Samsung Nexus S 4G hits the FCC

Sprint still isn’t offering anything more specific than “this spring” for a Nexus S 4G launch date, but it looks like we may now at least be one step closer to a release. The Google-approved phone just turned up at the FCC this weekend under the guise of “SPH-D720,” which we’ve already had some indication was indeed Nexus S 4G’s model number, and which has also turned up on Samsung’s own site for the phone before being removed for one reason or another (see an image of the cached site after the break). As you can see above, the illustration also cuts a familiar outline, and the FCC tests reveal the presence of a Sprint-friendly WiMAX radio, which folks will hopefully be able to put to use sooner rather than later.

Continue reading Samsung Nexus S 4G hits the FCC

Samsung Nexus S 4G hits the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 21:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint radar imaging system peeps inside walls, floors to detect bombs, tell-tale hearts

Back in 2005, we reported on a little something called the Prism 200, which allowed its holder to essentially see what folks were doing on the other side of a wall. Since then, we’ve seen plenty of devices that boast the same claims, but it wasn’t until recently that the makers of the Prism 200 created a device that can actually see inside those walls. Looking something akin to an old school punch clock, Cambridge Consultants’ Sprint in-wall radar imaging system provides 3D renderings of items embedded in walls, floors, and even ceilings. Where as existing X-ray systems require access to both sides of a wall, Sprint’s radar setup allows users to see what’s going on inside without dual access. As you might imagine, Cambridge is pushing this thing as a security tool, allowing for detection of bombs, drugs, dead bodies — you know, the usual bad guy stuff. Sprint is currently undergoing testing. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Sprint radar imaging system peeps inside walls, floors to detect bombs, tell-tale hearts

Sprint radar imaging system peeps inside walls, floors to detect bombs, tell-tale hearts originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint’s Common Cents brand falls into the sofa cushions, replaced by Virgin Mobile Beyond Talk

Sprint's Common Cents brand falls into the sofa cushions, replaced by Virgin Mobile Beyond Talk

It was some… curious timing. On May 6th of last year Sprint’s new boy toy Virgin Mobile announced the Beyond Talk prepaid plan. Then, just a week later, Sprint launched its own, separate prepaid plan, Common Cents. Beyond Talk started at $25 a month for 300 minutes while Common Cents was $.07 per minute, all contact free. The latter of those two is now dying away, never catching on despite what must be said is a rather catchy name. Its users are being lumped into the Virgin payLo scheme, while Beyond Talk will take over the kiosks and marketing avenues currently occupied by Common Cents. There, with its rag-tag group of featurephones and data plans, it will continue the fight against the evil TracFone empire.

Sprint’s Common Cents brand falls into the sofa cushions, replaced by Virgin Mobile Beyond Talk originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 10:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Survey says AT&T drops more calls than Verizon, these bar charts don’t lie

Chargepoint

Wondering which carrier you should buy your iPhone on? There’s a survey for that. ChangeWave Research has released the results of a poll that hit 4,068 users distributed across Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. Among those four, VZW came out ahead when it comes to dropped calls, with 1.4 percent of respondents indicating they’d received one in the past three months. AT&T, meanwhile, came in last with 4.6 percent. If you look only at the iPhone 4 users the numbers change a little, 1.8 percent vs. 4.8, but the conclusion stays the same. No, this conclusion sadly will not get you around your ETF, but maybe making a pouty face at the AT&T store will help.

Update: AT&T let us know it has some doubts about these results. We’re not statisticians but we will, out of fairness, link over to this GWS survey from last year that showed 98.59 percent success rate for non-dropped calls. How do your numbers compare?

Survey says AT&T drops more calls than Verizon, these bar charts don’t lie originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint launches Novatel MiFi 3G / 4G mobile hotspot

This one’s been floating around since way back in December, but Novatel’s new 3G / 4G MiFi has is now finally available from Sprint — albeit only via direct ship, Sprint retail channels will get it on April 17th. It will run you $79.99 on a two-year contract, and comes packing Novatel’s rather novel MiFi OS, which is actually a stripped-down version of LInux that lets you take advantage of various widgets and applications. It’s also GPS enabled, and has a microSD card slot that allows for up to 32GB of shared storage. Full press release is after the break, and you can check out a few early reviews of the device at the more coverage links below.

Continue reading Sprint launches Novatel MiFi 3G / 4G mobile hotspot

Sprint launches Novatel MiFi 3G / 4G mobile hotspot originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint EVO View 4G tablet to launch with Honeycomb, Flyer can’t be far behind (update: maybe not)

Sprint EVO View 4G tablet to launch with Honeycomb, Flyer can't be far behind

If you want a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 tablet with 1.5GHz and dual cameras, you want an HTC Flyer. If, however, you want that with WiMAX data and a talk show name, you’ll want Sprint’s special flavor, the EVO View 4G. At CTIA we were told that it was, of course, Android, but now Sprint’s confirming that it’ll come right out the door with Android 3.0, aka Honeycomb. That’s the tablet taste that makes everybody come a runnin’, and that this sucker will have it at launch (sometime “this summer”) might just be good news for those pining for the WiFi-only Flyer, which as of last report would not be getting its own sweet taste until sometime after launch.

[Thanks, Leo Z]

Update: Well, that didn’t last long. Sprint has now tweaked the page to simply read the “latest version of Android,” and a spokesman tells Android Central that while the “plan is to offer Honeycomb,” it’s still “too early to determine whether or not Honeycomb will be available at launch.”

Sprint EVO View 4G tablet to launch with Honeycomb, Flyer can’t be far behind (update: maybe not) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint says its NFC-based payment service will launch this year, beat other carriers to the cash register

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon may have all lined up to support the so-called Isis mobile payment system for cellphones, but Sprint has decided to go it alone for various reasons, and it’s now saying it plans to beat the others to market. As Bloomberg reports, Sprint is already working with payment networks and handset makers on its own NFC-based system, and it says it plans to roll out the service sometime this year, while Isis has previously stated that it only expects to be ready in 2012. While details are otherwise still fairly light, Sprint says that customers will be able to have purchases billed to their regular credit card statements rather than their phone bill, and that it will rely on alternatives to taking a percentage each transaction for itself as Isis plans to do. Of course, while this is Sprint’s latest move in the space, it’s far from its first — in fact, it’s been running NFC trials as far back as 2007.

[Thanks, Carl]

Sprint says its NFC-based payment service will launch this year, beat other carriers to the cash register originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Samsung Nexus S 4G to Ship on April 6

Samsung’s Nexus S 4G will begin shipping from Best Buy stores this week. Outwardly, it will be identical to the 3G version of the Nexus S shown here. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The Sprint 4G version of Samsung’s Nexus S Android smartphone is scheduled to ship this week from Best Buy stores, according to a report published Monday morning.

Sightings of an April 6 shipping date have been spotted on Best Buy’s web site on Monday morning by Mobileburn. The ship date has since been changed back to “coming soon” on the retailer’s site, and a spokesperson for Sprint refused to confirm any release details other than “the spring.”

The 3G version of the Nexus S first debuted for T-Mobile’s network in December to much ado, as it featured Google’s most current version of Android at the time, 2.3 (Gingerbread). The hardware specs on both T-Mobile’s 3G and Sprint’s 4G versions are identical — 1-Ghz Hummingbird processor, 4-inch super AMOLED screen, 16 GB of flash memory and the heavily-hyped near field communication (NFC) capability — but of course, only the 4G version will have access to Sprint’s 4G network.

This version of the Nexus S will run on Sprint’s WiMax 4G network, and will cost $200 with a two-year contract and Sprint’s “Everything Data” subscription plan. The phone is currently available for pre-order at Best Buy stores only.

UberGizmo via MobileBurn

See Also:


HTC Arrive review

Though it was teased late last year — on the same day that HTC announced its very first Windows Phone 7 devices, in fact — the company’s QWERTY-packing 7 Pro has taken its sweet time to make it to American airwaves; in the process, it’s gone through a name change and picked up the first big platform update from Microsoft. The phone we now know as the Arrive is finally available from Sprint, becoming the first Windows Phone 7 device available on a CDMA network. These days, it’s pretty unusual for an HTC handset — or a handset on any American carrier, really, regardless of manufacturer — to take this long to make it to subscribers’ hands after announcement, but in this case, Sprint’s hands were tied: Microsoft simply didn’t support CDMA initially, which explains why both AT&T and T-Mobile have been enjoying a selection of models from Samsung, LG, Dell, and HTC alike while Sprint and Verizon have been patiently twiddling their thumbs.

The CDMA dry spell’s over, though; the Arrive marks just the first of what should be several Redmond-powered phones over the course of 2011. Is it a fitting first effort? And how does it fare against the GSM models that beat it to market? Read on.

Continue reading HTC Arrive review

HTC Arrive review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint dropping Galaxy Tab to $200 on contract starting April 3rd

An early prank this isn’t. Based on our sources (and the pictorial evidence above), Sprint’s fixing to whack a full Benjamin from the current $299.99 asking price on its Samsung Galaxy Tab starting on Sunday, making it one of the more affordable ways to get your hands on a 3G-enabled tablet of any kind — let alone a Froyo-based slate that’s received its fair share of compliments. Granted, the original Tab is aging at this point, and we still aren’t sure we’d be down for selling our cellular soul for two years just to get a spiffy up-front discount, but hey — at least you know the option awaits you. Oh, and if spending $429.99 sounds a lot better than $199.99 in addition to 24 months of obligation, that’ll apparently also be possible.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Continue reading Sprint dropping Galaxy Tab to $200 on contract starting April 3rd

Sprint dropping Galaxy Tab to $200 on contract starting April 3rd originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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