FreshPhoneNews.com

Here’s another incentive for all of you who want to jump on the smartphone wagon; Verizon Wireless has dropped the pricing on all existing smartphones to $99. That’s right, ALL. Of course this also signifies that Verizon is getting new stuff for its shelves, but we like all things that result in downward movements of prices. In case the magnitude of the goodness hasn’t settled in, the Touch Pro is now $99 from the crummy $419 it used to be. The only smartphones that are above the $99 mark are the BlackBerry Tour and Samsung Saga. But since the BlackBerry Storm 2 is slated for a before November release, maybe the Tour will see a price cut too. In any case, smartphone owners’ life on Verizon just got a lot easier.

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LG is certainly not going to be taking things sitting down with the likes of Apple, HTC, Palm, Samsung, RIM, etc all capturing huge chunks of the smartphone market. According to a story from the Korean Yohap News Agency, LG is about to unleash a rich assortment of smartphones of its own. In an interview with Yohap, LG’s head of Mobile Ahn Seung-kwon reportedly coughed up a bunch of juicy details about the Korean manufacturer;

1. LG, currently holding the number three position where global cell phone market share is concerned, plans to slide into the number two spot by 2012. Just two and a half years from now, major advancement if they achieve this target. Samsung, what’s your plan?
2. In Q4 of this year, LG will release a “Black Label” phone that will be battling the iPhone for user love. This is totally new and of course totally welcome.
3. LG is currently working on the third iteration of its Prada phone, though no release timing was specified.
4. LG will be focusing a good deal on smartphones, and its offerings will move around Windows Mobile and Android, as far as Operating Systems are concerned. Nice.
5. The company plans to attack the ultra high end market with a new premium line of handsets “similar to Toyota’s Lexus and Nokia’s Vertu”. Not sure how that will increase LG’s market share, but hey, that means more toys for all you folks who have money to throw away. Always good to have something for the wealthy.

In summary this is a pretty good outlook for LG. The company has been steadily increasing the quality of its handsets and better powered smartphones ought to do the trick when it comes to improving market presence. So will LG bag Samgung’s number two spot in world market shares, it sure as hell is gonna give a mighty fight for it.

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If you’re one of those smartphone owners who’s always wanted unlimited voice and data any smartphone but missed out on VOCE, Zer01 Mobile may be just what you’re looking for. Basically you’re looking at is $79.99 per month (up from $69.99 when the service was first announced) for unlimited voice (MoIP), data and messaging on AT&T’s data networks and an extra $10 gets you unlimited international calling to around 40 countries. The catch is that Zer01 Mobile will install proprietary software on your phone, or you can just get a handset from the company itself, which will have the software pre-installed. The reason for the proprietary software is that the service relies on data networks, not just for data but for voice itself. Three cheers for MoIP. Zer01 also guarantees that voice quality won’t suffer even if data connectivity is weak, because of its proprietary software. Currently the service supports only Windows Mobile, but BlackBerry, Android and other handsets are also on their way. And in case you’re wondering how many years of your life you’ll be signing away, not a single one. The service is entirely prepaid and no contracts are involved.

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Last year Dell announced that it would be making Android phones and it even showcased some of its stuff at one of the major world phone events. But after that there has been little or no word from Dell, leaked or otherwise. But Dell once again ready to make waves or create ripples. The Wall Street Journal has “confirmed” that Dell will go on to sell several Android handsets later this year. Perhaps something that fits a nice size 2G and 3G. even more interesting as Dell gets back in the news is that it is rumored to be working on an MID device that is will run on Android love and may be looking to take the place of Apple’s iPod touch and perhaps give Apple something other than Palm to hiss about. However, even the Wall Street Journal has cautioned that the MID might not be a deal done in the near future. It is prone to both delay and/or cancellation. The Phones though are something you can look forward to.

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In a month where it’s raining impressive handsets and everyone is slapping on a touchscreen the two new sets announced by Huawei at the CommuniAsia 2009 are not going to turn any heads or gather any following. The sets in themselves are not bad but will fail to impress with few or no features that really get the avid mobile device addict to want to pick it up and take it for a spin. Of the two sets it introduced, the U8230 showcased on the right, has an Android OS as its only notable feature. Other specs include a 3.5 inch touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera and 1500mAH battery. Albeit the android OS there are handsets out there and soon to be out that are way more loaded. The other set, showcased on the left, the C8000, features  2.8 touchscreen, some sort of 3D UI band aid and an independent display adapter for smoothly running all your media files. The device quotes a music playback time of 6 to 8 hours on a fully charged battery. No price is as yet available but the sets should land in Asia and Europe sometime in the later half.

The difference between smartphone usage in the United States and the rest of the world lies primarily in the data plans offered by carriers. While just about every carrier in the U.S. offers unlimited data plans at very affordable rates, but elsewhere in the world, such is simply not the case. Manufacturers like RIM and Apple capitalize on the U.S. unlimited data plans by keeping their handsets connected throughout the day. This turns simple apps into powerful tools. In other parts of the world, where data plans aren’t as cost effective, devices have to be geared to increase cost-efficiency by connecting only when needed. This is where S60 scores big time. The S60 allows apps to connect only when they are being used, otherwise your handset is effectively offline. While this is great for regions outside the U.S. it is a shortcoming for the Symbian crowd this side of the globe. But everyone knows that the States doesn’t really rank top on Nokia’s target markets, so this isn’t something they’ve looked into yet. But a solution does exist. Though not a customized S60 for the United States, there is a way that you can keep your S60 bearing Nokia smartphone connected at all times; go to Settings -> Connection -> Packet Data, change “When Needed” to “When Available” and then key in your Access Point. And there you have it, of course this will tax your battery life a bit. So for now, you have to choose between continuous connectivity and better battery life.

The Acer handsets finally made an appearance in Taiwan at the Computex and the specs quoted are wowing people right and left including the ever so impressive “Snap Dragon”. Acer showcased three handsets and they are all looking impressive. Code named the F1, L1 and C1 these are definitely boosting of features that some companies were going to use to get an edge over other. Take the F1 which has a 5 mega pixel camera, something that Samsung Pixon 12 features and was going to be used in the all out camera phone war. Other specs of the F1 include 3.8 inch WVGA display, 1Ghz snap dragon processor, 300 MB internal memory, FM tuner, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSDPA, GPS, 3.5mm headphone jack and Windows Mobile 6.5. The C1 and L1 are entry level handsets, the L1 being a slider and the C1 being touch screen. The L1’s specs include 2.8-inch 240×400 touchscreen display, a 5 way navigational button, 12 key numeric keypad and Windows Mobile 6.5 and the C1 similar 2.8 inch dimension display with the addition of 240×400 touchscreen with handwriting recognition, 528MHz processor, 2 megapixel fixed focus camera, microSD expansion, built-in stylus, and Windows Mobile 6.5. Release is expected later this year but all eyes are on Acer on how these impressive phones will perform.

With the timely launch of the Android-powered handsets Dream and Magic, Rogers has also brought back its 6GB@ $30 data plans. Of course that’s also the catch in this; the plan is exclusively for those who purchased either the HTC Dream or HTC Magic. You also need to sign up for a 3-year contract, and the promotion ends Canada Day. Of course some sneaky folks have been able to add to the plan to their BlackBerry and iPhone, but that’s not a trick we’d recommend you to try. Enjoy new Android phone owners.

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If you’ve been up with all new T-Mobile lately, you’ll know that T-Mobile has made some pretty pronounced changes in its service offerings and while most of these have been to our taste (read: ways to reduce costs) rumor has now surfaced T-Mo will be making a few changes to up our bills too. More significant in these changes is a rumored mandatory data plan for all smartphones. As of some date in June, all smartphone owners will be required to have data plans regardless of new activations or upgrades. Owners of the BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Pearl Flip, Samsung Behold or Samsung Memoir are not included in this lot (yet). And now for the messaging addicts, again some time in June, T-Mobile’s Unlimited Domestic Messages for Families will jump from $19.95 per month to $24.99 per month. Sure the plan is a sweet, but let’s just say some of the sugar just fell off with this price increase. Here’s hoping this is the last of the upwards price revisions and mandatory-anything expectations on our pockets. 

 

Acer has just announced a mouth watering number of eight smartphones for the Singapore market on April 22, 2009. Acer and C20 corporation made the official announcement which makes available immediately the dual-SIM DX900 ($530 USD), the dual-faced DX650 ($397 USD) and the compact X960 ($463 USD). Sometime in May we can look Singapore can look forward to F900 and the M900, and then coming later in 2009 are the F1, L1 and C1, but the pricing for these handsets hasn’t been announced yet. Here are the specs for the five smartphones that will be launched initially;

DX900:

1.      2.8“ WVGA touch screen

2.      Samsung SC3 6400 533 MHz Processor

3.      256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM

4.      Dual-SIM with SIM 1 supporting HSDPA / UMTS 2100/1900/850 MHz and quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, and SIM 2 supporting GSM tri-band 900/1800/1900

5.      1.3 megapixel autofocus camera, VGA front camera

6.      Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR, GPS

7.      Windows Mobile 6.1 Pocket PC Phone edition with Spb Mobile Shell v2.1

DX650:

1.      Dual-Face design with touchscreen on one side and keypad on the other

2.      2.8“ QVGA touch screen

3.      Samsung SC3 6410 533 MHz Processor

4.      256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM

5.      2 megapixel fixed focus camera

6.      GPS, Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR

7.      Windows Mobile 6.1 with Spb Mobile Shell v2.1

8.      Standby time 150h / Talk time: 4h

X960

1.      Samsung SC3 6410 533 MHz Processor

2.      256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM

3.      High speed HSPA connectivity

3.2  megapixel auto-focus camera, 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera

4.      Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR, GPS

5.      Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office, widget-based Acer Shell v2.0 UI

 

F900

1.      Samsung SC3 6410 533 MHz Processor

2.      256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM

3.      3.8″ WVGA touch screen

4.      GSM/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

5.      HSDPA/HSUPA: 2100/1900/850 Mhz

6.      3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera

7.      Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR, GPS

8.      Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office, widget-based Acer Shell v2.0 UI

M900

1.      Physical QWERTY keyboard

2.      3.8“ WVGA touch screen

3.      GSM/EDGE: Quad-band GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

4.      HSDPA/HSUPA: 2100/1900/850 Mhz

5.      Fingerprint reader

6.      5 megapixel auto-focus camera

7.      Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR, GPS

8.      Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office, widget-based Acer Shell v2.0 UI

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