Sprint have announced their first EVDO-enabled netbook, though they don’t quite seem to have figured out the magic tipping point that really pulls in the customers. The carrier is offering a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with integrated EVDO Rev.A, but rather than do the sensible thing and hack great chunks off the up-front price (while knowing you’ll make it back with the mandatory two-year agreement) their netbook is in fact $199.99, and that’s after the rebate.
The surest way for someone to generate attention is by making an Apple prediction. Apple has a cult following, and its product development and launch strategy is famously secretive, so the fact that your source is the lunch counter guy across the block from the Hon Hai factory in Taiwan won’t be discovered (or may even be considered authoritative!). Financial analysts are often the worst offenders – we have been promised an Apple tablet more times than I can count, assured that an iPhone nano was on the way, and where’s that iPod touch with a camera?
However, market analysts like me (and fellow SlashGear columnist Michael Gartenberg) rarely talk about specific products before they’re launched. Often, that’s because I can’t: vendors frequently tell me what they are working on ahead of time under non-disclosure agreements. Another reason that I don’t make specific predictions is that I simply hate being wrong: my job depends on my being both trustworthy and generally accurate, and I’m not about to jeopardize that for a bit of extra attention in the press.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that AT&T and Verizon had the lions share of the Windows Phone action today, but Sprint would hate for you to think they’re left out. They’ve launched the Samsung Intrepid, at first glance a straightforward candybar handset with a full QWERTY keyboard, but which in fact includes a touchscreen and thus runs Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional rather than Standard.
That’s an unusual form-factor, but other than the display – a 2.5-inch 320 x 240 resistive panel – it’s a reasonably straightforward Windows Phone. As well as EVDO Rev.A the Intrepid supports GSM for international use, together with WiFI and Bluetooth, a 3.2-megapixel camera and GPS.
Are you on one of the CDMA networks out there? Here in the States, that boils down to Sprint or Verizon, and it means that you’re probably wishing you could be doing a few things here and there. Like talking on the phone and surfing the internet at the same time on your Palm Pre or BlackBerry Tour on your 3G connection. Well, if the CDMA Development Group (CDG) has any say in the matter, you’re one step closer to getting that dream realized.
It’s not exactly new information – since we heard that T-Mobile USA would be charging $349.99 for the HTC Touch Pro2 yesterday, after internal pricing documents leaked – but a product page online certainly does hammer home that the carrier expects a healthy tithe for its latest Windows Mobile smartphone. The QWERTY touchscreen slider demands a two-year contract, together with an unlimited web package.
Sprint and Verizon may be keeping relatively quiet about the BlackBerry Tour 9630’s functionality, but unsurprisingly RIM themselves are pretty keen to get the news out there about exactly what their new “world phone” can do. The smartphone is primarily intended to use CDMA EVDO Rev.A connectivity, but it also packs UMTS/HSPA 2100MHz support and quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE for use when abroad.
Elsewhere there’s a 480 x 340 resolution display, 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus and image stabilization, and 256MB of onboard storage with a microSD card to augment that. The Tour 9630 also has GPS with support for photo geotagging.
Video overview after the cut
After months of leaks regarding the handset, Sprint has announced that they will be offering the BlackBerry Tour. Packed with EVDO Rev.A and 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, the Tour also has 2100MHz UMTS/HSPA and quadband GSM for international roaming use; it’s expected to arrive “later this summer” in the US.
Virgin Mobile USA have announced a pay-as-you-go mobile broadband service, which will be exclusively available through Best Buy Mobile. Broadband2Go uses a Novatel Wireless EVDO Rev.A USB modem, and offers contract-free data from as little as $10; however, there are limits over how that data access can be used.
Sprint have launched their first two-in-one mobile broadband card, in the shape of the Sierra Wireless AirCard 402. The AirCard 402 can either be used in a narrow ExpressCard slot or, with the broader adapter casing fitted, in an older PC Card slot.
Toshiba were pretty tight-lipped at this morning’s TG01 launch about what exactly you’ll find inside that 9.9mm thick casing. Aside from Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon QSD8250 chipset, and confirmation that it will support GSM 3G HSDPA/HSUPA, there’s certainly no word of a US launch. However, printed on the side of the dummy handsets Toshiba had provided for photography, was the text “Qualcomm 3G CDMA”.
SlashGear Japan
