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May

Samsung DROID Charge Review, Or: How Slow, Buggy Software Ruined A Phone

Posted by David Ruddock in 4G, Charge (i510), Phone Reviews, Reviews, Samsung, Verizon Wireless, Videos

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Make no mistake, the DROID Charge is a cool phone. It looks cool. Its boot screen looks cool. Hell, even the camera has been carefully crafted to look like some sort of crazy piece of future-tech.

In the past week, I've had three separate people ask me what phone it was (something that I never experienced with my Nexus One or the HTC Inspire), and then proceed in some way to compliment its appearance or the vividness of its display. Unfortunately, this just goes to show that the Charge is a classic case of "don't judge a book by its cover." Why?

Apr

LG G-Slate Now Available At T-Mobile, Starting At $529.99 On-Contract, $749.99 Off

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in LG, News, Optimus Pad / G-Slate, T-Mobile

The G2x isn't the only exciting high-end device making its Magenta-colored debut today; LG's 8.9-inch G-Slate is having its coming-out party on this fine Wednesday as well.

Now, T-Mobile would happily lure you into a two-year contract with an attractive starting price of $529.99, but a wise tablet buyer would immediately note that taking such a route would cost a total of $1250 over the next 24 months - not to mention the toll of being unable to upgrade to the latest and greatest in the rapidly changing world of tablets.

Off-contract, the G-Slate costs $749.99 at Magenta's online store - not bad, considering that Motorola's similarly-specced XOOM will run you $799.99 under nearly identical conditions.

Apr

[Updated] T-Mobile G2x Now Available From Amazon Wireless For $149.99

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Deals, G2x (p999), LG, News, T-Mobile

The LG G2x, the first dual-core Android phone on T-Mobile, is officially available at all retail channels starting today, April 20th. While you can go pick it up at T-Mobile for $199.99 after an instant discount and a mail-in rebate (plus a nice kickback to Uncle Sam), you could instead head over to Amazon, where the G2x page just went live, ready to be delivered to your abode via free 2-day shipping.

The pricing works out to be a cool $149.99 for new family accounts and both individual and family upgrades. ~~Strangely, the price doesn't hold up for new individual accounts, rising back up to $199.99~~.

Mar

Roundup Of The Latest From The Wake Of The AT&T/T-Mobile Deal

Posted by Will Shanklin in AT&T, News, Sprint, T-Mobile

Now that the dust has settled a little bit on the proposed deal that, if approved, will shake up the US wireless landscape, what more is there to know about AT&T's buyout of T-Mobile? Several stories (reported by All Things D) caught our attention regarding the aftermath of the deal:

Sprint Scoffs At Deal, Says The Wireless Market Would Be Altered Dramatically

While most experts seem to agree that the deal will most likely get FCC and Department of Justice approval, Sprint (not surprisingly) doesn't have a lot of nice things to say about the buyout. The rumors had previously been swirling that Sprint would be the one gobbling up T-Mobile and, whether those talks actually happened or not, that deal most definitely won't be happening now.

Mar

Updated: Verizon Confirms What It Has Been Saying For A Year: Unlimited Data Is Going Away, Say Hello To Tiers

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Verizon Wireless

While some people were unable to contemplate the possibility that Verizon's all-you-can-eat data plans would be coming to an end, Verizon's CFO Fran Shammo again affirmed the carrier's commitment to move to a tiered system today. When will life start to suck for new or upgrading Verizon customers? This Summer, apparently.

"But David, I already have an unlimited data contract, they have to honor that!" Why yes, they do. Until you want to upgrade to a 4G device, and you have to sign a completely "new" rate plan contract. AT&T is already doing this with the Inspire 4G - if you upgrade from any previous device to the Inspire, AT&T forces you into their limited data plans because your "service" has changed (to "4G").

Feb

If Your Motorola XOOM Is Rooted It Will Not Be Upgraded To 4G LTE Unless You Un-Root, Says Moto

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Motorola, News, Tips & Tutorials, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

Well, the title explains it pretty well, but I'll provide you some documented evidence:

That's right, folks. Sending in your XOOM to Motorola while it's rooted will get it sent right back. Motorola will not provide 4G LTE upgrades to XOOM devices that have been rooted, plain and simple.

A forum moderator in the same Motorola support thread indicates that it's not quite as hard-line as the first responder indicated, and that your XOOM simply must be stock in terms of software functionality when Motorola receives it. Presumably, this means a flash back to factory settings and software will allow your previously booted 'n rooted XOOM to be upgraded.

Feb

Motorola XOOM User Guide Leaked, Now Available To Download

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Motorola, News, Tips & Tutorials, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

Sure, you've already spent hours salivating over the Motorola XOOM, checked out some apps built for Android 3.0, and even played with the Honeycomb emulator, but obviously, the one thing you've really been longing for is the XOOM's user guide.

Thanks to Droid Life, you can now sift through that clumsy collection of instructions you never would have read otherwise. Nonetheless, go ahead and download the guide if you so desire; we didn't discover anything previously unknown during our preliminary reading, but who knows - something new and exciting could be contained within!

Download link

Source: Droid Life

Feb

Sonos Controller App For Android Coming To The Market In March, To Be Demoed At MWC

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Sonos, a company that develops wireless speaker solutions, announced today that the official Android app was almost ready to rock your speaker setup and would be available soon.

Fully supporting multi-room configurations, the app will let you control music that is flowing to your Sonos speakers, sync all rooms to play the same song (hey, that's actually pretty cool), search your collection, control individual speaker volume, listen to online radio, and play music from a variety of services, such as Napster, Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody, SiriusXM, and LastFM.

The Sonos setup is not cheap - the flagship S5 wireless speaker costs a whopping $399 and the multi-room setup goes all the way up to $1000.

Feb

HTC Inspire 4G To Start Inspiring February 13th On AT&T For $99

Posted by David Ruddock in AT&T, Inspire 4G (Ace, Stallion), News

The first of AT&T's entourage of Androids for 2011 has had its release date and pricing set in stone. The Inspire 4G, essentially an AT&T version of the Thunderbolt, will be dropping on February 13th for 99 bucks on contract or upgrade pricing. And for a double-digit price, the Inspire 4G is packing some respectable specs.

4.3" SLCD display
1GHz single-core processor
HSPA+ connectivity (AT&T's first stab at "4G")
8MP Rear camera
768MB RAM
Android 2.2 w/ HTC Sense 2.0 (the "new" Sense)

What remains unknown is whether or not AT&T will charge a premium fee for access to its HSPA+ "4G." Given the fact that AT&T has made explicit its plans to eventually roll out true LTE 4G in Q4 2011, it might serve their publicity machine better to keep data plan rates as they are until that time.

Jan

Verizon Drops To One 3G Data Plan, Premium 4G Pricing Imminent

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Verizon Wireless

Last Updated: December 30th, 2011

Well, we knew it was coming. Did you honestly think Big Red would bundle your 3G and 4G into one big, happy family? Neither did we. An anonymous Engadget tipster snapped a picture of Verizon's latest data plans - probably set to be released in time for the iPhone 4. Check it out:

Droid-Life posted a helpful companion image of the old pricing for comparison's sake:

Notice the 150MB smartphone plan has vanished, along with an increased base data cap for feature phones. This is likely meant to simplify things for upcoming 4G devices and new iPhone 4 adopters - Verizon doesn't want to have more than one 3G smartphone plan confusing customers, they'll leave that to the more profitable 4G tiers.