Filed under: Handsets, Sony Ericsson, ATT, GSM, EDGE

Come on, now, Sony Ericsson, you know what happens when you make too many colors of the same damn phone. The W580i was a serviceable midrange Walkman handset in its heyday, but without 3G, it’s pretty hard to justify the $99 after contract and rebate that AT&T is asking for the thing in its latest shade — a nice, shiny red. Ironically, the 3G-equipped Z750a is a solid $50 less, so yeah, we’re really not seeing where AT&T is going with this. To be fair, $99 is the same price being asked for every color of the W580i (and there are many at this point), but shouldn’t they be using this golden opportunity to lower prices across the board to somewhere within the realm of reason and logic?

[Via phoneArena]

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Filed under: Handsets, Samsung

While most folks are understandably a little hesitant to pop anything more than the battery cover off of their phone, there are thankfully a brave few like those at Rapid Repair who are willing to throw caution (and their warranty) to the wind and tear things down to the bare essentials. As you may or may not be able to make out from the image above, their latest dissection involved the fast-selling Samsung Instinct and, as is their nature, they’ve included some step-by-step instructions in case you want to have a go at it yourself. Hit up the read link below for those, and plenty more pics.

[Thanks, Aaron]

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Filed under: Handsets, Nokia, GSM, EDGE

So one of the models in Nokia’s new low-cost Supernova fashion series, the 7610 slider, just hit the FCC for approval. That’s not terribly interesting — this sort of thing happens on a daily basis. What we did find interesting, though, was this little patch of stars on the backside. It’s kind of like that tattoo you’ve got hidden in a naughty place no one’s ever going to see, because those stars lie directly under the far more uptight, boring, slate blue battery cover. What’s up with that? North Americans who want to investigate this little mystery in more detail are in luck on account of the quadband GSM / EDGE radio, so as long as you haven’t sworn allegiance to the 3G towers in your neighborhood, you’ll be good to go — just don’t go shedding your battery cover for every heartbreaker you meet.

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

While you’re waiting for LG’s very latest Chocolate to show up in Verizon stores next month, have a gander at some high-quality shots of the clamshell — which we understand is not actually edible, by the by. The Chocolate 3 will be available in both black and blue (to start, anyway, though we wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more over the course of the phone’s lifespan) and features a full gigabyte of internal storage for the tunes in addition to the standard microSD slot. That’s one heck of a secondary display there, isn’t it?

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Filed under: Handsets, Samsung, Sprint, EV-DO, CDMA

Looks like Sprint’s gargantuan marketing blitz for the Instinct is in the process of paying off, because the carrier has announced that the Samsung device has become its best-selling EV-DO device ever in the first week of availability. Long-term popularity will depend largely on word of mouth as early adopters decide whether they made the right purchase, of course, but it’s a promising sign for a company that hasn’t had a ton of good news to report lately. They’re reporting that the overwhelming popularity has led to shortages in some areas, but go on to assure us that “Samsung has increased efforts to deliver new supplies of Instinct on a daily basis and manufacturing plants are operating at full capacity to keep up with the demand.” Here’s our question, though: Sprint makes a point of saying that it’s their best-selling EV-DO device, so what’s their best-selling device regardless of technology — the Sony Z-100, perhaps, also known as the baddest cellphone of all time?

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Filed under: Handsets, Software, HTC, Sprint, Windows Mobile, EV-DO, CDMA

Hey, Vogue users — jealous of your Mogul toting friends, are you? Put all that angst aside, as an official Sprint firmware update has just been loosed that adds Windows Mobile 6.1 among other things. Not much else to say beyond that, and besides, shouldn’t you have that download started already?

[Via phoneArena]

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Filed under: Handsets, Features, Sony Ericsson, Windows Mobile, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS, HSUPA

So here’s the scene. We’re at the Digital Experience show, trying to get our hands on a powered-up Sony Xperia X1. Sure, we found a unit that wasn’t powered up, but that does you — and us — no good. Sony told us to come back in 15 minutes, so we grabbed some press kits, made a round of booths, and came back.

Sure enough, when we came back the X1 was powered up, but the nice booth lady tried to tell us that things weren’t working just right and the unit was stuck on the config screen. After some jiggering, we determined the little X1 was just stuck on the touch screen calibration, and we were cruising through menus within minutes. It’s pretty clear this unit wasn’t ready for primetime — you’ll even see some HTC test apps in the below gallery — but we were impressed by the screen’s resolution and brightness. Windows Mobile 6.1 showed it face often in the UI, but the phone app and general utilities were looking good.

Overall, the X1 is a pleasure to behold — it’s one sexy device. That said, we’ll have to wait how Sony Ericsson’s user interface shapes up and just look at the pretty pictures in the gallery until mid-September.

You can find the gallery over here at Engadget Classic.

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Filed under: Handsets, HTC, T-Mobile, Windows Mobile

We’ve seen the HTC-sourced T-Mobile Shadow II peeking out from around the dark corners of eBay and the harsh lights of the FCC, but the latest word is that the WinMo slider will also come equipped with UMA, allowing it to work with HotSpot@Home. That’s a first for an HTC handset and a first for Windows Mobile, but before you get all excited, check the source of those whispers: “market sources” quoted by Digitimes. Yeah, we’ll believe it when we see it.

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Filed under: GPS

Here’s one for the hunters. Strap the Garmin DC 30 collar onto your hunting dog, fire up your Astro 220 receiver, and you’ll not only know where your dog is, but you’ll also know if he is running, pointing, or treeing, even in dense cover. Range is good for up to seven miles, and the tracking even covers the dog’s direction so you can figure out where that delicious nubbin of turkey is hiding. The receiver can track up to 10 dogs at once, and the collar is good for 17-36 hours on one charge. The DC 30 is sold separately for $199.99 or for $649.99 as part of an Astro 220 combo, and should be available third-quarter 2008.

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Filed under: GPS

We may be a little overexcited about Mio’s Knight Rider GPS unit, but we’re not about to apologize for that. This is one beautiful union of KITT and navigation that was meant to happen since the day LCDs and GPS chips first hung out. With that out of the way, we have some hands-on impressions.

The unit feels solid and small enough to be portable while the screen remains just big enough to be of use. A nice anti-glare coating looks to keep things visible during daylight hours. Yes, standard fare.

Peep the gallery below and don’t miss the video after the break.

Continue reading Getting dirty with Mio’s Knight Rider GPS

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