Ahead of an official February 2nd launch, Virgin Mobile’s Canadian branch today quietly rolled out its HSPA+ network and its first phones to take advantage of the new service, including iPhones. Features and pricing match those of its parent company Bell and give Virgin users up to 21Mbps downstream on supporting hardware as well as the same 93 percent national coverage thanks to a sharing deal with Telus. Those with at least a 500MB data plan get free Wi-Fi at Starbucks coffee shops.

Several new devices have joined the network in the gradual move away from CDMA and for now are all smartphone or data-only devices. The iPhone leads the group and shares the same 3-year contract pricing as Bell, at $100 to $300 depending on the iPhone 3G or 3GS model picked. Smartphone plans are the same for all devices and, in combo plans, start at $50 per month for 150 minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends, and 500MB of data. Tethering is bundled into all the plans, but only $80 (400 minutes, 2GB) and $100 (500 minutes, 3GB) plans have Visual Voicemail automatically included. Those in less expensive plans can pick from a ‘free’ bundle of either voicemail and call display or else unlimited MMS and SMS where both are included in the top two plans.

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With the Apple iPad drawing flak from electronic and paper media, Dell is pitching in to fill the void with its tablet-smartphone crossbreed device Dell Mini 5. The Android-powered device sports a large 5″ screen and is powered by Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor. (DAVOS-KLOSTERS, SWITZERLAND)

Taking cue from competing Android manufacturers, Dell has added a customized UI to the Android core, making the Mini 5 an attractive device both on the hardware and software specifications sheet. Though the device looks intimidating with its 5″ touchscreen, especially when placed next to the market leader iPhone, the handset is a delight to use and doesn’t feel awkward, as seen by the leaked demo video showing Michael Dell briefing (unofficially) the media at the World Economic Forum 2010 annual meeting held in Switzerland.

While the full specifications of the device have been known for a while since the tear-down of the Dell Mini 5 by Vietnamese website Tinhte, first appeared on the web; there was no word on availability or pricing until this demo video from Michael Dell appeared on the web, a couple of days ago. The Dell founder and CEO, revealed that the Mini 5 will be launched in a “couple of months” and refused to divulge any details on the pricing.

With the Apple iPad going for US$499, Dell may be forced to price its Mini 5 around the same range to compete with the latest device from Apple.
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In its Q4 2009 financial conference call with analysts, Motorola’s Co-CEO Sanjay Jha confirmed that Motorola will be bypassing the traditional telco route and working with Google to sell an Android handset directly to consumers, similar to HTC and the Nexus One. This handset will be one of twenty smartphones that Motorola hopes to offer in 2010 as it attempts to shake off its lagging performance. Despite selling twelve million handsets in Q4 2009, two million of which were Android-based, Motorola continues to slide slowly downward with handset sales falling from $2.35 billion to $1.8 billion, a 22% year over year decline. Motorola also anticipates a first quarter loss of up to 3 cents per share which is far below the 3 cent per share profit expected by analysts. As of the writing of this post, Motorola’s stock has fallen 11% from yesterday’s close.

If you’re like us, keeping a smart phone for two years really isn’t an option. After about 6 months of ownership the honeymoon is over; after 9 months you begin to obsess over a few battle scars your phone has acquired, and by month 12 you are actively seeking your phone’s demise so you have an excuse to buy the latest and greatest. Starting immediately, T-Mobile will be offering post-paid smartphone customers on a two year contract — or feature phone owners looking to upgrade to a smartphone — two tiers of upgrade pricing… as long as you are willing to renew your two year deal. The move is aimed at curbing the number of customers jumping from T-Mobile to other networks, specifically AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Customers will be eligible for a “tier 1″ discount if they have had their phone for 1-11 months, are currently in a two year contract, and have an individual voice plan that is $29.99 or higher — $49.99 or higher for family plans — and are upgrading to, or buying a new smartphone. Customers qualify for “tier 2″ pricing when they are in a two year contract, have an individual voice plan that is $29.99 or higher — $49.99 or higher for family plans — are between months 12-21 of their two year contract, and are upgrading to, or buying a new, smartphone. The exact discount pricing hasn’t been made available yet, but TmoNews speculates that a myTouch 3G, which retails for $400, would cost those that qualify for the “tier 2″ pricing around $240.

Without much fuss, phone “chameleon” modules was announced today in the market in Romania, as of February will be sold in Vodafone stores. Modu is leading modular design allows connection of several types of frames, each with a unique functionality.

The basic modules is a dedicated music phone adolescents and on the specifications can not boast of who knows what facilities: has 2 GB of internal memory, MP3 player and GPRS connectivity. It remains to see how much you appreciate that the public must use different “clothes” to enhance its functionality. Also, the price is an important factor that will be of modular or popular items. We offer complete.

Modu Phone is accredited by the Guinness Book as the lightest phone in the world.

Nokia announced the release of the 16 GB model touchscreen X6, which will integrate similar features to those present at the 32 GB version. Wide screen is the same size of 3.2 inches (8 cm), and the same 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optical technology. Battery life will be 18 days of standby time and 11.5 hours in continuous speech. If you want to go non-stop to video on mobile phone, you need to know that you can not because the battery will need recharging after 4.5 hours. And the music will stand run continuously 35 hours. However, when you could hear it only 12% of the 5,500 songs stored.

Curious is that the device will not include Comes With Music. That will have to upload songs in old style phone. If you can not use a phone in a manner so “obsolete” means that no price reduction will not result.

However, if you are interested in mobile gaming, you will smile can pre-download games like Spore from EA, and DJ Mix Tour Asphalt4 from Gameloft.

The phone will come in variations of black, white, white with yellow and white rose in the quarter, and the price to be announced.

A smart phone is not just because it was put in office marketing label. A telephone reveals its intelligence functions and skills by its, by what he can do and what distinguishes it from a phone obşinuit. Phones are raised to the rank of smartphone operating system you use.

Symbian S60 is such an operating system. It is, in fact, the operating system that takes on the shoulders all Nokia smartphones, whether we speak of the touchscreen (5th edition) or ordinary (3rd edition).

A smartphone with the S60 offers numerous facilities. If we were to enumerate some as web browser, the GPS, office suite and multimedia programs. Messaging added to them, the application that deal, as its name suggests, the message.

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Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, one of the best known auditing and consulting companies made public a report on trends in telecommunications in 2010.

For smartphones, the prediction is simple and easy to suspect by those who have watched the evolution: smart phones will focus on navigation and Internet search. By 2011, sales of mobile phones have real chances to exceed those of computers (desktops and mobile) with a volume of 400 million units. By 2012, it could discuss sales of over 500 million units, a figure that mobile advertising could reach up to 7.2 billion dollars.

Everything you mobile communications will focus on the social networks. Mobile communication will intersect with the Internet and increasingly more users will turn to VoIP.
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