Samsung Vibrant Launching on 15th July

 

A couple of weeks ago, Samsung announced its latest Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S. It is going to be released on all the major carriers in the US, and to make it just a bit more complicated, the Samsung Galaxy S has different names on each carrier. But the T-Mobile version, the Samsung Vibrant is going to be released on July 15th, the same day as the Droid X launch. Yesterday, AT&T also announced their version that the Samsung Galaxy S, the Samsung Captivate and this is launching on the 18th three days after T-Mobile's Vibrant launch on the 15th.

The features of the Samsung Vibrant are a 4" Super AMOLED capacitive touchscree display, 1GHz Hummingbird Processor, 2GB included SD card and a 5MP camera. It is running Android 2.1 with Samsung's custom skin.

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Source Phonedog

T-Mobile Next iPhone Carrier?

Ever since the original iPhone, users have complained about the iPhone being on AT&T's network in the US. Many people where expecting that the "one more thing" on Monday's WWDC keynote was going to be the iPhone on a different carriers, hopefully Verizon. However the "one more thing" was video calling which made a lot Verizon customers who whated the iPhone very disappointed. 

The iPhone 4 only has a GSM 3G radio which rules out Sprint and Verizon as they us CDMA, but what about T-Mobile? Well, the Kaufman Brothers investment analyst Shaw Wu, thinks that the next iPhone carrier in the US will be T-Mobile. Steve Jobs announced on Monday that the iPhone 4 will be capable of Quad-Band HSDPA/HSUPA 7.2Mbs down and 5.8Mbs up 3G speeds. The same as what T-Mobile uses, which could mean the next carrier could be T-Mobile. If you look at the sales data, Android always beats the iPhone when it is not available. But if the iPhone was available on multiple carriers that would dramatically change.

However, most analysts are saying that it would be in Apple's best interest to release the iPhone on the 2 biggest carriers in the US, Verizon and AT&T, rather than the 4th largest T-Mobile and At&T. But T-Mobile does operate around the world and it is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom in Germany and Apple could work out a deal to allow T-Mobile to sell the iPhone worldwide.

So will we ever see a Verizon iPhone? Probably in 2011 when the networks go along the upgrade path to 4G networks, specifically LTE which runs on GSM. In fact Verizon says that later this year it will have a LTE network up and running. Also T-Mobile is going along the LTE road while Sprint is already releasing Wimax 4G.

So what do you think? Will Verizon ever get the iPhone and will T-Mobile be the next US iPhone Carrier?

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Source: Computerworld

The iPhone 3G is Dead

You've had a good life. We will miss you.

So with this killing of the iPhone 3G, we might see the iPhone 3GS get dropped to $99, with the iPhone 4G/HD just round the corner.

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No Tethering From iPhone to iPad

AT&T is sure making enemies this week. Firstly with it changing their smartphone data plans, but now they are saying that you cannot tether the iPhone to the iPad. Even though that iPhone OS 4.0 will allow iPhone to laptop tethering, AT&T are saying no to iPhone to iPad tethering. An AT&T spokesperson said that this is because "it won’t be possible to tether the iPhone to the iPad to share Internet access because the iPad's Bluetooth profile for tethering is not enabled." 

So if you want mobile internet on your iPad, you will have to splash the cash for the iPad 3G. Lets just hope that these insane new ideas from AT&T are because of new carriers coming to the iPhone.

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AT&T Makes Dramatic Changes to Data Plans

Today, AT&T announced that they were going to change their data plans for their smartphones on June 7th (WWDC date, yes I know) on it's network. Even though this change will benefit most of it's users, it will hurt the others. So here is the breakdown of what has happened.

The current $30 a month for unlimited data is going to be replaced by 2 data plans which are called DataPlus and DataPro. The DataPlus plan is $15 a month for 200Mb of Data and the DataPro plan is $25 for 2Gb of data. Now before you go screaming and shouting saying that you need unlimited data to AT&T, go look at your data usage on the AT&T website, as they are saying that 98% of it's users use less than 2Gb which is a plus for all those customers as they pay $5 a month less. Also you can keep your unlimited plan if you want to but you can change without extending the contract.

Now, these new data plans could arguably be a game changer as well as being very simple. You pay for the $15 plan and $15 for each additional 200Mb. However, if you are on the $25 plan you pay $10 for each Gb you go over.

Tethering has been also announced in these new data plan update. Tethering will be only available on the DataPro and for another $20 a month, which makes the total bill $45 a month. However, you do not get any additional data for tethering so you have to share the data between your phone and the tethering. This is really good if you are a light user but not so good if you use a lot of data. Unfortunately, you do need to move away from the unlimited data plan for it to work. And yes the iPhone will get tethering whenever iPhone OS 4.0 gets released later this summer.

The iPad data is also going to change to these new data plans. The dubbed "truly unlimited" $30 data plan is going to be replaced by the DataPro plan with 2Gb of data.

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