU and draining power as well as an Image Signal Processor chip that can support cameras up to 42-megapixels (glances across to the Nokia 808). Other options you'll find appearing in the cellphones of tomorrow include hybrid GPS / Glonass units, low-power NFC and active dual-SIM capability. If you're a garage-based cellphone manufacturer and want to grab some of these for your own business, head on past the break for some PR.
Nokia grows Lumia 900 family: Canada gets LTE, HSPA+ for everyone else
Well, that AT&T exclusivity was bound to wear off at some point. Nokia just confirmed that an LTE version of its flagship Lumia 900 will be crossing the border into Canada in April, running on Rogers' network, while a dual-carrier HSPA+ flavor will be hopping the Atlantic sometime in Q2, with a €480 (about $650) price tag in tow. Naturally, it'll include Nokia Drive, but there's another treat in store -- Nokia Reading. The app will be available as a free download, and acts as a digital media hub, aggregating content in a magazine-like format. The new Lumia 900s also add a front-facing camera, in addition to that Carl Zeiss lens-sporting snapper out back. Also, as you can see in the image above, Nokia has confirmed a gorgeous white version of the Windows Phone device, which we saw leaked earlier this month. As for a release date to go along with that previously announced AT&T version? We're still hoping for March 18th, though we have yet to get a firm commitment from the carrier or manufacturer.Myriam Joire contributed to this report.
T-Mobile lost more customers in Q4, will launch LTE in 2013 with AWS spectrum from AT&T
In T-Mobile USA's first earnings report since the proposed merger with AT&T fell through in December, it noted a loss of 802,000 customers in Q4 (being the only carrier not to have the iPhone is a lonely, lonely circumstance). But there is some good news -- thanks to the AWS spectrum it's receiving due to the termination of said deal, it plans to launch LTE services in 2013. Additionally, it plans to spend $4 billion rolling out HSPA+3G/4G services on the 1900 MHz band which should mean high speed data access (in some areas) for previously unsupported devices like the iPhone 4/4S. Also, since both T-Mobile and AT&T use AWS spectrum for LTE, we could see existing (and future) unlocked devices that are compatible with both networks. For now, T-Mobile is focusing on the new devices it's delivering like the just-announced Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G, and its addition of 276,000 prepaid customers. Check out the full report with all the details and dollar amounts after the break.
MediaTek sees no reason cheap phones can't have Ice Cream Sandwich too
If you don't want to drop $300 on a phone we don't blame you -- honestly, the idea makes us feel a bit dirty too. MediaTek doesn't seen any reason for it either. The company has been working its way in to the mobile chipset business for a little while now, and its latest is aimed squarely at the lower end of the handset spectrum but still promises to deliver the latest in dessert-themed operating systems. The MT6575 is a single core Cortex-A9 solution with an unidentified 5-series PowerVR GPU on board and an HSPA modem. The 1GHz core probably won't win and benchmark competitions, but it's enough to push Android 4.0 to a qHD screen, power through 720p video and capture shots with an 8 megapixel sensor. It even is capable of supporting 3D displays and DTV broadcasts -- not too bad for something destined to wind up in $50 smartphones. Checkout the complete PR after the break.
LG Miracle appears in real life, we start to believe
LG's smartphone workshop is keeping itself busy. Alongside the manufacturer's attempt to out-Note Samsung, its latest Windows Phone has resurfaced. A kindly mole has offered some better focused (but unfortunately watermarked to heck) shots of LG's first Mango-laced Windows Phone. Skinnier that we expected, we can now make out a front-facing camera, paired up with a rear-facing five-megapixel primary shooter on the back. It's still a prototype, judging by that not-so-subtle "not for sale" etching on the back, but expect the Miracle -- when it does go official -- to match those middleweight credentials leaked so far.
Could LG's Fantasy be an outright Miracle?
If you ask us, miracles are pretty hard to come by, and it would take a great amount of gusto for a smartphone manufacturer to bestow such a weighty name upon a rather middling handset. The crew at Pocketnow claim that's exactly what LG's done with its latest Windows Phone, however, which was previously known as the Fantasy. That's right, folks, you're looking at a purported Miracle -- weren't you expecting more? The phone is said to contain a 1GHz (naturally single-core) Snapdragon SoC, a 4-inch NOVA display (that we can safely assume to be WVGA), 8GB of storage and a five megapixel primary cam that shoots video at 720p, along with a run-of-the-mill VGA front-facer. As connectivity goes, we're told to expect a 14.4Mbps HSPA radio and 2.4GHz / 5GHz WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0 and -- get this -- NFC. Whether this Miracle comes to fruition is anybody's guess; perhaps it was just a Fantasy all along.[Thanks, Mark]
BlackBerry Curve 9360 review
The BlackBerry Curve 8300 emerged as one of the best smartphone ideas of 2007. It pre-dated the first Android handset by a full year, and unlike the original iPhone, it was priced within reach of the average consumer. It introduced the masses to the possibilities of a connected and capable handset, and was the primary catalyst for the BlackBerry's meteoric rise to household name. With each subsequent iteration, however, the Curve remained a handset geared toward first-time smartphone buyers, and that axiom feels particularly true today. RIM's BlackBerry Curve 9360 outed -- is this Apollo? RIM launches new BlackBerry Curve (video) Blackberry Curve 9360 hands-on We're now presented with the Curve 9360 ($29.99, on contract), a device that's ostensibly hobbled in order to differentiate itself from RIM's higher-end offerings, most notably the Torch 9810 ($49), Torch 9860 ($99) and Bold 9900 ($199). Specifically, we refer to its lack of a touchscreen. The omission will certainly be a deal-breaker for some, but whether it causes the market to reject it as a whole remains unknown. For our part, we're most interested in the impact on the handset's usability and its relevance in an increasingly competitive environment. In other words, has RIM included enough improvements to keep its Curve franchise afloat, or will this iteration sink like a stone? Join us after the break, as we delve into the Curve 9360 and explore these finer details.
Fujitsu's Arrows ES IS12F has the light stuff, baby, heads to KDDI January 7th
A little junk in the mobile trunk never hurt nobody, but don't tell that to Fujitsu, where thin is clearly in. The company's gone all out on its latest handset -- the Arrows ES IS12F -- for Japanese carrier KDDI, hitting marks for both svelteness and ruggedness: pairing a 6.7mm profile with a Gorilla Glass and scratch-resistant body coating (think: the Brawny Man as a phone covered in Teflon on a Master Cleanse). This 4-incher's outfitted with an 800 x 480 AMOLED display, single-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor running Android 2.3, 5.11 megapixel rear shooter and, in keeping with the Arrows tradition, it's also waterproof. If you're living in the Land of the Rising Sun, you can snag this slight smartphone in Ruby Red and Gloss Black starting January 7th. Sorry, chubby phone chasers, you're gonna have to sit this one out.
Verzo Kinzo unboxing and impressions (video)
Yes, the Verzo Kinzo is real! That Americano-Czech Android smartphone with mid-range specs that went on sale in November with a ludicrous $459 price tag only to be hastily relaunched earlier this month for a slightly more digestible $359 is not a giant farce. (Well, maybe it is.) It left the ethereal world of rendered computer graphics and landed in our mitts just in time for the holidays. To be specific, we received the pricier $384 Verzo Kinzo Plus GPS package, which includes a voucher for Sygic's off-line navigation app and a gaudy, Star Trek-inspired car holder. After spending a few days with the handset we are able to report that it isn't particularly impressive in this day and age but isn't completely horrible either -- not to mention the faux-Vertu packaging and branding which are rather, well... unique. So why not grab some leftover eggnog, and join us after the break for our unboxing and impressions?
Fujitsu Arrows ES IS12F coming to Japan next year: thick name, thin phone
KDDI's au network in Japan has revealed that it'll be stocking the slender Fujitsu Arrows ES IS12F starting January 2012. Fujitsu fans may recall seeing a very similar handset with the same (mostly) 6.7mm profile when NTT DoCoMo's version sashayed into those stuffy FCC offices. The phone runs on a single core processor, which is responsible for powering the image-stabilizing five megapixel camera and Gingerbread OS. The 4-inch, 480 x 800 AMOLED screen is cocooned in the same water resistant armor found on other Arrows devices, helping to protect those essential keitai functions like the One-Seg digital TV tuner and IR receiver. The skinny smartphone will go on sale in both black and red options for KIDDI, while NTT DoCoMo customers will have to settle for black.
Meizu MX resurfaces, home button gets a nip-and-tuck, turns into optical trackpad?
It's been a while since we've seen the Meizu MX, but these latest shots from Mr. Blurrycam reveal that the phone could see a substantial tweak to its main home button. These photos are likely to be of a work-in-progress handset, with plenty of bizarre cutaways presumably obscuring details of the mole. In the leaked drawings, Meizu's upcoming smartphone looked an awful lot like its M9 predecessor, albeit with a bigger screen, running on a superior A9 Cortex processor. The main button apparently doubles as an optical trackpad, with the two flanking capacitive buttons rotating depending on orientation. While it still remains uncertain whether this nub will replace the squarish button found on the MX mock-up earlier this year, hopefully CEO Jack Wong will still manage to meet the December launch date -- if only for the sake of all those loyal Mei-yo. Fans of severely obscured photography can catch another glimpse after the break.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 visits FCC again, wants to show its 3G credentials
It was on, then it was off, but it looks like Samsung 7.7-incher could return from the ether of launch limbo, with a 3G-capable model knocking at the FCC's lab-door. Schematics are largely identical to the WiFi model spotted at the commission back in September, but the filing confirms that this particular slab of Android will be arriving with HSPA+ talents. Yes, the GT-P6800 will offer up some faux-G speeds alongside a sizable Super AMOLED Plus panel (1280 x 800) and the standard WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS bells and whistles. We are, however, still tapping our collective feet while waiting for confirmation on whether the device will ever land on American soil. What's in an inch, anyway?
Motorola XT615 Android phone arriving in China and Taiwan: slim, but not RAZR-thin
Side-stepping the moody design tones of its RAZR brethren, Motorola has announced a new Android-powered smartphone for Taiwan. Measuring in at 9.8mm thin, this Gingerbread-powered slab sports the outfit's MotoBlur-derived Moto Switch UI, with an eight megapixel camera on the back and a VGA shooter on the front. The XT615 packs quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900), WCDMA (900/2100) and HSPA (7.2Mbps) radios, while processing power comes from a slightly underwhelming 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7227A-0, possibly explaining the NTD$10,900 ($360) price tag. The pearly-toned phone hasn't revealed any plans to leave the island nation of Taiwan just yet, but that doesn't mean you can't familiarize yourself with the full specifications in the PR below.
