Smartphone Straight Talk

The wait for the Sony Xperia Ion in the US has been a long one, but that summer release feels considerably closer now that the Android flagship has swung by the FCC. As we'd hope, the Ion is passing through in full AT&T regalia, carrying the 700MHz and 1,700MHz 4G LTE bands it needs to run on Big Blue -- albeit with a legacy Sony Ericsson label. Along with the expected 850MHz and 1,900MHz HSPA 3G frequencies, we're also seeing an odd instance of 1,700MHz 3G that would normally be reserved for T-Mobile. Given that there isn't matching 2,100MHz support, we're more inclined to see the 1,700MHz block as related to AT&T spectrum refarming or other, more practical purposes than as a ghost of attempted mergers past. An FCC approval still doesn't provide any direct clues as to the release date, although removing that one major hurdle gives AT&T the option of launching sooner in the summer rather than later.

Sony Xperia Ion hits FCC with AT&T LTE intact originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 May 2012 17:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Amazon has decided that offering 3G-capable Kindles isn't enough of an involvement in the cellular world -- it's now getting into the business of offering the bits themselves. Through a tie-up with NTT DoCoMo-using MVNO Japan Communications, Amazon is selling prepaid SIM cards for LTE data. Each slice of plastic and circuitry will provide a 500MB block of sweet, sweet 4G for ¥1,980 ($25). There's a very good chance we'd burn through that in a day, but it'll let you get an NTT DoCoMo-ready smartphone or Arrows Tab online in a pinch. The Japanese can snap up the cards later in the month, while those of us in the US will just have to hope that Amazon can make a similar (if hopefully cheaper) deal closer to home.

Amazon offers prepaid 4G LTE data in Japan, gets you online 500MB at a time originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 May 2012 21:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

LG has hitched its mobile fate to the future of LTE high speed data equipped phones basically since the technology was introduced and today it announced the fruits of its labor: three million LTE phones sold to date worldwide. While some will quibble over shipped / sold to end-user counting methods, or how this compares to figures recently touted by competition like Samsung and Apple, we need only look at LG's most recent earnings report to see the positive impact its LTE-infused lineup has had. According to LG, most of the gains have been in South Korea and North America so far, although it plans to have LTE phones in 20 countries by the end of the year. After kicking off the LTE frenzy with the Revolution last year on Verizon, it's talking up the combination of LTE and HD LCD screen features in its Optimus LTE phone, already a million seller in Korea just as its successor, the Optimus LTE II arrives on shelves.

Continue reading LG celebrates three million LTE phones sold worldwide, shockingly finds high speed data is awesome

LG celebrates three million LTE phones sold worldwide, shockingly finds high speed data is awesome originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 May 2012 23:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ready for Samsung's latest entrant to the Windows Phone game? Hopefully you answered "yes," because we're about to take you through an in-depth look at such a device: the Focus 2. Around the time that we United States-based Engadgeteers were lusting over Nokia's Lumia 800 and getting to know the HTC Titan, Samsung introduced its Focus S and lower-tiered Focus Flash WP7.5 handsets. Redmond's hardware restrictions haven't exactly changed much since then, begging the question as to how the Focus 2 fits in as a late follow-up to the original Focus from back in 2010. The bulk of the answer, of course, is LTE. This handset is the only other Windows Phone aside from the Lumia 900 and HTC Titan II to feature such connectivity on Ma Bell's network. That, and it's priced at just $50 dollars on a two-year commitment. Is it a veritable steal like the Focus Flash proved to be, though? Join us past the break where we'll lay it all out.

Gallery: Samsung Focus 2 review

Continue reading Samsung Focus 2 review

Samsung Focus 2 review originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 May 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While we're no champions at "pin the tail on the donkey" we're pretty sure we're close to the mark with this one. An FCC report for a new Samsung phone bearing an SGH-I747 model number? Sporting HSPA+ and LTE bands that play nice with AT&T, Rogers, Telus and Bell? While it's not explicit, if this doesn't sound like the GSIII coming to town, we don't know what does. After all, it's not like we didn't know it was on its way.

Samsung phone lands on the FCC table, GS-three guesses which one originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 May 2012 09:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sprint might not have its 4G LTE network up and running to power your EVO 4G LTE, but it's already getting more headroom. The FCC has just tweaked the rules around the ESMR (Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio) spectrum to let Sprint, and the considerably more regional SouthernLINC Wireless, run their CDMA voice calls and LTE data on the 800MHz band they're currently using for their soon-to-end iDEN networks. In practice, the extra frequency access should be a tremendous help to at least Sprint, which hasn't had the low-level, indoors-friendly airspace that AT&T and Verizon enjoy with their 700MHz networks. Just don't expect your EVO or the rest of the initial Sprint LTE devices to take advantage any time soon, as you'll need to both get an 800MHz-ready phone as well as endure the long, long wait until Sprint switches on the extra LTE band in 2014.

FCC clears Sprint to run CDMA, 4G LTE on 800MHz iDEN airwaves originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 May 2012 20:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

ASUS isn't known for offering its tablets to North American carriers with 3G or 4G; an FCC filing for a cellular-capable Transformer Pad TF300 could be a clue at a break in the WiFi-only trend. Along with the usual wireless, a TF300TL variant of the Android 4.0 slate has stopped by the agency with the 850MHz and 1,900MHz frequencies needed for HSPA 3G as well as, best of all, 700MHz and 1,700MHz support for LTE-based 4G. All four are what we'd look for in an AT&T-oriented tablet, so don't be surprised if Ma Bell carries a 4G Transformer Pad before long. All but the 700MHz band would be handy for Canadian networks as well. There's no surefire evidence of when the tablet might make a more formal appearance, nor hints of whether or not it will keep the quad-core Tegra 3, although the slight spin on the regular TF300 formula could keep the wait short.

ASUS Transformer Pad TF300TL hits the FCC with AT&T-friendly LTE originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

NVIDIA has announced quite a few details and new projects this week, so we’re going to get you up to speed with said announcements. From Tegra designs, Icera integration, and the Kai project, it’s certainly going to be an interesting (and successful) year for the company.

Icera

First off, let’s talk Icera. As you might have noticed, there are currently no Tegra 3 devices in the United States that support LTE. The likes of the HTC One X swapped out the quad-core Tegra 3 for the dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 because it’s currently the only option for LTE networks, but that’s about to change.

Last year, NVIDIA bought up Icera, a baseband chipset maker that will help NVIDIA bring LTE to the masses with its Tegra 3 chipset. While full integration won’t happen until sometime in 2013 (named Project Grey), but the company has announced two modems that will be paving the wave for the fully integrated Project Grey. Earlier this morning, the Icera 410 was announced and has been validated to work on AT&T’s LTE network. While this a step in the right direction, the validation alone isn’t necessarily an indication that we’ll be seeing it pop up in any AT&T devices soon. But that’s not all that was announced.

Earlier this afternoon, Mike Rayfield, NVIDIA’s General Manager of the Mobile Business unit announced the Icera 500 LTE modem that will be the precursor and basis of Project Grey. Rayfield also reassured that Tegra 3 devices will indeed be landing in 2012 – something we’ve been hearing all along – so it may not be surprising but it’s definitely nicer to hear that availability hasn’t been pushed back.

NVIDIA Kai

Icera news wasn’t the only thing NVIDIA announced this week, as we also got the news about NVIDIA Kai. Kai will be a new Tegra 3 based platform for Android tablets that will give manufacturers the ability to price their devices as low as $199.

This immediately reminds us of the rumored Google Nexus tablet that was said to be running the Tegra 3 with a low price tag, only for more rumors to say that the device’s processor was switched out for a cheaper dual-core processor to keep the price lower. Well, the jury is still out on that one, but with NVIDIA Kai knocking on our doorsteps, the prospects of a Tegra 3 Nexus tablet not only sound very enticing but also a very possible result. We won’t know until the device is announced itself but we’re going to keep our fingers crossed.

NVIDIA Kai will also breathe some competition into Windows tablets; a place that Intel has dominated for a long time. With Windows 8 just a handful of months away, there’s a good chance we’ll see a nice helping of Kai running a nice selection of tablets running the OS.

Tegra Devices

NVIDIA also dropped an interesting nugget of information pertaining to its Tegra phone designs. It looks like we’ll be seeing quite a few Tegra phones this year, as NVIDIA has a total of 30 different phone designs for both the Tegra 2 and 3. This is twice as many designs the company had for 2011, and the 30 phones will spin-off into multiple SKUs and find their way into many carriers before the year is over.

That’s doesn’t sounds that impressive, you say? Well, you should keep in mind that these 30 devices are phones only, not tablets. With the combination of the existing portfolio of Tegra 3 tablets already available and NVIDIA Kai tablets on their way, Tegra 3 tablets will be all over the place in various sizes and price points.

The rest of the year and into 2013 look to be pretty bright for NVIDIA. What are you looking forward to most from the company?

This week in NVIDIA: Icera, Kai, and Tegra devices originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2012-05-24T23:46:10Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Jitters have persisted that the Canadian release of the Galaxy S III might face the customary weeks-long delays that those north of the border are used to. If we go by what looks to be an escaped Best Buy Canada flyer graphic, Samsung's Android 4.0 beast should be going up for pre-orders soon -- MobileSyrup hears May 30th -- with launches on at least Bell, Rogers, Telus and a Bell-owned Virgin Mobile around June 20th. We know that Samsung has publicly promised a US release in June, so there's a real chance that we could be seeing a simultaneous North American appearance that brings everyone together in TouchWiz harmony. There's still some big questions left open even if we're seeing an accurate snapshot, such as when Mobilicity, Wind and other LTE-less carriers will get their units as well as whether or not the LTE versions use Snapdragons instead of the Exynos 4 Quad.

[Thanks, Imdad]

Samsung Galaxy S III shows in Best Buy Canada leak due June 20th, maple syrup uncorked to celebrate originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 19:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Verizon Wireless CFO Fran Shammo spoke at the Barclays Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference about LTE data plans and he mentioned that 4G LTE gives Verizon greater flexibility to price data plans.

“There’s a lot of innovation that LTE brings to give us the ability to price data very differently,” he said. For instance, someone asked him if data plans could eventually be priced according to how a customer uses it or even when they use it, i.e. the time of day. Shammo dodged those particular factors, but did hint at toll free data plans as in the foreseeable future, which switches the cost of the connection over to the service provider instead of the customer.

Shammo also talked briefly about Verizon’s upcoming shared family data plans. He said customers will be given the choice to upgrade to these plans, but if you are on an unlimited data plan currently, you’ll have to ditch it when moving to a shared plan because all the shared data options are capped. On the offering on general, he said confidently, “I think it’s going to be different and innovative for the industry.”

Lastly, Shammo had a few words on Verizon’s $3.9 billion acquisition of wireless spectrum which is awaiting federal approval as well as its sale of 700 MHz Lower A and B Block spectrum. “At the end of the day, this is not a fire sale. This is a fair market value sale. It will be our discretion, if we don’t believe we’re getting the value then we won’t go ahead with the sale,” he noted, seemingly implying the strategy’s palpability.

[via FierceWireless]

Verizon CFO: LTE lets us get creative with data plan pricing originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2012-05-24T21:14:06Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j