For the Windows Mobile world the HTC Touch Diamond is a godsend. It packs a superior resolution screen, a smooth TouchFLO 3D interface and just about every feature in the book to trump the iPhone 3G. As a followup to the original HTC Touch, the Touch Diamond is has already shipped over 2 million units and the willingness of HTC to release updates has been well received by the WM community. With a GSM and CDMA version of the HTC Touch Diamond already released, the US will soon be experience the power of an updated UI and a VGA resolution screen.
The HTC Touch Diamond has some slight differences between the CDMA version and GSM version. When Taiwan launched the HTC Touch Diamond it was renamed the Victor and the diamond styled backing to the phone was replaced with a smooth cover. The CDMA version of the Touch Diamond by Telus has followed these design attributes which results in a thicker device because of its flat back and some users are reporting that it makes the device more comfortable to hold.
The GSM HTC Touch Diamond, complete with the jagged styling of a real diamond, continues to be released across Europe and eventually will make its way to At&t in the US. While we have not received any official or unofficial news on an actual release date for At&t, the device has completed its rounds with the FCC and a few spy photos have hit the Internet.
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Although the overall dynamics of CDMA markets are overshadowed by the hype around UMTS/HSPA and the migration to LTE, CDMA operators continue to upgrade their networks to provide capacity for higher numbers of bandwidth-intensive data services, as well as escalating traffic load.
“Worldwide EVDO Rev A subscriber numbers ramped up more than eightfold between Q2 2007 and Q2 2008,” says ABI Research analyst Khor Hwai Lin. “The US and South Korean markets shows the highest growth rate for EVDO Rev A. The increased support for LTE from incumbent CDMA operators does not imply the imminent death of EVDO Rev A and B, because LTE is addressing different market needs compared to 3G.”
EVDO Rev A subscribers are forecast to exceed 54 million by 2013 while Rev B subscribers will also increase, to 25 million.
More than 31 million subscribers worldwide are already using HSDPA while 3.2 million subscribers were on HSUPA networks by Q2 2008. Upgrades to HSUPA continue to take place aggressively around Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Hence, HSUPA subscribers are estimated to reach around 139 million in number by 2013.
“HSPA+ will contest with LTE and mobile WiMAX in the mobile broadband space,” adds Asia-Pacific vice president Jake Saunders. The 100Mbps download data rate difference between LTE (20MHz) and HSPA+ may not attract mid-tier operators to migrate, as LTE is based on OFDM technology that requires new components, while a move to HSPA+ is perceived to be more gradual transition.”
Due to the large number of GSM 900 subscribers worldwide and the high possibility of refarming the spectrum for UMTS, ABI Research estimates that the majority of these subscribers worldwide (about 1.2 billion by 2013) will be on a 900MHz-only band. In second place would be dual-band users on 900MHz and 1800MHz (one billion by 2013). 2100MHz subscriber numbers are forecast to ramp up steadily with a CAGR of 23.5% between 2007 and 2013.
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While it is no mystery that Sprint plans on releasing the HTC Touch Diamond with slightly rounded edges similar to the HTC Victor (Taiwanese release of HTC Touch Diamond), the big shocker today is the mystery color: red. In surprising post over at Sprintusers a forum member decided to release three pictures of the CDMA Sprint HTC Touch Diamond in a dark red and revealed that Sprint would be offering the device in several colors at launch.
While the Palm Centro dropped with two color choices (first black then red one month later), we can’t help but think that this is an excellent photoshop job and that the device will only be released in black at launch. Regardless of what colors Sprint decides for the launch of their HTC Touch Diamond, the anticipation is growing with every day users realize the limited functionality of the Samsung Instinct’s email client in the corporate environment.
We expect to see the Sprint HTC Touch Diamond hit retail stores in the next two months (end of Sept, early Oct). With a price tag still up for grabs we are going to bet that Sprint positions the Touch Diamond right in line with the iPhone 3G or possibly slightly less since the Touch Diamond only has 4GB of internal storage vs the 8GB in $199 iPhone 3G. We won’t cross our fingers on this one though after seeing Rogers Canada drop the $399 price tag for the BlackBerry Bold.
Update Sept 10th: Today Sprint issued a Press Release outlining several device launches but most importantly they confirmed the September launch of the Touch Diamond and October launch of the Touch Pro. According to the Press Release, the HTC Touch Diamond will be available beginning in September. It will cost $249.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. HTC Touch Pro will be available Oct. 19 for $299.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. It looks like Sprint will take the cake as the first US carrier to launch either of these devices unless we see At&t bump up their release date unexpectedly.
The expectation that Palm would sell 2 million Centros in 2008 was a reasonable assumption with the $99 price point and availability in more than 25 countries. Unfortunately the world has grown tired of an aging Palm OS and eventually the financial struggles of Palm will return to the forefront of the media. The good news is that only a little over a month after Palm’s senior vice president of marketing, Brodie Keast, told the NY Times that they expected to sell 2 million Centros in 2008, the achievement was reached.
According to recent data released by Admob, the largest advertising network on the mobile web, the Palm Centro has jumped to number 8 on the list of mobile phones worldwide as of May 2008 and currently sits at number 7. This is what Admob had to say about the Palm Centro in their report,
Consumers are ready to do more on their mobile phone, and Centro has struck a chord around the world,” said Brodie Keast, senior vice president of marketing for Palm, Inc. “Centro has everything a person needs to stay connected with everyone who is important to them — and at a price point and size that make smartphones more attractive to a much wider audience.”
Another interesting piece of information is that Palm has showed strong growth among smartphone manufacturers, ranking Number 2 in the US in mobile advertising reach and Number 3 worldwide. With all major US carriers, except T-mobile, offering the Palm Centro and the unlocked version being sold on Palm’s website the success of the Centro should continue. The big question now is whether the iPhone 3G will maintain its current pace to reach the 2 million units sold mark in 2008.
Two device leaks come out of the Nokia camp today through inadvertent product pages. It is hard to feel bad for a manufacturer when they leave the details on their website and this is exactly the case for the dual sliding Nokia 8208 and Nokia 3608. The Nokia 3608 is a simple flip phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera, dual color keys and GPS support. Taking a page from Motorola’s book, the exterior of the 3608 has touch sensitive music keys along with a FM radio and the non-standard 2.5mm headphone jack. MicroSD cards are also supported up to 4GB and from the looks of things it is very similar to the Nokia 3606, but it lacks the AWS band. While the details are a little sketchy, early reports indicate the Nokia 3608 will use a Series 40-like UI and as usual there is no word on pricing or a release date.
The second device leaked today, the Nokia 8208 is the first non N-series phone to feature a two-way slider. The 8208 will be part of Nokia’s music phone push and really looks to be a solid contender in the slider-phone market. With music player controls, a 3.5mm standard headphone jack, and the standard 0-9 key layout, this Nokia 8208 will support EVDO Rev A. With EVDO Rev A you can guess that one of the US CDMA carriers will be picking this device up (Verizon, Sprint, Alltel). The two last big name features in the Nokia 8208 are full GPS support and a camera which weighs in at 3.0 megapixels which we hope will come with a LED flash (we will cross our fingers for Xenon).
As with the Nokia 3608, the 8208 has not been given a release date or price so stay tuned in the coming weeks. For those of you using China Unicom, a special 8208C version is planned to follow, but this version will come with AGPS instead of stand-alone GPS.
[Via: Electronista]
Verizon Wireless customers looking to get their fix on a CDMA/GSM combination device have been forced to look into the weary eyes of the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition, but today Motorola wants a piece of the action. Today we have news of an upcoming Motorola Q9, labeled the ‘Napolean’, which delivers both CDMA and GSM radios and adds a twist for the global GSM traveler. Unlike previous CDMA/GSM combination devices, the Q9 Napoleon has quadband GSM support which means you can use the device in the US on either T-mobile or At&t.
Other than the quadband GSM capabilities of the Motorola Q9 Napolean, the updated Q9 comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard, EVDO Rev A, Quadband EDGE, a 2.0 megapixel camera with flash and WiFi. For an added bonus, the Q9 Napolean also includes a fingerprint scanner in case you happen to need to authenticate an associate in your next business meeting. Honestly the usefulness of a fingerprint scanner, really? I think it’s time for the ‘Last Stand’ / ZN12 / Alexander to launch already and let’s see what Motorola has left in the fridge before we turn out the lights.
[Via: BGR]
First it was Clearwire and Sprint working together, then the deal froze and finally the deal is back on. Meanwhile in the manufacturing aspect, Sprint WiMax (Xohm) has become a very ambitious endeavour and a potentially groundbreaking launch in 2008. The Sprint CEO, Dan Hesse, has confirmed that the deal with Clearwire is still possible and probable in an announcement to investors while also announcing that a dual mode device would hit the Sprint shelves in 2008. The idea of some new devices from Sprint that are truly unique in theirs dual-mode capabilities seems impressive.
Read on [at] Moconews
If you believe in having everything and paying next to nothing then Sprint might be the perfect carrier for your cell phone dreams and wishes. Starting today Feb 29, 2008 Sprint will be offering the completely unlimited plan for only $99/month. This plan matches the offering from Helio, AT&T, T-mobile and Verizon which were all recently announced, but the big kicker here is that everything really means EVERYTHING. You will get the following with the Sprint Everything Plan
Both CDMA and iDEN network (Sprint/Nextel). Unlimited voice, data, text, e-mail, Web-surfing, Sprint TVSM, Sprint Music, GPS Navigation, Direct Connect® and Group Connect®
The light might start to shine at the end of the tunnel for Sprint with a plan like this, but we are hoping for the other big carriers to take note from Sprint and issue a counteroffer to their recently announced unlimited plans.
Sprint Everything Unlimited Plan
In one word: Tiny. The Centro by Palm is the newest release of a Palm OS based handset (Access) by the manufactuer to date. It comes on the heels of the windows mobile European released Centro, but unlike the windows mobile big brother the Americans did not get the same love. Currently the device is exclusive to Sprint, but we will surely see the device hit on other U.S. Carriers most likely Verizon since it shares the same CDMA technology.
I really wanted everyone to see how small this device is in comparison with a few of the common phones we see out and about in public on a daily basis. I used the standard black Moto RAZR, the Moto RAZR 2, and the trusty nokia 6102i all from AT&T. I have no preference to AT&T devices I just happened to be at Fry’s Electronics and felt it would be a good opportunity to snap off a few shots of these comparison sized devices together (the pictures were taken with the HTC Mogul).
Overall, the device performs like any other Palm OS based device such as the Treo 755p, but seems slighltly snappier performance especially when moving from the web browser to an alternate program. One issue I had with the transition from the web browser(Blazer) to the email client (Versamail) or the text messages was a 3 second delay in the device. This delay has been almost eliminated completely by the Centro. Also notable is the screen no longer losing a pixel boarder which is probably even more important when you are dealing with a much smaller device. I’m sure many agree that the Treo 700wx 750 and 755 can afford to lose a pixel boarder of real estate.
The big question people will ask themselves before buying the Centro is the keyboard. Many of you like myself depend on text input on our mobile devices as much as we depend on the voice calling. Sending out a hundred emails and a hundred SMS messages per day really requires an efficient keyboard. Does the Centro fit the bill? Yes and no. It is definitley a fully capable device like all Palm OS based handsets, but the keyboard is cramped to accomodate the extremely small dimensions of the device (Dimensions 4.22″ (L) x 2.11″ (W) x 0.73″ (D); 4.2 oz). If you have big hands like myself you will need some getting use to in order to be proficient on the handset, but it is possible to almost reach typing speeds of the big brother Treo 755p. So yes it is possible to reach fast typing speeds, but no it will not seem that way immediately out of the box when you begin typing.
Palm Centro Gallery
