Hasta La Gadget!

Ah, poor AT&T. Its 3G network has been slammed as usual here in Las Vegas at CES, leaving CTO John Donovan explaining how hard they’re working on improving things.

“We have a high sense of urgency and are on the right track,” Donovan said.

AT&T doubled the number of cell sites served by fiber-optic backhaul and has been focusing on San Francisco and New York this year, Donovan said. Improvements include converting its 850-Mhz spectrum to 3G, adding 900 towers in New York, and adding 850 towers in San Francisco, he said.

Donovan also noted that AT&T has finished converting all of its 3G towers to the fast HSPA 7.2 system, although the company is still waiting for the appropriate high-speed backhaul.

“There’s much more to come in 2010,” Donovan said.

RIM has unveiled BlackBerry Presenter, a portable gadget that lets business users show Microsoft PowerPoint presentations directly from BlackBerry smartphones–and gives owners a reason to forgo upgrading to an LG Expo projector phone.

The Presenter is a tiny but heavy device, measuring 3.4 by 2.4 by 0.9 inches (HWD) and weighing just over a pound. It displays three video resolutions: 640-by-480 (VGA), 800-by-600 (SVGA), and 1024-by-768 (XGA) at a 4:3 aspect ratio. The device contains VGA and S-Video outputs, plus a USB power connector and a multi-mode status LED.

When displaying PowerPoint files, it features Loop and Freeze modes, and is compatible with third-party Bluetooth enabled devices. It supports NTSC and PAL video signals, supports most 2003 and 2007 PowerPoint animations and transitions, and offers navigation and displays speaker notes on the BlackBerry.  The unit comes with a synthetic leather carrying case. It requires BlackBerry OS 4.6 or later, meaning that it doesn’t work with older BlackBerry Curve 8300 and Pearl Flip 8200 series devices.

The BlackBerry Presenter lists for $199.99. RIM hasn’t announced a release date other than posting a “Coming Soon” notice.

Yes, you’ll be able to get a Google Nexus One phone on Verizon Wireless – it just won’t be from Verizon Wireless. The company noted today that while they will support the Nexus One on their network, only Google will sell it – it won’t be available through Verizon stores or their Web site.

A new survey of over 4,000 consumers from ChangeWave shows that Android OS is gaining on its smartphone rivals–fast.

Among current survey respondents in December, 42 percent currently own a smartphone. Of those, four percent use Android smartphones, a three percent jump from September.

But here’s the real key: almost 13 percent plan to buy a smartphone in the next three months. And of those, a whopping 21 percent prefer Android for their next device, which is 15 points higher than that same September survey.

In terms of satisfaction ratings, 77 percent of iPhone buyers and 72 percent of Android buyers are “very satisfied” with their current cell phones. That compares to 58 percent for webOS, 41 percent for BlackBerry OS, and just 25 percent for Windows Mobile.