The Olympic season is about to arrive and London is all getting glammed up and ready for the major international affair. With wireless communications now becoming a major necessity, the capital is all about making things ready for the deluge of international visitors that are expected to arrive. Part of the preparations is to bring the much needed mobile network service in the Tubes.
France based Thales and Taiwan’s Huawei are both eagerly competing to take the project lead. The demand of the long tube network will certainly require plenty of communications hardware –also to keep up with the large volume of users. Expect to see this project pushing through in the next few weeks.
Motorola’s Milestone 2 is confirmed to be heading to K store shelves. No exact date has been given, but the price has finally been revealed. At 379.99 Pounds, this Android smart phone is definite contender even for the likes of the HTC Desire or the Samsung Galaxy S. Thanks to the slide out QWERTY keyboard and ever impressive design aesthetics of Motorola, this Milestone sequel is one phone that an Android fan cannot afford to pass up.
Mobile network operator Vodafone UK has announced that they will be adding two new smart phones to their plans and tariffs. The Nokia C7 is an obvious choice for those looking for a decent budget smart phone thanks to its well rounded features. The HTC Desire Z brings plenty of functionality thanks to its slide out QWERTY keyboard.
In the meanwhile, things are not looking good for HP and more importantly, for Palm. The WebOS 2.0 powered Pre 2 has been ignored by network operators limiting the distribution of the device. However, things have turned for the worse as security issues in the WebOS 2.0 platform have also been revealed.
Archive for the ‘Palm Phones’ Category
Today’s Top Mobile News Stories
Monday, November 29th, 2010HTC Desire Z and Palm Pre 2 are Now Available
Monday, November 15th, 2010
Good news for all Palm fans, the WebOS powered Palm Pre 2 smart phone is now available locally, but only through the Palm official website; those planning to go under O2 UK will not be able to obtain the handset as O2 has chosen not to offer it.
Now, for those of you wondering why it seems bizarre, it is because of the fact that all other Palm devices are directly available from O2 with the exception of the Palm Pre 2. In fact, O2 UK has an exclusivity deal with Palm. Naturally, this situation is disturbing as the only company allowed to distribute Palm devices in UK has not taken the newest model.
According to O2 UK, their offerings of Palm handsets are already more than enough to satisfy consumers and they believe that the Palm lineup is already adequate even without the Pre 2. While we certainly respect the operators’ decision, there is something to be said about what the consumers want, and certainly, there is a sufficient enough demand for the Pre 2
In other news, Vodafone UK has confirmed that they are now offering the HTC Desire Z. This is certainly one impressive smart phone that we recommend to any hardcore Android user. For the most part, the Motorola Milestone and the Milestone 2 have been the most iconic QWERTY keyboard toting Androids available (as well as the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro).
Now, HTC is bringing in their version of a QWERTY toting Android handset in the form of the Desire Z. Going the opposite direction of the Desire HD –which focused on media playback, this new device centers on communication and connectivity; with messaging and text creation serving as a main point of attention. The screen on this phone is a 3.7 inch touch display and it also comes with a 5 mega pixel camera and of course, Google’s Android 2.2 Froyo operating system.
Mobile Industry News: SE Profits, Palm Hires and Google Soars
Monday, October 18th, 2010
It seems that the folks at HP are pretty serious about bringing their game to the smart phone industry. With the buyout of Palm already well and done, the time to start focusing on new projects is at hand, and as predicted, HP will need some pretty strong players on their team to keep up with the competition.
Former Nokia-MeeGo head Ari Jaaski and Samsung’s Victoria Coleman (who was previously the head of the R&D for the Korean phone maker) are reportedly joining in the ranks of HP’s top ranking officials. Right now, HP has not yet given a public statement regarding their long terms plans for the smart phone industry.
But with some rather impressive people on their side, the patents and technologies of Palm (including the famous WebOS), and HP’s long experience in the tech industry, we can expect nothing but some of the best mobile phones ever conceived.
Sony Ericsson is certainly enjoying seeing plenty of profits this year. While they may have had a pretty rough time in the past couple of years, the Swedish Japanese joint venture is now back in the game with a great lineup of mobile handsets and of course, plenty of revenue. Technically, Sony is making fewer sales. The volumes of handsets that have been shipped out are slightly lower than the previous months, but it is the actual profit they are making that has gone up. Thanks to the Android XPERIA lineup, as well as their Greenheart line of handsets, SE looks set to start claiming back its throne from Samsung pretty soon.
Lastly, Google has reported that the Q3 growth of the company has continued. In fact, the overall profit for Google is said to be around the range of 600 million GBP. With more than half a billion in revenue, there is little doubt that Google’s growth is going to stop anytime soon.
Confirmed: Pre 2, Wave II and Pearl 3G
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
Three new handsets have been confirmed as heading for the UK market; RIM’s BlackBerry Pearl 3G, the Samsung Wave II and the HP Palm Pre 2.
HP has seen their promise through; they will continue the development and production of Palm’s smart phones. In fact, the Palm Pre 2, which was originally thought to have been cancelled due to the closure of Palm, has been continued and is now going to be launched pretty soon. The device has been upgraded with a 1GHz CPU and several other hardware tweaks and has been shown off by Palm on a quick one page online teaser. As for the actual launch date, no details have been given so far.
Samsung’s Wave smart phone may have been an underdog when it first launched –after all, the device was sporting an all new touch screen technology as well as Samsung’s very first incarnation of their proprietary operating system, the Bada OS.
While not much was expected from the handset, the Wave actually managed to sell well –well enough to spawn secondary devices: the Wave 2 and Wave 2 Pro. The Wave 2 series features specs lower than the original Wave (with the Pro version sporting a slide out QWERTY keyboard).
Samsung has recently confirmed that they will be launching the Wave II –an all new handset featuring the Bada operating system and hardware that is better than the original Wave. The only thing that is not yet confirmed is how good the new super LCD screen technology especially when it gets compared to the super AMOLED touch screen that was present in the first Wave handset.
Lastly, Virgin Media and T-Mobile confirmed that they will be offering the BlackBerry Pearl 3G in the UK. The smart phone is available on a wide variety of plans and tariffs but only T-Mobile offers the device on a pay as you go scheme.
Apple iOS and Palm WebOS Updates Fail to Impress
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
It seems that both Apple and Palm users have something to be disappointed about with regards to recently rolled out updates for their devices.
In Apple’s corner, the iOS 4.0.1 update was intended to somewhat fix the iPhone 4’s prevalent antenna issue. Since Apple has been insisting that the reception problems the iPhone 4 has been experiencing may be attributed to a simple miscalculation in their signal formulas, there was a ray of hope when they announced an upcoming software update.
However, it seems that the iOS 4.0.1 update did little to improve the signal issue. Instead, it just made the signal bars displayed on the iPhone 4’s screen look a little bigger.
Well, in terms of the code, Apple did change the algorithm slightly so that the signal bars displayed will be a little less optimistic. This does not improve anything when you accidentally block the iPhone 4’s lower left portion.
If that is not enough, some of those who have tried to install this update early have been met with problems, particularly when trying to install using their desktop computers. This has resulted in a few bricked iPhone units.
As shown by their recent actions, Apple seems to treat the mobile industry as a joke. The once unstoppable giant is now suffering blows left and right from dissatisfied consumers and competition that they happened to pull into their mess (like RIM).
In the Palm corner, the newest WebOS update has also been released to the public. Version 1.4.5 for the Pre and the Pixi (along with the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus units, of course) has resulted in an annoying issue for developers.
Instead of helping Palm units turn into decent mobile gaming units, a software problem ensures just the opposite. It prevents any app from having access to the mobile phone’s internal data, resulting in a number of crashes.
Hewlett-Packard Saves the Day for Palm
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
Palm has proven to be a resilient company, being one to just up and rise from the dead with just-in-time mobile innovations and now, their very own savior. No, it is not the Chinese company Lenovo, it is actually the American technology giant Hewlett-Packard. HP is not only out to match Dell at their mobile phone game, they are out to challenge the untouchable Google and Apple as well.
The partnership has already been given the OK by the board of directors in both companies. No doubt that their stockholders are soon to follow along with their regulators. Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s current CEO and chairman, will stay on board under undisclosed terms. This is what he had to say about their new asset (quoted from the HP Press Release):
“We’re thrilled by HP’s vote of confidence in Palm’s technological leadership, which delivered Palm webOS and iconic products such as the Palm Pre. HP’s longstanding culture of innovation, scale and global operating resources make it the perfect partner to rapidly accelerate the growth of webOS.”
The partnership seems to have been made in heaven. HP will be able to tap into Palm’s strengths which include their range of pioneer products, as well as their existing smart phone market. Palm will have the benefit of having a revamp of their product marketing as well as a reach across the globe.
The winning combination brings about new problems for their competitors. Microsoft is clearly on the losing end here, seeing as HP was one of the main manufacturers of devices carrying their OS. Although Windows Phone 7 devices are still in HP’s future, they would have minimal reliance on the platform now that webOS is a part of their family. It will surely be a sight to see when HP-Palm products are placed back on shelves alongside iPhones, WP7 devices and Android mobile phones.
Palm: Now with HP
Friday, April 30th, 2010
One of the biggest headlines that you would be seeing today is the announcement that Hewlett Packard has purchased Palm for a very hefty price of over £783 million. It is a pricey investment and one that many doubt would pay off (HP’s share value went down after the purchase was announced). Despite this, plenty of tech fans are quite eager to see what will happen next to Palm and what kind of new devices HP is planning to create with the new technology they just earned.
Palm’s existing patent library is very extensive. They are the first to come up with PDA devices and Palm is considered to be the forerunner of smart phone standards. Despite this, the performance and sales in the previous months have been very lackluster, and no matter how impressive their most recent products are, the lack of marketing has sent the company on the fringes of tech obscurity.
Sure, the few people who picked up the Palm Pixi and the Palm Pre have been outright impressed with the handset, and none has directly made it to the UK unless it was exported elsewhere. With the US market already dominated by their rivals, Palm was lost in the haze and even failed to successful penetrate the international market.
On the other hand, things are quite different for people on the HP side of things. Many consider the purchase to be quite exciting, but there are those who sincerely doubt the effectiveness of the move –costing Palm plenty in terms of their shares. But Palm executives are quite confident that they made the right move in going after HP –now that they are committed to actually stepping into the smart phone industry.
The Palm Pre WebOS Update
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Users of the Palm Pre are enjoying a series of continued technical support in the form of firmware updates that fixes bugs, adds new features and tweaks existing functions to add more capabilities to the device.
In the case of the 1.3.1 update of the Palm Pre WebOS, the device is getting a tie up with Yahoo! and LinkedIn –useful, but only if you have accounts on them. The new update will allow you to connect your contacts and calendar and synchronize them with your profile on both Yahoo! and LinkedIn. This also complements the new features added to the calendar (as well as a few tweaks that renamed some items).
Even better is the Palm Pre email function update. Now, there is nothing wrong with the email function, in fact, it works like a dream. What Palm did is actually improve an already good function into something great. The addition of new shortcuts for important functions and making copy-pasting easier is certainly a welcome treat.
Firmware updates like these are always welcome, but they can also be quite unnerving. It shows that a device has gone past all bug checking standards and still suffers many errors. While it can be argued that this is the norm for most of technology, it appears that the problem lies in the fact that manufacturers and consumers have accepted that norm.
Anyway, the rest of the tweaks and bug-fixes are listed on the official Palm website. What matters now is that users need to get on a secure bandwidth to download the huge 134MB update. It may not be that large for people who are on very fast connection speeds, but others who rely on wonky free WiFi hotspots need to update elsewhere.
Good thing Palm can also slowly upload the update to Pre owners via 3G when the device goes into idle mode.
Rumor Mill: Nokia Casts a Shadow Over Palm
Monday, November 16th, 2009
There is a trend of company buy outs that is predominant in electronic fields particularly with digital gaming. This is where major company mergers and buy outs happen very often. EA Games for example, is absorbing small independent developers for breakfast, while larger companies like Bandai-Namco and Square-Enix tend to merge.
Today, it is not unusual to hear of rumors regarding a take-over. The latest take-over rumor to hit the fan is that of Nokia buying out Palm. Though there has been no further evidence to support this rumor aside from the assorted clippings on the internet, the news has been strong enough to affect the value of Palm’s stocks. The stocks have risen to an impressively high value of a full 8%, according to various reports.
Right now, Nokia has just announced that they will be focusing on their new Linux based Maemo operating system. With the current trend of major mobile phone manufacturers investing resources on their own operating systems, it is unlikely that such a buyout will actually occur. Still, the sudden activity in trading that raised the value of Palm shares is not without cause. With both companies refusing to comment on the issue, the possibility is still up in the air.
Despite Palm having its own operating system, the WebOS; Nokia has shown excellent ability to adapt to various technologies. As can be seen with their recent announcement of a new OS, their venture in to the laptop industry with the Booklet 3G and other similar decisions, the possibility of Nokia buying out Palm could very well be true. The speculation now points to asking is if this buyout will be good for Palm or not?
Palm’s products have been primarily focused on touch screen technology while Nokia is still releasing more GSM devices than smart phones than any other major company. Nokia does have high end 3G smart phones on the market, but it is obvious that their focus is on the older (and much larger) market of 2G users across the globe.
First Impression: the Palm Pixi
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Small is big in the mobile phone industry. After all, when it comes to devices that you have to carry around with you, keeping it light and compact is always an important factor. This is why the Palm Pixi seems over the top, but still delivers right on target with public demands. We wanted a mobile phone that could function well, be fun to use and be really small, well Palm has the answer to our demands with the Pixi. This is a small phone packed with all the right features.
Pixie-sized Mobile Phone
How small is the Pixi? It’s very small, less than half an inch thick and will fit right in the palm of your hand (it did in ours). It is very lightweight and compact. The face design is deceptively wide to look at, thanks to the full QWERTY keyboard and the 2.63 inch capacitive touch screen display.
More Than Expected
Yes, we said capacitive touch screen, and a full QWERTY keyboard as well. Most people would expect that a small phone, in order to maintain its minute size, would have less features and hardware. Palm shows us otherwise. The Pixi not only has the touch screen and full keyboard, but it also has a 3.5mm audio jack, 8GB of storage, Wi-Fi, a 2 mega pixel camera and the whole thing is powered by a Qualcomm MSM7627. This pixie is geared up to face dragons.
Should You Get It?
The biggest worry about phones like these is that they often fall into obscurity being a novelty item. Fortunately, Palm has given this phone some serious hardware (see above) to keep up with the other devices that are being released this year. The Pixi itself is obviously aimed for tech geeks who travel with other portable devices and would need a small, yet practical and versatile mobile phone.
Palm Pixi Links: