Mobile Phone News

Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, CDMA

Cellpassion has unearthed a new candybar from Motorola that it claims will find shelter on “a couple” US carriers — and judging from the “MetroPCS” front and center on the display, we’d tend to agree. The so-called VE240 really isn’t much to look at, but it obviously has a music slant and reminds us a bit of the W388 we first saw not long ago with an added bar of bright orange across the front for, oh… excitement and style, we guess? If the MetroPCS bit checks out, it’ll be a CDMA handset, so put away those newfangled SIM cards, GSM fanboys and girls.

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Tags: American Carrier, Bright Orange, Candybar, Checks, Excitement, Fanboys, Girls, Motorola, Motorola Cdma, Music, Nbsp, Newfangled, Sim Cards, Slant

Filed under: Software, Sagem, Verizon Wireless, Linux

Following a new round of partnership announcements back in February, LiMo Foundation today added 8 new members, bringing the grand total to 40 — and perhaps most notably, Verizon Wireless becomes the first American carrier to team up with the group and the Foundation’s final board member (in other words, they seem to be taking this initiative pretty seriously). Other new players include South Korea’s SK Telecom, France’s SFR, Sagem, chipmaker Infineon, and Mozilla, suggesting that there’ll be plenty of mobile Firefox support for LiMo’s nascent platform. LiMo represents the largest Linux-based threat to Android’s plans for world domination, having declare its initiative some time before Google while collecting a veritable who’s-who of world players from NTT DoCoMo to manufacturers like LG and Motorola — and with the depth of Verizon’s commitment to this, evident by its nabbing of an actual board seat, we wouldn’t be surprised to see LiMo-based products actually go beyond its Any Apps, Any Device initiative and get real on the carrier’s official lineup.

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Tags: American Carrier, Android, Apps, Board Member, Board Seat, Google, Grand Total, Infineon, Initiative, Mozilla, Nbsp, Ntt Docomo, Partnership Announcements, Sfr, Sk Telecom, South Korea, Telecom France, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, World Domination

Filed under: Handsets, Samsung, Verizon Wireless, EV-DO, CDMA

The Samsung Glyde was one of the most hyped phones on an American carrier in recent memory leading up to its launch, and there’s one small problem with that: it’s hard to live up to the fanfare, no matter how good (or bad) the phone might be. A common early complaint coming out of the gate seems to be the lack of support for Verizon’s MediaFLO-based VCAST TV service, a service that the Glyde’s main competition, the Voyager, supports. The UI’s also getting panned for being a little more confusing that it needs to be; compounding matters is the fact that Phone Scoop describes it as a “push UI” on account of a fiddly touchscreen. For what it’s worth, it seems that the keyboard is at least Truly good — so if you can put up with the negatives, the Glyde might still have a place in your pocket. Otherwise, the Voyager’s still looking awfully good, isn’t it?

Read - LAPTOP Magazine (2.5 / 5 stars, “…limited by a poor UI and unreliable performance”)
Read - Phone Scoop (”The Glyde pairs a few of the bes. things from the physical and touch worlds”)
Read - PHONE Magazine (”The Verizon Glyde isn’t a bad cellphone, but it’s outshone by its rivals”)

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Tags: American Carrier, Cellphone, Fanfare, Glyde, Keyboard, Laptop Magazine, Launch, Nbsp, Pairs, Phone Scoop, Rivals, Roundup, Samsung, Samsung Wireless, Touchscreen, Tv Service, Ui, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Voyager