Hasta La Gadget!

Ah, there always has to be fine print, doesn’t there? Don’t get us wrong — $40 for unlimited talk and text alone is still a pretty fantastic deal in the scheme of things — but in tweaking its LTE service plans today, MetroPCS has made the data situation just a little confusing. Technically, the $40 plan also includes unlimited web access plus YouTube… but at the $50 price point, you get 1GB of “additional data access” for features that aren’t covered under MetroPCS’ definition of “web browsing.” You also get turn-by-turn navigation, international text messaging, access to corporate email accounts (another arbitrary distinction that we’d kind of like to see go away), and audio / video features through the carrier’s MetroSTUDIO service. At $60, you get unlimited access to MetroSTUDIO including 18 channels of on-demand video content. MetroPCS’ lowest-cost LTE offering had previously been $55, so it’s a step in the right direction — but pro-net neutrality? Yeah, not so much. Follow the break for the press release.

Continue reading MetroPCS tweaks LTE plans: $40 gets you unlimited talk, text, and web*

MetroPCS tweaks LTE plans: $40 gets you unlimited talk, text, and web* originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So what if nobody has bothered to announce it yet? Sprint’s upcoming EVO Shift 4G Android handset has turned up on Amazon’s wireless outlet, albeit with the EVO‘s spec sheet. We were getting excited about an 8 megapixel camera with HD video capture and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing imager until we realized those specs probably didn’t belong to the EVO Shift 4G — thanks to a note describing this phone as having been “released in June, 2010.” The product title is unequivocal, however, and offers you the EVO Shift 4G slider, to have and to hold, for $200 on a two-year contract. Clearly someone’s got his or her EVOs mixed up and has HTC’s second 4G cat for the Sprint network out of the bag a little early.

[Thanks, Ryan]

Update: The product image is user-submitted so we can probably disregard it. Still, Amazon’s got HTC’s unannounced phone up on its site, giving us the closest to official confirmation we’ve had yet.

HTC EVO Shift 4G nonchalantly shows up for Amazon pre-order originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wasn’t long ago that we found hard evidence of a WiMAX-capable MiFi from Novatel in the FCC — and now, we might have the first press shot of it. Of course, press shots are always prettier than the actual devices, but even if you beat this image with the ugly stick for a minute or two, we’re pretty sure it’d still be a good deal more handsome than the first-gen 3G MiFi that Sprint, Verizon, and others are using currently. No word on when this might launch, but with FCC certification under its belt, it’s plausible that we’ll see it next week at CES — probably without the tipster’s own professionally-Photoshopped status light below the battery indicator, we’d bet.

[Thanks, r0fl]

Sprint’s 3G / 4G MiFi 4082 revealed? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Dec 2010 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, that lovely 4.3-inch LTE smartphone with Android for Verizon we’ve been calling the Mecha and the Droid Incredible HD? Looks like it might come to market as the Thunderbolt, so says Droid Life — and we tend to put some weight on the rumor considering that they’ve just run twelve leaked shots of the thing. As you can see, this is clearly Verizon’s head-on answer to the EVO 4G, featuring similar stylings and, in all likelihood, an LTE modem swapped in for the EVO’s WiMAX one. Sure looks like that “controlled” leak from a few days back, doesn’t it? More on this at Verizon’s press conference next week, we presume.

HTC Thunderbolt with LTE for Verizon pictured ahead of CES unveiling? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember those rumors earlier this week that T-Mobile was finally getting ready to launch a mobile hotspot or two? Seeing how Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have all done it, it certainly makes sense — especially with this newfangled 21Mbps HSPA+ network T-Mobile’s got going on — and sure enough, we’ve now got concrete evidence of a unit in the FCC’s database. The MF61 from Chinese manufacturer ZTE is pretty clearly labeled “T-Mobile 4G Mobile Hotspot” inside… so yeah, there’s your smoking gun. Confidentiality prevents us from seeing the user’s manual or a photo of the thing, but from what little we can see, looks like we’ll end up with a rounded unit not unlike the variant of the Novatel MiFi on AT&T and a number of European carriers. Really, though, doesn’t matter what it looks like — as long as it fits in a pocket and blasts high-speed data to a handful of WiFi connected devices of our choosing, that’s all we need.

T-Mobile 4G Mobile Hotspot shows up in FCC courtesy of ZTE originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 18:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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