Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung’s Galaxy S 4G might not have the very latest version of Android or too much hardware differentiation from the original T-Mobile Vibrant, but hey, it brings a front-facing camera and HSPA+ connectivity, so of course it costs $200. T-Mobile will have disappointed many with its clarification that the Galaxy S 4G will cost a pair of Benjamins on contract, exactly as much as its Samsung-built predecessor did seven months ago, and not as the carrier had originally indicated, $150. Also similar is the fact that T-Mo is launching this phone with an Android build that’s one iteration behind the cutting edge, meaning the Froyo update headaches of last autumn may return in the form of Gingerbread jitters this spring. All the same, if the Magenta team sees fit to chop the Galaxy S 4G’s price the same way it’s been doing with its other Android handsets, we could be in for a fine bargain in the near future.

[Thanks, Matt]

Samsung Galaxy S 4G now available from T-Mobile originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Following a navigation system’s instructions without driving into a ravine is hard enough as it is — can you even imagine how hard it’d be if you kept losing GPS reception every time you drove within range of an LTE tower? There have been a few anecdotal concerns raised over the last several weeks that LightSquared’s proposed LTE network — which would repurpose L-band spectrum formerly used for satellite — is too close to the spectrum used by the Global Positioning System, leading to unintentional jamming when the towers overpower the much weaker GPS signals. Things have gotten a little more interesting, though, now that the US Air Force Space Command has officially piped in. General William Shelton has gone on record saying that “a leading GPS receiver manufacturer just … has concluded that within 3 to 5 miles on the ground and within about 12 miles in the air GPS is jammed by those towers,” calling the situation “unbelievable” and saying he’s “hopeful the FCC does the right thing.”

Presumably, the USAF thinks that “the right thing” would involve pulling LightSquared’s license, but for its part, the company says it believes Shelton is referring to a test conducted by Garmin (possibly explaining that recent outage in the Southeastern US?) using simulated interference filters — not the actual filters that it has spent several million dollars developing and perfecting. Regardless of how effective the filters might be, the idea that the only thing standing between a functional GPS system and a constellation of space-borne paperweights is a private company’s privately-developed, privately-operated filtering equipment… but then again, we love LTE. Decisions!

[Thanks, Brian]

US Air Force raises concerns over LightSquared’s LTE network messing with GPS originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 22:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Audi’s had grand designs on the connected car for years now, and is presently looking to upgrade to LTE, but first it’s time to address the most important consideration — marketing the stuff effectively. To that end, Audi’s unifying its infotainment initiatives under the brand Audi Connect, so it will be absolutely clear how you can pimp your ride with tech when you walk into an Audi dealership. That is, if you don’t already have Audi Connect, because the company claims it’s already present in the A8, A7 and A6. Those three automobiles can presently add an optional UMTS modem for online apps, though Audi’s also working with Alcatel-Lucent to bring faster LTE connectivity by 2014. Expect a software update sooner than that: this summer, Audi hopes to add live traffic data and voice commands to control a suite of Google services as well. Find more details at our source links.

Audi starts calling its vehicular broadband plans ‘Audi connect,’ partners with Alcatel for LTE internet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 04:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola’s Xoom will cost a tad more than the competition, but company co-CEO Sanjay Jha has an explanation for why that might be: he told reporters that the Android Honeycomb tablet’s price is justified by the promise of speedy 4G internet. Of course, the $800 Xoom doesn’t actually come with 4G connectivity out of the gate, but Jha told reporters that the Xoom’s LTE upgrade will be free, and that wonder of wonders, the tablet will be capable of pulling down 50 megabit per second speeds. Someone might want to check Sanjay’s math — sure, in the midst of a Verizon fog at CES 2011, we were able to manage 33Mbps, but we typically get less than half that speed on a day-to-day basis.

Motorola’s Sanjay Jha on Xoom: ‘Our ability to deliver 4G justifies the $799 price point’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint has had an on again / off again relationship with LTE for some time now, but it looks it may finally be nearing a commitment one way or the other. Speaking in a roundtable discussion at Mobile World Congress this week, Sprint’s Senior Vice President of Networks, Bob Azzi, said that the carrier would be studying the rate at which its customers migrate from EV-DO to mobile WiMAX over the next four to six months, and that it would evaluate the best way to use its existing spectrum before it reaches a firm decision on a possible switch to LTE. As we’ve heard previously, that switch would be a fairly straightforward one from a technical standpoint due to the carrier’s recent upgrades to its network, which allow it to upgrade its gear to LTE simply by swapping in a new baseband card and issuing a software patch.

Sprint evaluating switch to LTE over the next four to six months originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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