News

A few day ago Sprint and LG unveiled the new LG LX600 Lotus, a QWERTY messaging cell phone. the handset comes with One Click home screen, which provides quite access to messaging, navigation, and even Sprint TV and the Sprint Music Store and features Bluetooth 2.0 support and a 2 megapixel digital camera with video recording ability.

The LG Lotus will be available in black and purple colorur schemes in October for US$149.99 with a two year contract.

Samsung has introduced the new Highnote, a dual-slider with numeric keypad featuring a 2 megapixel camera for quick photos and a microSD card slot on board. The Highnote's support for the Sprint Music Store makes it easy to load up your favorite tunes.

The Samsung Highnote is set to be available on October 19th in red or blue colour schemes and will be priced at $99.99 with a 2-year commitment, after a $50 mail-in rebate.

Sprint has announced that it will soon offer the Samsung Rant, a candybar cell phone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard featuring a 2 megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, for quick and easy storage expansion and Bluetooth connectivity.

The Rant also provides access to Sprint's high-speed EV-DO network, with support for the Sprint Music Store and Sprint TV.

The handset should be available in October, priced at $49.99 with a 2-year commitment and after a $50 mail-in rebate, in black or red color schemes from Sprint, with an exclusive purple color only available through Best Buy.

Yesterday Sprint and Motorola unveiled the Motorola i576 for the Nextel iDEN network. The handset features Bluetooth connectivity for headsets and on-board GPS navigation and is one of the smallest iDEN handsets on the market.

The i576 will be available on October 19th for US$69.99 with a two year service agreement with Sprint Nextel.

Virgin Mobile has announced its new Shuttle cell phone, a slider that also sports EV-DO support for high-speed data.

The handset is the first Virgin Mobile handset to integrate features from Helio, an MVNO that Virgin Mobile acquired earlier this year. The Shuttle supports the Buddy Beacon service, which makes it easy to find your friends by displaying their location on a map shown on your phone. Other Helio features that are available on the Shuttle include easy access to various social networking sites, as well as YouTube and Accuweather.

The Virgin Mobile Shuttle features a 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth A2DP support for stereo headsets.

The Virgin Mobile Shuttle will be available exclusively at Best Buy on September 28th, though pricing has not yet been released.

Sprint announced the next BlackBerry Curve 8350i, from Research In Motion, the first Nextel smartphone with WiFi support. The QWERTY smartphone features a built-in push-to-talk, a 2 megapixel camera with video recording and a microSD memory card slot, an on-board GPS navigation, an integrated music player, and Bluetooth A2DP stereo connectivity.

The BlackBerry Curve 8350i works on Sprint Nextel's iDEN network and supports Nextel Direct Connect, Nationwide and International Connect, as well as Group Connect, which allows users to have conversations with groups of up to 20 other Nextel users at one time.

Pricing and availability information are not yet available at this time but Sprint expects the Curve 8350i to land in retail stores before the end of year.

Nokia today released a note to investors that adjusted the company's forecast for its Q3 market share estimates. Back in July the company had told investors that it expected to maintain its current worldwide market share of 40%. Now the company is saying that its market share will be slightly lower due to competitive pressures and new handset delays. From the press release:

"Nokia's current estimate that its mobile device market share in the third quarter 2008 will be lower than previously expected is due to multiple factors. These factors include Nokia's tactical decision to not meet certain aggressive pricing of some competitors, the overall market competition, including the entry markets, and the temporary impact of a slower ramp-up of a mid-range Nokia device. Nokia's strategy is to take market share only when the company believes it to be sustainably profitable in the longer term. Nokia has not broadly participated in the recent aggressive pricing activity - as it believes that the negative impact to profitability would outweigh any short term incremental benefits to device unit sales."

AT&T announced the launch of the Samsung SGH-a137, the first prepaid cell phone on AT&T to offer a built-in A-GPS module. The phone comes with on board Bluetooth support, a 2" internal displayith 262k colors and measures only 88.9mm x 45.7mm x 20.3mm (3.5" x 1.8" x .8").

The Samsung SGH-a137 is available now from AT&T as a prepaid GoPhone, priced at $39.99 before taxes.

Press images have surfaced showing two new colors for the venerable and hugely successful Palm Centro.

Other than the new colors, these new versions are identical save for the addition of the Facebook application that was released earlier this year, as well as a QVGA touchscreen display, QWERTY keyboard, 1.3 megapixel camera with video recorder, media player, Sprint TV access, microSDHC expansion slot, and Bluetooth.

These new colors are expected to launch late next month in time for the holiday shopping season.

Information has surfaced regarding the pending release of the BlackBerry Curve 8320 on AT&T.

The device is expected to be nearly identical to the version sold on T-Mobile with the addition of the AT&T suite of services (AT&T Music, Mail, IM, Push to Talk, Navigator support through Bluetooth GPS unit) as well as an upgrade to BlackBerry OS 4.5, which is expected to add the HTML browser from the soon to be launched Bold, and the capability to use voice services and data simultaneously while using the built-in Wi-Fi radio.

The device is expected to be launched at the end of this month, though no specific date or pricing details are known at this time.