Hasta La Gadget!

We gave a fortunate sect of consumers a taste of WiMAX during our recent reader meetup in the Big Apple, but now it’s available to all: as promised, Sprint has just gone live with New York City’s first 4G network. With the holiday sales season just around the bend, this honestly couldn’t have come at a better time, and considering the bandwidth strain that hamstrings the city, it could very well make things easier on everyone if the adoption rate is high. Moreover, Sprint has blessed Hartford, New Haven, New Brunswick, Trenton and Tampa with WiMAX as of today, bringing the grand total of lit cities to 61. So, LTE — whatcha waitin’ for?

Update: Naturally, Clearwire has launched 4G in NYC as well. Of course, we’re splitting hairs with branding by now, but there it is.

Continue reading Sprint and Clearwire light up first 4G network in New York City, among other locales

Sprint and Clearwire light up first 4G network in New York City, among other locales originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, wouldn’t you know it? Seems that tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign may actually be working. Way back in April of this year, Sprint decided it would begin offering its own iPad case, despite the fact that even today the iPad isn’t sold in Sprint stores. The reason? It’s the perfect opportunity to push the Overdrive, a 4G mobile hotspot that’s able to take the iPad (and any other WiFi-enabled device) to 4G speeds where available. In a recent interview with GigaOM, the carrier’s CEO (Dan Hesse) confirmed that most iPads being sold are of the WiFi variety, and due to that, “the company has seen an uptick in demand for its Overdrive (3G/4G) wireless-hotspot device, as people use it to connect their iPads to the Internet when on the go.” He failed to exaggerate on actual numbers, but it’s obvious he’s in favor of Apple’s darling tablet selling like hotcakes — after all, how else are you going to get an iDevice into 4G territory?

Sprint CEO thanks iPad for uptick in Overdrive demand originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint certainly isn’t out of the woods yet, but at least it’s picking up customers from somewhere. The company’s Q3 2010 earnings were ushered out today, and while its stock fell around ten percent on the news, a few silver linings were present. The carrier saw postpaid subscriber losses of 107,000, but that’s an 87 percent improvement compared to Q3 2009. The CDMA network added approximately 276,000 postpaid customers during the quarter, 471,000 (net) prepaid subscribers and 644,000 total wireless subscribers from a net perspective. It also landed its second best postpaid churn result ever, but the bottom line still looks battered — the operator announced a net loss of nearly a billion dollars ($911 million, if you’re scouting specifics). Of course, phasing out iDEN should probably help things in the long run, but even its 4G advantage could quickly fade if (or more likely, when) Verizon gets its LTE act together next year.

Sprint fails to impress Wall Street with Q3 2010 earnings, still notches 644k net adds originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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And just like that, the rumor mill smirks. HP has just come clean with a device that we’ve been hearing more and more about over the past few weeks, and with it will come the next generation of webOS that we’ve been hearing about for even longer. The Palm Pre 2 will be the first device to ship with HP webOS 2.0, with the revamped and renamed (presumably to use on more than just Palm smartphones) mobile OS promising “true multitasking,” Stacks (for organizing apps) Just Type, HP Synergy (links your email and social networking accounts), Exhibition (enabling users to run apps designed specifically for the Palm Touchstone Charging Dock) and support for Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 Beta. It’s also bringing along a new Favorites tagging option, Skype Mobile (on the Verizon version only), text assist, integrated Quickoffice, VPN support, a redesigned launcher and full support for Bluetooth keyboards and SPP peripherals.

As for Pre 2 itself? Little is being revealed at the moment, but we’re told to expect a 1GHz CPU, a five megapixel camera (LED flash, extended depth of field, geotagging, and video capture), glass display and a “sleeker, streamlined design” that still combines a touchpanel with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. In other words, it’s a faster, slimmer Pre, and some would argue it’s what the Pre Plus should’ve been. At any rate, SFR customers in France will get first dibs on Friday, with Verizon and an undisclosed carrier in Canada scheduled to get it “in the coming months.” Oh, and as for US-based developers? They’ll be able to purchase unlocked UMTS versions of the Pre 2 (!) in their homeland, though pricing remains elusive.

Update: The Pre 2 portal is now live, showcasing a 3.1-inch 480 x 320 (HVGA) multitouch display, a black enclosure, Exchange support, built-in GPS, ambient light / proximity sensors, an accelerometer, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 16GB of inbuilt storage space, a battery good for around 5.5 hours of talking and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Continue reading Palm gets official with webOS 2.0 and Pre 2: hitting France on Friday, Verizon ‘in the coming months’

Palm gets official with webOS 2.0 and Pre 2: hitting France on Friday, Verizon ‘in the coming months’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More fuel for the CDMA iPhone fire today. The Wall Street Journal says that Apple is in talks with both Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices to bring a CDMA version of its iPhone — the one it again says will be on sale at Verizon early next year — to India. The discussions have apparently been ongoing for four or five months according to one WSJ source.

This comes out as news of iPhone exclusivity arrangements are ending in both Germany and The Netherlands. In Germany, Deutsche Telekom loses its exclusive now that both O2 and Vodafone will be offering Apple’s finest before the holidays. In Holland, T-Mobile just lost its exclusive arrangement as both KPN and Vodafone have announced plans to carry the iPhone — no specific dates were mentioned though, like Germany, in time for the holidays is a pretty good guess.

CDMA iPhone rumored for India as exclusivities end in Germany and Holland originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Oct 2010 04:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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