’)
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, today we start the week off with some big news for China and Motorola. The Motorola Sholes Tablet is now confirmed to be the XT701 and will be released on China Unicom, the Motorola Zhiling MT710 and Motorola Zeppelin XT800 will be released on China Mobile and China Telecom respectively.
Samsung started the week off by making the M5650 touchscreen music phone official with a press release. The device builds upon the success of the Corby (S3650) which sold 3.5 million units within 2 months of launch. The M5650 is currently available in Portugal and is schedule to release in other parts of Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, India and China.
Sony Ericsson was back under the FCC’s radar and this time the Xperia X10 received approval. Based on the FCC filings it looks like the Xperia X10 could be coming to T-mobile USA afterall which would confirm statements from Sony Ericsson that they would be launching an Android-based handset here in the US. Hit the link above for the full product manual.
Verizon Wireless explained their $350 Early Termination Fees (ETFs) in more detail to the FCC, claiming that “those devices cost much more”. Apparently Verizon pays quite a bit for their smartphones and sells them at a loss to customers when they subsidize phones on 2-year contracts. Personally I think it has more to do with marketing and advertising expenses and the kickbacks they give to manufacturers for exclusive phones.
Over on Engadget the team unboxed the LG eXpo complete with a photo gallery and first impressions. As usual the team did a great job covering the phone and I would highly recommend giving it a read if you are the slight bit interested in owning the device. In other Engadget news, a stable version of Android 2.1 has now been ported to the Droid and they are reporting the latest version of Android is quite speedy on the Droid.
HTC has released hot fixes for the Tilt 2 and Pure this morning. The hot fix for the Pure addresses the inconsistent caller id function, freezing of the SMS application and improved overall device speed. You can download the hot fixes here.
MobileSyrup is reporting that Best Buy and Bell have teamed up to offer a $75 gift card ontop of existing savings if you purchase a handset and sign up for a 3-year contract. For handing over three years of your mobile life I’d expect a bit more, but this holiday season any little bit counts. In other MobileSyrup news, the team has confirmed that Rogers HTC Magic and HTC Dream will no be getting Android 1.6 updates. The news comes by way of a direct quote from HTC stating that Android 1.6 is only for Google-branded devices.
T-mobile has just embraced the holiday spirit and is now offering the myTouch 3G in Black, White and Merlot for just $99.99 on 2-year service agreements. If you are using the EvenMore Plus plan you will still need to pay the $399.99 unfortunately.
Last this morning is a great review of the Samsung Omnia II by the team over at UnwiredView. The review includes an extensive photo gallery with side-by-side comparisons to the original Omnia and even a video demonstration of the Swype Keyboard in action. It’s a must read for anyone considering purchasing the Omnia II (i920).
There are plenty ways to stay ontop of the Cellfanatic news and reviews: follow us on Twitter, subscribe by Email, subscribe to RSS, watch our videos on YouTube or simply check out the Morning Mobile Minute or This Week in Cell Phone News summaries.
