AT&T Holiday Shopping Specials: Speakers, Headphones, Smartwatches, and Cases

Carrier stores are becoming primary stops for picking up new tech accessories. It makes sense that when you buy your phone, you’d want to be able to outfit it properly before you walk out the door.

somegadgetguy juan carlos bagnell iphone 5s launch day att store west hollywood californiaLeading up to Black Friday, phones and tablets will be hot items for a lot of folks, and to help take some pressure off wallets and purses, AT&T is launching a series of specials and sales for some great accessories.

Headphones, cases, Bluetooth speakers, FitBit smartwatches and fitness trackers, even a sale on an emergency car jump start battery. The full list is below!

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Amazon Slashes Pricing on Kindles and Fire TV for the Holidays

amazon holiday kindle saleIf you need that perfect last minute tech gift for the holidays, Amazon is hoping to entice you with some sales on their Kindle and Fire gear.

You can score $20 off Amazon Fire TV or a Kindle E-Reader, $30 off the Kindle Fire HD7 Kid Edition, but the big cuts are on the older Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 and Fire Phone.

The Fire HDX tablet is getting a $125 price reduction which puts the 16GB WiFi version at $224, and the Fire Phone is dropping by a whopping $220 unlocked, bringing the price down to $229 OFF contract. I feel like I should repeat a joke about the Amazon FireSALE phone, but that might be in poor taste.

Links below for all the Kindle sales!
Amazon Fire Phone ($229)
Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 ($224)
Amazon Fire TV ($79)
Kindle eReader ($59)
Amazon Fire HD Kid Edition ($159)

HTC Hot Deals Every Tuesday – Half Priced Nexus 9 Tablet and One M8 Phones

htc hot deals 2014 nexus 9 one m8 re cameraIt’s the season of giving and HTC is playing Santa.

Every Tuesday starting now through December, HTC will be running crazy savings on a limited quantity of phones and tablets. If you’re ready to jump in at 12pm Eastern, you might be able to score a Nexus 9 for half price ($199), or take $350 off a no-contract M8. It looks like each deal will only stock around 200 units for the day, so you better be quick with your browser.

Happy hunting folks!

HTC Hot Deals

Lenovo Sees Growth in Smartphones and Tablets, Leads PC Sales for Fifth Consecutive Quarter

lenovo-logo-1Everything’s coming up Lenovo!

The company announced their first quarter results for 2014, and the numbers are looking pretty rosy. Tablet sales are up 67% over last year, smartphones were up 39%, and Lenovo became the number one smartphone manufacturer in China.

PC shipments were up 15%, though it’s unclear what Lenovo is classifying as a PC and what they’re badging a tablet these days, as the company has led the charge on blurring the line between Windows 8 laptops and tablets. This is the fifth consecutive quarter Lenovo has led the market in PC sales, but for the first time in company history, they sold more phones than computers.

At a time where other established companies are struggling, Lenovo also saw a 13% gross profit increase over this time last year. Moving into next quarter, Lenovo believes they’ll continue to improve those numbers with their acquisitions of Motorola and IBM x86.

Full financial statement below.

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FYI: Intel Core i3 and i7 Versions of the Surface Pro 3 Now Available!

11Surface Pro 3 NYC EventThe surface Pro 3 made quite a splash when it was first announced, but only the Core i5 units were available at launch.

Microsoft has now updated the Surface Pro 3 ordering page with all five variations of the new LapTab (I’m really trying to make that word happen as I’m tired of explaining how the Surface blurs the lines between LAPtops and TABlets).

The Core i3 version starts at $799 with 64GB of storage. Core i5 versions have either 128GB or 256GB, and Core i7 models will pack 256GB or 512GB. That last option, the Core i7 with 512GB will cost $1949. Going through each option though, Microsoft has done a decent enough job of hitting various prove points for people with specific needs.

We’re you waiting out the i7 model before taking the plunge? Maybe considering replacing your regular tablet with an i3 Surface? Drop us a comment below!

And for no good reason, here’s a pic of a Surface Pro 3 being dropped from shoulder height again…

Surface Pro 3 live drop test

Sprint Offers up to $650 for Customers Switching to a Framily Plan

sprint framily plan bad commercialNo longer pushing unlimited plans, Sprint looks to be creating the 21st century equivalent of the party line with their new Framily plans. Get a group of people together to sign up for service and everyone pays less per line.

Now, if you’re porting your number over and recycling your current phone Sprint will offer up $300 in credit and also hand you a Visa pre-paid card worth up to $350. It’s the same experiment tried at T-Mobile and AT&T to varying levels of success. Sprint’s been a little quieter about their plans and deals, but their new slate of Framily plan commercials are quirky even if they don’t tell you as much about the service as they showcase talking hamsters.

Get it? Talking hamsters? Because you talk on your phone? And you’re probably not a hamster? Random!

The deal is good through May 8th, so if you were thinking of signing up you and your favorite eclectic mix of friends and family to Lil’ Yellow, the full PR is below with more details on the Switching Bonus.

Continue reading “Sprint Offers up to $650 for Customers Switching to a Framily Plan”

Editorial: HP’s Catastrophic Mistake – Bringing Windows 7 ‘back by popular demand’…

hp-logoHP has a bold new move to spark customer’s interest in PC’s again. They’re going BACKWARDS! That always works! People love a good nostalgia play!

Announced recently on their site and through an email blitz, HP proudly proclaimed they’re “listening to the consumer” and offering up systems running Microsoft’s last popular OS. It’s a desperate move from a company which has been struggling recently to adapt to a post-PC market. The parallels with Blackberry here are astounding. As BB was caught unprepared for consumers buying pretty smartphones, HP hasn’t been able to figure out their offerings in a world where iPads exist.

Pandering to a media narrative which is all too ready to baselessly criticize Windows 8, HP seems to be banking on the technology “hater” market to pull them out of their slump. You know, that group of people who rail against change and spend TONS of money on things like old laptops. That last sentence was sarcasm by the way. Regardless, I’m sure this will prove a winning strategy for the beleaguered tech firm (also sarcasm).

lenovo 2012-13 salesHere’s the fault in their logic. With all the haterade being dumped on Windows 8, You’d think every manufacturer would be in trouble. As a whole the entire industry is down 15-20% depending on who you ask to track the sales. Unfortunately for those taking glee in Microsoft’s stumble, companies like Asus and Lenovo exist, and both are actually improving their sales during this transition which is unprecedented. Built on the backs of innovative and creative design, Lenovo profits over the 2012/13 fiscal year were up almost 18% over the 2011/12 fiscal year. Embracing Windows 8, and providing consumers innovative products at competitive prices, seems to have worked for Lenovo.

The other major problem with HP’s reasoning is Apple. Continue reading “Editorial: HP’s Catastrophic Mistake – Bringing Windows 7 ‘back by popular demand’…”

Windows Phone Breaks 10% Market Share in Europe, Apple Slipping

ComTech-des13-dataHappy day for Nokia!

Kantar Worldpanel announced sales figures for the fiscal quarter ending October of 2013. Windows Phone has yet to break 5% here in the states, but we did almost double the number of Windows Phones sold here. The news in Europe is much more exciting for Microsoft fans. This same period last year, WP was floating around 4.8%, and moving into 2013 sales more than doubled with Microsoft cracking 10.2%.

Bolstered by some fantastic low end Nokia phones like the Lumia 520, Windows phone is rocking 11.9% in Great Britain, 12.5% in France, and 16% in Italy.

The news for Apple wasn’t quite as rosy. While sales are generally up fr the iPhone, they’re losing share in almost every major market. Down 6% in the USA, 3% in China, and 5% in Europe. The 5S is also unsurprisingly outselling the 5C more than three to one, it would seem that Apple is missing out on the hot smartphone growth sectors in the entry-level and mid-range.

Of course Android is continuing it’s domination in every major market tracked, but it’s nice seeing Microsoft step up as a potential competitor to the Android / iOS power struggle.

(via Kantar Worldpanel)