Buy the LG Chocolate for just $99 from WireFly. That's $50 less than from Verizon Wireless direct. The LG Chocolate is the new hot phone, or that's at least what Verizon Wireless would like you to believe. The handset officially...
Jul 31 2006 - 06:35 PM ET | Cingular
To help encourage its few remaining analog and TDMA customers to upgrade, Cingular will start charging a $5 monthly surcharge to all customers not using a GSM handset. The fee starts in September and will apply to approximately 8% of...
Alltel became the first US carrier to launch a handset with the unique Fastap keypad layout. The LG AX490 was announced today and will go on sale starting August 3rd. Fastap is a licensed key layout technology that puts a...
Energizer's portable electronic charging concept has been picked up to be sold nationwide in Sprint stores. Dubbed Energizer Energi, the gadget charges a cell phone from one AA battery. Coming as no surprise, the company suggests using its high-end e2...
Jul 31 2006 - 09:43 AM ET | Backpage
SanDisk has started shipping a 2GB microSD card. Both 1 and 2GB versions were announced earlier this year at CES. microSD (formally known as TransFlash) has become one of the leading formats for mobile phones. Almost a third of phones...
As expected, Verizon Wireless has launched the LG Chocolate VX8500. Verizon is the first US carrier to get a handset from LG's Chocolate line. The line has been LG's response to the new wave of Motorola design and has proven...
Jul 28 2006 - 02:13 PM ET | Smartphone
The line of distinction between a full fledged computer and mobile phone has been blurred with the advent of smartphones and Microsoft is doings its best to continue the trend. The company demoed a prototype product that combines Windows CE...
Jul 28 2006 - 12:25 PM ET | Cingular
Cingular subscribers have the ability to tune in live to a Rolling Stones concert taking place in Paris later this afternoon. A startup named Listen Live Now is using the performance (which starts at 3PM ET) to launch its live...
T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless tied for the top ranking in the J.D. Power & Associates twice annual wireless customer care survey. Both carriers typically rank well, last year T-Mobile got #1 and Verizon #2. Here are the rankings for...
Jul 26 2006 - 03:29 PM ET | Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile has launched the Kyocera Oyster, an entry-level handset with a pearl white exterior. The Oyster continues a recent trend of phones taking on real names (LG Chocolate, Sanyo Katana, Kyocera Strobe, etc) instead of more cryptic product codes...
Verizon Wireless has launched the LG VX5300 which is an updated version of the VX5200. The update adds Bluetooth, an improved screen and comes in almost an ounce lighter. 128×160 pixel screen with 262k colors Bluetooth with DUN support, but...
Jul 25 2006 - 04:55 PM ET | Data
Google has made an impressive update to Google Maps for mobile, the service now shows live traffic information in more than 30 metro areas of the US. Google Maps for mobile is a free Java application that works on most...
Jul 25 2006 - 04:20 PM ET | Motorola
Another day, another new phone from Motorola. The MOTOFONE brings high-end design to an affordable handset aimed at "the next billion users". Besides price point, the MOTOFONE aims to simplify the user experience by relying more on icons and voice...
Jul 24 2006 - 08:30 PM ET | Motorola
While it comes as no surprise (thanks to the ample supply of leakage), Motorola has officially announced the KRZR K1. Codenamed the Canary, the Motorola RAZR K1 will come in both GSM and CDMA variants. The CDMA version will be...
Jul 24 2006 - 08:30 PM ET | Motorola
Motorola has officially announced the RIZR Z3, or what we have known in rumors as the Capri. It's the first slide-style handset in the RAZR design series that is destined for a US launch (there was one prior to now...
Jul 24 2006 - 08:30 PM ET | Motorola
As part of a handset introduction for the second half of 2006, Motorola has unveiled the RAZR MAXX V6. Based on the now iconic RAZR, the RAZR MAXX is a HSDPA 3G handset. Cingular is currently ramping up its HSDPA...
Jul 24 2006 - 08:30 PM ET | Motorola
There are now enough RAZR models that Motorola can't come up with new names. Introducing the Motorola RAZR XX, a HSDPA 3G infused version of the tried and true RAZR V3. This is the second HSDPA handset announced by Motorola...
Jul 24 2006 - 08:30 PM ET | Motorola
Motorola is finally bringing its SLVR handset line to the CDMA standard. The Motorola SLVR L7c was announced today and is rumored to be heading to both Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS. The SLVR L7c introduction came along with a...
Jul 24 2006 - 03:42 PM ET | In The News
Boston Communications Group Inc (BCGI) has settled its long running legal battle with suitor Freedom Wireless. BCGI w2ill pay $55.3 million to Freedom Wireless, a patent holding firm. Last year BCGI suffered a blow when a court found the company...
Verizon Wireless gave a sneak peek to its second quarter results today. By adding 1.8 million net new customers, Verizon continued to close in on Cingular for the title of largest carrier. Verizon now has 54.8m customers compared to Cingular's...
Motorola announced that it is ahead of schedule with its existing share repurchase plan. The plan was announced last year and is aproximately two years ahead of schedule. The board of directores has authorized another buyback program, up to $4.5...
Intelligent Mechatronic Systems introduced an innovative sounding product today called iLane. The Bluetooth device is intended to be installed in a vehicle and interfaces with a wireless email equipped phone and a speaker (either the vechicles audio system or a...
Jul 24 2006 - 11:47 AM ET | Nokia
Nokia has begun to ship two more important handsets, the N73 and N93. Both handsets are part of Nokia's flagship N-Series lineup that had initial shipment delay troubles. The N73 and N93 are second gen devices, each building on an...
In time for the 2006-7 season, Sprint has removed the extra fee for its NFL Mobile service. NFL Mobile is now apart of Vision or Power Vision and comes at no additional cost. Sprint is a major sponsor of the...
Jul 21 2006 - 01:26 PM ET | Vodafone
Executives of mobile phone carrier giant Vodafone are facing pressure from its shareholders. One of Vodafone's largest shareholders said he would vote against the re-election of CEO Arun Sarin. Other reports cite that shareholders controlling 7% of the company are...
Verizon Wireless pushed some updates to its customer website this week. The update has expanded the My Account section and now allows customers improved access to messaging statistics. Information includes number of messages sent and received, including date and time...
Sprint Nextel has launched Recently Sold Homes, another new location based service (LBS) application. The app uses data provided by Smarter Agent to find sales information for homes near your current location. It's targeted at both consumers (looking for a...
Jul 21 2006 - 12:47 PM ET | Data
Yahoo! has upgraded the mobile version of its popular Mail service. According to MobileCrunch, the update is mostly a redesign. The new design tries to cut down page views to speed up workflow. There are a few new features though,...
It has been a while since the last celebrity mobile phone scandal (when Paris Hilton saw her Sidekick contents get posted online), but Lindsay Lohan is claiming it happened to her. Someone got ahold of her BlackBerry email password and...
Jul 21 2006 - 11:36 AM ET | Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel released the results of a study it performed on what women prefer in wireless. The data is being used to power a 'phone finder' called Women in a Wireless World. Interesting data points from the survey include: Women...
Jul 20 2006 - 10:11 AM ET | Data, Motorola
Motorola has agreed to pre-install Yahoo Go for Mobile on tens of millions of new Motorola handsets. Yahoo Go was announced earlier this year at CES and so far has been promoted in a limited fashion by Cingular and Nokia....
Jul 20 2006 - 09:39 AM ET | Cingular
Cingular posted a strong second quarter as the company continues to see gains from its merger with AT&T Wireless. While revenue increased only a modest 7%, profit spiked 267% to a record $540 million. Cingular remains the largest carrier in...
Jul 20 2006 - 09:26 AM ET | Nokia
Nokia's second quarter earnings statement shows strong handset sales growth in almost every market besides North America. In North America Nokia's handset shipments decreased 13.3% to just 5.2 million. Latin America was flat, all other markets saw double digit increases....
Jul 20 2006 - 09:19 AM ET | Motorola
Motorola's second quarter earnings continued to get a big boost from hot sales of the Motorola RAZR. Revenue for the quarter increased 29% while profit jumped 48%. Motorola didn't break down sales for any of its individual models. Key figures...
Cingular Wireless has launched the Sony Ericsson Z525a, using it to replace the Z520a which it launched last year. The update simply adds push-to-talk. Features of the Z525a include: Push-to-talk VGA camera Bluetooth 16 MB user memory 128×160 pixel screen...
LG reported its second quarter earnings today. Thanks to price pressure in two of its core businesses (LCDs and phones) the statement has more red ink than LG executives were hoping. The company actually posted a loss for the second...
Jul 19 2006 - 11:30 AM ET | Data
Mobile 365 is reporting that US based Multimedia Message Service (MMS) traffic has surged 40% in the second quarter of the year. MMS is most commonly called picture messaging by carriers, but other types of multimedia can be included. The...
Jul 18 2006 - 05:54 PM ET | Backpage, Nokia
Thanks to a software release from the Gizmo Project, it's now possible to make telephone calls with the Nokia 770 through Voice Over IP. As a WiFi only device (with open source software to boot), the 770 is a unique...
Jul 18 2006 - 05:33 PM ET | Backpage, Unique
Whirlpool and a handful of technology partners are currently testing a washer/dryer set that ties in with computers and cell phones. The "smart" appliances are now in use at three homes in Atlanta. Partners on the project include Microsoft and...
Research In Motion is betting that the addition of more multimedia features to its BlackBerry handheld line will help the company continue its strong growth. While the email functionality of BlackBerry is market leading, the devices have a more limited...
Jul 18 2006 - 10:06 AM ET | Motorola
Motorola announced this morning that sales of its iconic RAZR V3 have gone over the 50 million mark. The phone was announced in July 2004 and continues to ship unchanged from carriers around the world. There are now several variants,...
Jul 17 2006 - 03:25 PM ET | SMS
Podcasting startup Odeo launched a mobile focused side project dubbed twttr this weekend. The free service brings social networking features to regular SMS. Unlike Dodgeball, twttr is not limited to a select set of cities. twttr is accessible through the...
Jul 17 2006 - 03:05 PM ET | Motorola
The Motorola RAZR K1 (previously called the Canary and KRZR in rumors) has been approved by the FCC (ID IHDT56GT1). Despite the myriad of leaks about this next generation RAZR, Motorola has not yet officially launched the handset. Features of...
Jul 17 2006 - 02:57 PM ET | MVNO
Korean-American backed Helio has launched a new TV ad that will air on various cable channels with large youth audiences. The ad mentioned MySpace Mobile and that you shouldn't call it a phone, call it a Helio. The Kickflip is...
The LG CU500 is currently in a softlaunch from Cingular (it was approved in April, but hasn't been shown off until now). It's the first of two HSDPA equipped handsets that Cingular plans on launching. The HSDPA 3G standard is...
Jul 14 2006 - 05:42 PM ET | Backpage, DoCoMo
Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo is working on a fuel cell to power mobile phones in the near future. The company has teamed up with Aquafairy to create a micro polymer electrolyte fuel cell. The end product is less than 25%...
Verizon Wireless is now featuring the LG "Chocolate" 8500 handset on its homepage, noting that it will be for sale soon. The slide style phone will be an exclusive to Verizon Wireless. Not much information was revealed, but music will...
UTStarcom is prepping a new handset called the GPRS1228 that will rival Motorola and Samsung in the thin phone competition. The candbar style phone looks to be about the thickness of Motorola's SLVR, though its exact dimensions are not available....
NTT DoCoMo jointly developed a new smartphone with HTC which is set to debut later this month. The hTc Z is a Windows Mobile smartphone and will be one of the first devices marketed under the HTC brand (previously the...
Jul 13 2006 - 11:21 AM ET | Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson reported a great second quarter thanks mostly to continued brisk sales of its Walkman branded line of mobile phones. Besides selling more of its own phones, Sony Ericsson updated its projection industry wide and is now expecting 950...
Jul 13 2006 - 11:12 AM ET | Smartphone
Symbian announced version 9.3 of its flagship smartphone OS. It adds several important high-end features, but also includes the ability for vendors to strip the system down to make it useful in lower-end handsets. In terms of volume shipments, Nokia...
Jul 13 2006 - 11:01 AM ET | 3G, Palm, Vodafone
Palm took the unusual step of pre-announcing (though without many details) a new handheld designed exclusively for Europe. Earlier this month it came out that due to new regulations regarding the environment, Palm would be unable to continue selling its...
Cingular and HBO extended their partnership with the introduction of more video clips. Available exclusively to Cingular's 3G customers, the new content includes some mobile-only episodes of the show Entourage. In another first, Cingular Video subscribers can also enjoy full-length...
Jul 12 2006 - 09:14 AM ET | Backpage, Data
Mobile TV startup MobiTV has inked a $70 million series C venture capital investment led by Oak Investment Partners. MobiTV is the current market leader in mobile TV and has over a million subscribers spread over 20 carriers globally. MobiTV...
Jul 12 2006 - 08:59 AM ET | SMS
The US Federal Government is updating the existing warning system to be savvy with SMS. The existing alert system currently covers broadcast TV channels and AM radio stations. By the end of next year it's possible that your phone will...
Jul 11 2006 - 12:01 PM ET | Nokia
The music-centric Nokia 3250 has hit the 1 million units shipped milestone. It began shipping just four months ago, making the figure all the more impressive. The 3250 is a S60 3rd edition smartphone with the addition of music control...
Jul 10 2006 - 03:37 PM ET | Data
Garmin announced an expansion to its Garmin Mobile service. Garmin Mobile 3.0 is currently available to Sprint Nextel subscribers (both iDEN and CDMA) with a compatible handset. The update brings more points of interest, such as: fuel prices, weather and...
Verizion Wireless is promoting its V Cast service by launching V Cast Performances, a showcase of live concerts. Over 50 performances will be shown, from artists such as Live and Cheyenne Kimball. All of the concerts are available to V...
EMBARQ (the new name of Sprint's now indie wireline division) has announced a new feature called One Voicemail. The service integrates wireline and wireless voicemail into one box. EMBARQ is offering wireless service through a MVNO agreement with Sprint. A...
Jul 10 2006 - 02:16 PM ET | Nokia
The U.S. International Trade Comission is probing possible patent infringement by Nokia. Last month Qualcomm asked the agency to bar the sale of certain Nokia products because of infringement. Both companies have been in a long standing legal battle, with...
Cingular Wireless launched the entry-level Motorola C139 today. It's available only as a pre-paid handset, through Cingular's GoPhone program. The candybar style handset is light on features and focuses on price: GSM 850/1900 96×65 pixel screen with 65K colors Weight...
Jul 07 2006 - 04:13 PM ET | In The News
It appears the rumblings of severe financial trouble at VK Mobile were true, the Korean Times is reporting VK Mobile has filed for bankruptcy. Cutthroat competition and currency fluctuations hit profits and the company was recently unable to pay on...
Verizon Wireless has launched the Samsung A990, the highest resolution camera phone currently in the country. With an impressive 3.2-megapixel resolution, the camera easily outpaces the previously industry leading 2-megapixel models. Features of the Samsung A990 include: 3.2-megapixel camera with...
UPDATE: You can now purchase the KRZR K1m through Verizon Wireless for just $139.99. Verizon Wireless is set to get the Motorola K1c according to some newly leaked photos and other reports. This is the first time we've heard the...
Jul 06 2006 - 11:14 AM ET | Backpage, MVNO
Amp'd Mobile has signed a deal with Inphonic that will get Amp'd Mobile service and handsets sold through Inphonic's channels. Inphonic is the leading online sales agent for mobile phones and controls popular websites such as WireFly.com. Despite an influx...
Sprint Nextel has launched the Samsung A640, an attractive clamshell phone with mid-level features. The exterior OLED screen has a background the same color as the phone, making for a striking all black front. Features of the Samsung A640 include:...
Sprint Nextel has launched the Motorola i580 on its iDEN Nextel network. We first saw the handset at CTIA. The i580 is a fairly high-end handset (especially for Nextel's lineup), but is still built to military specs. The handset is...
Jul 02 2006 - 11:26 PM ET | Cingular, Rumor
Engadget Mobile got a sneak peak of Cingular's upcoming handset launches and shared the details last week. Carriers don't always stick to their own schedule, but this is probably a pretty good indicator of at least which handsets are coming...
Jul 02 2006 - 11:16 PM ET | Motorola, Nextel
The Motorola ic502 gained FCC approval [FCC id AZ489FT7019] over the weekend. It's notable for being the first dual-mode iDEN/CDMA handset. When Sprint merged with Nextel it was made known that the Nextel iDEN network would be phased out in...
Jul 01 2006 - 12:32 PM ET | Nokia
A Nokia representative went on record stating that sales of the company's E-Series handsets have met expections. The E-Series is targeted at business users and includes the following handsets: E50, E60, E61 and E70. The E50 is the newest of...
