WHARRGARBL!!1!
Gear Eye: T-Mobile Sidekick II - Engadget - www.engadget.com
Engadget has started doing a distinctive type of phone review, where they rate various areas (contacts, dialing, loudness, etc.) of a phone in terms that are a little easier for the typical user to understand (without having to decipher a 5 point rating scale, etc.).
They’ve give the “gear eye” treatment to the new T-Mobile Sidekick II:
Toshiba e830 Will Not be Released in the US - And Neither Will Anything Else
This has been rumored for a while, but Toshiba has confirmed to BargainPDA that they will be exiting the PDA market in the U.S. Sony made a similar move a couple of months ago. Like Sony, Toshiba will continue to make their PDA products available in Asia and other parts of the world, including the powerhouse e830:
Rumor: Motorola MPx and MPx220 smartphone updates : Online Phone Magazine : www.PhoneMag.com
PhoneMag is reporting that according to a reliable source, the Motorola MPX220 will (finally!) launch in the U.S. on Cingular on October 18, 2004:
Cingular will be the first to get the Motorola MPx220 smartphone on October 18th 2004. This is an update from our previous post citing the September 27th release date of the MPx220. We also got word that there integrated camera on the MPx220 has not been improved very much from first release.
I’ve heard this date from other sources, so hopefully, it’s true. That’s only a few weeks from now!
I’m a little bit troubled about the fact that the camera doesn’t seem to have been improved. That was one of the biggest complaints I’ve seen in the pre-release reviews I’ve read. I was hoping that one things they were fixing during all of the delays this phone has had was the camera, but it looks like we might be out of luck.
Motorola MPx Overview at ZDNet UK Reviews
ZDNet UK appears to have updated their preview of the Motorola MPx Pocket PC Phone Edition into a full blown review.
This paragraph in their summary caught my attention:
There’s no doubt that Motorola’s MPx is an innovative integrated device, but there are question marks against its ability to handle both telephony and handheld computing needs satisfactorily. When used in portrait mode as a mobile phone, the MPx feels bulky, while the keyboard is not up to much more than tapping the odd email or text message. The screen offers 320 by 240 pixels, but feels a little cramped at just 2.8 in. across the diagonal — viewing complex information in landscape format was sometimes a little difficult. And as far as RAM is concerned, Motorola would be advised to provide more than the 32MB (12MB user-accessible) on our review sample.
(Emphasis mine)
These are the main worries I have with the MPx. Pocket PC Phone Edition devices are great for their wireless data functionality, but they’re clunky to use as a phone. The screen on the MPx is quite small - about the size of a business card. And the biggie is the miniscule amount of RAM - 32 MB, with only 12 MB user accessible! Whose brilliant idea was that? That’s barely enough operating RAM for IE and MSN Messenger to run in, let alone install any applications. A possibly fatal flaw in an otherwise awesome device.
Om Malik on Broadband: Mobile Data Can Bankrupt You
This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I count myself lucky that T-Mobile has reasonably priced data plans. In fact, it’s probably the only reason I’m still a customer. Other providers charge outrageous amounts for data plans. It’s like they don’t want people to use their data services (and consequently, buy new phones that have cool new data features). It makes no sense to me.
For example, AT&T Wireless recently launched their speedy 3G UTMS wireless data service. For a mere $25/month, you can use all the data you want, but only from the phone. If you connect to a PDA or a laptop to use the phone as a wireless modem (you know, do something actually useful), you get charged by the byte. Or, you can pay them $80/month for unlimited access. They have similar plans for GPRS on Smartphones and PDAs. Verizon and Sprint are no less draconian with their data plan pricing. If you want all you can eat wireless data on a PDA or a laptop, you pay through the nose.
I’ve talked with people who work at AT&T Wireless, and asked them why there was such a discrepancy between data transmitted to the phone, and data shared with a PDA or a laptop. To the network, the bits are the same. He talked with some people in the wireless group, and the only answer he could give was that they like the higher profit margins on the data plans.
When are carriers going to start getting it? T-Mobile does. You can get unlimited web and email with their T-Zones plan for $4.99/month. You can use the phone as a modem with a PDA or laptop. They don’t care. And besides the fact that I’m a loyal customer, I evangelize T-Mobile to all of my cell phone toting friends, for exactly that reason. And I’ve convinced at least a dozen of them to sign up. T-Mobile basically has an unpaid salesperson in me, because they can meet my desire for cheap wireless data better than the competition.
Is there a lesson to be learned here? If I ran a wireless carrier, I’d be thinking about it…
Sony always makes beautiful hardware, but sometimes it seems that it was developed in a slightly different universe than the one we live in. Consider the new Clie PEG VZ90:
So, Sony releases a nine hundred dollar PDA that plays videos on a beautiful screen. But it doesn’t have a hard drive, so you only get as much video as you can fit on a CF card, which even with a honkin’ big 2 or 4 GB card isn’t going to be all that much. So maybe you can use it more for its PDA functions. It does have integrated WiFi, and it’s got a slideout keyboard, but only for video playback. So no heavy duty email or IM for you.
Is it just me, or does this thing seem like it was designed in Bizarro World?
Here’s a review, if you read Japanese, but there are lots of pretty pictures for us gaijin. That screen sure is pretty.
Software and Drivers - download HP iPAQ Pocket PC rx3700 Series ROM Update, 1.00.10
Well, it hasn’t even been released yet (at least, not anywhere that I can find, and belive me, I’ve looked), but there’s already a ROM update available for the HP iPAQ rx3700 series.
Here’s a list of what it fixes:
Improves camera functionality
Whoa.
It does email, IM, and SMS text messages. No voice capability, no Bluetooth for sharing the wireless data access. But, it’s only supposed to cost $100, and $15/month. Rumored to be available around the end of September.
Sounds nice, but the thing is freaking huge. Observe:
Treo 650 coming from Sprint in late November
More info on a release date and carrier for the Treo 650. Engadget is reporting that Sprint has “unofficially” (i.e. a service rep told them over the phone) announced that they will in fact carry the Treo 650, and that it should be available in late November.
Engadget - Dallab’s DP900 Pocket PC Phone
Here’s another entry in the burgeoning Pocket PC Phone Edition market - the Dallab DP900:
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