Review: HTC Hero

PureMobile sent us in the GSM version of the HTC Hero, one of the most popular Android-based smartphones out there. There are already a number of in-depth reviews about this phone out there (here's one), but here's my own take on what I liked, and what I disliked.

Before we start, let me say right off the bat that my husband works for Google, at the open source side of Android (not directly with the operating system's development). However, this is not a "with Google" phone like the T-Mobile G1 was, it's an independent HTC-only phone. And most importantly, it does not use the default Android UI (UI that I will be mostly discussing), but HTC's own flavor. So I felt that I could give it a whirl, and see if it can compete with the iPhone (despite my husband working for Android, the iPhone has been my personal phone choice so far).
Specs

The Hero comes with 2G GSM 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz and 3G HSDPA 900/2100 Mhz. It weighs 135 gr, it has a capacitive LCD with 65k colors, at 320x480 resolution and 3.2" size. HTC has some elements of multi-touch in its input method, an accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and a trackball. It also has a 3.5mm audio jack, 288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM, Qualcomm MSM 7200A processor, a microSD card slot with a 2 GB card coming in the box. It also comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support. It has a 5 MP camera with autofocus and touch focus. It can also shoot video, but only at 352x288 at just 15 fps. Finally, it has A-GPS support, and a digital compass, all running under Android 1.5 Cupcake. Recently, HTC said that they will offer an Android 2 release for this phone, sometime in the next few months.

The Hardware

I love the way this phone looks. In some ways, it reminds me the design of the original Motorola cellphone! But in a good way!

I absolutely hated the G1 because of its "Jay Leno" chin, but it is not a problem on the Hero because it's so thin! On the G1 I simply could not type because my small hands could not go over the chin and easily reach the keys at the bottom. But on the Hero this is not an issue, because the LCD is on a higher ground than the hardware keys are on the G1, and the Hero is thinner anyway (so my small hands have an easier time going around it).

The device also feels very nice in the palm. It is less wide than the iPhone, and it can rest on my palm with ease.

The Hero comes with the standard Android buttons, plus a dedicated search button. I wish that the buttons were a bit bigger and easier to hit though. Another problem are the volume buttons on the left side that are way too easy to hit. While grabbing the phone from the table, 2 times out of 5 I would be pressing the volume buttons by mistake. They should have been more rigid and more difficult to get pressed.

Battery life is about 3 days with light usage (considering that this is an always-online, syncing with Gmail, phone). Phone call quality is top notch.

The camera is ok (samples), and there are some nice white balance and other settings while shooting. I can't really ask anything more regarding the still capabilities (except maybe a flash light). The video mode is a disaster though at 15 fps CIF resolution (sample).

The HTC Sense UI

As mentioned above, HTC has written from scratch their own UI on top of Android's. Some components are completely replaced, other just modified, other are vanilla. Basically, HTC has rewritten the launcher application, the Phone/Contacts application, the virtual keyboard application, and quite a few new screen widgets: twitter, calendar, weather, pictures, contacts, email, music player, browser bookmarks, "footprints" (a traveling app), and more.

There are 7 "virtual" screens on the HTC Sense UI, there are 3 in the default Android home screen. You can easily fill up these virtual screens with widgets and shortcuts. The widgets are very nicely designed, with beautiful icons, animations and interactive elements. You can simply flick through images or emails with really nice animations for example. Originally, the HTC Sense UI had speed problems doing all that, but the latest update (that the phone comes with by default) fixes a lot of these problems.

The virtual keyboard is definitely better than Android's default one. Its multitouch ability and easy way to switch between languages, and auto-correction, give it the upper hand. However, the HTC virtual keyboard is not without its bugs, creating incompatibilities occasionally for some apps (e.g. an SSH app we tried).

The phone screen was re-written as well. The dialing screen is now rendering on top of the contacts, meaning that the dialing screen takes half the screen, and you can just scroll the contacts list on the other half of the screen. The same application includes a full screen view of all your Gmail contacts, ability to edit these, create "teams" of contacts, call history, and get this: Facebook updates. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't work properly for me (info below).

The music player is re-written too. It takes a while to load the album art of all the music in the cache, and until it does, scrolling through the music list can become slow. But after it does load, it works wonderfully, and all my album art was recognized (something that is not true for Nokia phones, and even Sandisk players). It can play MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, MIDI and Windows Media Audio 9.

The HTC Hero is the first Android phone to come with Flash, but it's very slow, doesn't work most of the time (e.g. vimeo), and when it does work (e.g. Youtube) there's already a dedicated app for it. So basically that Flash port feels very much like a throw-in.

Overall, the HTC Sense UI feels more modern, more impressive and cooler than the default Android UI. It's true that while I did try to get into Android in the past, its UI was holding me back. On the iPhone, multi-touch and the very consistent usability were always big features to me; Android doesn't exactly have that. HTC Sense is not as polished and consistent as the iPhone either, but it fares better than the default Android.

Complete walkthrough on HTC's UI, here.

What I disliked

There is no "additional languages" installation ability. However, the situation is more complex than that. When I used my Greek SIM, the phone asked me if I would like to change the language to Greek, and I said "yes". It made everything Greek, as it was supposed to, but when I am going to the language settings, only Polish and English are available there (as these are the phone's original languages). I mean, if the phone comes with all these languages pre-installed (it certainly didn't download anything off the web to enable Greek), why not let me make "Greek" the "official" language on the phone?

Unfortunately, while the above might not sound like a big problem to you, consider the following: for some applications that get their text from the web, if that text is not in Greek, then it doesn't show it to me at all. What I mean is this: Comments in the application pages of the "Market" application DO NOT RENDER on this phone when it's set to Greek. It would ONLY render comments, and let you read them, if the comments were *written* in Greek! And my friends' Facebook updates are also not loading at all because they are not written in Greek (I presume)! While I understand the need to hide text of weird languages from the user (although this is debatable usability), I don't agree that this should also be done for plain English. Heck, most Greek people can read English, thank you very much.

The launcher comes with a big button that gets you to the Phone screen, and a smaller button to open the application launcher window. Personally, I am more of a PDA-like user rather than a caller, so it would have been nice to be able to exchange the position of the two buttons (so the app launcher has a bigger button).

The Contacts application loads all the gazillion of my Gmail contacts that I don't want there. It doesn't try to only show the contacts that actually have a phone number, I am ending up having thousands of "contacts" that have emailed me at some point in the past. People that I don't really know. It's impossible to find a true contact in that screen just by flicking.

There are two ways to lock the phone's screen: one is with a special visual pattern that you can draw (part of standard Android), and the other one is simply to double-click the "menu" button, or slide down the whole screen. Unfortunately, that second way is way too easy to unlock the phone by mistake. The slide-down way should have been slide-horizontally-a-small-icon like on the iPhone, because right now, even by touching the screen on your trousers can cause it to unlock the screen.

There is no usable VoIP application right now for Android, and this has an impact for me, since I use it to call my mom in Greece. The single one popular SIP app that's available for Android and kinda works, requires to use the developer's PBX rather than your own SIP provider directly (something that I am not willing to do because there are too many hoops between countries adding to the lag). Update: SIP Gizmo5 has trouble registering with the SIPdroid application on my network. Manages to register only once every so often.

Skype is a disaster on Android, as it doesn't work via Wifi-only, it requires that you enter your cellphone number and works through it (something that I don't want to do either). Android 1.6 is the first version of Android that comes with VoIP API hooks, so hopefully Skype and other SIP apps will get updated soon.

The HTC Sense's Bookmark widget does not sort the widgets the way you request the web browser to do so, so you end up with only one sorting order: chronologically created. And because most people would create the bookmarks they most care about first, these will show up at the bottom every time, requiring the user to scroll each time. Poor thinking here.

The HTC Hero can't play iPod videos (DRM-free, of course). It is able to playback MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV9 on paper, but in reality, it required 480x320 or smaller resolutions, while I already have a few iPhone/iPod-encoded videos at 640px wide widescreen format. I mean, the Hero should have been able to play these (the Nokias can, and besides, it should always be a strategic target to be able to play the same formats as the iPhone/iPod).

The Weather widget has no option to follow the weather for the cities of Nancy (France) and Preveza (Greece). The iPhone uses a service that does have support for these cities.

No "week view" in the HTC Calendar app.

No Amazon MP3 application. USB is the only way to add music to the phone.

The "pinch" on the web browser is not great. It is not as smooth and precise as the iPhone's.

The "Market" app is a disaster. Although the newer version of the app (e.g. v1.6) is a bit better.

Conclusion

Overall, the HTC Hero is so far the best Android phone for me (not talking about the Motorola Droid, since it's not out yet). And the announced update is obviously going to bring new life to this Android 1.5 device.

The question is: would it knock me off the iPhone? And the answer is "not yet". It's not as polished as the iPhone. However, if my iPhone was to stop working tomorrow morning, the HTC Hero would be the phone I would reach out first to use instead. It's dangerously close!

Wi-Fi-free iPhone officially lands in China

It could be the Year of the iPhone in China, as Apple officially started selling its iconic smartphone in the world's largest mobile market Friday night.

While China saw nothing near the frenzy of the first iPhone launch day here in the U.S., crowds there did honor the tradition of lining up for the phone many hours in advance at several locations. A few hundred people queued up in the rain and cold outside The Place shopping center in Beijing, for example. There, Zhi Xianzhong became the first person to get the iPhone from Apple partner China Unicom after waiting 7 hours and 40 minutes, according to China Daily.

As expected, China Unicom, the country's second largest telecom operator after China Mobile, is selling two versions of the iPhone in China under a three-year deal with Apple. But cost could prove to be a deterrent. Prices range from 4,999 yuan (about $732) for the 8GB 3G model to 6,999 yuan (about $1,025) for the 32GB 3GS phone (sans contract).

Consumers can get cheaper, cracked, gray-market iPhone models at local electronics stores or bring them in from other markets. But price isn't the only potential obstacle here. In accordance with Chinese government regulations, the handsets also lack a key feature--Wi-Fi capability, though reports say China Unicom hopes to offer Wi-Fi-enabled iPhones within a few months.

China Unicom is starting off by selling the iPhone in 285 cities. The carrier hopes to sell 5 million devices in three years, according to Chinese news reports, but the company wouldn't confirm that figure.

Sony Ericsson Rachael (Xperia X3) teaser video out

The Sony Ericsson Rachael has been a medley of rumours so far, but this video gives those rumours a little credence. The phone has a rumoured November 3rd launch, now seems possible. The video
doesn�t have many details, but the URL at the end did point us to a teaser page that says, �We're looking forward to November 3rd. We think you should be too.�

Nokia Shutters Mobile-Gaming Service N-Gage

Nokia plans to stop producing mobile videogames for its N-Gage platform next year, it said Friday.

Bloomberg News
An N-Gage demo at videogame retailer GameStop in 2003

In a blog post, the cellphone maker said it will continue selling games through its Ovi app store. Customers can download games through N-Gage until September 2010, it added, though new games will not be published there. Previously purchased games will also continue to work on handsets, though the community features will be disabled in September as well.

Nokia, which faces cellphone rivals such as Apple and Samsung, once saw N-Gage as a way to help tap into consumers’ appetite for mobile games, but the service got off to a rocky start, including several launch delays. It had previously developed a gaming handset, also called N-Gage, that sold poorly and was pulled in 2006.

The company has since turned its attention to Ovi, which competes with Apple’s larger App Store, as well as other devices like netbooks, which it expects to begin selling next month.

While Nokia’s post elicited condolences — “Next year will be a sad day when Ngage closes its doors,” one wrote — commenters on gadget blog Engadget, which said it wasn’t an unexpected move, were less supportive. “I thought it ended before it began,” one wrote.

Wireless Phone Company Launches "Don't Text & Drive" Ad Campaign

HUNTSVILLE, AL - Despite the dangers, people do it every day, texting while driving. The message of "don't text & drive" is coming through loud and clear from an unlikely source: a cell phone provider.

Verizon Wireless launched a new "Don't Text & Drive" ad campaign.

The last week, or so has been tough for so many people after several car accidents. Some were caused by speeding, some by alcohol, and some just by not paying attention to the road. Verizon, a company that serves close to 90 million customers, is now dialing your number to talk safety.

Kelly Shrout is a District Manager for Verizon Wireless in Huntsville. Her company is behind the "Dont Text & Drive" campaign.

"The message is very simple, if you're in the driver seat, keep your hands on the wheel," said Kelly Shrout.

The point seems easy to understand for some, but why is the nation's largest wireless service provider pressing the issue?

"We really don't feel that any text message is worth risking a life," added Shrout.

Some people do think a text message is important even while driving.

"I look down for a second, read the message, and look back. I text back and drive," said High School Student Tekeria Rainey.

Others just don't think it's smart to take their eyes off the road if only just for a little bit.

"If you text and drive, but look off the road, you can end it in a couple of seconds," said High School Student Billy Maddox.

Verizon's safety campaign was launched to change the behavior of drivers who choose to hold a phone instead of a wheel while driving.

It's set to blanket the television, radio, newspaper, internet, and several billboards.

Huntsville Police say there is proof why drivers need to keep their eyes on the road.

"Over 90% of all accidents are caused by inattentiveness. It's just that simple," said Huntsville Police Lieutenant Mark McMurray.

As for folks at Verizon Wireless, they would like to see you use hand free devices.

"We've always supported legislation that ban texting and anything that would be a distraction to drivers. We're continuing to support the national efforts," added Shrout.

The Governor's Highway Safety Association says only six states ban the use of handheld cell phones while driving for all drivers. The association says 18 states ban texting while driving for all drivers. Alabama does not have either of the

Motorola Droid

Motorola Droid will be available on Verizon, on November 6th for $199 on contract. It is the first smartphone using Google's Android 2.0 operating system. Featuring a 3.7 inch touch screen(480x85), a slide out QWERTY keyboard, 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, GPS, Bluetooth and 16GB of storage. Watch the video of Droid Demo!

Research and Markets: Global Top 10 Mobile Phone Companies - Industry, Financial and SWOT Analysis

DUBLIN--(Business Wire)--
Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/906670/global_top_10_mobi) has
announced the addition of the "Global Top 10 Mobile Phone Companies - Industry,
Financial and SWOT Analysis" report to their offering.

Scope:

'Top 10 Global Mobile Phones Companies Report: Strategic evaluation of industry
and key players' is a business report that provides a comprehensive view of the
mobile phones market and its top 10 companies.

The report includes the following:

* Industry analysis including market value, market volume, market share and
forecast growth till 2012
* Assessment of intensity of competition based on five-forces model including
degree of rivalry, substitutes, new entrants, buyer power and supplier power
* SWOT and 5-year financial analysis of top 10 players in the industry
* Descriptive profiles of the leading players including the strategic
initiatives undertaken in the last 12 months

Reasons to Purchase

* Gain insights into the industry, leading companies and competitors through a
single report
* Benchmark the leading players using 5-year financial analysis, ratios and
adjusted financial statement data
* Form opinions about key players using SWOT Analysis to understand internal
factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and
threats) influencing the companies
* Determine industry attractiveness from five-forces analysis of constituent
segments

Key Topics Covered:

Executive Summary

* Industry analysis
* Industry definition
* Research highlights
* Market Value
* Market Volume
* Market Segmentation-Geography

Five Forces Analysis

* Summary
* Buyer power
* Supplier power
* New entrants
* Substitutes
* Rivalry

Top 10 Companies Landscape

* Revenue analysis
* Financial performance analysis

Companies Mentioned in this Reports:

* Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
* Nokia Corporation
* LG Electronics, Inc.
* Motorola, Inc.
* Apple Inc.
* Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB
* Research In Motion Limited
* ZTE Corporation
* HTC Corporation
* Palm, Inc.
* Financial Analysis
* Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
* Nokia Corporation
* LG Electronics, Inc.
* Motorola, Inc.
* Apple Inc.
* Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB
* Research In Motion Limited
* ZTE Corporation
* HTC Corporation
* Palm, Inc.

For more information visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/906670/global_top_10_mobi

Source: Datamonitor

Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager,
press@researchandmarkets.com
U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907
Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Copyright Business Wire 2009

ReprintPrint Email Font Resize Google to launch free phone navigation service

Google is set to launch a free service for smart-phones that will combine GPS navigation, voice-activated search and real-time traffic updates.

Other telecommunication companies already offer turn-by-turn navigation systems that talk drivers through a route and run on smart-phones, although many are not free and would not offer the same connectivity to Google's massive store of data.

There is no handset on the market that runs Google's Android 2.0 operating system, required by the new application, although the Motorola Droid will be sold by Verizon Wireless next week. Google said it is "eagerly working" with Apple to bring Google Maps Navigation to the iPhone.

But CEO Eric Schmidt said Google's navigation service reflects the rapidly growing power of mobile devices, particularly when they are linked to Google's power to process data using its "cloud" of networked computers.

"The mobile platforms, Android and the others, are so powerful now that you can build client apps that do magical things, that are connected to the cloud," Schmidt told reporters in a briefing this week. "This is the most visually obvious example of that."

A Google Maps Navigation user would be able to use voice search to find a destination or other attraction and listen as the app talked the user through their route.

Even an inexact verbal search, such as "Take me to the museum with the King Tut exhibit in San Francisco," would produce meaningful results,
Advertisement
said Vic Gundotra, vice president for engineering and mobile for Google.

The application would allow a driver to look ahead at traffic along the route, seeing green when the route miles ahead is clear, yellow when traffic begins to snarl. As a driver approaches a destination, the display would switch to Google's "Street View" technology so users could recognize their destination.

Analysts said the application also could offer Google significant revenue opportunities from businesses that would want to be listed on Navigation searches. There is no guarantee, however, that Google's turn-by-by-turn navigator would replaced standard windshield-mounted GPS units.

Much of the product's success will depend on the quality of its speech recognition and its graphics displays, experts said.

Will Stofega, an analyst who follows mobile phone handsets for IDC, a research firm, said there could also be safety issues if users start doing too many traffic or restaurant searches while they are driving.

"You don't want to be squinting at a cell phone display and having to take your glasses off or put them on," he said. "Some of these cell phone screens might be even smaller than the iPhone."

For people who don't have an unlimited data plan on their phone, an application like Maps Navigator could also prove costly, he said.

Apple had no comment on whether the Google service might be available for the iPhone, although Google clearly hopes it will be soon.

"Apple is clearly one of our most important partners," Gundotra said. "Millions of consumers today experience Google mobile apps on the iPhone, and so we are eagerly working with them to provide that."

Sony Ericsson launches three smart phones

NEW DELHI: Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson Wednesday launched three new smartphones in the Indian market, priced between Rs.16,950 and
Rs.35,950.

The phones, "Satio", "Aino" and "Yari", will set the trend for the new age smart phones, said Anil Sethi, president of Sony Ericsson Mobile India.

He said the company would focus on the smartphone category for the next two-three years to boost sales.

"Once the 3G spectrum allocation happens, we can roll out more features with better network," Sethi said.

Built on Sony Ericsson's strengths in music, imaging, gaming, applications and content services, the new phones bring alive entertainment on the go for consumers, the company said.

The Satio, priced at Rs.35,950, comes with a 3.5-inch screen and offers a 16:9 widescreen format with 12.1 megapixel camera.

The Aino offers services to access content stored on a PlayStation 3 from anywhere in the world through a Wi-Fi connection.

It also gives remote play access to videos, television shows and photos
. The mobile has an eight megapixel camera and is priced at Rs.28,950.

Yari debuts Gesture gaming that enables users to make the moves in front of the screen and play games without even touching the phone. The Phone comes with a five megapixel camera and is priced at Rs.16,950.

Motorola Introduces Second Android-Powered Phone

By Hugo Miller

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Motorola Inc. introduced its second phone based on Google Inc.’s Android software, fighting for a bigger share of the growing market for Web-equipped phones to reverse more than a year of sales declines.

The phone, called the Droid, features a larger screen than Apple Inc.’s top-selling iPhone and has higher resolution, said co-Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jha. It will be available Nov. 6 on the Verizon Wireless Web site and in retail stores, Motorola said. The price will be $199.99 with a two-year agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Motorola is rebuilding its mobile-phone division around the Android operating system to entice consumers who abandoned its handsets in favor of the iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry. Motorola’s share of the phone market dropped by almost half in the second quarter from 10 percent a year earlier, according to Gartner Inc.

“We’ve been missing from the market,” Jha, 46, said in an interview. The Droid “absolutely does” get Motorola back into the game with a better operating system and a faster Internet browser, he said.

Based on Android 2.0, a newer version of the Google operating system, the device allows users to run multiple applications at once, features voice-driven Web searches, and has one of the “fastest Web browsers available today,” Jha said.

‘Favorable Reviews’

T-Mobile USA Inc. will begin selling the Schaumburg, Illinois-based company’s first Android phone, the Cliq, on Nov. 2 for $199.99 with a two-year contract.

“Droid boasts impressive specs and reviews from the blog community have been very favorable thus far,” said Matt Thornton, an analyst with Avian Securities LLC in Boston. “This should give some indication as to how the device will be received by the consumer, the press and the investor community.”

Thornton has a “positive” rating on the stock.

Motorola plans more Android devices. At least one of those will be sold through a third carrier, Jha said. The Droid will be available through multiple carriers outside the U.S. later this year, he said.

Jha declined to comment on how Android phones will affect earnings. The company will report third-quarter results tomorrow. Analysts predict profit of less than 1 cent a share, excluding some items, the average of estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

Motorola is trying to stop losses of more than $4 billion since 2007 and recapture the success it had with the Razr phone five years ago. Revenue at the mobile-phone business, run by Jha, dropped 45 percent to $1.83 billion in the second quarter. The rest of the company is run by co-CEO Greg Brown.

Motorola rose 6 cents to $7.96 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have climbed 80 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hugo Miller in Toronto at hugomiller@bloomberg.net

Mobile Phone Wars!

Profit, excluding severance and other costs, amounted to 60 cents a share, New York-based Verizon said today in a statement. That compared with the 59-cent average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales rose 10 percent to $27.3 billion, compared with the average $27.2 billion projection.

Yeah, but....

Verizon added 1.3 million wireless customers in the quarter, including customers obtained through acquisitions. That surpassed Fritzsche’s 1.13 million projection. Sales of data services rose 48 percent and accounted for about one-third of customers’ bills. Customer turnover rose to 1.49 percent from 1.33 percent a year earlier.

A bit of hair on that dog - acquisitions tells you nothing about organic growth. The other interesting component is the data services pricing and growth - this has been a push for a long time, and remains so. The surprise is that 1/3rd of customer billings is now data, and that it continues to accelerate.

On the worrisome side is the growth in churn - that's a 12% increase and definitely not going the right way. It's showing up in the internals of the firm's performance too:

Net income attributable to Verizon fell 30 percent to $1.18 billion, or 41 cents a share, from $1.67 billion, or 59 cents, a year earlier.

Verizon said in July it planned to cut 8,000 employees and contractors in the second half, with additional cuts to come in the next few years. AT&T reported last week it had almost 19,000 fewer employees as of Sept. 30 than a year earlier.

I hope Verizon likes competition, because there are two potential cannibalization effects staring them in the face.

The first is "Straight Talk" from WalMart, which is Tracfone's latest foray. It is a "you buy the phone" plan with the price of the phone being anywhere from ~$40-100 (depending on device) with service plans being either $30 or $45/month - the latter being unlimited voice, text message and (on-device) data. There are no contracts - and Tracfone runs on top of Verizon's service as an MVNO (essentially a bucket shop that buys blocks of time and resells.)

In the "more conventional" carrier arena T-Mobile launched "Project Black" Sunday. This is a direct assault on Verizon and AT&T, and comes in two "flavors" - a subsidized contract-style agreement (2 year) as with everyone else where the phones are cheap, and then a second, non-subsidized plan that is $10 cheaper per month.

The "gotcha" here is the non-contract plans for places like Verizon. Now you can buy from a national carrier unlimited talk and text (SMS, MMS) service for $60 - if you bring your own handset. Being SIM based, this means you can buy the phone you want from anywhere, including on eBAY, have no contract commitment (get upset, you leave!) and pay $60/month (plus taxes of course.)

The same plan from Verizon is $119 - twice as expensive.

Yes, you get a handset subsidy. So? That handset subsidy costs you $60/month, or $720 a year! If you want the handset subsidy (and contract) from T-Mobile it is available - for another $10/month.

If you don't need unlimited talk the contrast is still striking. A 1,000 minute plan from T-Mobile on their new plan is $50/month, while the same thing from Verizon (900 minutes, as close as they get) is $80.

Eek.

Now Verizon will counter, I'm sure, with "the nation's largest 3g network." And this means what, when the price is nearly double?

What's even worse for Verizon is what will happen to them when people figure out that "Straight Talk" (sold only at WalMart) offers the same network for $45/month - unlimited use, or $30/month for 1,000 minutes and 1,000 text messages.

Sprint started this price war several months ago with their "unlimited everything" plans in an attempt to halt what had become arterial bleeding in their subscriber count. It doesn't appear to have worked all that well, but it has put incredible pressure on the other carriers, with the MVNOs (Straight Talk, Boost, etc) coming at everyone from the bottom end and now T-Mobile coming at them from the "nationally-recognized carrier" side.

I can't get excited about Verizon, given the pricing realities.

The question for T-Mobile is whether they can build out enough 3G capacity to matter. I've been a customer of theirs since 2000, and one of the maddening realities of their service is that in many areas their data is still GPRS (~40kbps), even though EDGE (~160kbps) is only a software upgrade and backhaul capacity improvements. Yet despite EDGE being available essentially nationwide on AT&T for several years, T-Mobile has simply refused to put the (relatively small) amount of money into that network upgrade. When you're in a 3G service area (which isn't much of the landmass, but does cover a fair number of people) the higher speed is nice - but the fallback once you drive outside of a major city is severely disappointing.

Data service is nice and profitable for the operators, but how much monetization of their claimed "best network" Verizon can accomplish given the pricing pressure is another question entirely.

I'd stay away from all of the carriers right now - placing bets in an industry where price wars are active is a dangerous game, as it is difficult to determine what the internal cost structure of the various players really look like, and therefore, who can wield the longest knives and yet not cut their own throat.

Disclosure: No position.

Nokia 6788 Hits China Mobile

Nokia 6788 is Nokia’s first TD SCDMA based device which is the domestic standard in mobile communications for China Mobile, China’s and also world’s largest mobile phone service provider. May be the largest source of mobile subscribers can help Nokia relieve their pain for their low grasp on the smartphone territory. Let’s take a look at its amazing specifications.
Specifications of Nokia 6788

* 2.8-inch QVGA display
* 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and dual-LED flash
* 4GB of onboard memory with microSD expansion
* GPS
* 3.5mm headset jack slot
* Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
* OS : S60 3rd Edition

It will be available in China at the end of this December.

Big Cellphone Makers Shifting to Android System

New York Times

Since 1996, Microsoft has been writing operating systems for little computers to carry in your pocket. It was a lonely business until the company’s perennial rival, Apple, introduced the Web-browsing, music-playing iPhone. But now that smartphones are popular, Microsoft’s operating system, Windows Mobile, is foundering.

More cellphone makers are turning to the free Android operating system made by Microsoft’s latest nemesis, Google.

Cellphone makers that have used Windows Mobile to run their top-of-the-line smartphones — including Samsung, LG, Kyocera, Sony Ericsson — are now also making Android devices. Twelve Android handsets have been announced this year, with dozens more expected next year. Motorola has dropped Windows Mobile from its line entirely in a switch to Android. HTC, a major cellphone maker, expects half its phones sold this year to run Android. Dell is using Android for its entry into the cellphone market.

So long MS Mobile.

nokia in china

BEIJING—Nokia Corp. unveiled its first cellphone developed with China's homegrown third-generation mobile technology Tuesday, saying it would aim to "democratize" the smart phone market by aiming to sell lower-priced handsets at higher volumes.

The phone and others like it in the company pipeline could help Nokia, which has struggled globally to keep pace with Apple Inc. in the fast-growing, higher-margin market for premium smart phones since Apple's iPhone was released in 2007, to close some of the gap by capitalizing on its strength in developing markets. But its look--a slider-style with a mirror-like screen—isn't much different than what consumers have seen before.

The Nokia 6788 would ship by the end of the year, but hasn't been priced yet, said Nokia Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. The world's biggest cellphone maker has made the "strategic decision to invest" in the Chinese standard, called TD-SCDMA, and will strive "for market leadership" in that technology, he said.
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Colin Giles, president of Nokia China and soon to be the head of global sales for the company, said Nokia is still in negotiations with operator China Mobile Ltd. about how to price the future lineup.

At the event, officials from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and state-run China Mobile were present to support the company's first entry into China's TD-SCDMA handset offerings.

Mr. Kallasvuo said Nokia had about 38% market share globally in the third quarter, and that its share in China is in line with that. The company is currently the leading cellphone maker in China, largely thanks to its success in difficult-to-penetrate lower-tier cities, he said.

Mr. Kallasvuo has said the Finnish company plans to upgrade its smart-phone portfolio in the fourth quarter to take advantage of growing consumer interest in the category.

"Mobile Internet usage will only accelerate," he said to reporters. It's clear consumers will want applications like maps and email "integrated into a single mobile device," he said at the event, in which the company commemorated the tenth anniversary of its Beijing product creation center, from which more than 60 handsets have been created for the global market.

Meanwhile, Apple has rapidly gained market share globally. In the second quarter, its smart-phone market share had risen to 13.3% against 45% for Nokia, none of whose smart phones have garnered the same kind of attention as the iPhone. That compares to Apple's 3% market share just a year earlier when Nokia had 47%, according to recent figures from research firm Gartner Inc.

Nokia, which has spent about €40 billion ($60 billion) in research and development, is currently suing Apple for allegedly infringing 10 of Nokia's patents covering wireless data, speech ecoding, security and encryption with the iPhone. Mr. Kallasvuo declined to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday.

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile carrier by number of subscribers, has plans to roll out several smart phones this year in addition to the 6788 in efforts to promote faster 3G service, and expects this market to grow in China. One of its competitors, China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., which operates a different 3G standard called WCDMA, is expecting to launch the iPhone this quarter as well.

Write to Loretta Chao at loretta.chao@wsj.com

motorola news

The Motorola DROID will hit Verizon on November 6th for $199 on contract. That’s after a $100 mail-in rebate. The DROID itself is the first of many Android phones
coming to the carrier. There’s Android 2.0 of course, Visual Voicemail, a 3.7-inch display (854 x 480 resolution), 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, a bundled 16GB memory card and a beta version of Google Maps Navigation.

The DROID is the first phone to offer that last, which which will turn Google Maps into a turn-by-turn routing system. Some other features include a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 3G, WiFi, voice-activated search and over-the-air Amazon MP3 downloads.

[Engadget]

sony ericson NEWS

T-mobile subscribers looking for a new handset can get their hands on the Equinox from Sony Ericsson very soon. The clamshell phone offers features that will appeal to younger users and the device operates on the T-Mobile 3G network.

The Equinox has what Sony calls pulsating light effects. These effects allow the user to assign special light effects to five of their most important numbers. The light effects are in amber, sapphire, beryl, diamond, and amethyst colors.

Other features include a 3.2MP phone, multimedia capabilities, video recording with direct upload to YouTube, and Bluetooth. Sony Ericsson integrates an FM tuner as well. The main screen of the device is 2.2-inches and has a 240 x 320 resolution. The handset operates on the GSM/EDGE network at 850/900/1800/1900 MHz and HSDPA networks at 2100/1700MHz. The device will be available on October 28.