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All posts tagged "verizon"


Friday, December 9, 2011

Verizon DROID XYBOARD: 8.2 & 10.1 4G LTE Tablets

Posted by Michael Knutson in "Other Slates & Tablets" @ 11:30 AM

http://www.slashgear.com/verizon-dr...icial-06200283/

"Verizon has made the DROID XYBOARD Android tablets official, the 4G LTE versions of Motorola’s XOOM 2 and XOOM 2 Media Edition slates. The 10.1-inch and 8.2-inch tablets each have a 1280 x 800 IPS display, 5-megapixel main camera and 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, along with WiFi a/b/g/n and that all important EVDO Rev.A/LTE. An upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich is expected in the new year."

A great feature of this tablet is that the 4G LTE network can be shared with up to eight (8) tethered clients, otherwise, not much else is different (that is readily apparent) from Motorola's initial versions. I'm intrigued by the 8.2-inch screen, as I've found that a 7-inch form factor is a bit too small for my old eyes, and the 1280x800 IPS screen should make things crisp and clear! On a two-year conytract, the 8.2 will cost $430 for a 16GB model, and $530 for a 32GB model, while the 10.1 starts at $530 for 16GB, $630 for 32GB, and $730 for 64GB. In addition, data plans start at $30/month. Seems a bit pricey in today's market.


Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Androinica Reviews the Moto Droid Razr

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 11:30 AM

http://androinica.com/2011/11/motor...id-razr-review/

"With the Droid Razr, Motorola attempts to marry the game-changing attributes of its two most important brands of the modern smartphone era. The phone is once again sleek and sharp like the latter half of its name would imply, but bold and limit-pushing like the former. So how successful is Motorola at merging form and function in its latest phone?"

If you're not familiar with the Droid Razr it's a very thin Android phone that packs a powerful 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM along with 16GB of storage and it comes with an additional 16GB card. It also has a 540x960 4.3" display. This review covers a little bit of everything about it. One thing that's noteworthy is apparently the Droid Razr has better battery life than any other LTE Android phone. The reviewer also said the call quality was "really good", better than he is used to, and he doesn't mind the UI that Moto put on this thing adding that it has some nice features - much improved from the old Blur that so many people hated. On the downside he didn't love the Super AMOLED Advanced qHD display.

Read the full review for all the details. Will the Droid Razr be your next phone?


Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Coming November 14th to the US: HTC Rezound

Posted by Karey Westfall in "HTC Android Phones" @ 09:30 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/03/...zound-unveiled/

"HTC's Rezound first leaked its way into our gadget-lusting hearts in late summer. Then bearing the virile Vigor codename, we suspected a heartily specced, Beats Audio-branded destiny for the device. And today's official unveiling doesn't disappoint, setting this 4.3-inch handset on a 4G course for Verizon's LTE airwaves."

It has been announced that HTC and Verizon will release the HTC Rezound November 14th! This new phone will be the first phone in the US to feature Beats Audio which promises to deliver an "introduction of advanced audio and high-definition visual experience". Also arriving with the Beats Audio is a 8 megapixel camera, Sense 3.5 on top of Gingerbread 2.3.4 (and Ice Cream Sandwich-ready), 16 GB internal storage, 1 GB RAM as well as those totally cool Beats headphones. With a contract, expect to pick up the new phone at $299.99, which is a steal considering that the headphones alone cost about $150!


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The HTC Rhyme Goes for Form Over Function

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 12:00 PM

http://blog.laptopmag.com/htc-rhyme...199#more-108313

"Available in a female-friendly Plum for Verizon customers, the Rhyme has clean lines and a nice soft-touch back. HTC tweaked the Sense interface to make it more open and friendly, relegated the clock to the bottom right corner and adding dynamic shortcut icons to the home screen."

The Rhyme is not a bad phone at all actually. It's not for me but for a phone that's not supposed to be high-end it's got very reasonable specs. It has a 1GHz CPU with the Adreno 205 GPU, 3.7" 480x800 SuperLCD, 768MB of memory, and 4GB of built in storage. It comes with an 8GB MicroSDHC card as well for additional storage. It also comes with Gingerbread (Android 2.3.x) which is expected by now. The front facing camera is only VGA and the rear camera is 5MP but honestly they should work as well as the cameras on most other phones for general use.

What sets the Rhyme apart, and may make the $200 it costs worth the money, are the tweaks to the HTC Sense interface and the included accessories. The interface, among other things, includes slide out drawer-like widget icons. I think this is a cool idea though really it's not much different then folders I guess. It does look cooler to me. As far as accessories go the Rhyme includes a dock, tangle-free ear buds with in-line controls, and a funky notification dongle/charm thingy. The charm plugs into the earphone jack and flashes when you get calls or other notifications. See the video in the source article (click the "Read" link below) for a demo of the charm working. I think the notification charm is a cool idea but should have been done with Bluetooth. Of course then you would have something else to keep charged. It will be interesting to see if owners find the notification charm useful or useless just because it's too much of a hassle to plug in all the time. I'd love to hear what you think of this new phone from HTC!


Tuesday, September 20, 2011

HTC Rhyme: Photos and Specs

Posted by Jason Dunn in "HTC Android Phones" @ 08:00 AM

http://www.htc-press.com/

More photos after the break, and here's the full spec sheet. Read more...


Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Engadget Reviews the Droid Bionic

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 10:00 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/08/...-bionic-review/

"It's been said that absence makes a heart grow fonder, so it was with very willing and eager hands this week that we received the Droid Bionic, Motorola's latest high-octane, robot-themed assault on Verizon Wireless subscribers."

With a dual-core 1GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, about 23GB of usable storage space, a 960x540 4.3" screen, 1700mHA battery, LTE 4G, and 1080p video recording the Droid Bionic is a very respectable device. Engadget has a nice review with lots of photos and video that goes into detail about things like performance, battery life, and accessories - including a WebTop laptop dock thing like the Atrix.

I generally like what Motorola does with their hardware. In this case I'm not sure about the CPU/GPU choice. Also I think the VGA front facing camera was a bad choice. I would expect a 2MP front facing camera on a high-end phone. I've seen the PenTile screen on the Droid X2 and I like that. Check out the review and let us know what you think. Is this the Droid you've been waiting for? If you bought one I'd love to know how you like it so far!


Wednesday, August 31, 2011

HTC Vigor Photos on Droid-Life

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 10:00 AM

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/08/2...-the-htc-vigor/

"Hello, HTC Vigor. You have eluded us for the most part up until now, but we are excited to finally get a clean look at you. With your red accents, big beautiful screen, and black rubbery Incredible-esque contoured back, we would gladly accept you into our everyday lives."

Droid-Life has two pictures of the upcoming HTC Vigor. This is a high-end phone with a 1.5GHz Snapdragon dual-core CPU that has the Adreno 220 GPU. It also has a 4.3" HD (I'm guessing they mean 720x1280) screen, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. Oh yeah, and it has LTE if you're wanting the latest and fastest thing out there.

My biggest question would be how's the battery life? Other than that, this looks like a great phone! Questions, comments, more info...we would love to hear from you!


Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Androinica Reviews the Droid 3

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android Talk" @ 10:00 AM

http://androinica.com/2011/08/motor...s-time-to-love/

"I’ve never used the original Droid, and I’ve only heard good things, so the prospect of using an official Droid was exciting. The first week, however, I couldn’t get into the phone right away. I rarely took the Droid 3 with me because it seemed sluggish, but I finally buckled down to figure it out and came away modestly impressed with the third version of one of Motorola and Verizon’s most popular brands."

This is a good concise review of the Motorola Droid 3. Though I'm not a fan of physical keyboards on phones in general I really don't like them without dedicated numeric keys. I was glad to see they finally fixed that and added a new top row with numbers. I'm also glad they added MicroHDMI. The fact that it can record 1080p video is a nice touch as well. Also, I was glad they finally bumped the screen up from 3.7" to 4". I think screen size is so critical when you're using your finger, and not a stylus, to push on-screen buttons. I was very surprised that the reviewer found it slow at first. I haven't used it but wouldn't have expected that from any dual-core phone running Gingerbread.

Do you have a Droid 3? If so, what's your favorite feature? How has the performance been? If you don't have a Droid 3 does it have the features you're looking for?


Saturday, July 30, 2011

Hands-on with the Speedy Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G from Verizon

Posted by Michael Knutson in "Laptop Thoughts Talk" @ 10:00 AM

"By now, you should be familiar with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. We've done countless hands-ons with the super-svelte Honeycomb slate, and even reviewed it... twice! Now it's back, again, and this time its packing an LTE radio tuned to the frequencies of a little company known as Verizon. Outside of a few tiny cosmetic changes -- the brushed, gray plastic back and the rumored Micro SIM slot up top, nothing else has changed."

It appears, based on preliminary testing with this tablet, that Verizon's 4G is indeed super fast, with an average (repeatable) testing speed of 28+ Mbps downstream, and nearly 8Mbps upstream. Thunderbolt testing produced repeatable results of 44+ Mbps downstream, and 9+ Mbps upstream. Did I mention that this is fast?

If a compelling reason is needed to jettison existing hardware, software and carrier-relationship, this may be one! Now if only those pesky usage caps would disappear, or become more realistic.

  • Discuss
  • Permalink
  • Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/28/galaxy-tab-10-1-for-verizon-hands-on-with-the-new-4g-speed-king/


Friday, July 29, 2011

Latest Xoom 4G LTE Upgrade Rumor Says September is the Magic Month

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 10:00 AM

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/07/2...ling-out-today/

"We just received word that Motorola XOOM 3G owners could will see an email from either Moto or Verizon today with details about their 4G LTE upgrade. According to our source, the email will inform them that the upgrade will not happen until September"

If you were one of the first to buy the Xoom you're probably disappointed that you've had to wait this long. The good news is, there is a light at the end of the tunnel! Verizon has announced that the LTE upgrade will be available in September. At least the Xoom did get Gingerbread 3.2 and it has at least some support for use of the MicroSDHC card slot. If you have a Xoom I would be interested to know if the lower bandwidth of 3G has been a real problem for you. Do you think it's holding you back or are there a lot of things you're not downloading because it would take too long?


Thursday, July 14, 2011

Travel Off the Beaten Path With VZ Navigator and VZ Navigator Global From Verizon Wireless

Posted by Karey Westfall in "Android Software" @ 09:30 AM

http://products.verizonwireless.com...d=fnd_navigator

Verizon Wireless has created two navigation apps called VZ Navigator and VZ Navigator Global. The VZ Navigator app is your guide within the country but VZ Global takes it, well, global so you can travel unfamiliar foreign territory. The apps contains voice turn-by-turn directions, accurate real highway signs (for you visual drivers like myself), integrated roadside assistance, traffic notifications and location sharing so your peeps will know exactly when you will arrive to the kegger! Pricing is dependent on which plan you select and they offer a "one day" plan for the VZ Navigator app which would be good for venturing out of your local area on summer vacation. Plus, Verizon is offering a free 30 day trial for VZ Navigator so you can try it before buying!


Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Verizon Expands LTE Wireless Network

Posted by Jeff Campbell in "The Competition" @ 11:16 AM

http://www.macworld.com/article/160...l#lsrc.rss_main

"Verizon Wireless announced 19 more cities that will get its faster LTE wireless network service starting Thursday, bringing the total to 74 metropolitan areas."

19 new locations across the country, including Sacramento, CA, Hartford, Conn, Boise, ID and many more. You can get the full list here in case you are wondering if your city made the cut. This just adds fuel to the competitive fires so to speak as AT&T is going to launch their own LTE 4G network this summer in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas Houston and San Antonio, while Sprint is rumored to be in the planning process to add LTE to it's 4G network. This can't come soon enough for me, with data speeds up to 10 Mbps it certainly will leave 3G in the dust.


Wednesday, May 25, 2011

New Verizon Droid 3: Now With Less LTE...

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android News" @ 08:30 AM

http://www.technobuffalo.com/compan...3-details-leak/

"Rumors of the Motorola Droid 3 have been floating around for a while now, and while pictures have been nice, what's been lacking is confirmation on spec details. Now, thanks to a reliable tipster with a history of providing us with confirmed information, we can give you some of that highly desired confirmation."

The rumors continue to swirl but it looks like a few more concrete details have emerged about the next iteration of the famed Droid. It looks as if the keyboard has finally been updated to a full five row layout giving us quick access to those oft difficult to find numbers. Along with the keyboard the device will be sporting a 4-inch qHD screen, a dual core CPU, and a front facing camera. One thing curiously missing is support for Verizon's fancy new LTE network. Hopefully it just isn't enabled yet via software unlike some Motorola devices *coughXOOMcough*. Either way this device looks to be quite the upgrade over the current Droid 2 LTE or not. Is this the Droid you're looking for?


Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Samsung Galaxy S II For The US: Attain The Function Within

Posted by Jason Lee in "Samsung Android Phones" @ 09:00 PM

http://pocketnow.com/android/galaxy...nding-confirmed

"As we suspected in late March, it appears as if Samsung will be bringing the Galaxy S II stateside under the brand names Attain, Function, and Within."

This could be very good news for smart phone users here in the US. Perhaps this time there will not be drastic differences in the Samsung Galaxy S line across all the major US carriers. Well, other than the name. This product listing shows a case for the AT&T Attain, Verizon Function, and the Sprint Within, all variants of the Samsung Galaxy S II. If they can all use the exact same form fitting case then odds are pretty good that they are going to be the same this time around. Hardware wise at least. I can't wait to see how bad the carriers screw up the software.


Thursday, April 28, 2011

Motorola Releases Update for the Xoom

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 07:00 PM

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/04/2...-live-tomorrow/

"A Motorola XOOM update will be made available [today] that brings a bunch of fixes to the device including Bluetooth support on Google Talk and for a mouse, proxy support, and a new picture transfer protocol."

A PDF from Verizon introduces the latest update for the Motorola Xoom Android tablet. Is has a number of fixes like for HTML display of POP3 email as well as a few new features like support for a Bluetooth mouse. I'm not sure how Android would be with a pointer but it would be fun to at least try. I wonder if they have a way to do two finger gestures with the mouse, like rotating the display in Google Maps...anyway, it's great to see that so many issues are addressed. The update is only 28MB, which doesn't sound too big to me. Unfortunatly it doesn't add support for the MicroSD card slot. I'm not sure what's up with that since apparently the MicroSD card slot is fully functional out of the box on the Asus EeePad Transformer. Please let us know if you give this update a try. Does it work as advertised, do more, or less?


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

FCC Tells AT&T And Verizon To Play Nice: Mandatory Data Roaming

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android Mobile Operators" @ 05:00 PM

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...ta-traffic.html

"AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Wireless must let smaller competitors use their networks for mobile Internet service under rules approved today by a divided Federal Communications Commission."

I'm sure there are some guys in suit wearing blue and red ties gritting there teeth right about now. In a move that can only be good for regional carriers and irritating for the big guys, the FCC has mandated that AT&T and Verizon must negotiate fair data roaming agreements with smaller regional carriers much as they are required to do with voice roaming now. I'm not really sure how much of an impact this will make on the on the big guns but it has certainly changed the ball game. Any of you out there rockin an Android on Podunk Wireless excited about this move?


Monday, March 28, 2011

Thunderbolt Hits Verizon

Posted by Kevin Jackson in "HTC Android Phones" @ 02:00 PM

http://gizmodo.com/#!5784448/verizo...-thunderbolt-4g

"The Thunderbolt 4G is the first honest-to-goodness 4G phone on Verizon, the first LTE smartphone you can buy in the US. In other words, it's the fastest phone-connection-wise-that you can buy right now. And holy crap, is it fast.

At the same time, it's a phone that feels incredibly familiar because it is: a steroid-infused version of a phone that HTC's been selling us in various guises for a very long time."

This appears to be another very capable device from HTC, and on Verizon's 4G LTE network it is blazing fast. Any of you Verizon-ites picking this up? Let us know what you think in the forums.


Friday, March 18, 2011

Verizon Waives Activation Fees for Xoom and Galaxy Tab For a Limited Time

Posted by Kevin Jackson in "Android Mobile Operators" @ 07:00 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/15/...s-effective-re/

"In an unforeseen act of generosity, Verizon has decided to scrap the $35 activation fee it charges with purchases of the 3G-equipped Motorola Xoom and Galaxy Tab tablets"

If you're looking to get a tablet with Verizon, now is a good time. For a limited time (no word on how limited just yet) you can get a Xoom or Galaxy Tab with no activation fee on month-to-month contracts.

So what are you waiting for? Get ye to the Verizon store!


Thursday, March 17, 2011

HTC Thunderbolt Strikes March 17

Posted by Karey Westfall in "HTC Android Phones" @ 09:00 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/15/...bolt-for-march/

"We said it'd be coming on the 17th, but you didn't believe us. Why didn't you believe us? No matter, Verizon's finally fessing up and letting us know the good news..."

Get ready for spring with the HTC Thunderbolt launching March 17th for $249.99 (with 2 year new customer agreement) on Verizon Wireless. The phone will be the first 4G LTE for Verizon and features front and back cameras, hotspot capabilities (connect with up to 8 other Wi-Fi enable devices), and 8 GB built in memory. Don't forget though, that if you buy a Thunderbolt you also have to subscribe to Verizon's Nationwide Talk plans beginning at $39.99 and an unlimited 4G LTE data plan for $29.99 per month. So check it out and let us know if you enjoy Verizon's newest and fastest phone!


Wednesday, March 16, 2011

HTC Thunderbolt Coming March 17th?

Posted by Jason Lee in "HTC Android Phones" @ 07:00 PM

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/03/1...-17launch-date/

"Hello, Imran Shahid. You appear to work for HTC as a regional sales manager and have just tweeted some very sweet words. March 17 as a launch day for the Thunderbolt?"

It looks like the wait may finally be over if this tweet from Imran Shahid, an HTC regional sales manage, is any indication. Mr. Shahid's Twitter account has since been deleted but not before some keen folks out there grabbed this screen shot. I guess we'll find out tomorrow if there is any truth to this. It sure will be nice to finally have an LTE phone out there. Anyone hitting up their local Verizon store tomorrow?


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