Hasta La Gadget!

That new prepaid business for the anti-power user crowd that Sprint was fixing to launch? Yeah, it’s here and it’s official: meet Common Cents Mobile. Billed as a way to help folks “cut unnecessary costs,” Common Cents Mobile is about as simple as it gets, offering pay-as-you-go 7-cent minutes and 7-cent text messages, plus unlimited messaging for $20 a month and data for $1 per megabyte per day. The bigger news, though, might be that voice minutes round down, which is a first in the US market as far as we know (in other words, frugal customers will want to make sure they hang up 59 seconds into the minute). As you might expect, the handset selection is bare-bones and easy on the pocketbook, consisting of the LG 101 at $19.77, the Samsung M340 at $39.77, and Kyocera’s portrait QWERTY S2300 coming in at $69.77 — all totally contract-free, of course. Look for these all to launch in select Walmarts across the land starting this Saturday, May 15. Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Common Cents Mobile becomes Sprint’s latest prepaid brand, exclusive to Walmart

Common Cents Mobile becomes Sprint’s latest prepaid brand, exclusive to Walmart originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A revamped electronics section is coming to your local Wal-Mart, including more connected TVs and Blu-ray players that stream its new Vudu video service. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20004858-260.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Circuit Breaker/a/p

Ever heard of the Garmin nuvi 295W? Neither had we, until the GPS showed up spontaneously on Amazon. More Garminfone than PND, the device features the same 3.5-inch touchscreen, 3 megapixel camera and Garmin UI as its call-friendly counterpart, but without the front buttons, 3G data connection and subsidized price. That means you’ll have to hoof it to a hotspot to send email, perform Google Local Search and upload geotagged photos — all of which this unit can do — but at least you’ll have a dedicated GPS to help you get there. $280, available May 16th, see it in action after the break.

Continue reading Garmin nuvi 295W like a bolt from the blue, bearing email, camera and WiFi (video)

Garmin nuvi 295W like a bolt from the blue, bearing email, camera and WiFi (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 21:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, since you’re stuck paying $10 extra per month for “premium data services” (not that bad of a 4G tax, if you ask us), what wonders await you on the HTC EVO 4G, fueled by Sprint’s next-gen network? Well, if these best-case-scenario tests we just did are any indication: everything you ever dreamed of. Of course, Sprint’s WiMAX might end up stumbling up the steps of reality, but there’s no denying that this is 21st century technology that’s worthy of some of the excitement that’s been lavished upon it. We just saw demos of Qik video conferencing, YouTube HQ (output brilliantly over HDMI), simultaneous data and voice usage, and even a straight-up speed test (4Mbps down, 1Mbps up, the latter of which is a hard cap). The phone performed brilliantly in each scenario, but of course that’s to be expected when you have a 4G tower in the building. Check out the videos of all this breathless action after the break. Added bonus? All four (totaling about 100MB) were uploaded with our laptop tethered over WiFi to an HTC EVO 4G. Don’t be jealous. Okay, be just a little bit jealous.

Continue reading Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G put through its bandwidth-sucking paces

Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G put through its bandwidth-sucking paces originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 20:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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USB hubs with independently switchable ports to disable vampire power draw are nothing new, but this unit from iMONO takes things to the next delightfully absurd level, with a full complement of 13 ports — enough for an entire army of undead novelty flash drives. Of course, you could also just unplug your devices after you’re done using them to save power, but come on — like you’re gonna say no to an array of switches and blue LEDs. Next step: combining this with the 49-port hub we saw last year.

iMONO 13-port USB hub with independent power switches kills vampires en masse originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 19:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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