PhoneTalk

This week's deal comes from LetsTalk.com's Merchandising Manager, Michael Cera.

What is it?The BlackBerry Curve 8330 from Sprint is the smallest, lightest QWERTY BlackBerry to date. It features the very popular trackball navigation for easier use. This Curve also support BlackBerry Media Player and Stereo Bluetooth headset capabilities so you can listen to music from your BlackBerry through your home stereo. The 2-megapixel camera has a 5x zoom and flash that will take crisp and clear images. There is also a microSD expansion slot capable of expanding up to 8GB for storage of music, video, games, and many more applications. With the Curve, you can spell check your e-mails, get directions with TeleNav Maps, and even travel in over 125 countries with global voice and data roaming. The ultimate smartphone and technology package are all in one device with the BlackBerry Curve.

How much?The BlackBerry Curve 8330 is available for free after a $100 mail-in rebate from Sprint with a new two-year Sprint Everything or Simply Everything service plan.

Why is it such a good deal? BlackBerry's reputation and the technology embedded in this device are only a fraction of what you get with the Curve.

Tags:	In The Know	Music	Sprint	Blackberry
	Deal of the Week

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Ever wonder what you can expect to see on you cell phone bill at the end of the month - especially if you're on a family plan? If you have Verizon Wireless, you may not have to wonder any longer. The company's new service, which costs $4.99 a month for each subscriber line allows you to set limits on cell phone usage per line on your account right from the My Verizon web site. Some of the features you can limit are as follows:

• Set thresholds for voice minutes
  
• Set specific limits for text, picture, instant and video messaging as part of pay-as-you-go or message bundle plans
  
• Set time of day restrictions for data use and messaging
  
• Create lists of “trusted” and “blocked” numbers (calls to 911 will always be allowed to connect)
  
• Employ content filters

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Phone Smarts

Verizon Wireless

Cell phone plans

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In this installment of Questions and Answers, we give advice on how to check remaining Sprint minutes from your cell phone and compatibility issues. Got a question you want answered? Submit your question here. Got something to add to the answers below? Leave a comment.

I have a Nextel Motorola ic502 cell phone which is an, but I have nTelos service, how can I use it with my existing service? –Todd

The good news is that the Motorola ic502 will technically work on the nTelos service. However, you’ll need to check directly with nTelos to see if they can program it to work with their service. If it will work with the service, we should note you will not be able to use the Nextel Direct Connect feature.

What number do I dial from my cell phone to check the minutes that I have used on my Sprint cell phone? -Thanks

If you want to check out the amount of minutes you’ve used in your plan for the current monthly billing cycle and find out how many you have left in that cycle, simply dial *4 from the phone application and press send. You’ll get all the information you need.

Tags:	Motorola	Sprint	Cell phone plans	Customer service
	Q&A

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This post comes from LetsTalk.com Merchandising Manager Michael Cera.

Another Sprint Roadmap here. This one was found at Boy Genius while searching for more about Sprint’s presence in the news today. Sprint has made some drastic changes in the recent past and it seems like they are going to be doing the same into the near future and through Q1 and Q2 of 2009 with some new and very exciting handsets.

For starters, one of the more exciting devices they will have coming out most likely in Q4 is the BlackBerry 8350i. This is a BlackBerry Direct Connect device that is based off the BlackBerry Curve design. There is an internal antenna, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Nextel Direct Connect, and a 2MP camera that is optional (they have one with it and one without so you can choose). This will be an awesome cell phone for those looking to keep their direct connect capabilities, but want to step further into the 21st century.

Some of the other cell phone releases mentioned in the Boy Genius blog post consist of the Motorola i950 that will be first, then the Motorola i576 and i776, which are reported to launch in early Q4. There is not much about the i950, but the i576 and i776 will both be built to military specifications and will have Direct Connect, Bluetooth, and GPS capabilities. In early Q1 of 2009, we will see the Motorola Monolith, which is a sure-type device (two alphabet letters per key) that is similar to the Motorola V8, and a Sanyo handset that will be an iDEN/GSM device. Further into 2009, most likely in Q2, there is rumored to be a Samsung slider with music capabilities, the Immersion by Motorola built to military specs, and the Sanyo Pro410. This is going to be a great end to a good year and an excellent beginning to a new one.

Note: We have no confirmation of the dates or products mentioned in the Boy Genius blog post, however, when and if these products become available through LetsTalk.com we’ll be sure to let you know.

Tags:	Observed	Motorola	Music	Sprint
	Blackberry	WiFi	Sanyo	GPS
	Bluetooth

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The 2008 Olympics will be going on over the next couple weeks, so we decided to ask Bloggers around the Internet for their thoughts on how to best use your cell phone to follow the events. Our final post comes from David Mould. To read more from him, check out his Orient Expression blog.

It's an exciting time for mobile media coverage of the Olympics. For the first time there are a plethora of tools and a real saturation of online access that will allow the closest coverage of an Olympics yet.

It will be interesting to see how the coverage to your phone will be achieved.

Points to consider:

There are three dimensions to the Olympics;

• Event: common and less common events that followers take an active interest in; and
• Country: national pride in supporting your country as it climbs the medal table; and
• Athlete: following your favorite athlete on their Olympic journey

2. Choice of channel will be controlled by timezone, technology choice and cost

• The biggest problem with the ESPN Mobile business model was that the concentration was on American Sport, for Americans in America. Why would I choose to watch my baseball team on a mobile phone when I could watch it at home on cable or over IPTV? Now with the Olympics being played out half way around the world the sport on your handset model would work due to the time shift required between the event happening and where the average American will be at that time, i.e. at work
• Will people choose to watch an event on their handset or simply receive updates? a great service would be a mobile offering of the Yahoo Service that allows me to program my TiVo from the Web. Combine this with watch lists and reminders so I can get an update as say the decathlon progresses so I can record the next coverage to watch later.
• The main driver for uptake will always be cost. In countries where "all you can eat" mobile internet plans are less common any service needs to be cost effective to be value added to the consumer.

The biggest winner in this will be micro blog services, Twitter, Jaiku etc. They all have phone based interfaces and I can see several channels springing up to cover the three dimensions.

• The USA Team channel
• The Fencing or Modern Hepthalon channel
• The Hem Bunting channel

These will become used as typically Olympic coverage is controlled by popular choice (Track and Field, Football) and skewed by broadcasting country (UK follows UK athletes, as do USA, Australia and New Zealand). This leaves minor events and minor countries with little to no coverage.

And one for the kids.... what about the (Read more)

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Phone Smarts

Sports

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The 2008 Olympics will be going on over the next couple weeks, so we decided to ask Bloggers around the Internet for their thoughts on how to best use your cell phone to follow the events. Our next post comes from Joseph Hunkins. To read more from him, check out his Joe Duck blog.

Will NBC cover everything?

NBC has promised to cover all the events via online or broadcast media - a remarkable event in and of itself and I think unprecedented in Olympic history. Although there is more to the Olympics than just the actual sporting events NBC is also planning to cover opening ceremonies and certainly will do many of the athlete profiles that are fun to watch, so as a fan of some of the more obscure sports like Table Tennis I'm very excited to be able to follow things in a way I have never done before.

What do you think of Yahoo's mobile services for following the Olympics?

I have a feeling Yahoo's been so overwhelmed with corporate challenges that their mobile Olympics will be underwhelming. So far Yahoo's offering a few unimpressive links with old news at their mobile Olympics online spot:
http://beijinggames.netbiscuits.com/?refer=e00214

Fring is the really intriguing Web 2.0 player at the Olympics, and I'm anxious to see what they put out. From the Fring site we learn they've assembled a team of "reporters" who are now applying for this this:

We will happily provide the fring Olympics commentators with a 3.5G mobile phone with GPS, camera, local SIM card and (almost) unlimited data plan. In return, the fring commentator will regularly micro-blog with quick updates & pictures (the winner, the loser, the cutest flag-bearer, the poor girl who lost her swimsuit, the poor guy who dropped the baton in the 4×100 meter final… you get the idea). If you’re a real sports enthusiast you may focus more on the records; if you’re more of a night owl, we may all live vicariously through your night-time escapades in the Olympic village - pics & videos most welcome!

My guess is that Fring will be weak on the sports but much more interesting than NBC on the night life, especially if the Fring reporters get clever about getting out pictures and stories from Olympic Village and other Beijing nightlife venues. Celebrity spotting is a lot easier if there are legions of smartphones in the house, so look to Fring for the stuff you can't get elsewhere.

In terms of mainstream sports coverage I'm guessing it'll be NBC all the way. Veteran sportscasters will offer more insight than a microblogger standing at the finish line, and NBC appears primed to deliver great reports from dozens of venues.

(Read more)

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Phone Smarts

Sports

Smart phones

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The 2008 Olympics will be going on over the next couple weeks, so we decided to ask Bloggers around the Internet for their thoughts on how to best use your cell phone to follow the events. Our first post comes from David Cassel. To read more from him, check out his Blorge.com blog.

NBC paid over $600 million for exclusive rights to cover the Olympics — and they're not ignoring cell phone users. NBC is promising steady mobile alerts through NBCOlympics.com. I don't know if it's cell phone-ready, but NBC also has an online video site [requiring "Windows Media Center"] with a whopping 2,200 hours of live and interactive video (also available through NBC Olympics.com.) "Watch full length events" the site urges — even offering the downloading of video for repeat viewing offline. But the site's already drawing mixed reviews, so remember: they're not the only site for Olympics news.

ESPN Mobile has created a dedicated Olympics page, where they're promising a medal tracker, athlete information, news, recaps, and analysis. Meanwhile, ESPN.com has a complete schedule of all the events, and even created "Olympic Central." And yes, they'll be offering their own original reporting from China. ("ESPN forced to work Beijing's backstreets," read one headline.) ESPN reporters will interact with the athletes (without cameras), and they'll be allowed to use video highlights for news recaps — but only after they've aired on NBC.

But the Twitter feeds could become especially significant this year — bypassing the restrictions created by NBC's exclusive rights and the tight controls of the Chinese government. (Last month the Chinese police stopped interrupted a live interview on the great wall of China.) One San Francisco blog did a great job of collecting Twitter comments about the protests when the Olympics torch passed through San Francisco. A web site called Global Voices Online is already offering Twitter updates with Olympic news story (and the blogger at 2008 Games Beijing.com is (Read more)

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Phone Smarts

Sports

Video

GPS

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This week's deal comes from LetsTalk.com's Merchandising Manager, Gary Kishida.

What is it? The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic for T-Mobile is an awesome cell phone for music lovers that comes in three different colors: orange, purple, and red. A two-stage stereo headset is included to use with the 3.5mm headphone jack (that can be used to listen to music using headphones that you might use for an MP3 player). It offers up to 18 hours of music playback, with memory for up to 3,000 songs on an optional 4GB microSD card. The handheld also comes preloaded with two exclusive new hits - one from rock sensation Panic! At The Disco and one from Phantom Planet.

How much? The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic is free out the door with a new two-year T-Mobile service contract. Plus, you make $50.

Why is it such a good deal? This is one of our best selling T-Mobile phones and also comes with a 1GB memory card included in the box free.

Tags:	In The Know	Nokia	Music	Cell phone plans
	T-Mobile	Deal of the Week

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I like to call the LG Voyager for Verizon Wireless the SUV of cell phones because it's a tad bigger than your average handset, but it's fully loaded with all the luxuries you never knew you wanted. To show you what I mean, watch the video below to get a better idea of why this cell phone has everything you might need.

Tags:	Phone Smarts	Verizon Wireless	Music	LG
	E-mail	Bluetooth

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This week we asked bloggers around the Internet for ideas on how a cell phone can help while on vacation or help plan a vacation. Our final post comes from Matt Jansen, to read more from Matt check out his metaViper blog.

As mobile phones continue to add features on top of their core calling functionality, more and more they're resembling fully functional mobile computers. Smartphones are the beginning, but some devices like Apple's iPhone and Sprint's Instinct are stretching into new territory. And that evolution is great for vacationers because it means that the same access to information and applications that's available at home follows them everywhere.

But which of the comforts of home are most relevant to someone on vacation? Certainly a lot of that depends on the individual but I'm willing to bet that there are some frequent requests, the most obvious probably being good phone coverage and Internet access.

Can anyone even remember when you had to be at home or work to make a phone call?

Cell phone carriers are offer a variety of packages that include Internet access. With AT&T it costs about $130 per month for an unlimited data plan, and Sprint is making waves with its $100 plan that includes unlimited data plus unlimited access to most of its other services.

Here are some other services that might be useful while on vacation, organized by task:

• Check E-mail
  
  • Gmail mobile, provides a simplified mobile web site and a downloadable application.
  • Yahoo Go essentially provides a portal interface for your phone, including e-mail and flexible widgets for other content.
  • Teleflip takes a different approach by converting e-mails you specify into text messages sent to your phone. Great for people without a data plan.
• Look for good restaurants
  • Google SMS is the popular first choice for finding local restaurants or any other sort of business. Text message a query and receive results back in a few minutes.
  • Google 411 allows you to do the same thing using your voice and it's still free.
• Look up prices
  • Amazon's TextBuyIt , if you've got a good keyword, UPC or ISBN text it to Amazon for a response back on price and the option to purchase via a phone call.
• Take and send pictures to friends back home
  • Lots of phones provide the ability to take pictures and e-mail them out to friends and family. Just memorize where that camera button is.
  • (Read more)

    Tags:	Phone Smarts	Music	AT&T Wireless	Sprint
    	Cell phone plans	Sony Ericsson	Camera	Smart phones
    	Travel	Video	GPS

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