Hasta La Gadget!

AT&T and TerreStar on Wednesday jointly launched the Genus, a Windows Mobile smartphone that will connect to AT&T’s network, and, when out of range, can connect to the TerreStar satellite network.

The phone looks virtually identical to the Electrobit reference design that debuted in April, which is based on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and a 2.6-inch 320-by-240 touchscreen.

One caveat, however: although our earlier story claims that the phone does not need an external antenna, that’s not totally true: if you’re traveling outside the continental 48 states, you will.  The coverage area also formally includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Genus will launch in the first quarter of 2010 for an unspecified amount for enterprise and government customers. A consumer version is also planned, to launch sometime later in the future.

TerreStar successfully completed in-orbit testing on its TerreStar-1 satellite in mid-August, and is currently completing its integration with its ground-based beam forming system and its IP network. That also implies that the satellite capabilities won’t work on the other side of the globe in China, for example.

AT&T said that its monthly invoice will include the customer’s cellular voice
and data service charges, the satellite network access subscription
feature charge and the satellite voice and data roaming charges.

The phone will use GSM/EDGE/WCDMA/HSDPA. In conjunction with Windows Mobile, users will have 100 Mbytes of memory available, with microSD support for additional storage. Other features include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and vanilla GPS. There are also some interesting extras: a light sensor, a 2.5-mm stereo headphone jack, a SIM connector, and a 3.0-Mpixel camera. Finally, TerreStar claims that the phone will include a VOIP app, an interesting addition.

Potential customers should be warned that using the satellite capabilities to place calls will have a disastrous effect on battery life, however: talk time will be up to 5 hours using GSM, but only 1.3 hours via satellite. Likewise, standby times will be between 150 to 170 hours with GSM, and between 34 to 40 hours with satellite. Presumably, there’s an option to turn the satellite radio off when not in use.

Samsung has unveiled the Instinct HD, a significant upgrade from the earlier Instinct S30 we reviewed earlier this year. The Instinct HD features a 5-megapixel camera, plus the ability record and output high definition video to a compatible television or monitor. (It can’t do that on the phone’s 320-by-480-pixel display itself due to the lack of sufficient resolution.)

In addition, the camera now includes a timer, smile mode, sports mode, sunset mode, and other new features. The Instinct HD also bundles Opera Mobile 9.7, Wi-Fi, an accelerometer, and an ambient light sensor. The Samsung Instinct HD will hit Best Buy stores this Sunday, September 27th, with a wide release in all retail channels and online following on October 11th.

My main concern is price; the Instinct HD will cost a whopping $249.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. That’s $150 more than the Instinct S30, and puts this thing significantly above the cost of the $149 Palm Pre. In other words, you’re going to really have to want that mobile HD video to give up genuine smartphone capabilities–since Sprint’s smartphone data plans are more reasonably priced than other carriers, and much closer to the cost of the Instinct HD’s. Will the Instinct HD measure up in testing? A full review is on the way.

Samsung has unveiled two 1GHz ARM CORTEX-A8-based application processors for mobile devices. The SP5C110 is intended for small form factor gadgets like smartphones, while the S5PV210 is meant for netbooks.

Both low-power, 45-nanometer processors last longer on standard size batteries. Each one includes 32KB data and 32KB instruction caches along with a 512KB L2 cache, which the company said enables real-time Web browsing and smooth UI response.

Both chips also come with built-in 3D graphics engines for gaming, and 1080p HD codec engines for playing or recording high definition video at 30 frames per second. There’s also an on-board HDMI 1.3 interface for output to an external display.

The CPUs will be available in sample sizes for manufacturers in December 2009; expect to see actual consumer products using these chips sometime next year. (Via Phone Scoop)

In a survey of cell phone manufacturers, i-mate wouldn’t have been near the top of anyone’s list. For years, the company spouted mediocre, unlocked Windows Mobile-powered smartphones targeted sort of at enterprise customers, and sort of… at anyone, really. Once, I asked an i-mate senior PR person at a press event in 2007 to explain their different smartphone model lines to me, and who each one was targeted for. I literally received a shrug and an “I’ll get back to you with a real answer.” (They never did.)

Now Engadget is reporting that i-mate, after dumping its U.S. operations several months ago, is now closing up shop completely. That means any (of the three or four) fans of the i-mate JAQ can no longer look forward to new models from the UAE-based company.

The report said that i-mate has already been delisted from stock markets around the world, and that retailers waiting for shipments of the upcoming 810F will now be left holding the (empty) bag. This follows i-Mate CEO Jim Morrison’s challenge back in February of this year: “To all those crap journalists on their Web sites who say, i-Mate’s dead, no, we’re ****ing not.” Oh well.

Yesterday, Verizon unveiled the Samsung Rogue, the first feature phone on the carrier to require one of two new data plans: $9.99 per month for 25MB, and $19.99 per month for 75MB. There’s no way to avoid those, like you can with, say, the LG enV Touch (pictured), which has a third $1.99-per-megabyte option in addition to the two new data plan prices.

But there’s a deeper issue here. Is there no longer a way to get unlimited data with Verizon feature phones? I asked a Verizon spokesperson to comment. This is the answer I received:

“We’ve never had an unlimited data plan option for feature phones.  Unlimited data plans are only available for BlackBerry and other smartphones.  Customers pay $29.99 or if they are on a server or need corporate access $49.99.  Feature phones will continue to offer the $1.99 per megabyte per month option but customers can choose one of the other two plans if they like.  The only phone that requires one of the new data packages is the new Samsung Rogue we announced today.  Going forward, phones will be identified as requiring a data package but existing customers do not have to make any changes unless they want to do so.”

This is false. Verizon had the Vcast VPak, which cost $15 per month and offered unlimited megabytes of data transfer. Before that, they even had the $5 Mobile Web option. What gives? I’m still waiting for a response to my follow-up questions. Of course, this is the carrier that pioneered lying about unlimited data plans, so I guess this is par for the course.