Canadian carrier Mobilicity has an impressive lineup of Android phones currently available, and now it looks like another great selection is coming soon. Americans will recognize the new phone as the T-Mobile myTouch 4G, or perhaps even the HTC Galcier. Mobilicity customers will likely know the phone as the HTC Emerald.
It seems the HTC Emerald, as the phone is currently being called, is set to launch on the Canadian carrier alongside the current options of the Nexus S, Xperia X10 and Motorola Spice. As the image indicates, the phone will be redesigned slightly. One the software side, the Emerald will run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense on top of it. The 3.8-inch display and 5MP camera will remain the same.
According to Mobilesyrup, the price will likely be $450-$500 without a contract. Not sure what that will translate to on contract at the moment. The main problem the phone will face next month is the fact that by then we’ll have so many dual-core smartphones available that it will seem quite slow by comparison.
Three UK is currently offering the business-oriented Samsung Galaxy Pro. If you don’t feel like getting one of those touchscreen-enabled Samsung Galaxy phones and you want a similar experience as BlackBerry users, the Samsung Galaxy Pro could do the trick for you. This smartphone runs Android 2.2 and boasts of a candybar form factor with 2.8-inch TFT LCD display on 320x240 resolution. It has a full QWERTY keyboard which seems nice, although a bit small so composing text messages might be a bit difficult. But if your use to QWERTY keyboards, you might get the hang of it as quickly as others. The phone also has a 3MP camera. FM radio, GPS, WiFi and other useful features.
The Samsung Galaxy Pro is available under Three UK’s various data plans. You can get it for free with unlimited data by paying £27 monthly tariff or £20 per month which comes with a 1GB of data and 500 calling minutes. If you don’t want to bother yourself paying monthly, you can grab the phone for £149 under the carriers PAYG plan.
A 75-year-old woman digging for copper in the country of Georgia inadvertently damaged a fiber optic cable with her spade shovel disabling internet access across Armenia. The results of her actions lead the nation of roughly 3.2 million without web access for five hours. Nicknamed “The Spade-Hacker” by local media outlets, the woman is being investigated on suspicion of damaging property and could face up to three years in prison. Oh, did I mention that she was 75?
A spokesman for Georgia’s interior ministry said that the woman—who remains unnamed— was released “on account of her old age” but could face further questioning. As it just so happens to be, mining for unused copper for scraps is quite common in the former Soviet Union which probably should have cleared her case already. The cable The Spade-Hacker destroyed is supposedly heavily protected but may have been exposed from rain and other natural elements. Does anyone else see a resemblance to the original Star Wars with Luke blowing up the Death Star? How does an ISP leave such a crucial cable so unprotected that a 75-year-old can damage it enough to knock out internet access for 3.2 million people? Am I right or am I right? Oh, I’m right.
Retailer B&H has just put the Acer Iconia W500 tablet up for pre-order. In case you’re wondering how different is this from the Acer Iconia A500 Tab we featured recently - well, it’s actually the same look and appearance with 10.1-inch screen display. The differences between the two tablets have to be what you can find inside these machines. The Acer Iconia Tab A500 is your usual Android Honeycomb tablet while the Iconia W500 is running on Windows 7 Ultimate Edition. It is powered by an AMD 1GHz C-Series Processor C-50 and has an HD CrystalBrite TFT LCD display. In addition, this tablet has 2GB of RAM and 32GB of SSD storage, dual Acer Crystal Eye Webcams, AMD Radeon HD 6250 Graphics, Wi-Fi, HDMI port and Bluetooth. The Acer Iconia W500 also has an integrated bottom US keyboard dock. Obviously, the Acer Iconia W500 tablet is more powerful than the Iconia A500 Tab. As such it is priced $100 more at $549.99 including the keyboard dock. You can pre-order the Acer Iconia W500 now and have it after April 15, as promised by B&H.
After iOS 4.3.1 Apple still has a few users experiencing issues with their iOS devices. We’ve heard of a connectivity issues with the Verizon iPad 2, with data connections that don’t want to work. There’s also been issues with FaceTime on some devices. The hopefully soon-to-be-released iOS 4.3.2 should fix these issues.
BGR managed to get their hands on the update, which they say should be launching sometime in the next week or two. In addition to the issues mentioned above, the update should also fix some vulnerabilities in WebKit and “other minor changes.”
The update hasn’t been sent to developers yet, so as far as we know BGR is the only group that has the update outside of Apple. For the sake of those with Verizon iPad 2’s, let’s hope the update comes soon.
If you’re in need of something to challenge your brain, Google has just the thing. A Google a Day is a new site that asks a different trivia question every day. The questions are worded in a way that will make most people question what they think the answer may be. To solve these trivia questions, Google wants you use its search engine.
Here is today’s question:
“Two future presidents signed me. Two didn’t because they were abroad. Despite my importance, modern viewers seem to think I have a glaring spelling error. What is it?”
This answer may or may not obvious to you. The point is that this question requires some sleuthing if you want to understand every part of it. That’s where Google search comes in.
*Spoiler Alert*
The answer to the question is the U.S. Constitution, but I guessed that without knowing which two presidents didn’t sign or what was misspelled. Google provides answers to each question by telling you what to search for. In this case, searching for “constitution misspellings"will bring up a site that says Pennsylvania was spelled with one “N” instead of two.
A Google a Day is all designed to show us how great Google’s search engine is. At the same time, I learned something new today so I can forgive the corporate boasting.
Checking in with Google Latitude is more than just a way to show people how often you get out of the house. It’s now a way to reward loyal visitors of certain stores around the country. Google has teamed up with stores and restaurants for the next generation of Google Latitude on Android. By checking in often, new and better offers will become available.
The businesses that are a part of this initiative are Finish Line, Famous Footwear, Macy’s, Radio Shack, Arby’s and Quiznos to name a few. Each time you visit one of these establishments, you’ll earn status with them. Status is spread out across three tiers. The more you visit, the higher your status becomes. Checking in at Finish Line for example will help you gain the status level of “Bronze Medalist.” This status is good for $20 in savings when you spend $100 or more. Eventually you can be a “Gold Medalist” which offers $10 in savings with a $50 purchase.
Not all of the offers have such pricey requirements. Being of Rookie status at Arby’s is good enough for a small order of curly fries with any purchase except value menu items.
By visiting the Google Latitude site, you can see what business are accepting Latitude deals in your area. Make sure you have the latest version of Google Maps for Android or Google Latitude for iOS if you want to participate.
Samsung fans in the UK don’t have to worry about the rumored delays of the Galaxy S II line that Samsung debunked last week. Today it was announced that the Uk can expect to see Samsung Galaxy S II phones on May 1.
The phones will be available on all major networks and in all major retailers in the country. No pricing at the moment, though we should find out bow much UK users will have to pay once carriers start making their own announcements. In the mean time we’ll just have to imagine using the 1.2GHz dual-core smartphones with 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus screens. Of course, the 1 GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of storage space should be nice as well.
With Samsung’s assurance that the Galaxy S II is arriving on schedule, we should hopefully see the phone launch in other countries soon enough. We’ll let you know as soon as we here more about the launch.
Amazon’s vice president of Kindle Content, Russ Grandinetti issued a statement clarifying that the reason why the Amazon Kindle device is dominating e-reader market and its e-book store dominating the e-books marke is because of the fact that the Kindle is well loved by users who are actually readers and not just gadget lovers. It’s like the Apple iPod music device having control of the digital music, Amazon has taken control of the digital books market, despite the presence of competitors. The key? - People who buys the Amazon Kindle also patronize the Amazon Kindle Store to get their dose of digital books available for purchase. It’s just like the iTunes music store for iPod owners.
Amazon has been tracking the first six months before a customer buys a Kindle and the six months after they bought the Kindle. They found out that after owning the device, Kindle owners continue to buy more than three times as many books. And once these people owns the Kindle, it’s almost 100 percent that they will get their books from Amazon.
In short, Mr. Grandinetti wants to point out that Amazon Kindle owners are not necessarily gadget buffs but people who want to “spend more minutes of the day connecting with words that authors put down.” This is the reason why the Amazon Kindle dominates the digital books market and will continue to do so, especially since Amazon will not stop from perfecting their flagship electronic gadget - oh well yes, electronic reading device.
RIM and it’s BlackBerrys don’t exactly have the mind share they once had, or at least not positive mind share. That should be no real surprise to anyone. Also of no big surprise is the fact that co-CEO Mike Lazaridis isn’t exactly happy with how the company is being viewed.
In an interview the co-CEO asked why people don’t appreciate everything RIM has done in the past few years. He wonders why people don’t appreciate the company’s profits, growth, efforts to go global, and it’s international support. Lazaridis followed the questions by saying “I just don't have the time to battle it. Because in the end, what I've learned is you've just got to prove it over and over and over." And the company has been trying to prove it. RIM tried to transition with the Storm and the Torch, and more recently with the PlayBook and the QNX-based OS.
RIM’s other co-CEO Jim Balsillie said that the transition the company is facing now “is where tech companies go to die." He claims that Apple is the only company that has been able to transition it’s platform entirely. Perhaps that’s because Apple had plans to have touch-based smartphones and tablets from the very beginning.
To go back to Lazaridis, there is a somewhat simple answer to why we don’t always appreciate the advances made by RIM. It’s because most of the phones the company continues to put out aren’t on par with offerings from Apple and Google. They aren’t even as good as the offerings from HP Palm and Microsoft most of the time. The QNX OS on the PlayBook is interesting, and it hopefully works well in an uncontrolled environment. The lack of quality apps doesn’t help either. But, focus on better hardware and a better, more modern OS first, then we’ll care a bit more.
A study conducted by billmonitor found that an overwhelming number of customers in the UK spend more for their cell phone contracts than necessary. This report was created by analyzing 28,417 cell phone bills and 8,530,118 contracts last month in the UK.
Billmonitor believes 76% of UK mobile phone customers in the UK are on the wrong contract. As a result, they spend an extra £194.71 ($317) every year. Most of the extra payments result from customers overestimating how many minutes they are going to use every month.
The reality is that customers really don’t know how many minutes they will spend talking on their phones every month. For example, one may find themselves tied to a contract that allows 1,000 anytime minutes. At the end of the month, they may have only used 500 of those minutes. Instead of saving money by choosing a plan with fewer minutes, they tend to overcompensate in order to avoid overage fees.
Of the 76% of people on the wrong contract, 29% fall victim to overage charges. This means they used more minutes, texts or data than what their contract allowed. The study says that 133MB of data is consumed by the average customer every month. This is why unlimited plans are so popular even though we most likely don’t need it to begin with.
This study was based in the UK, but the similar story could be told for the United States. It also brings up the question of whether we should only pay for the data we consume as opposed to a fixed amount every month.
T-Mobile has a pretty good deal in place for those willing to dedicate two years of their lives to its network. For a limited time, T-Mobile will offer the MyTouch 4G for free after a $200 instant discount and a $249.99 web-only discount. Of course, there is a catch to all this. If you’re looking to upgrade, put on your sad face now.
This free offer is only for new activations. You also need to get T-Mobile’s Even More plan. Up to five lines on an Even More Family Plan can be eligible for the web discount. Basically, if you’re an existing customer looking for an upgrade, you’ll pay the usual $250 for the phone.
This offer will last until April 14, 2011. You can choose from the MyTouch 4G in black, red, white or plum colors.
Don’t forget that sometimes carriers don’t offer the best prices for phones. Amazon for example is selling the MyTouch 4G for $79.99 with a new line or upgrade.
It may be five months old, but the MyTouch 4G still holds its own against newer Android phones.
With Motorola XOOM already available in the U.S. and the BlackBerry Playbook about to hit the market real soon, what about the HTC Flyer? Well, if you’re in the UK, you’re in luck since Carphone Warehouse is already accepting pre-orders for the said HTC Android 3.0 Gingerbread tablet. Yes folks. If you want to get first dibs on this Android tablet, now is your chance. If you pre-order the HTC Flyer now from Carphone Warehouse, you’ll be receiving your unit by May. That’s a few days more in case you’re not aware. And for how much? - £599.99.
Does that price worthy of what the HTC Flyer has in store for you? Well, aside from the fact that this Android tablet is not running on Android 3.0 Honeycomb, this is well compensated by HTC’s own Sense UI which is running on top of the tablet’s Android OS which is geared more for smartphones. But thank to HTC Sense UI, the absence of Honeycomb OS goes unnoticeable. If you can’t wait for May, you still has another option, this time from Clove which started accepting pre-orders earlier and promises to deliver the unit by mid-April. Clove and Carphone Warehouse’s offer for the HTC Flyer stands at $599.99.
So, where are you planning to get the HTC Flyer? Which is the better deal?
Sprint is putting some of its resources into reminding everyone that it offers truly unlimited plans. Some carriers such as T-Mobile offers plans with unlimited data, but throttle speeds after data usage exceeds 2GB. Now that’s not really unlimited is it? Sprint’s newest All. Together.Now. advertising campaign reiterates on Sprint’s unlimited plans, but also reminds customers it’s hip to the things people love to do on their phones.
A new commercial was released to showcase Sprint’s direction. I must say this ad is very Apple-centric. It has a catchy, yet easy going song and more quick edits than I’d like to count. The ad highlights things such as Facebook, email, Qik video chat and of course, Angry Birds.
The underlying message is that all these things require a data connection at some point. Sprint wants to show current and future customers that no matter what they do, they’ll never be cut short due to data restrictions.
In another neat promotional tactic, Sprint is helping a woman named Veatrice Henson celebrate her 100th birthday this year. Sprint wants everyone to call, text and email Henson on her birthday. Even though Henson could get thousands of texts, her bill won’t change.
Dish Network has been cleared by U.S. antitrust authorities to proceed with the purchase of ailing Blockbuster. Dish will pay $228M for the video rental company (substantially all the companies assets). Dish expects to clear the deal by the end of this month.
Many in the industry expect Dish to transform Blockbuster into a streaming service to compete with the likes of Netflix, something the company was unable to do by itself. It is expected that Dish is picking up the licenses Blockbuster had to stream movies. It remains to be seen if Dish can whip the retailer into a fresh competitor.
FROM APPLETELL - GarageBand for iOS is a major achievement in music apps—a dream come true for musicians on the go and a great place to put all of your musical ideas. MORE »
We have seen a fair bit on terms of the “Toshiba Tablet” up till this point. Of course, it still seems a bit strange that it does not have a better name. But that aside, the tablet has recently been given a coming soon style product listing on the Best Buy website. Needless to say, they did not offer any release date or pricing, but still, it seems like Toshiba is one step closer to making the tablet available for purchase. Otherwise, once available those who make the purchase will get a tablet with a 10.1 inch display, NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, 2 megapixel front facing camera, 5 megapixel rear facing camera, full-sized SD card slot, HDMI, USB 2.0, mini-USB and Android 3.0 Honeycomb. With that, if you have been eyeing the Toshiba Tablet, you may want to keep an eye on Best Buy as they seem to be getting ready for sales.
We knew that Nokia has a Symbian event planned for April 12th, and well, it looks like at least some of the surprise has been spoiled. And sadly, the details included in the spoiler are not all that exciting—a new UI for Symbian. Bottom line here, there were two videos on YouTube, one of which featured the Nokia X7 and the other the Nokia E6. Needless to say both of those videos were made inactive. That said, there was also a third video which managed to get copied to a safer account. That video shows UK carrier Three who is showing off the updated Symbian UI and touting new goodies such as how the browser is three times faster, smoother scrolling and a portrait QWERTY keyboard. With that, you can check out the video above while we wait for something a bit more official from Nokia. You know, tomorrow night during the actual event.
FROM GAMERTELL - If you have a 3DS and some games, but have been having trouble getting StreetPass hits, then check out a few tips to effortlessly exchanging data with other 3DS owners. MORE »
It would appear as if Virgin Mobile is ready to begin rolling out the Android 2.2 Froyo update for Samsung Intercept users as of today. Of course, we have heard this before so while we are hopeful, we remain skeptical. That said, this latest bit is coming by way of AndroidCentral who have reportedly gotten “numerous reports of text messages” detailing the plans for the update. The message promises an update as coming today and reads as follows;
The Froyo Update for the Virgin Mobile Samsung Intercept is finally coming out on Monday the 11th! VMFreeMsg: Starting 4/11/11, you will be notified of a phone software upgrade available for your Intercept. Click http://msg4u.us/isr for more information.
With that, we will keep out fingers crossed the Froyo rolls out today as planned. And in the meantime, according to Virgin Mobile, the Froyo 2.2 enhancements include:
Exchange Active Sync updates
ability to install applications to external memory card
improved Bluetooth device support
Bluetooth Voice dialing
improved operating system performance
dedicated phone, application and browser icons on every home screen
FROM APPLETELL - Sean Scott is a professional magician who also designs and sells illusions to others. His latest creation is called “Render,” and it makes use of smartphones that can take pictures and video. MORE »
We are still waiting for something a bit more specific from Sprint in terms of when they plan to have the Galaxy S 4G available for sale, however it seems that release is now one step closer to actually happening. Yup, the FCC filing has been discovered and things seem like the Galaxy S 4G has been cleared for release. Anyway, while we are waiting for Sprint to make an announcement, we have the FCC filing to read over. The details of the filing include goodies such as a model number of SPH-D70 and the handset sporting a WiMAX capable radio that is ready for the Sprint network.
FROM APPLETELL - Whereas other microphones are content to attach to your iDevice dock port or sit lumbering on your desk, IK Multimedia’s iRig Mic is designed to be held or fit into the mic stand you likely already own. MORE »
Given the fact that the HTC Droid Incredible 2 is expected to launch on April 21, at least according to a leaked roadmap, information regarding the Droid Incredible 2 is leaking at a fast rate. According to a leaked screenshot received by Android Central, the successor to the original Droid Incredible is expected to feature a dual CDMA/GSM chipset allowing for voice and data communication in over 200 countries. This capability, featured in only several smartphones on Verizon, is one that could sway a Verizon customer into purchasing the smartphone, even if it lacks LTE support.
The leaked screenshot provided other important information such as the presence of a 1.3MP front facing camera accompanied by a 8MP rear facing camera. It is expected to feature a pre-installed 16microSD card and Mobile Hotspot capability. No word on pricing at this time, but I’m sure the next leak will contain relevant pricing information.
As we learned earlier in the month, Samsung was finally ready to offer up the Wi-Fi only version of the Galaxy Tab tablet. And well, the tablet is now available and can be found with various online retailers including TigerDirect, CompuUSA and Amazon. That said, nothing surprising here, the price is $350 and the features include a tablet that is running Android 2.2 and sporting a 7 inch display, 1GHz processor, 32GB storage, microSD card slot, GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, 3.5 mm headphone jack and a front facing 1.3 megapixel camera and rear facing 3 megapixel camera.
If you’re in need of something to challenge your brain, Google has just the thing. A Google a Day is a new site that asks a different trivia question every day. The questions are worded in a way that will make most people question what they think the answer may be. To solve these trivia questions, Google wants you use its search engine.
Checking in with Google Latitude is more than just a way to show people how often you get out of the house. It’s now a way to reward loyal visitors of certain stores around the country. Google has teamed up with stores and restaurants for the next generation of Google Latitude on Android. By checking in often, new and better offers will become available.
A study conducted by billmonitor found that an overwhelming number of customers in the UK spend more for their cell phone contracts than necessary. This report was created by analyzing 28,417 cell phone bills and 8,530,118 contracts last month in the UK. 
T-Mobile has a pretty good deal in place for those willing to dedicate two years of their lives to its network. For a limited time, T-Mobile will offer the MyTouch 4G for free after a $200 instant discount and a $249.99 web-only discount. Of course, there is a catch to all this. If you’re looking to upgrade, put on your sad face now.
Dish Network has been cleared by U.S. antitrust authorities to proceed with the purchase of ailing Blockbuster. 
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