Hasta La Gadget!

91.2 million total customers, 2.2 million of whom joined in Q4, $27.1 billion operating revenue in the quarter, and you still make a loss? Well, in fact Verizon made a tidy profit, which may be considered comparable to Google and Intel’s latest results, but its culling of jobs at the end of last year cost it a whopping $3 billion (presumably in redundancy settlements). Still, the company looks buoyant with that quarterly revenue number growing by 9.9 percent year-on-year, and CEO Ivan Seidenberg noting that significant costs were incurred in setting up for a 4G network deployment in 2010. Our favorite nugget of info? The “cash expense per customer” per month number: $27.62, which presumably includes Droid subsidies and the like. How does that compare to what you’re giving VZW each month?

[Thanks, Josta]

Verizon lost $653 million last quarter in spite of increasing revenues originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink New York Times  |  Verizon  | Email this | Comments

It was only yesterday that we heard of this WinMo 6.5.3 beastie, and already Taiwanese ladies and gents can sign up to own one, pending a February 6 delivery. The new pre-order page confirms our earlier indications of a 3.5-inch WVGA display and 5 megapixel camera, while adding the knowledge of 512MB of both RAM and ROM, plus MicroSD storage expandability. A relatively low end Qualcomm MSM 7227 600MHz CPU drives the show here, and we’re told a spare battery (1,500mAh by default) or a car holder for navigation also come as part of the 13,900 TWD ($435) package. So, are you excited or what?

Garmin-Asus Nuvifone M10 emerges on Taiwanese pre-order page originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashPhone  |  ASUS Taiwan  | Email this | Comments

Remember that mysterious HTC A9292 with WiMAX rumored for Sprint a few days back? Well, take a seat, folks — we think we’ve got the lowdown on it here from a trusted source, and it’s a bit of a monster:

• Codename is “Supersonic” — a name we’ve heard at least once before.
• Feels a lot like you’d expect an Android-powered HD2 to feel thanks to a 4.3-inch non-AMOLED display and a svelte shell. (For reference, the HD2 is 11mm thick, but we don’t have exact dimensions here.)
• It’s got a kickstand on the back. This wouldn’t be a first for HTC; the Imagio on Verizon has one, for example.
• Runs Android 2.1 with HTC’s Sense UI.
• Our tipster saw it in white; production devices could be available in different colors, of course, but white seems like it’d be an intriguing choice for a phone of the HD2’s size and shape.
• The phone’s software stack is buggy enough right now to suggest that we’re not looking at a release any time soon, but we don’t have details on the projected launch window.
• It’s fast — Snapdragon fast, it seems, though our tipster can’t confirm the processor under the hood.

We know 2010’s just begun, but between all this noise and the promise of a legitimate 4G radio on board, let’s be real — we’re already looking at a very, very early contender for smartphone of the year. Let’s not run into any major roadblocks between here and retail, alright, guys?

HTC ‘Supersonic’ to ring in WiMAX on Sprint, Android-style originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Clear might be busy bringing WiMAX to as many places as it can, but it looks like that won’t include smartphones — like that just-rumored HTC device for Sprint — anytime soon. That word comes from Phone Scoop, who reportedly confirmed directly with Clear that it doesn’t expect to see any WiMAX-equipped smartphones until at least the end of 2010. The company did say that it expects to see more WiMAX phones available in 2011, however, and that any “phone-type device” that uses WiMAX would use either VoIP or Sprint’s CDMA network for voice calls. Not surprisingly, Clear didn’t drop any hints about exactly who those WiMAX phones might come from.

Clear says not to expect any WiMAX smartphones before end of 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 05:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Phone Scoop  | Email this | Comments

By and large, LTE is LTE — it’s just fast wireless, really, and there’s not a lot to see. You know you want it, and you really don’t need to be convinced. Amazingly, though, Samsung managed to impress us at Verizon’s 4G demonstration area today with its three-pack of LTE-enabled devices, including a modified photo frame, ST1000 digicam, and a MID called “Pioneer” which we’re told is little more than a Mondi with LTE swapped in place of WiMAX. Unlike some of the other demos we saw in the booth, Samsung was using actual integrated LTE chipsets — the real deal, not a concept of what kind of stuff you could see in an LTE-connected world — and if it weren’t for the conspicuous “LTE” logo atop the ST1000, we would’ve been none the wiser. With the camera, you could instantly beam photos straight to the frame, and the Pioneer allowed you to shoot live video displayed immediately on the frame, all using an LTE base station as an intermediary. This stuff isn’t as fanciful as it seems — Verizon intends to have a couple dozen markets operating in 2010, and these are all examples of the kinds of things we could see if only Big Red decides to make it financially reasonable for us. Check out some pictures of the system in action in our gallery below, because let’s be honest: unless you’re lucky, odds are good this is the closest you’re getting to a live 4G network in the next few months.

Samsung’s LTE-equipped cameras, MIDs, and photo frames shill for Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments