Mobile Phone News

Filed under: Motorola, Samsung

No matter how dire Motorola’s situation may be, it’s still been able to cling to one last title keeping it firmly entrenched in the ranks of the world’s mobile manufacturing elite: US phone sales. For years, Motorola has ridden the RAZR gravy train to success on its home turf more than any other, keeping more globally relevant rivals like Nokia and LG at bay. No longer, though — Samsung has finally dethroned Moto, upping its share of the US market to 22.4 percent from 16.2 percent a year ago. That leaves Motorola in number two with 21.1 percent, a shocking fall from 32.7 percent in 2007. LG’s knocking on the door at 20.5 percent, so unless the boys and girls in Chicago can get their Android-supportin’ butts in gear on the double, we could see a drop to number three within a quarter or two.

Samsung steals Motorola’s claim to fame, takes number one spot in US phone sales originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Handsets, LG, ATT, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS

We’ve heard some rumblings that AT&T was keen on picking up the Secret to shore up its high-end featurephone lineup, and that’s being corroborated by what other sites are hearing as well — all told, that leaves LG in a pretty enviable position with the 800-pound gorilla of the US GSM market, presumably launching the sexy (well, arguably sexy) Incite smartphone alongside one of the smartest-looking 5-megapixel handsets in the market today. The Secret clone, model number CF750, should apparently feature the same high-end cam, thin shell, 3G, and touchscreen as its European brother, clearly swapping bands to make the package a little more palatable to a North American audience. Moving downmarket a little bit, the CF360 looks to be a decrease-end piece that’ll do duty in AT&T’s rank-and-file lineup — in other words, it’ll basically print money. We’re cool with all this, but seriously, guys, can we tighten up the European to North American technology transfer just a little bit? No? Too much to ask?

[Via phoneArena, thanks alex]

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Filed under: Software, HTC, Windows Mobile

Sluggish Touch Diamond performance got you down? We can think of at least a few Americans that wish they had to worry about it, but HTC’s infinite wisdom in leaving out GSM 850 and HSDPA 850 / 1900 leaves that crowd with bigger problems on its hands. The rest of you, though, might want to have a look at one of the latest fruits to fall out of the xda-developer tree — the “Elite 1.0″ ROM image for the Touch Diamond, featuring a handful of tweaks to streamline things (Welcome Center gets the boot, for instance), enabled HSUPA, and a newer version of the .NET Compact Framework that allegedly all but solves the crappy performance some owners and reviewers have been complaining about. This is about as unofficial as it gets, of course, so proceed with your own risk.

Separately, it seems that Touch Diamonds at this time hitting shops should be loaded with a slightly newer official ROM than the build passed around on the first batch of review units, and Coolsmartphone reports that it’s faster. Not Truly as streamlined as the Elite ROM seems to be, but hey, if you prefer to roll on the straight and narrow, it sounds like HTC has you covered.

[Thanks, Aaron K.]

Read - Elite ROM thread on xda-developers
Read - Newer official ROM?

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