May 22, 2007

T-Mobile Wing hands-on

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The T-Mobile Wing is a Windows Mobile 6 phone, alright — and the specs aren’t anything to write home about, especially not for $400. 200MHz CPU, EDGE data, QVGA display. And yet we find ourselves mysteriously attracted to the T-Mobile Wing. It’s nigh-sticky soft-touch finish, it’s thin profile (for a WM QWERTY slider, anyway), it’s divinely clicky d-pad and keys, it’s rubbery keyboard that we just didn’t think HTC could make any better. Check out the pictures, decide for yourself; but if you’re a T-Mobile customer, if you’re willing to plunk down this thing is kind of a no-brainer.

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May 21, 2007

Evidence grows for imminent T-Mobile Wing launch

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We’re not sure if it’s the newfound presence of the Wing on T-Mobile’s support site or the ever-growing throng of individuals reporting that customer service agents and in-store reps are touting May 22 as the launch date, but something tells us that tomorrow’s starting to look pretty good for getting some Windows Mobile 6 Professional love. Seeing how T-Mobile is without a Pocket PC phone option right now, the Wing’s arrival isn’t just welcome — it’s necessary — and as 2.5G Pocket PCs go, the Wing’s a doozy. The slim case and soft-touch finish alone are enough to make Wizard owners shed a tear, but the real prize is likely Windows Mobile 6 Professional and a revised, spring-loaded keyboard with a more traditional numeric layout. Get your pocketbooks ready, ladies and gentlemen.

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May 18, 2007

Mossberg reviews Samsung Q1 Ultra: “finally an acceptable choice”

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Walt Mossberg didn’t pull any punches when he reviewed the first Samsung UMPC, calling the out the Q1 for its lack of a keyboard, low screen resolution, short battery life, and high price. Well, Samsung apparently took those criticisms to heart, because ol’ Unkie Walt says that the Q1 Ultra is “a giant improvement” and shows that “Samsung is serious about this.” Mossberg also says that while the split thumbpad keyboard takes some getting used to, it’s perfectly usable, although you won’t be cranking out any Word docs on it. Battery life, at three hours, still doesn’t impress Walt, and price is still an issue, but overall, he says the Q1 Ultra is a good choice for students, frequent travelers, and other people who don’t do a lot of document creation but still want to take notes and write email on the go. That’s a huge endorsement for the UMPC platform if you ask us, but we’ll have to see what consumers think this time around.

 

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Mossberg reviews Samsung Q1 Ultra: “finally an acceptable choice”

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Walt Mossberg didn’t pull any punches when he reviewed the first Samsung UMPC, calling the out the Q1 for its lack of a keyboard, low screen resolution, short battery life, and high price. Well, Samsung apparently took those criticisms to heart, because ol’ Unkie Walt says that the Q1 Ultra is “a giant improvement” and shows that “Samsung is serious about this.” Mossberg also says that while the split thumbpad keyboard takes some getting used to, it’s perfectly usable, although you won’t be cranking out any Word docs on it. Battery life, at three hours, still doesn’t impress Walt, and price is still an issue, but overall, he says the Q1 Ultra is a good choice for students, frequent travelers, and other people who don’t do a lot of document creation but still want to take notes and write email on the go. That’s a huge endorsement for the UMPC platform if you ask us, but we’ll have to see what consumers think this time around.

 

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Debunk: sleep easy, the iPhone’s still a quad-band worldphone

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There’s been a lot of buzz these past couple days about the iPhone’s FCC filing and what it says — or rather, what it doesn’t say — about the handset’s internals. The fear basically revolves around the fact that a lack of testing on the GSM 900 and 1800MHz bands indicates that it lacks those bands entirely, but we can assure the globetrotters out there jonesin’ for an iPhone come next month that there’ll be a full range of RF spectrum waiting for you. How do we know? Well, first of all, in the year 2007 (or 2005, for that matter) it’s simply idiotic to release a wide-appeal phone with any fewer than four GSM bands. Quadband GSM chipsets have been commodity items for some time now and add virtually no expense to a handset’s internals. Second of all, quadband phones never have their non-US bands mentioned in a filing, particularly in a test report. Follow the break for a walkthrough of exactly what we mean.

Continue reading Debunk: sleep easy, the iPhone’s still a quad-band worldphone

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Debunk: sleep easy, the iPhone’s still a quad-band worldphone

Filed under: ,

There’s been a lot of buzz these past couple days about the iPhone’s FCC filing and what it says — or rather, what it doesn’t say — about the handset’s internals. The fear basically revolves around the fact that a lack of testing on the GSM 900 and 1800MHz bands indicates that it lacks those bands entirely, but we can assure the globetrotters out there jonesin’ for an iPhone come next month that there’ll be a full range of RF spectrum waiting for you. How do we know? Well, first of all, in the year 2007 (or 2005, for that matter) it’s simply idiotic to release a wide-appeal phone with any fewer than four GSM bands. Quadband GSM chipsets have been commodity items for some time now and add virtually no expense to a handset’s internals. Second of all, quadband phones never have their non-US bands mentioned in a filing, particularly in a test report. Follow the break for a walkthrough of exactly what we mean.

Continue reading Debunk: sleep easy, the iPhone’s still a quad-band worldphone

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