Fresh from CommuniAsia 2009, Huawei has announced two handsets destined to get lost amongst the continued onslaught of full touchscreen kit. No, they’re by no means poor devices of course — they just offer very little in the way of excitement or differentiating factors. Starting with the U8230, pictured top left and notable thanks only to its Android OS, specs include a 3.5-inch touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera and a sizable 1500 mAh battery. The Windows Mobile-powered C8000, pictured above to the right, features a 2.8-inch touchscreen, some kind of 3D UI band-aid, an independent display adapter for smooth media playback and a claimed six to eight hours of continuous video playback on a single charge. Pricing has not yet been revealed but both handsets should hit Asia and Europe some time in the second half.
Holy. Crap. So, umm, have you been wondering what the Symbian foundation has been up to since revealing the mother of all development schedules? A whole lot, is what it’s been up to. Long story short, the team has cooperated with ST-Ericsson and ARM to build the first working example of multi-core goodness running on production chips with an open OS. Short story long…
AdMob, a leading mobile ad service provider, issues mobile metrics and analysis each month and today it has released April data. Key points from AdMob’s press release:
- While Gartner estimated global smartphone sales represented 12 percent of total device sales in 2008, 35 percent of AdMob’s worldwide ad requests in April 2009 came from smartphones. This means that smartphones accounted for nearly 3 times more usage than their relative market share.
- The iPhone OS had 8 percent of the smartphone market, but generated 43 percent of mobile Web requests and 65 percent of HTML usage.
- The Android OS share of the smartphone market was less than 1 percent, but generated 3 percent of mobile Web requests and 9 percent of HTML usage.
- The Symbian OS had 52 percent of the smartphone market, but generated only 36 percent of mobile Web usage and 7 percent of HTML usage.
- Usage of mobile Web sites greatly out paces usage of HTML sites on smartphones running the Symbian and RIM Operating System (OS).
- 24 percent of US requests were made over a Wi-Fi network. The top five Wi-Fi devices in terms of usage were the iPhone, iPod touch, Sony PSP, HTC Dream (G1), and HTC Dash.
There has been quite a bit of movement recently as far as T-Mobile’s plans are concerned and if you haven’t been keeping your eye on the ball, you probably missed something. For the most part, T-Mo has added plans and options that are pretty favorable for subscribers but word just came in from one of our ninjas regarding a few more upcoming changes some might not be happy about. The first concerns smartphone users: We know that all you BGR fans out there obviously have data plans but there are plenty of people who enjoy the enhanced functionality of a smartphone who haven’t yet embraced mobile data services. Unfortunately, those people are in for a bit of a disappointment — some time in June T-Mobile will begin requiring that all smartphones (new activations / upgrades) have a data plan. This new requirement will not apply to the BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Pearl Flip, Samsung Behold or Samsung Memoir. Next up, messaging addicts: Also beginning some time in June, T-Mobile’s Unlimited Domestic Messages for Families will jump from $19.95 per month to $24.99 per month. It’s still a pretty sweet deal of course, just not quite as sweet as it used to be.
Acer jumped feet first into the mobile phone arena by debuting a handful of new Windows Mobile handsets at MWC 2009. At a launch event today, Acer and C2O Corporation officially launched eight of these handsets in the Singapore market. Available now are the dual-SIM DX900 ($530 USD), the dual-faced DX650 ($397 USD) and the compact X960 ($463 USD). Expected in May but not yet priced are the F900 and the M900, and then coming later in 2009 are the F1, L1 and C1. Hit the jump for specs on the five handsets launching initially.
Lining up with the predictions of pretty much every Tom, Dick and Harry, Samsung has gone ahead and stated that it expects smartphones to make up 29 percent (or 500 million devices) of the mobile phone marketplace in 2012. As things currently stand, smartphones account for 14 percent (170 million devices) of all mobile phones, a figure which is steadily increasing (despite a World-wide recession) thanks in part to high consumer and corporate demand for feature-rich devices. What’s more however, is that Samsung is betting touchcreens will be featured on 50 percent of mobile phones by 2013. Sammy also says OLED displays will become all the rage with an estimated 50 percent market share in the next five years on all mobile devices, including but not limited to mobile phones, PMPs, GPS navigation units and digital cameras. Guess that means that while many will be looking forward to the future with outstretched arms and wide-open wallets, Stevie Wonder will be pretty PO’d unless some solid progress is made where the V.I. UX is concerned.
It looks like Canada’s Rogers Wireless wasn’t content with merely jacking up its BlackBerry prices as it has just gone and made and a decision that is sure to aggravate plenty of smartphone customers. Normally, a Rogers customer is eligible for a Hardware Upgrade Program (HUP) discount every 12 months, allowing them to get a brand new phone with three-year contract pricing (with as much as an extra $100 plus a $35 administration fee added on top or as little as $25 taken off depending on how much a customer spent since his/her last HUP). Now however, the minimum term has been bumped up to 24 months. Some would argue this is what you get when you’re playing with branded and subsidized phones, but to others this is a pretty massive slap in the face. From the looks of these Rogers scoops we’ve been getting over the past few days, it seems like we have a whole bunch of ‘adjustments’ to look forward to thanks to that little $30 million blunder. Hit the jump for the full internal bulletin posted to Sales Central along with a screen shot. Not cool, Rogers.
If you followed our coverage of MWC this past week, odds are you were just as unimpressed with Acer’s showing as we were. To recap quickly, the company announced a handful of Windows Mobile handsets that were decent efforts but offered nothing in the way of innovation or even differentiation. Touchscreens, Windows Mobile, a UI band-aid, etc. According to a report from PCMag however, our interest in Acer’s new gear may have just been kicked up a notch. What did the trick? A single word — “free”. The report quotes Aymar de Lencquesaing, President of Acer’s Smartphone Unit, as stating the company is working with AT&T and T-Mobile to offer its handsets for free on contract in the US.
Have you found yourself itching lately for a brand new Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone with a familiar form factor and specs that are a good 18 – 24 months old? No? That’s odd, because Acer seems to think handsets in the aforementioned vein will be just what the doctor ordered as it battles to become relevant in the smartphone game. Sure the new Tempo line announced today by Acer looks to be a quartet of sleek and sexy handsets, but in this day and age we’re looking for much, much more bang for our buck. Hit the jump for specs on the newly unveiled X960, F900, M900 and DX900, pictured above starting clockwise from the top left corner, and let us know if Acer won your hard-earned cash with its MWC announcement.
