Tag: smartphones

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Best Buy offers $50 gift card for people who buy iPhone 5C on two year contract

best buy iphone 5c sale giftcardWell. We don’t see sales on Apple gear very often.

Best Buy is offering up a special on the iPhone 5C. When purchasing the phone BB will supply a $50 gift card which can be used at time of purchase. If purchased on a two year contract, this will effectively cut the price of the phone in half.

It’s difficult to tell if this tells us anything about lagging 5C sales, or if BB and Apple are working together on moving units. As with previous iPhone releases, it’s not surprising that demand is strongest for the newest handsets, and even though the 5C is “new”, most Apple savvy folks will know it’s pretty much just a repackaged iPhone 5. Apple can be somewhat secretive about individual device sales though, so it’s difficult to know if the 5C is selling any worse than the 4S did when the iPhone 5 was released.

If you were looking for a sale on a mid-range iPhone though, this is one of the best deals around.

iPhone 5C on BestBuy.com

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The Wrap Up: Four Months with the LG Optimus G Pro on AT&T (Long Term Review)

lg optimus g pro att long term review smartphone phablet somegadgetguyLet’s talk experience.

This is the first LG I’ve spent any real time with, and it comes at a time where I’m running a little cold on super large phones. Does the Optimus G Pro have the guts to shake me out of my phablet funk?

Watch on my friends…

1st Impressions – LG Optimus G Pro
Camera Test
Speaker Test
Benchmarks
Battery Idle Test

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Vertu announces Constellation smartphone with 4.3″ Sapphire screen

vertu constellation sapphire screen luxury android phoneVertu makes some ridiculous “luxury” smartphones. In years past, you would pay crazy amounts of money to own gadgets made out of exotic materials, but often with lagging tech. Their newest handset ‘Constellation’ marks the first time their penchant for high end materials has also moved the tech industry forward a bit however.

While never the point of a Vertu, the specs feel “nice” but a bit dated. Constellation is powered by a dual-core Snapdragon and comes with 32GB of storage. The 4.3″ screen has a 720p resolution, but the actual excitement comes from what that screen is made out of. A 5.1″ slab of Sapphire protects the front face of the phone. Not some BS “Saffire” branding, nope the actual gem, and sapphire is almost as hard as diamond. This screen should be virtually scratch proof (unless you rub a diamond against it), and should prove a bit more durable for bumps and drops.

Color me impressed. I usually mock Vertu handsets, but this is one “fancy” material I hope will eventually filter down into the phones we plebs use…

Constellation should be available in stores later this month at a price of €4,900 (about $6600).

Full PR after the break.

Continue reading “Vertu announces Constellation smartphone with 4.3″ Sapphire screen”

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Is Rockstar Games trying to tell us something about smartphone owners in GTA V?

Just a funny little observation from Reddit user praefectus_praetorio. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about what they might be implying by which character is using which smartphone… I’d like to think the “Psychopath” is using Windows Phone because Nokia phones are pretty much indestructible…

gta v smartphone owners reddit(via Reddit)

 

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Review: Toast Wood Cover for the Samsung Galaxy Note 2

toast in portland wood phone case cover galaxy note 2 somegadgetguyI like finding quirky, new, and unique accessories for personalizing our technology. Toast in Portland is one of my favorite finds this year. Using wood and leather surfaces which are laser cut and engraved to precisely fit our phones and our personalities.

Let’s take a look at how I turned my Galaxy Note 2 into a wooden phone!

For more info check out: http://ToastMade.com
My interview with Toast CEO Matias Brecher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x1YOTRaFg0

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FreedomPop offers up totally free Smartphone Plan

freedompop free smartphone plan screenshot somegadgetguyOk. This is a pretty significant shot across most of the other MVNOs out there.

FreedomPop has been working for a while now to popularize entry-level free data. You buy a relatively inexpensive portable modem, and you get a small pool of data every month for free. Need more data, pay extra. They’re bringing that same business model to smartphones starting today.

The phone isn’t the most exciting handset ever, the HTC EVO Design 4G, but it does come with actual 4G in the form of Sprint’s aged (but still pretty quick) WiMAX network. The good news is it’ll only run you $100 to pick it up. For that price it’s REALLY decent hardware.

FreedomPop has built all of its services off of that network, so I would image that if you’re not in good WiMAX coverage that you’ll fall back on to Sprint’s improving 3G infrastructure. As Sprint has been going through their “Network Vision” clean up, I personally saw a decent little bump to network speed and reception in LA.

The FreedomPop plan starts you off with 200 voice minutes, 500 texts, and 500MB of data per month. Stepping up to unlimited voice and texts adds $11 a month. You can bump up data as well, 2GB for $20, 4GB for $35, even 10GB for $90.

We’re starting to see some pretty cut throat competition from the smaller virtual carriers, with Republic Wireless recently scoring the Moto X, but no one has had the guts to offer up a free plan yet. Now if only we could start talking about some LTE FreedomPop…

(via FreedomPop)

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Softbank unveils Arrows A Smartphone, 10 minute “All Day” charge, coming to Sprint?

softbank arrows a colorsSo this was a small blip because of some impressive claims, but could we potentially see this coming to the USA soon?

Softbank took the wraps off of the Fujitsu Arrows A smartphone. On the whole we’re seeing pretty standard specs for a premier handset. A 5″ 1080p screen will be powered by Qualcomm’s monster Snapdragon 800 chipset. It’ll be joining the ranks of other phones like the LG G2 as a high end alternative to the Galaxies and the Ones in the Android ecosystem.

What was a little fresh however was the claim that thanks to its custom charger (and some internal whizbangery) the Arrows A can charge “a full days use” in about 10 minutes. The next audacious claim is that even though the phone has a decently sized battery (2600 mAh) Fujitsu says the device will run for three days on a full charge. That’s something I’d certainly be interested in testing, but even if it doesn’t meet that kind of run time, fast recharging could be a benefit to many mobile users.

Also of note, the Arrows A will include a fingerprint reader. It looks like even though it’s not terribly secure tech, biometrics will be coming to many smartphones over the next year.

Now. Why do we care about a Japanese phone announcement? Well, Softbank is the company which pretty much owns Sprint. They completed the merger back in July, and Softbank has poured Billions into Sprint’s coffers. In strengthening Sprint’s handset portfolio, we could maybe start to see a little cross-pollination of devices which used to be exclusive to specific countries/markets.

Likely? Probably not right away, but an interesting possibility to shake up the mid and high end smartphone segments. Expect to see Arrows A in Japan this December.

Hit the jump for the full PR (translated).

Continue reading “Softbank unveils Arrows A Smartphone, 10 minute “All Day” charge, coming to Sprint?”

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Windows Phone hitting double digit market share in Europe

nokia lumia 920 windows phone 8 smartphone homescreen live tiles somegadgetguyI keep telling you people, the actual gadget matters less than the ecosystem of customers+hardware+software+accessories. You can’t fake that. Customers will not be impressed by one new handset no matter how good it is. Every manufacturer wants to jump into this market and sell as well as the iPhone does. It’ll never happen, and people forget that the iPhone didn’t just waltz into the smartphone market without some teething pains. Anymore, a company needs to show us at least three years of steady growth, refinement, and support before they’ll start to crack into consumer awareness.

Well wouldn’t you know it, Microsoft is getting to that three year point, and I’m starting to see the occasional Windows Phone out in the wild. Here stateside, MS is a distant third place competitor growing to only around 3% of the smartphone market, stealing the third spot from Blackberry. Recently announced by analysts at Kantar World Panel however, Windows Phone is cracking into double digit share in Europe. WP is within one percent of the iPhone in Germany, makes up 10% of the French market, and stands at 12% in Great Britain. Averaging the five largest European markets Windows Phone is currently at 9%.

The Nokia brand still counts for a lot in those markets, especially the blend of unique design and bleeding edge camera technology. Unfortunately Nokia somewhat abandoned us here in the States, so they’re pretty much rebuilding their consumer base from scratch. We do get to see some very general trends though, and from my anecdotal experiences, the push into entry level devices is serving Nokia very well. Doesn’t hurt that outlets like CNET can’t figure out the difference between a phone which costs $100 out the door, and a phone which costs $100 on contract. Surprisingly, Nokia’s 520 does a remarkably good job of competing against phones which cost four times as much.

Plus with a two faction war between Apple and Samsung, those consumers who want something a little different only have Microsoft to turn to. Never underestimate someone’s desire to go a little hipster. We live in an age where new smartphone consumers will know Apple like people from my generation saw Microsoft.

Read the full write up at Kantar World Panel.

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