AT&T loves to trumpet the importance of the so-called “quick messaging” segment to its bottom line — the QWERTY-equipped featurephones that keep the teens and tweens texting 24 / 7 — so it’s no surprise that of the latest batch of devices they’ve added into the mix from Samsung and Pantech (which we missed while caught up in the week’s MIX10 activities), three of the four have full keyboards. The Strive from Samsung gets real in stores on March 21 with a 2 megapixel cam and vertical slide for just $20 on contract with rebate; the Sunburst comes on the same date for $40 with the same cam but a rather attractive full-touch design. On the Pantech side, you can choose from the portrait QWERTY Link (pictured left) or the Pursuit portrait slider, though neither has been blessed with a price or release date just yet. Perhaps more interesting than the phones themselves is the fact that the devices are the first to get hooked up with a host of new services from AT&T, including a cloud-synced address book, a media sharing service called Mobile Share that allows you to transfer videos and pictures between devices for a monthly or per-transfer fee, and so-called “Next Generation Messaging” that adds group texting capability, a threaded view, and a unified inbox — smartphone-caliber features across the lower end of AT&T’s range.

AT&T posts four new featurephones from Samsung and Pantech originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[Thanks, Bibo]

Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger phone for France is hardly Pink originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia’s community blog has opened up the crowdsourcing floodgates, at least in theory. For “Design by Community,” users will be able to vote on smartphone features via a series of sliders, although within an arbitrary point allotment system. A new poll opens next week for size and shape, followed by materials, operating system (Symbian or MeeGo being the only choices, unsurprisingly), and so on in the weeks that follow, with the last poll starting April 26th. After that, a concept sketch will be voted on and later rendered — but no plans to ever have it made into an actual retail product (boo). We can’t exactly say we understand all the selections here: why is a touchscreen keyboard less ambitious than T9 text entry? Does saying capacitive is more ambitious than resistive serve as a subtle hint of trends to come? What in the world is the difference between hot key and one touch? It’s interesting to see how X6, N900, N97 all come out as a Perfect Mixes, while last year’s E75 and the more recent C5 all straddle the “less than ambitious” line. Oh, and just so we’re clear… a 5-inch, 21:9 ratio display without touchscreen but with a touchscreen keyboard is a perfect mix. Go figure.

[Thanks, Pratik V]

Nokia’s Design by Community makes smartphone concepting a multiplayer game, with limits originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm gave us a heads-up back in late February that its upcoming earnings report wouldn’t exactly be cause for celebration, and today the news has become official: the outfit recorded a net loss of $22 million during its fiscal Q3, which still looks rosy compared to the $98 million loss it suffered this quarter a year ago. All told, the firm shipped 960,000 smartphones in the period, which represents a 23 percent uptick from Q2 2010 and a nearly 300 percent increase compared to this quarter in 2009. Unfortunately, sell-through wasn’t exactly stellar, with just 408,000 units changing hands — that’s a 29 percent decline from last quarter and a 15 percent drop year-over-year. We get the impression that it’s waiting for carriers to get down to replenishment levels, but it’s hard to say when that’ll happen. Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s chairman and CEO, was obviously not thrilled about the news, but he’s mirroring statements made to employees just over a fortnight ago with this quote:

“Our recent underperformance has been very disappointing, but the potential for Palm remains strong. The work we’re doing to improve sales is having an impact, we’re making great progress on future products, and we’re looking forward to upcoming launches with new carrier partners. Most importantly, we have built a unique and highly differentiated platform in webOS, which will provide us with a considerable - and growing - advantage as we move forward.”

We’re listening into the earnings call right now, and so far we’ve heard a few choice quotes. Jon mentioned that Palm has “aggressive roadmaps on the software front that we’re working on,” and that there were “no changes to our planned carrier launches.” We’ll let you know if he introduces the Pixi 2 or anything.

Update: The call’s over. PreCentral points out a choice quote from Rubinstein:

We had an arrangement with Sprint that when we launched with Sprint that they would invest in marketing and carry the product and for that they would get an exclusive for a period of time. That really determined when we could do our launch at Verizon. I agree with your premise that if we could have launched at Verizon earlier, prior to Droid, that we would have gotten the attention that the Droid got and since I believe that we have a better product, I think we would have even done better.

In other words, Palm — regardless of Verizon’s positioning — feels like the Pre Plus could’ve been a legitimate contender as a halo phone for the carrier had it been able to launch sooner, though that opportunity has obviously long since passed. We’re not so sure we agree that the Droid and the Pre Plus play in quite the same space, but if nothing else, we like the chutzpah — now it’s time to deliver some new hardware.

Palm posts $22m Q3 loss, says it liked its chances against Droid had Verizon launch been sooner originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s where it gets juicy: referring to the iPhone, the report goes on to say that “T-Mobile USA is hoping to start selling the popular smartphone later this year or next year” while focusing on Android in the meantime, as if Android is merely a stopgap measure to make it through to the singular device that can save America’s number four carrier from going down the tubes. It’s not clear whether FT got the chief exec making a statement to that effect on the record or it’s merely gleaning this knowledge from other rumors, but the only way this would be able to happen is if the next iPhone were to come in an AWS-compatible version — and that seems unlikely considering that AWS coverage represents a trivially small fraction of 3G subscribers around the world. Of course, wireless CEOs of all walks of life regularly make statements saying they’d be more than happy to carry the iPhone if the opportunity presented itself, so this could be little more than off-the-cuff blather anyway.

T-Mobile USA eyeing iPhone launch this year or next? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No need to spot clean your spectacles, and no need to brush the cobwebs out of your dome — you really are seeing yet another IR dongle for Apple’s dear iLineup. Hot on the heels of New Potato’s FLPR, ThinkFlood’s RedEye mini and Power A’s solution comes this: an all-too-similar way to convert your iPod touch, iPhone or forthcoming iPad into a universal remote. Functionality wise, there’s really nothing here that the other guys don’t provide, though the beefed-up database of over 40,000 IR codes should make setting up your system a breeze. Users simply plug this into their dock connector, download the free application from the App Store and then dial up whatever components they have; once loaded, the IR beamer should do the rest, nixing the need to keep those 40 remotes around. It’s expected to start shipping any day now for $69.95.

i-Got-Control IRB1 dongle gives your iPhone / iPod touch universal remote functionality originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading SlingPlayer for Android coming this summer, demoed on video

SlingPlayer for Android coming this summer, demoed on video originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It looks like Novatel isn’t the only outfit that’s figured out something useful to do with Qualcom’s Wearable Mobile Device module designs. In advance of CTIA 2010 the kids at AnyDATA have announced the new DTW line of embedded 2G and 3G wireless modules. At 21 x 22 x 4.5mm they’re smaller than a quarter, which means that your dream of having a wireless quarter might someday be realized! (But not a wireless Susan B. Anthony Dollar — that would be crazy.) All modules in the line include GPSs and accelerometers, and at least two of ‘em — the DTW-200 (CDMA 1X) and DTW-500 (3G EVDO Rev A) modules — feature A-GPS as well. Check out the PR after the break for all the details juicy details — you know, except price and availability. Apparently those are still TBA.

Continue reading AnyDATA to preview new embedded 2G, 3G wireless modules at CTIA

AnyDATA to preview new embedded 2G, 3G wireless modules at CTIA originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s anyone’s guess whether we’ll see this mythical Supersonic from HTC show up at CTIA next week (wouldn’t that be awesome?), but a phone identified as the HTC A9292 has recently made an appearance in yet another internal system which can’t be a bad sign. As a refresher, the A9292 is popularly believed to be the Supersonic, a 4.3-inch Android-powered beast for Sprint that could become one of the carrier’s very first WiMAX-enabled phones. This time around, the phone’s turned up in a warehouse portal used by indirect third-party dealers, which would seem like a sign that they’re getting ready to distribute these bad boys; hopefully we’ll know all in just a few days’ time out in Vegas. Stay tuned.

[Thanks, Onyoursix]

HTC A9292 ‘Supersonic’ shows up in another inventory listing originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, you might’ve seen the purported Xbox 360 Valhalla motherboard leaked yesterday… but have you ever really seen it? There’s a subtle difference, one that requires you gaze through the ocular receptors of our dearest old friend (he hates when we call him that) Ben Heck. Joystiq sat down with him to deconstruct the pictures and get his take on all the hardware nuances. First and foremost, there appears to be no connectors that “look remotely like a Xbox 360 memory card reader,” which lends credence to the thought process they might be going the way of the dinosaur. WiFi is still missing in action, and as for Project Natal integration, Heck’s highly doubtful that’s in the cards, though he shares our mindset that a bundle would make sense. The big question is size reduction, and to that our game console laptop guru suggests that, given the constraints due to a DVD drive, the best we can expect is a one-inch drop in height (standing console), 0.5 inches in depth, and just “slightly thinner.” Sorry folks, looks like even in your wildest dreams, it’ll still tower over the Nintendo Wii. A great read, don your thinking cap, give yourself 15 minutes, and hit up the source.

Leaked Xbox 360 ‘Valhalla’ motherboard analyzed by Ben Heck originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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