Ah yes, the 2008 year in review T-mobile USA post. It wasn’t to long ago we got a look at fourth quarter 2008 numbers and while it wasn’t the stellar year we all hoped for, it wasn’t a year like Sprint’s either. Highlights of the report include 130 cities covered by 3G, with that number expected to jump to 200 before the end of 2009. A 31% increase in data services revenue from 2007, more than double the messages carried from Q4 2008 from the Q4 2007. Average revenue per user dropped to $50 dollars in Q4 down from $52 dollars in Q3. Well at this point I’m sure some of you have stopped reading as the statistics can be pretty dry but feel free to jump over to BusinessWire and read the rest of the 2008 year in review release.
On February 4, 2009, T-Mobile USA was ranked highest in wireless customer care performance by J.D. Power and Associates. Winning this award in 7 of the last 8 reporting periods continues to demonstrate T-Mobile USA’s strong and successful focus on customer service.
On January 22, 2009, Fortune magazine announced that T-Mobile USA was the first-ever telecommunications company to be ranked in its “100 Best Companies to Work For” list. “Service is our number one priority at T-Mobile. And the best way to deliver outstanding service is to create an environment where our employees can make a meaningful difference for customers everyday,” said Dotson. “As the first telecommunications service provider to be included in Fortune’s ‘Best Companies to Work For’, we’re gratified and honored to be named among these elite companies.”
On Nov. 20, 2008, T-Mobile USA, introduced web2goSM, which makes it easier to view and navigate the Web from basic voice phones and smartphones alike, providing customers with better Web browsing, improved search with Yahoo! oneSearch™, a customizable home page and a simplified shopping and download experience.
Well by no stretch of the imagination is this one firmly chalked up into the rumor column, but a source is a source. We’ve pegged a rumor down that currently hints at the C905 arrival to the big magenta sometime during the beginnings of summer. For all intents and purposes, May seems to be the month most mentioned but we all know how release dates can be shifted without warning.
Combine our source with an email we know is floating around straight from Sony Ericsson regarding the arrival of this device to US shores and we just have to wonder, and hope if T-mobile might be looking to make a grab for it. So for the moment, strictly in the rumor column, but if it comes to fruition, we told you so.
Tech guy here. We’re in the process of a server move… trying to improve the reliability of the site and all that jazz. Please be patient if you are unable to access certain sections of the site, such as the forums, while we work through this.
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Noah from Phonedog is at it again, this time he is piecing together information regarding the possible launch of the Sidekick 2009 at CTIA in April and the alien landing at Roswell. Before we bring you the details of his little connect the dots game, we should give a little more detail on the *3.2 megapixel camera* direct from the boys at hiptop3 who are all over the details on this upcoming qwerty bad boy.
It will take photos up to a resolution of 2038 x 1536, meaning 3.2 megapixels.
There’s a flash, so those grainy shot-in-the-dark photos will be possible.
There is a new auto-focus feature, so you shouldn’t have to use the jewelry loupe/magnifying glass trick to get up close shots of things.
Video recording sounds like it’s set to 15 frames per second for now. But might be possible for 30fps.
You will be able to upload directly to MySpace, Photobucket, and YouTube
T-mobile has officially begun hyping up a series of Concerts beginning in San Francisco celebrating the 2009 Grammy awards. What device sponsors this concert series, you guessed it…the T-mobile sidekick. Sidekick 2009 rumors have been heating up for the last month and with CTIA, the biggest mobile event in the US starting just two weeks before the concert series kickoff its handily a perfect time to launch and hype a trademark device.
So Noah, is connecting the dots, putting forth the belief that there is little chance that T-mobile would sponsor a concert series with last years models sidekicks. The only viable explanation is that sometime in that time-frame, we can expect to see a brand new sidekick. So Noah is asking to get your “hype suits” on, say a little prayer, do a little dance and hope that we will actually see the unveiling of a new sidekick in the beginning of April.
So today begins the Samsung Memoir journey into the T-mobile marketplace. The Memoir really needs no introduction, having been previewed on more than one occassion. So as day breaks and the retail stores open, we take a look at the word on the web, as the Memoir has found itself in the hands of a lucky few.
Phonedog: Memoir can rightfully claim the title of “Best Cameraphone on a US Carrier” in my book, at least for now. I’m no photographer, but the images I snapped with the device this week came out looking great, and many a point-and-shoot Ansel Adams would do just fine using Memoir as their daily shooter. Still, Memoir the phone leaves something to be desired when pitted head-to-head with the iPhones, BlackBerries, G1s, and Touch Pros (and, soon, Pres) that occupy the same $199 and up price category.
Engadget: Ultimately, we’re thinking T-Mobile may have painted itself into a corner here. The Behold is a more attractive phone from the same manufacturer featuring the same form factor, the same UI, and the same 3G support; granted, you do lose 3 megapixels, but you’re still left with a totally commendable 5 — and the Memoir’s extra resolution isn’t doing you much good in the way of picture quality anyway.
Gizmodo: A pretty damn good cameraphone. The TouchWiz UI is pretty much the same as the version on the Samsung Behold. In short, it’s more usable as a touchscreen phone (keyboard is fairly decent) than Windows Mobile phones, but not quite as good as say, Android or the iPhone.
Boygenius: For $249.99 on a 2-year agreement, we’d have trouble not slapping you if you didn’t pick up the BlackBerry Curve 8900 over this. Didn’t you hear? T-Mobile can’t keep them on the shelves. We highly doubt stockrooms won’t be cozying up the Samsung Memoir, though. It’s not horrible, it just isn’t worth the hassle or the price. At least in our photo scrapbook.
Mobiletechreview:The Samsung Memoir should be one of the hottest phones of 2009. It has a wonderful touch screen interface courtesy of Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface and the large haptic display. The camera is superb and it’s the fastest autofocus we’ve seen on a high resolution camera phone. The Memoir has a very good web browser by touch screen standards, an excellent on-screen keyboard, an accelerometer and proximity sensor– all the right features to combat iPhoneitus.
ZDNet: I have only had a few hours to use the device so far, but am pretty impressed with the hardware and find it to be rock solid. The TouchWiz interface is easy to use and I like the customizable widgets. The haptic feedback is helpful and confirms screen presses on the Memoir.
So the general notion here is that opinions are mixed, with reviews of the 8 megapixel camera ranging from impressive to downright disappointment in low light shooting. The touchwiz interface definitely has formed a love hate relationship with the blogging world and the inevitable comparisons to the iPhone, Pre and WM managing to crawl themselves into some of the reviews. The truly disappointing aspect is that a number of bloggers find themselves recommending the Behold still, due to form factor, price and mostly that the only true difference is a 3 megapixel camera bump. Still, we’ll let the end user, the readers decide whether or not this is truly worth picking up and replacing a real point and shoot camera.
So tomorrow is the big day, the Samsung Memoir drops to the T-mobile USA world and while there have been a few hiccups, all signs point to an exciting launch! Check out the Cnet hands on below and sound off in the comments if you’ll be picking this one up in the near future!
So its a little bit of good news mixed in with a little bit of bad news. Noah @ Phonedog got wind of some apparent trouble brewing on the Memoir browser front. It appears the same “full html” problem that plagued the browsing experience of the Samsung Behold has yet to be rectified with the release of the Samsung Memoir. Word from Noah’s tipster is that websites are sent through T-mobile’s web2go service giving you sort of an ugly middle ground between wap and html. The good news is, the very same hack that worked for enabling “full html” browsing on the Samsung Behold seems to be working for the Samsung Memoir giving you the type of browsing experience you would expect from this feature rich device.
Hit the Phonedog link for before and after pictures!
While its appearance could easily be mistaken for that “other” phone, the Huawei Android prototype pictured above made a non-working debut at Mobile World Congress. Reports coming out of Spain had an expectation for a release of the pictured device around Q3 2009. According the guys over at SlashGear, it just might be making its way over to the big magenta.
SlashGear is reporting that Huawei has signed an agreement to bring its line of Android based devices to T-mobile beginning in Q3 of this year. According to the reports, the phones will be sold under “another companies brand name” but what that means exactly or who the companies are remain anyone’s guess. We’re holding this one in the rumor category for the moment as SlashGear has yet to positively confirm that T-mobile USA is indeed one of the recipients of the new line of phones, or if our European brethern get all the glory. Stay tuned!
How do the words “free” and “smartphone” make you feel? In this business, that’s almost the pot at the end of the rainbow and all of the current phone manufacturers, its a newcomer who may bring the best pricing to the table. Acer, better known for their computers/laptops and current line of netbooks recently unveiled their line of wireless devices at Mobile World Congress.
Sascha Segan over at PCmag has an interesting article up regarding the arrival of the Acer smartphone line. Of note is a paragraph regarding US availability:
Acer’s phones will probably appear on either AT&T or T-Mobile…as they will use the GSM radio standard. Acer’s large size, firm financial backing, and highly desirable netbook and 3G notebook lineup have given the company an ‘in’ with U.S. mobile operators, he said.
Acer with their name, size and financial backing according to Segan have had no problems getting appointments with various service providers with whom they would like to arrange deals with. More important of course is the notion that according to Acer’s Smartphone Unit President Aymar de Lencquesaing will see the phones retailing at ZERO…that’s right, the hope of Acer is to bring smartphones to US shores retailing at zero, cero, null etc etc.
Expect to see a bevy of phones appear on US shores sometime later this year and even perhaps, the unmistakable rumor of an Android phone.
Yet again we find ourselves watching the natural evolution of a device launch in the modern blog world. We find information regarding the FCC approval, which starts the buzz. An executive drops a conspicuous albeit unsatisfying remark regarding the launch of the product. Then of course we have our favorite portion of the evolution of the device launch, the famed “in the wild” shots. Usually they are blurry and end up with some or many disbelievers but in this case, the shots are clear as a bell.
So there you have it, we have watched, waited and hoped that T-mobile would bring to the masses a data card worthy of their 3G network. Well the good news is a little birdy gave us some information regarding the upcoming USB 3G stick T-mobile will be offering. Expected around March 25th, the webconnect USB will offer connectivity to T-mobile’s 3G, EDGE and Hotspot services. Loaded with the ability to automatically detect the best available network, this USB stick will also have 8 GB of space available for you to carry important documents and pictures of the family. Available at a pricing point of $59.99 T-mobile is throwing its hand into the USB competitive arena with 5 GB of data availability under that pricing.
