Hasta La Gadget!

The world’s largest mobile operator and the heretofore scrappy WiMAX provider have linked arms to accelerate the rollout and adoption of time-division LTE (TD-LTE) across China. While there’s little chatter about an infrastructure build-up itself, China Mobile and Clearwire have established an agreement “to cultivate a robust device ecosystem that supports multi-mode, multi-band devices with minimum component complexity and cost,” with particular emphasis on the common 2.5GHz spectrum. More specifically, the collaboration will work to build up a high volume of TD-LTE chipsets and devices for commercial availability in 2012. If Sprint were to purchase (or make a significant investment in) Clearwire, this deal could be especially important, but for the time being, the company is finding some independence from the uncomfortable love triangle that’s brewing between itself, Sprint and LightSquared. While there’s no telling what sort announcement will come on October 7th, it’s nice to see Clearwire secure an international lover that’s willing to commit to a shared LTE vision. You’ll find the full PR after the break.

Continue reading Clearwire announces deal with China Mobile to accelerate TD-LTE deployment

Clearwire announces deal with China Mobile to accelerate TD-LTE deployment originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you splash out extra on the LTE version of Verizon’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 only to suffer the indescribable horrors of an unstable 4G connection? Then listen up: an OTA update including “enhanced data connectivity” is in the works that could be just the fix you need. It also promises a bevy of smaller improvements, including making the device recognizable to your Mac, zapping some EAS email bugs and adding data roaming alerts. There’s unfortunately no sign of the TouchWiz upgrade that has already graced the WiFi version, and no Honeycomb 3.2 either, but if everything happened all at once there’d be nothing left to live for.

Verizon preps update for LTE Galaxy Tab 10.1, promises ‘enhanced data’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you haven’t heard about the Samsung Galaxy S II by now, you’re definitely tardy to the party. But as the proverbial saying goes, it’s better late than never, right? The Galaxy S, its predecessor with myriad chassis selections and carrier variants, is still selling like hotcakes all over the world, and the sequel is no lightweight (figuratively) either — selling three million units in 55 days only seems to be rivaled by a company based out of Cupertino — and for good reason. We gave the unlocked version high marks for its excellent performance, gorgeous display and top-of-the-line camera, so it was only natural that we’d spend the next four months wondering when we’d see the powerhouse make it Stateside.

Don’t get us wrong — we’ve seen our fair share of unlocked Galaxy S II devices proudly shown off in the US (most of them from our own editors, admittedly) because it’s already available at full retail (roughly $650-700) from multiple vendors. However, the Samsung Epic 4G Touch is the first to be offered at a subsidized cost in return for a two-year commitment, and it won’t be the last as AT&T and T-Mobile pull up the rear with their own styles of the same handset. So how does the landmark phone stand up to not only the test of time but several carrier-specific design changes? Are Sprint customers getting a “tainted” version of Sammy’s flagship Android device? These questions have been pondered for months, and we finally have the answers if you keep on reading.

Continue reading Samsung Epic 4G Touch review

Samsung Epic 4G Touch review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Epic 4G Touch user manual leaks, offering 150 pages of glorious diagrams originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mark this Sunday on your calendars, if you’re the kind that still has a paper calendar and a pen lying around somewhere. The magic date has now been declared by AT&T CFO John Stephens to be the official launch of the carrier’s LTE network. The exec used the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Entertainment & Communications conference as the company’s golden opportunity to announce the upcoming deployment. Just to play it safe, we also reached out to an AT&T spokesperson and received confirmation that the carrier is indeed ready to make the upgrade from “faux G” to true, vanilla 4G. We don’t see it pushing any more Jetstreams out the door, but travelers relying on the almighty USB data stick will certainly be hoping for the company’s promised speeds of up to 28Mbps.

AT&T to officially deploy its LTE network September 18th originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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