Device
Alca-droid? Andratel?
Feb 18th
What do you get if you take a Palm Pre twin, give it the Android OS and throw in an early 90’s color scheme? Well you get the Alcatel OT-980.
First, I have to say, I don’t get a slide-out keyboard on a touchscreen phone. They all feel either too flimsy (like the Pre) or just add awkward weight (like the Motorola Droid).
Beyond the confusingly useless keyboard, this is actually a pretty decent little phone. This slider packs 192MB of RAM, WiFi, 3G and a compass (which seems to be the new “it” feature – compasses are the new WiFi?). This 2.8 inch screen is rumored to run Android 2.1 – making it a “better” phone than most Android phones on the market today.
The OT-980 will be the European company’s first venture into the smartphone realm and they seem to have a good plan – design a quality, consumer-friendly phone and sell it at a low price.
The OT-980 won’t be available for a few more months, but it should find some very interested users when it hits the market.
Nokia to get a major upgrade?
Feb 17th
With all the MWC news lately coming on behalf of Google’s Android, RIM’s Blackberry and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7, it really got me thinking…. where is Nokia in all this? So I took it upon myself to find out and what do you know, I found something within the walls of Engadget. It turns out our Symbian powered buddies are about to get a pretty powerful processor upgrade, by ways of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor. Not sure what Snapdragon is?, well the Snapdragon platform offers an unprecedented combination of processing performance and optimized power consumption for the new generation of smart mobile devices, in laymen terms. It allows your phone to run at its fullest potential without so much of that awful battery drain. Excited eh? Well, according to Qualcomm’s CEO Paul Jacobs the device should hit the market mid 2010, but no exact date was given.
What do you think? Excited about Nokia getting a Snapdragon upgrade? Let us know!
There’s a new fish in town….well sort of
Feb 17th
Our friends over at BBCool posted this article earlier today as seen on pages 2 and 3 of the March 1st issue of Canadian Business. It’s a teaser banner for what’s supposed to be the Storm series of Blackberries headed to Rogers. This rumor has been circulating the web as long as the supposed RIM take over by Microsoft which was (finally) recently squashed. Could this ad be a marketing typo? Or could we jealous Canadian’s maybe get to see a Storm2 on our 3G network for a change?
Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!
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Puma steps up to the plate
Feb 16th
I’ve always been a fan of Puma. I mean, who else can sell a purple plaid hoodie and make it awesome? And have you seen their Mongolian Shoe Barbecue stuff? Well, now there’s a whole new reason to love Puma – they make phones! Well, sort of.
Puma has teamed up with Sagem Wireless to produce the first Puma phone! From what we’ve seen so far, it has all the standard phone tech – 2.8 in touchscreen, 3.3MP camera with 6X zoom, GPS – but it comes with some rather sporty features as well like a pedometer and a GPS tracker. Probably the coolest part of the phone (other than the fact it’s a Puma phone) is the solar charging panel. Yes, Puma and Sagem beat Apple, HTC, RIM and everyone else to the punch here. This is a great idea, especially since I’m sure they’ll be marketing this to those with active lifestyles (think running, not drinking).
The Puma Phone (yes, that’s what it’s called) is said to be available in April over in Europe, with no word about availability here in the North America and sold through both carriers and Puma retail stores.
No word on carriers, though the picture definitely says T-Mobile.
See the full press release here
*Picture courtesy of Engadget
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…say hello to the Blackberry Magnum Prototype
Feb 15th
On this holiday Monday in Toronto (Family day…yes we rock) I was thinking to myself, what can I put up that will grab my readers attention? Then, it came to me. Since my site re-launch last week I haven’t done justice to the pictures that gave me notoriety. There is really no need to do a hands-on review, because frankly 85k youtube hits can’t be wrong, you all have seen it. So instead I figure ill repost the pictures here and let your comments do the talking. So without further ado, here are the original, NON Photoshopped pictures that were posted about a month ago.
If anyone is still unsure what the Blackberry Magnum actually is let me explain it to you. The device is a long awaited hybrid of what all Blackberry nerds alike have wanted to see come out of Waterloo, ON. Suretouch screen ala Blackberry Storm series device crossed with the former Blackberry flagship device (and 1st North American released 3G Blackberry) the Bold 9000 and all its QWERTY/3G goodness. Though the project was scrapped in its very early stages for what’s now known as the “Dakota”, which instead of taking after the Bold’s form factor rather follows the styling of the recently released and new flagship device the Blackberry Bold 9700, with a few new features including “Liquid Lens” technology. This is probably the most anticipated device to be released this year.
If you have any other questions regarding the device that haven’t been clarified already please feel free to leave a comment, as I check them (and respond) regularly. Otherwhise, enjoy the rest of the pictures.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this re-cap. Remember to follow @thecellularguru for all the latest Cellular News!
GSM Palm Pre coming to AT&T in May?
Feb 12th
PalmCentral.net is reporting that they have come across FCC Articles regarding the rumored GSM version of the well known Palm Pre handset. Considering that both the Sprint Palm Pre and Verizon Pre Plus sport the FCC ID number of O8F-CASC, we’re wagering that the O8F-CASG is the US-bound GSM version of the Pre. We’ve known for a while that the Pre’s internal codename was Castle, and when combined with a CDMA phone we get CASC, whereas GSM would lead us to CASG.
They offer us a release date on around May 10, which based on the photo availability date for the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus was dead-on with the launch date. And that lines up pretty well with AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega’s “first half of 2010” for webOS on his network. Would you use the GSM version of the Pre? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!
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