Hasta La Gadget!

Is the tide changing for Nokia in the U.S.? Nokia and AT&T have unveiled the Surge, a Symbian S60-based smartphone. It’s a horizontal slider with a four-row QWERTY keyboard, a 2-megapixel camera, and a 2.4-inch non-touch LCD screen.

The handset also features a GPS radio, support for Microsoft Exchange e-mail accounts, and access to AT&T’s optional services like AT&T Navigator and JuiceCaster. It weighs 4.4 ounces and measures 3.8 by 2.3 by 0.6 inches.

The Surge will be available online and ins stores on July 19th for $79.99 with a two-year contract and after rebates. That’s $20 less than last year’s iPhone 3G. This marks the second time in a few months that Nokia has released a subsidized smartphone with carrier support (the first being the excellent Nokia E71x).

Nokia’s slice of the smartphone market in the U.S. is virtually non-existent, although it’s still the number one cell phone vendor worldwide. However, that could change soon. A new study from Generator Research predicts that Apple’s share of the smartphone market could exceed Nokia’s sometime within the next four years, according to Electronista.

In fact, the research firm sees the market virtually “reversing itself” by then. It predicts that Nokia could fall from 40 to 20 percent share as the iPhone increases to 33 percent by that point–with Apple shipping 77 million iPhones in 2011 alone.

Generator cites the usual reasons for Apple’s success here, basically saying it’s a combination of the iPhone itself and Apple’s App Store, according to the report. That $99 iPhone 3G can’t hurt either. Meanwhile, Nokia seems unable to get U.S. carriers to pick up their devices here in the U.S., aside from the occasional E62 or E71x on AT&T, and steadfastly refuses to push into the CDMA side (read: Verizon and Sprint).

AT&T has a new message for its copper-wire customers: Keep your landline, or put your loved ones in peril. At least, that seems to be the idea behind a new Home Base campaign, which lists the reasons why it believes having a home phone is important, according to GigaOm.

Among the reasons given: you’ll always have a phone even when the power goes out, 911 responders will know your exact location if you have an emergency, you can fax from it, and it doesn’t drop calls.

In and of itself, this isn’t so bad. But the company’s picture of an ambulance racing to the scene of an emergency is a little over the top. The fact that paying for a landline means more revenue for AT&T? Irrelevant. Remember, if you disconnect it and you have a family, it means You Are a Bad Person.

Also, AT&T can’t count (see above).

We all know the economy is a mess, but smartphones have been one of the few bright spots–yet a new study has found that there’s a limit even to that category. According to research firm Strategy Analytics, nearly half (48 percent) of Americans would drop their mobile data plans completely if they had to trim expenses, MediaPost reports.

That’s markedly different than what the firm found about home broadband services, which customers are far more reluctant to cut; only 10 percent would do so. “What surprised us was the vulnerability of mobile services,” Ben Piper, director of Strategy Analytics’ multiplay market dynamics service, said in a statement.

In addition, just 12 percent said they would cut pay TV services altogether, but 41 percent would scale back to a lower tier of pricing, the report said–which is exactly what I’ve done recently. In fact, my first recommendation would be for the 13 percent of mobile subscribers that don’t use their cell phones at all to cancel their plans and stop paying for them, but hey, what do I know.

Comcast on Monday announced that it will launch its 4G mobile broadband service in the Portland area via the Clearwire network starting Tuesday.

The service, dubbed 2go, will only be available if bundled with one or more of Comcast’s Internet, phone, or cable services.

Comcast is offering two data cards and service plans: 2go Metro, which offers 4G service in the Portland area; or 2go Nationwide, which offers 4G service in Portland, and 3G service nationwide via Sprint’s network.

The 2go service will be bundled in “Fast Pack” offerings.

Fast Pack Metro will be available for $49.99 and includes Comcast’s 12 Mbps Internet service, a Wi-Fi router, and 4G service with up to 4 Mbps download speed. Fast Pack Nationwide will run $69.99 per month with the same services, plus Sprint nationwide.

Triple Play customers who subscribe to voice, cable, and Internet will be able to add 2go starting at $30 per month.

A version of 2go will also be available for small- and medium-sized businesses.

In May 2008, Sprint agreed to take over the combined WiMAX operations of Clearwire in a deal backed by tech titans Comcast, Google, Intel, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks. In June 2009, Clearwire quietly launched its Clear WiMax service in Las Vegas today, but Sprint demurred, keeping the two companies’ WiMax systems still separate for now.