Cell Phone Hub

We powered up ye olde NAM 5800 XpressMusic today, and the weirdest thing happened: it worked on 3G. This comes after a day of frustration trying to get it hooked up to UMTS yesterday — a sentiment echoed by several others who took the plunge. The only theory we can come up with is that we were in Chicago yesterday at the Nokia flagship store — a place where many of the “defective” units were sold — and today we’re elsewhere, so it’s conceivable that there’s an issue with AT&T’s 3G network in Chicago. We’ve noticed an uptick in 3G loss on other devices in Chicago the past few days, so it’s possible that the 5800 is just particularly sensitive to crappy networks; then again, there seem to be others in New York that have the same issue, so it’s anybody’s guess. All we know for sure is that we’re showing a big, fat “3.5G” logo in the upper left corner of our unit at the moment — and we’re going to cross our fingers that it stays that way. We have a request out to Nokia for official comment on the issue, and we’ll let you know as soon as we have more.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Our Nokia 5800 magically starts working on 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Well if your dreams of a new set have been dashed by the Nokia XpressMusic 5800’s issues but you still want to shop Nokia, here’s a deal for you. Amazon’s Gold Box sale today features the lovely — and arguably Nokia’s sassiest QWERTY smartphone — Nokia E71 in gray for $289 shipped. We peeked at Nokia’s shop and they have it priced at $349, and Expansys is at $389, so we’re fairly impressed at the price here, though it will only be about at this price today. Heck, we may stock up and make it an early Nokia Christmas this year, for ourselves. The read link will send you off to Amazon’s GOld Box page, so if you’re reading this article late, the set will be gone.

Filed under: Cellphones

Amazon’s Gold Box sale features Nokia E71 for $289, shipped originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There’s no easy answer to erasing a staggering trillion-plus dollar deficit in a federal budget, but you’ve got to start somewhere — and Obama’s looking at the nation’s wireless carriers as cash cows just waiting to be milked. The President’s proposed budget for 2010 calls for an increase in spectrum license user fees from $50 million to $200 million, with further increases to $550 million over the course of the next decade, all of which would be on top of the billions carriers have already shelled out in spectrum auctions. A good way to bring in some extra cash? Yeah, probably, but considering that carriers will be more than happy to pass the increases on to consumers, let’s just be straight: it’s a tax.

[Via El Reg]

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Obama’s proposed 2010 budget juices carriers for more cash originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We doubt you need a translation to figure out what’s going on here, but to summarize: the crew at mobile@mail.ru managed to get what they’re saying is an exclusive hands-on with a red Nokia E55. It’s the same compact QWERTY phone you’ve grown to love vicariously through photos and video, only now with a little rouge. Check out the read link for more pics.

[Thanks, Zavackiy]

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia E55 blushes red for the camera originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While RIM and Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo still don’t know why their BlackBerry Bold is feeling a little toasty around the keyboard, the duo has ruled out a likely culprit, the battery, as its unwelcome heat source. Word on the street is an estimated 30 people have issued complaints about the mobile device heating up while recharging, with around 4,000 units being sold before DoCoMo halted sales. One analyst speculates the issue — which so far has affected only Japan — may be based on region-specific software of other customizations. We’re sure the pair are working around the clock to get to the bottom of this malfunction, but in the meantime, we recommend dusting off the ol’ 8707h to get that retro BlackBerry feel — y’know, just for kicks.

Filed under: Cellphones

NTT DoCoMo’s overheating BlackBerry Bold not caused by battery, says RIM originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It seems like just yesterday that Big Red was firing up its EV-DO Rev. A network in America, and already we’re seeing signs of life with Rev. B. In all honesty, though, we’ve known about the next iteration of EV-DO (and the next-next, for that matter) for years now, but said Chinese carrier has just completed what it calls the world’s first EV-DO Rev. B VoIP call on its CDMA2000 system. In other words, this is the first time a CDMA carrier has achieved a 9.3Mbps download rate and 5.4Mbps upload rate. The lovely part of this is that ZTE can upgrade from Rev. A to Rev. B without any additional hardware, thus paving the way for a quick commercialization in Q3 2009. Huzzah!

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

ZTE completes EV-DO Rev. B VoIP call on CDMA2000 system originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We had a quick chat with Bell Canada’s Julie Smithers, and apparently the user gripes, moaning, and all around sadness seem to have helped Twitter and Bell strike up a new conversation about your beloved. Bell and Twitter have agreed that incoming Twitter SMSes will be free on Bell — provided you have a Bell SMS bundle — and that outgoing will be charged just like any other text would be. So if your plan includes 30 sent messages — like the $3 SMS bundle — and you go over, you’ll get dinged just like you would sending normal text messages. So let the merriment begin Canada, go forth, sign up for unlimited texting, and tweet like we know you’ve been itching to since November last year.

Filed under: Cellphones

@Bell Canada backpedals, Twitter SMS now — almost — free originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We knew this day would come, and at last we’ve been faced with 56+ minutes of webOS-related video that we could barely keep our eyes open for. Palm Software CTO Mitch Allen did a rundown for an O’Reilly webcast detailing the structure and paradigms of webOS, and then went ahead and built a simple little app using TextMate and Safari. While we’re sure some JavaScript fanboys out there will have a field day with this, there weren’t too many juicy tidbits in there for us mere mortals. It did seem like Palm’s still working on the whole app DRM situation — exacerbated by the fact that webOS apps aren’t really executables — so it sounds like Google isn’t the only one. What is clear is that the barrier for entry to app development here is stunningly low, and we suppose we’ll all find out soon enough exactly what sort of awesomeness and terror that will mean for us end users. Video is after the break.

[Via Palm Pre en español]

Continue reading Palm finally manages to bore us to tears with webOS Mojo SDK tutorial

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Palm finally manages to bore us to tears with webOS Mojo SDK tutorial originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In the unlikely event that you needed a few final shreds of evidence to be convinced that the CDMA version of the BlackBerry Pearl flip — the 8230 — is real, feast your eyes on this heavy reading. Just-approved FCC documents show a device outline that can only be described as that of a clamshell, and sure enough, the SAR report indicates CDMA and EV-DO on the 850 and 1900MHz bands, so yeah, if this isn’t the 8230, we can’t imagine what it’d be. The timing on this development really couldn’t be any better since we’re expecting it to hit both Verizon and Telus in the near term, so quick show of hands: who’s buying?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

BlackBerry Pearl 8230 flips its way into the FCC’s heart originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While the fact that Twitter’s SMS service is returning to Canada is grand news, Bell Canada’s 15 cent price for admission is most definitely not. Twitter shut down the outbound SMS service in November last year due to rising costs with a note that it was working toward a solution to fix it. Well, it seems the solution’s been found and that’s to pass it down the line to the Twitter users as a premium service that they’ll pay for, both sending and receiving. Our advice here is to hunt down a free client and use it or call Bell and fire up the waterworks, though, we suspect that’ll get you about nowhere.

Update: Just for the sake of clarity, this is in no way related to Bell’s policy on 15 cent incoming SMS costs. Bell’s Julie Smithers said “Because Twitter is a third-party service, the messages are considered premium and not covered by our plans…This aligns with industry standards regarding third-party premium messaging.”

[Thanks, @fruhlinger]

Filed under: Cellphones

Twitter returns to @Bell Canada for $0.15 a pop originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.