When we heard that the 2009 edition of the Sidekick LX would be rockin’ an oh-so-droolworthy 858×480 screen, we crossed our fingers in hopes that it could playback video at a resolution worthy of the display. Not content with waiting for tomorrow’s Sidekick shindig, we did a bit of digging - and uncovered pretty much everything there is to know about video on the 2009 Sidekick LX.
The original Sidekick LX got video playback support back in July of last year by way of over-the-air update. While it was a nice bonus, it wasn’t ideal. Limited to h.263 encoded 3GPP videos, it was neither high-quality nor convenient.
According to details shared with us this morning, it looks like they’ve amped things up a bit. Here’s what we’ve confirmed so far:
3GPP: Yes
h.263: Yes
h.264: Yes
Streaming (Presumably 3GP): Yes
MPEG-4: Yes
Maximum resolution: It can playback videos up to the full resolution of the screen, 858×480. There aren’t too many 858×480 videos lurking around, so as a more common metric: it can playback video at 720×480, the same resolution used by nearly all North American DVDs.
We only went digging for playback information, but turned up some details on video recording as well. Here’s what we’ve heard on the matter:
Codec: MP4 in high quality mode, h.263 in low quality mode
Recording resolution: 320×240 or 176×144, depending on settings
These are all theoretical limitations, of course. We haven’t personally seen video playing back at these resolutions, so we can’t vouch for their smoothness. We’re working on getting photo/video recording samples, but that might have to wait until tomorrow’s festivities.
With too many companies to list battling it out for users in the live mobile video broadcasting space, spreading the word is key. Most people just don’t realize such a thing is possible; outside of geekier circles, the entire concept is still fairly new. Stream a live video from your handset and send the link off to some friends that don’t lurk blogs and social sites all day - chances are they’ll be more amazed by the fact that you’re streaming live video from a phone than they are by the content.
Many of these services have turned to outside networks to get the word out, enabling users to automatically share their content out to their already established circle of friends. Just recently, for example, both Qik and FlixWagon added support for Nokia’s Share on Ovi service. That’s all well and good for reaching the geek crowds - but what about everyone else?
This evening, Qik is announcing that they are the first to roll out Facebook Connect support, which could potentially introduce the concept to a massive new group of people.
As they’re leveraging Facebook Connect, they’re able to post videos directly to your video collection or wall without requiring the user to install additional Facebook apps. It’s as simple as could be for the user looking to share, but not without its faults: due to a limitation of the Facebook Connect API, videos can’t be streamed live directly onto Facebook, only posted after the fact. As an alternative, however, users can opt to publish a status update which links directly to their live video whenever they’re streaming.
The update is being rolled out immediately. As it’s a user profile setting, no updates are needed to the handset software. To get things going, users just log into Qik, pop into the “Edit Networks” screen, and authorize Qik as you would any Facebook Connect service.
Over time, however, all handsets will see updates which improve upon the new functionality. Available immediately is an update for non-touch Windows Mobile smartphones which allows users to pick-and-choose which videos they want pushed to Facebook. On other handsets, for the time being, Facebook will be updated with all Qik videos set as “public”.
This is a huge move for Qik and, as I’d imagine that all of the competition is already hard at work at rolling in Facebook Connect support as well, a huge move for the concept as a whole. Facebook is amongst a small handful of social networks that have really breached the main stream. Integrate a product properly, and you’ll be pitching your wares to one of the few online audiences that isn’t almost entirely geeks.
This one is still only in the very earliest stages, but it looks like MobiTV has taken advantage of the big National Association of Broadcasters Show in Vegas this week to show off a new mobile DTV service that it's developed in partnership with Sinclair and PBS, which it hopes will eventually find its way to a few interested cellular carriers. The service itself is a combination of free over-the-air DTV broadcasts (from PBS and the CW, at the moment) and subscription-based on-demand content, which would apparently be made available for a seven-day window and be delivered via mobile WiMAX. Unfortunately, there's no indication whatsoever of a potential roll-out, but it looks like MobiTV will be working hard during the next few days to woo some additional partners, so there's at least a slight chance that we could be hearing a few more details before the show wraps up later this week.
Fake corporate-marketing unboxing videos aren't anything new -- some of them are even pretty amazing -- but this latest one from T-Mobile is definitely the skeeziest we've ever seen. Follow along as a sex-crazed Sidekick LX attempts to limit access to his bubbly new owner's "spring break photos," pushes her into watching her "hot friends" play beach volleyball, and lament that he's ended up in the purse rather than her pocket -- yep, the Sidekick LX is the creepy little brother you wish you never had. No wonder she stashes it next to the pepper spray. Video after the break.
There's all sorts of good news going on here: first of all, the third Lotus color, red, is now officially available at retail from Sprint, making good on the carrier's promise of mid-April availability. Second, in case you haven't noticed, the $99.99 price tag has dropped all the way down to $49.99 on contract after discounts, making the fattest, stubbiest flip in Sprint's lineup more affordable than ever. Dig in, you texters, you.
I don’t want any of you to think that tomorrow’s NYC T-Mobile event has anything to do with anything other than the new 3G Sidekick LX. So, here are two variations of the event invite, which coincidentally were not sent to me by T-Mobile.
Aw, come on T-Mobile. If you’re going to spoil the fun of bloggers everywhere by unboxing your own new toys before they’re even on the shelves, do it well. Or, at least, actually unbox it. This 2-minute long video, which just went up on T-Mobile’s Youtube channel, is about 10% unboxing and 90% some girls face.
Plus - if you can’t top the Samsung Omnia’s parade-in-a-box, what’s the point?
I can’t deny the fact that Mophie knows how to make stylish accessories for the iPhone, but after a lackluster experience with the original Juice Pack for the iPhone 3G I’m wondering if the air will fair any better.
Quick Version: The Juice Pack air has an added bonus of being not only a reserve battery pack, but also a hard cover for your iPhone 3G. It doesn’t add too much extra girth to the svelte device and comes with an on/off switch (located at the base for the reserve battery.
Extended Version: If you’re looking for gobs of extra battery life then you needn’t look here. When my iPhone 3G’s battery dipped under 10 percent I placed it into the air and got enough juice to hit the 85 to 90 percent mark. As I recall, the original Juice Pack managed to give me close to two full charges when battery life was under 20 percent. But that had an 1800 mAh battery while the air only has a 1200 mAh battery.
On the flipside, the air is a pretty nice case that more or less doubles the thickness of the iP3G, which might not be acceptable to most, but with the added value of extra power, I’m inclined to accept its portliness.
The top piece can be removed if you don’t feel like encasing your iP3G altogether and the overall size of the air was drastically reduced thanks to the microUSB port and smaller battery. Yes, it still connects to iTunes just like the original. And it still comes fully charged out of the box.
But at $80 you have other options that offer more battery life and functionality. For example, the iV from Fastmac offers at least two full charges, an LED flash and the added bonus of USB slot to charge other gadgets. Sure, it’s ginormous and doesn’t fit in your pocket, but it’s perfect for your gear bag and offers more power.
If you don’t care about such things and just want something that looks pretty, fits in your pocket, adds a bit of protection and offers emergency power then the air is should do you just fine. It comes in black, white and purple and starts shipping tomorrow.
If you’re one of the few hundred people that attempt to climb Mt. Everest each year: don’t sweat it, you’ll still be able to text your peeps from the top.
Nepal Telecoms, a telecoms company which has a lock on some 60% of the Nepalese cell phone market, has announced that they’ll be taking signal all the way to the top by way of satellite antennas.
Climbers have always been able to phone home with satellite phone, but those things aren’t exactly compact, nor are they cheap. This will allow climbers to user the GSM/CDMA handsets they’ve already got. Certain select areas of the mountain have had coverage for a few years now (don’t go try and be the first to make a cell phone call from the summit - it was done in 2007) - but considering that the face of Everest is a relatively easy place to die, the more coverage the better.
Plantronics isn't planning to share intimate details about its Voyager PRO Bluetooth headset until April 23rd, but evidently its supply chain executives didn't exactly touch base with marketing before sending out stock to Best Buy. Jeff and John both managed to procure the $119.99 Bluetooth headset over the weekend, and we've got the shots to prove it. Based on the teaser site down in the read link, this here headset should be it's most advanced yet, but for a buck twenty, it better answer and respond to our calls without us having to intervene.
For better or worse, dual sliders are quickly becoming one of Nokia's trademarkformfactors -- but one thing we'd never really expected out of Espoo was a dual slider equipped with EV-DO Rev. A. Sure enough, FCC documentation has revealed a diminutive black dumbphone that packs CDMA800 / 1900 with 3G and slides two ways: one to reveal a numeric keypad, the other to offer up music controls. Historically, Nokia has "co-ODM'd" its CDMA devices with an unnamed Asian partner, and we suspect this device is no different -- but we've got to give them credit for crafting a genuinely Nokia-esque device here. The draft user's manual doesn't reveal a retail name or model number, but we do see references to UIMs (the CDMA equivalent of SIMs) and British spellings of "organiser," which leads us to believe North America might not be on the VIP list for this one. Would be a shame, wouldn't it?
Update: Commenter Kunal points out that this looks an awful lot like the China-bound 8208, which makes us wonder -- why the FCC approval? Did that bad boy pique the interest of Verizon or Sprint?
Look, there's really nothing special going on here -- it's just a theme for BlackBerry devices. A totally, totally awesome theme for BlackBerry devices. So awesome, in fact, that it makes our corporate-issued / controlled phone seem somehow cool again. What are you waiting for? Go get it.
While it puts the finishing touches on its nascent 7.2Mbps upgrades and starts certifying devices to use it, AT&T has revealed a juicy tidbit: that's probably the end of the line for old-guard HSPA on the country's largest GSM network. Before LTE, though, AT&T plans on upgrading to HSPA+ which should bring 21Mbps speeds out of the gate; straight-up HSPA is theoretically capable of moving to 14.4Mbps, but AT&T says that it's had technical difficulties in maxing it out and HSPA+ equipment is now ready for implementation anyhow. Simultaneously, the company says it's adding additional carriers at cells on a case-by-case basis to help with white-hot demand and is upgrading its backhaul network to handle the blazing speeds promised by the newer standards. We'll see.
After making an unintended early debut on the LG Germany’s blog last week, the LG Viewty II - which, by the way, has been redubbed the LG Viewty Smart - is officially official.
Not much about a cell phone can change in a week’s time, so everything’s dot-for-dot with what we saw leak out last week. It’s still got an 8 megapixel camera, WiFi, 7.2mbps HSDPA, aGPS, and the “S-Class” interface LG debuted with the Arena and has used on every phone since.
While we don’t have carrier or availability info yet (outside of “Europe starting this May and then launch in other markets around the world”), we do have a video with extreme zooming and quick spinning camera transitions. Check it out after the jump.
Know who doesn’t have a Palm Pre? Me. Or you, most likely. Know who does? Angelina Jolie.
Presumably one of many celebrities currently touting Palm’s not-so-secret weapon, Jolie was recently spotted on the set of an upcoming flick with a Pre in tow. When the LA Examiner asked her about it, she “went on about it for about two minutes.” The goods? She likes the software (”better than the iPhone”), and the keyboard. The bad? The screen scratches easily.
This is the second pre-release report we’ve heard indicating that the Pre’s screen might be a bit scratch-prone. Come on, Palm: iPhone users post videos of themselves pitting their glass screens against razor blades and keys for fun. Can we get a screen protector in the box, at least?
(Oh, and if you’re wondering about the image to the right: Angelina Jolie is not tiny, and the Palm Pre is not huge. We’re just horrible with Photoshop.)
Truthfully, we wouldn't put too much stock in that headline considering that Samsung Mobile Display, a company that makes its ends off of selling active-matrix OLEDs, is the source. But on the other hand, we can definitely see it coming to fruition. According to a new report, said outfit has stated that OLED screens of some sort will be on over half of all mobile phones (not just smartphones, mind you) within the next five years, and that these same power-sipping displays will be on 20 percent of digital cameras and 30 percent of portable game players (PSP2, anyone?) within the same window of time. While it may seem a bit far-fetched now, we actually have good reason to believe that OLED adoption will indeed skyrocket on the small scale; it's those big screen TVs that we're worried only our grandchildren will truly enjoy.
We've known for some time that China Mobile was planning to launch the KIRFy OPhone from Lenovo. Now, with word on the street that China Unicom has snagged the iPhone in that provider's home turf, a report from DigiTimes is suggesting that China Mobile might be trying to undermine the competition's supposed June iPhone launch by dropping the OPhone a month earlier. That sounds sensible enough, but are people there so eager for iPhone they'd jump on the imitation rather than wait another month for the real thing? We'll find out soon enough.
It's a new year and NetBlender has a new change of gear, pairing with BluFocus to bring last year's BD Touch software -- and its BD-Live enabled Blu-ray player to iPhone / iPod Touch connections -- up to version 2.0, featuring crossplatform capability with other WiFi enabled handhelds like Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre. While going iPhone exclusive hasn't hurt some apps, hopefully we'll see wider adoption of the technology, which can enable things from making the phone a remote control to using it as a keyboard, downloading files from the disc or playing games, now that it supports more than one platform. More info should be available once it hits the floor at NAB 2009 later this week.
HTC’s second Android device Magic was due for a launch in the UK last week, but was delayed till an unknown date to make a few modifications under the hood. Earlier today, the Vodafone Website was updated and it looks like May 5 is the tentative launch date for the Magic in the UK and not May 1. (I wonder if Cupcake will rollout by then.) I won’t begin to dissect the pricing plans that ye folk have to deal with across the pond, but the Magic is free.
I don’t see the point of purchasing any new phone on Sprint with the launch of the Palm Pre looming, but if you’re itching to get something new because your old phone was dropped in the toilet after a drunken night out this weekend then I’ll have you know that the mini Instinct is now available.
For $130 ($100MIR) you can get this little monstrosity of a touch-screen device that’s essentially a baby Instinct but now supports 32GB microSDHC cards. Because, you know, those are really affordable right now and everyone has them.
The yet unnamed device has a tiny solar panel behind the lid, making it possible to charge the phone through the power of the mighty sun. KDDI au claims 10 minutes of a solar charge is enough to be able to make a quick phone call (one minute) or use the phone on standby for an impressive 120 minutes.
Needless to say, the phone will also come with a conventional battery that can be charged up to 80% via solar power.
The phone will be sold in Japan from June. Plans for other markets are not yet on the table.
In continuation of a recent trend of majormanufacturers announcing a new-found interest in making a buck off developing nations solar-powered cellphones, AU (KDDI) and Sharp have announced the June launch of this unnamed solar handset. Besides being the world's first waterproof solar handset, it charges to a minute of talk or 2-hours of standby after just 10 minutes in the sun. No other specs were announced though we seriously doubt it'll be a power-sucking feature- or smart-phone. Naturally, it'll still be a boon to people where electricity is scarce but what about the industrious guy who owns the village car battery?
The Android buzz meter has witnessed an epic fall from grace over the past six months as webOS, new iPhone hardware and software, and -- gasp! -- maybe even a little WinMo 6.5 / 7.0 talk have all conspired to win back real estate in the mobile gossip columns. It's hard to say what the OHA's going to need to get back in the spotlight, but one part of that puzzle clearly comes from the 1.5 build in the pipeline, and another part is... well, a big mystery. In its first-quarter earnings call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt played coy about the situation, saying only that "it looks like Android is going to have a very strong year" and that the announcements we'll see in the space will be "quite significant." As much as we're stoked to see the Magic hit shelves, we can't say that we'd chalk that up as a "quite significant" announcement, so we're hoping it only gets better from here; Samsung, you have anything to say about this?
In the 22 city-strong foot race to get a live MPH-based mobile TV network up, running, and available to anyone who wants it, it looks like Washington DC's poised to come out on top. Raleigh has already deployed a handful of transmitters for the benefit of bus-goers, but the Open Mobile Video Coalition has announced that Washington DC's local CBS, PBS, NBC, and Ion affiliates plus a Fox-owned independent will all be ready to roll with MPH transmissions by late summer; of course, what remains to be seen is what sort of hardware will be ready to take advantage of the tech by then. We can likely count AT&T and Verizon out for offering MPH-enabled handsets seeing how they're still trying to figure out how to profit from their MediaFLO-based networks, so T-Mobile and Sprint's decisions to take a wait-and-see approach to the mobile TV phenomenon may really end up working in their favor here. Moving beyond the phones, it's said that Dell will be showing some sort of netbook this week with an integrated MPH tuner at the NAB show in Vegas this week, while Kenwood has in-car solutions in the works. As long as the broadcasts stay free -- which by all accounts they will -- the standard has a fighting chance at relevancy, assuming hardware comes to the table.
Okay, now it's official. After a misstep late last week, LG's ready to pull the trigger for reals on the Viewty Smart, the follow-on to one of its more successful high-end feature phones in recent memory. Pretty much every major feature has been improved or revamped over the original Viewty, including bumps to WVGA display resolution, an 8 megapixel camera with claimed ISO 1600 sensitivity (we'll see about that), DVD-quality video recording, LG's recently-introduced S-Class user interface concept, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, integrated WiFi, AGPS, and 1.5GB onboard with microSD expansion theoretically to 32GB. What's more, LG has somehow smushed this all into a package just 12.4mm thick, which makes this just about the most desirable non-smartphone on the planet -- on paper, anyhow. Look for it to start hitting European carriers next month, with availability elsewhere to be announced later on.
If you didn't like the way Android 1.0 looked, odds are you're not going to find 1.5 much more to your taste, but some ultra-minor refinements to the latest version's UI elements help add some extra spit and polish that's been missing since the initial launch. The official Android Developers Blog has published a heads-up to devs out there over concerns that the tweaks could break UIs in existing applications; specifically, the minimum width of some elements has been slashed by 20 pixels, so certain layouts could end up looking all wonky. That said, we're digging the revamped contact creation screen (pictured on the right, versus the old style on the left) -- so even if the changes are glacial, at least they're glacial moves in the right direction.
Geez, we'd almost forgotten about this rumor, but yeah -- now that we think about it, we'd heard all sorts of stuff about the LG Secret showing up on AT&T a while back. What happened to that? We can't say for sure, but it definitely wasn't a lack of FCC approval; this thing actually earned its shiny gold seal way back in October of last year, but we're just now getting confidentiality lifted on the good stuff like user manuals and external photos. Sure enough, that manual is rife with AT&T references like the notorious Video Share service, so we can still say with some confidence that it'll be heading that way eventually. Given the slim shell, touchscreen, and 5 megapixel cam, we'd like to be able to say that'll be happening soon -- but given how long they've gone so far, it's anyone's guess when we'll actually see it show up. Need any help with testing, guys?
Outside of Samsung's W7900 Show and a few nondescript prototypes, the projector phone sector has been largely stagnant. Thankfully, it seems at least one no-name company is looking to make a name for itself by developing yet another entrant. The LitPhone, designed and showcased by China's own SCT Optronics, is a GSM handset that sports CMMB TV tuning, a touchscreen and a built-in projector with an undisclosed native resolution. Furthermore, the company also demonstrated its USB-powered PCLit mobile projector at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair, which debuted alongside Join Technology's JP77 and WE3 Technology's WE8626. Have a glance at the whole bundle down in the read link -- just don't get those hopes too high about a US release date anytime soon.
Our corporate cousins at AOL Money & Finance just released their Daily Finance app for the iPhone, and since it's kinda cool when someone in the family releases a top-rated mobile app, we thought it'd be a good opportunity to sit down for a second and compare it to Stocks -- the built-in "finance" app that every iPhone owner has whether they want it or not -- and another top-rated finance app, Bloomberg. The screen shots tell much of the tale; read on for the quick take, but here's a preview of what we found: Apple should get out of this business and let the big boys play.
We're no Wall Street wizards -- we're more Kevin Bacon's character in his bike messenger days in Quicksilver than Vin Diesel in his Ferrari days in Boiler Room -- but in the final analysis, one thing's very clear: the iPhone's built-in Stocks app sucks, which you don't really come to realize and appreciate until after you've played with these heavier-duty options from AOL and Bloomberg. It leads us to wonder why it's there to begin with, and furthermore, why they've continued to work on it for 3.0 by adding landscape mode. Like the equally-weak Weather app, Apple would be better served by cutting Stocks out of the firmware and leaving it to companies that have the know-how and the vested interest in producing a quality product (like, say, The Weather Channel in place of Weather). As for the battle between Bloomberg and Daily Finance, they're both fantastically detailed with tons of options for tracking your portfolio, checking out a variety of chart time ranges in landscape view, staying up on corporate and world news, and keeping tabs on global indexes. Ultimately, we'd say they're neck-and-neck; since they're free, we recommend you download and try them both. We preferred the way that Daily Finance presented news for individual stocks -- on their own tab to reduce clutter -- and liked the fact that you have far more news categories available to you. On the flipside, we marginally preferred the high-contrast visual appearance of Bloomberg -- it seemed just a little more "professional" to us. Either way, though, do yourself a favor and relegate Stocks to some unused page at the very back of your home screen.
With too many companies to list battling it out for users in the live mobile video broadcasting space, spreading the word is key. Most people just don’t realize such a thing is possible; outside of geekier circles, the entire concept is still fairly new. Stream a live video from your handset and send the link off to some friends that don’t lurk blogs and social sites all day - chances are they’ll be more amazed by the fact that you’re streaming live video from a phone than they are by the content.
