Just one week after T-Mobile cut the price of their HotSpot @Home service, they announced a new service option for those of us in Seattle and Dallas. T-Mobile’s new HotSpot @Home Talk Forever service option is an additional US$10 over the new US$10 HotSpot @Home service. The new Talk Forever service requires a new HotSpot @Home wireless router with home phone connection (US$50 with 2-year contract) because you connect your standard 5.8 GHz home phone (or you can buy a V-Tech one from them for US$59.99) and use T-Mobile as your primary home phone service provider.
I am quite excited about the possibilities of this service, especially after looking at my current Qwest home phone bill. I currently pay US$52 for basic home phone service with call waiting and caller ID, along with unlimited long distance. US$10 sounds MUCH more attractive to me though, doesn’t it? I do have a Monitronics home alarm system and believe I will still need a standard home phone line, but that can be purchased for something like US$15 per month so I could still cut my Qwest bill in half with this new T-Mobile service.
I do have a couple of outstanding questions to get answered by T-Mobile before my wife fully buys off on using T-Mobile as our main home phone service. She is a bit worried about reliability too, but our Comcast cable internet service has been quite reliable. Here are the questions I need to get answered and if any of you know the answers, feel free to leave a comment with the answer:
Can I trial this service with a given number and then port my existing home phone number if it passes my tests?
Can you choose just one or the other of the two HotSpot @Home services if you don’t want both services?
Since this is a T-Mobile number, if I call home from my T-Mobile cell are these call free since it is essentially T-Mobile to T-Mobile?
What is the cost of the router if I don’t make a 2-year commitment and are there any minimum service commitments?
I understand there are some basic phone features included, but what are the specific functions/operations of voicemail (such as can I access my voicemail via the internet, can I have messages email to me, etc?)
Will adding this service void the grandfathered family text messaging plan I have now (all 4 phones have unlimited text messaging for US$10)?
Since there is a WiFi router as part of the service, can I also use a VoIP wireless phone too?
Can I receive incoming faxes or send faxes with this service?
I heard there are two SIM card slots in the router, what is the second card slot for?
In all likelihood I will be stopping by the T-Mobile store today to pick up this new router and give this service a try. If I do, I will make sure to post lots of photos and all the details here for all of you interested in the service located outside of Seattle and Dallas.
Mobile World Congress 2008 was an amazing event for mobile enthusiasts and I offer some of my thoughts on the event in MobileTechRoundup show #124. Kevin and I both had a chance to use the AT&T Palm Centro and it actually is the first Palm OS smartphone Kevin has used so stay tuned for more of his thoughts with this device. James, Kevin, and I continue to talk about VGA in Windows Mobile, the upcoming HTC Advantage 2, Yahoo! oneConnect, TextOnPhone ebook reading on the iPhone, WiMax and Intel, and Verizon’s unlimited calling plan.
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I’ve been on the lookout for an ultra portable PC that would allow me to travel light for long periods of time without plugging in and purchased a Fujitsu U810 a couple of weeks ago. It has been a great device so far and the battery life has been outstanding. Engadget posted some images and details on a possible HP UMPC device, the HP Compaq 2133 that may actually be sold for as low as US$630 in April. It is debatable if the term UMPC can be attached to this device because it does not appear to have a touch screen, may not have integrated Bluetooth, and the display is larger than 7 inches.
The rumored specs are quite enticing, except for the weight starting at 2.5 lbs (my Fujitsu U810 comes in at 1.5 pounds with the extended battery). The specs include:
8.9 inch WXGA display (doesn’t appear to be a touch screen)
95% of full-sized QWERTY keyboard
Ethernet port
Integrated WiFi
ExpressCard/54 slot
Anodized aluminum casing
Optional SSD drive
Choice of Windows Vista or Linux
This looks much more like an ASUS eeePC competitor than a UMPC competitor like the HTC Shift or Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium. There is no information yet on the processor or RAM configuration. I also require Bluetooth (for connecting to my mobile phone) and at least one USB port. The two card readers (SD and CF) on the Fujitsu U810 have also proven quite valuable in transferring photos from my camera and transferring files.
Although this device looks like a decent device, I think my Fujitsu is safe from eBay for the time being. Due to the success of the ASUS eeePC, I think we are going to see lots of competition in this small, compact mini laptop area this year.
It seems that U.S. wireless carriers are now making it more and more compelling to give up your landline with unlimited calling plans. Verizon Wireless is the latest to announce unlimited calling plans. They also made it easy to choose a wireless data plan with two clear options for consumers, 50MB and 5GB monthly data quotas.
The new unlimited calling plans start at US$99.99 for a single line with unlimited calls to mobile and landlines in the U.S. Family plans, with two lines included, start at US$199.98. These plans move up in price as messaging and data services are added as you can see on the grid at the unlimited plan site. The current single line plan, with 1350 included minutes, is US$79.99 per month.
The 50MB data service will be available for US$39.99 and the 5GB (which is virtually unlimited for wireless data needs) will cost US$59.99 per month. In comparison, the current data option for all customers is the 5GB plan for US$59.99 per month so this new offering may be attractive for those who don’t send and receive large attachments, but want quick access to their email or want to conduct some light surfing on their device.
Back in October I had the chance to check out the Palm Centro for Sprint and thought it was a very good device for the new smartphone buyer. Since that time I know several people that have purchased one and love the device. AT&T and Palm today announced the availability of the Palm Centro from AT&T. The device has the same design and specifications as the Sprint Palm Centro, but unfortunately lacks a 3G radio. It is a quad-band GSM device with support for the EDGE data network. The first model available is the Glacier white model with green highlights with an Obsidian black model becoming available in about a month. The device is available today starting at US$99.99 with 2-year service agreement and for those looking to move from a feature phone to a smartphone I think this is a decent choice available at a good price.
Image Gallery: The Palm Centro from AT&T is now available in Glacier white.
Hardware: The AT&T Palm Centro runs Palm OS 5.4.9 from ACCESS with an Intel PXA270 312MHz processor, 64MB RAM, 320×320 high resolution touch screen display, Bluetooth 1.2 radio, 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD expansion card slot, and 1150 mAh battery. I actually like the white color and green highlights (for the number keys and Fn button) since it isn’t a stark, bright white, but a pearl white color. The Centro has a nice compact form factor that feels good in your hand and I find the keyboard quite easy to use. The application buttons allow you to quickly jump to your favorite applications and you can customize three of the buttons to your liking. You can also select what application to launch with a press and hold of the Push To Talk button on the side.
Palm and AT&T said they only included an EDGE radio because EDGE has extensive coverage in the U.S. While this may satisfy the group of new first-time smartphone owners (which really is the target audience), I still don’t understand why they couldn’t have included a 3G radio just like they did with the Sprint Centro at the same cost. If they would have, then those of us within range of AT&T’s 3G network (which is most all of the metropolitan areas of the U.S.) could have taken advantage of the higher speeds and then when you are out of range it could drop to EDGE. Making a 2-year commitment to a device without 3G today in the U.S. doesn’t make much sense, unless you are buying a T-Mobile device where they do not have 3G yet.
Nokia’s first Ovi branded services product was launched at Mobile World Congress 2008 and is now available for you to use for free. Twango was purchased by Nokia last year and the new Share on Ovi is the much improved version of Twango. You will actually still see some Twango branding on parts of the site as Nokia works to integrate the service. There are several other services that will be branded under the Ovi name, including N-Gage, Nokia Music, and Nokia Maps.
I had the opportunity to meet with several people at the Nokia booth and Serena Glover did a fantastic job presenting on the features and benefits of using Share on Ovi. Share on Ovi allows you to upload and then share 100 types of files, including photos, videos, Microsoft Office files, PDFs, and more. With Office documents, the file is shared on your selected “channel” and then to open the file you need to have Word or Excel on your local PC. Videos are converted by Share on Ovi and appear in a player on your site so anyone can view them.
Channels are the way you organize your media to share with others and can be quite useful. Serena shared about having a soccer channel that could be setup to share media with members of your team. Even better, you can control permissions on the channels so you could have all of the members of your team with contribution rights so photos and videos could be uploaded and shared between the team and family members. You could even post your game and practice schedules within the channel and I can really see the benefit of setting up team specific channels on Share on Ovi. Channels can be thought of as playlists since they are just different views of the media that resides in your My Media repository. You can upload media directly to specific channels (each channel actually has it own email address too) or you can organize it later after you upload the content.
In addition to sharing your content stored in channels with the public or groups that you want to see your content, you can also Read the rest of this entry »
Opera Software announced that Opera Mobile 9.5 would be coming soon and would be shown at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. I had a chance to visit the Opera Software booth and spoke with a product manager who ran through this latest mobile browser on a Sony Ericsson UIQ device. You can see some of the features of Opera Mobile 9.5 in action in the following video.
The HTC Advantage I have been using for several months comes with Opera Mobile 8.5 preloaded in the ROM and is actually the selected default browser on the device. Opera Mobile 8.5 makes the device much more useful for me since I find Internet Explorer Mobile to be a weak mobile browser. However, there are still a few websites I need to visit that Opera Mobile 8.5 doesn’t fully support and I am hoping that Opera Mobile 9.5 provides this needed functionality and from the press release and seeing it in action I think this just may be the browser I need.
Opera Mobile 9.5 has been improved with new zooming and panning capabilities, faster page loading, Flash Lite 3 support (up to OEMs and operators), and Opera Widget capable. Other features include tabbed browsing, landscape support, call phone number from a web page, send a link as a text message, and much more. The public beta should be available soon and I can’t wait to try it out.
While the Nseries products are very impressive multi-media computers, the latest Nokia device that really caught my attention at the Mobile World Congress event was the Nokia 6210 Navigator. The saddest part of my various experiences with the device is that we may never see it available here in the U.S. and I am quite jealous of Europeans who will get it before the end of 2008.
There are a couple of features and services that make this such a compelling device for the regular business traveler. Nokia is including Nokia Maps 2.0 and all the subscription navigation services that would normally cost EUR69 per year for 3 years for free. The thought is that it will be rare for someone to have a device for longer than 3 years so it essentially a device “lifetime” subscription. The groundbreaking technology that is integreated is a full magnetic compass that even auto corrects for you location on the planet where magnetic swignals vary. You simply do a few figure eights with the device to calibrate the compass. Then when you are in pedestrian mode, which I am in on every business and personal trip, the compass works with the integrated accelerometer to have the maps orient to your true heading so you should never get lost coming out of the metro again!
I took the Nokia Hidden Gems tour and was able to see how the 6210 performed in the car for auto navigation and then in my hand with pedestrian navigation. IMHO, this compass and auto-map rotation is absolutely brilliant and something I could have used several times in the past. I may have to see if I can buy an unlocked model when they are released. In pedestrian mode the software also leaves virtual breadcrumbs when you start off so you can always retrace your path, which could be helpful for getting back to your hotel. The map interface and information does change between auto and pedestrian mode too so you have the most pertinent data depending on your means of travel.
The 6210 Navigator also has a 3.2 megapixel camera so you can capture pictures while you are strolling around the city. It is also a full S60 device with an HSDPA 3.5G radio so you get all the great functionality in this operating system. Other specs include a 2.4 inch QVGA (320×240) display, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD card slot, and FM radio. The candy bar slider form factor feels very solid in your hand and it is compact enough to throw into your front shirt pocket.
S60 will be adding touch to their platform this year with the first devices scheduled for late 2008. I had a chance to check out the S60 interface that was running on a PC. While touch is probably necessary since the iPhone, Microsoft and Symbian UIQ all have it, I have to say it is not that exciting to me and is just S60 that can be navigated with a finger or stylus. Microsoft has had touch for several years and while there are many fans, it hasn’t seem to have taken off because it requires more than just touch to compel people to use touch. It is still early in the development of S60 touch so we may see much more than what the preview video shows when devices actually hit the street.
S60 touch works just like you would think with finger navigation being used to manipulate objects on the screen. Flicks of the finger allow you to move to the next picture or scroll through lists of contacts. And just like the iPhone scrolling in list speeds up with longer flicks. I do look forward to checking out a device with S60 touch, but I do not think it is essential for my usage. Do you look forward to the S60 touch UI?
On my Nokia N95 there is a search plug-in on the standby screen that provides a shortcut to search on my device or via the internet. Previously, you had a choice between Windows Live Search or Yahoo Search. This week Nokia announced that Google search will be implemented in the future as well. The four new devices (the N96, N78, 6210 Navigator, and 6220 Classic) will have it integrated and eventually everyone will be able to download an update to the Nokia Search application.
In addition to internet searches, Nokia Search acts like a desktop search tool in that you can search for files on your device or storage card. This is important as these devices ship with more memory and larger expansion cards and people collect more and more data that can be hard to find. Nokia Search also allows you to launch associated applications when you find the data you want and select it so it is a great integrated system.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works as a professional naval architect in Seattle while contributing as a daily news writer and review manager for Geek.com since 2001. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Just one week after T-Mobile cut the price of their HotSpot @Home service, they announced a new service option for those of us in Seattle and Dallas. T-Mobile’s new HotSpot @Home Talk Forever service option is an additional US$10 over the new US$10 HotSpot @Home service. The new Talk Forever service requires a new HotSpot @Home wireless router with home phone connection (US$50 with 2-year contract) because you connect your standard 5.8 GHz home phone (or you can buy a V-Tech one from them for US$59.99) and use T-Mobile as your primary home phone service provider.
