The Connected Circuit » sprint

Palm Pixi: Palm taking it to the masses?

Peter To — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:38:16 +0000

Palm has officially announced the second device to be outfitted with its webOS mobile platform. Previously leaked as the Eos and now officially known as the Pixi. The Pixi loses the slide out keyboard for a candy bar form factor, yet still keeping a full qwerty keyboard. It slims down to a mere 0.67″ thin (by comparison the iPhone 3GS is 0.48″), but doesn’t lose the capacitive touchscreen or the number of pixels.

What’s does this have:

Palm’s also introducing what they’re calling the “Artist Series”, which includes backplates not unlike those for the myTouch on T-Mobile, adding some flare to those Pixi’s out there. The back plates are also fully compatible with the touchstone wireless charging accessory and right now comes in five different variations.

It looks like Palm’s been hard at work not only with getting a new device out the door, but adding some much needed software additions and tweak,s as well. Palm has added LinkedIn and Yahoo to your synergy contacts, Yahoo to the messeging application, and rouding it out with an official Facebook application.

What it doesn’t have:

It loses the shiny metal click button at the bottom right below the gesture area, WiFi and gets a slower processor (a Qualcomm MSM7627 as opposed to the pre’s TI OMAP 3). It still does not have a microSD card slot, but keeps the 8 GB internal storage. Since this phone is coming to Sprint, expect it to be a CDMA only device, so those expecting this to be that first GSM webOS device, you’ll need to wait a wee bit longer.

Be sure to keep an eye out for this soon on Sprint, for an unknown price point. As this will surely be aimed at the Centro crowd, Sprint will most likely shoot for a price of around $99-$150, which is after a two-year agreement, of course. Read more about the Pixi here on Palm’s site and the full specs here.

HTC Hero coming exclusively to Sprint

Peter To — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:18:37 +0000

It’s official Sprint will be the exclusive US carrier for the hot device that is the HTC Hero. Featuring a new svelte chinless design and HTC’s in house built “Sense Experience” UI. This marks the first non-T-Mobile Android headset to reach this part of the shore. Sprint is sure hitting it out of the ballpark, first the exclusive carrier to the Palm pre and now they’ve got the hottest Android phone. Expect this to drop on October 11th at $179.99 with a 2 year contract. Presser is here, Sprint sign up is here and the specs (with pictures to the Jay Leno-chin version) is here.

In case you missed it, here is a drill down of what you can expect:

Built in GPS with digital compass
Exchange Active sync support
3.2″ 320 x 480 capacitive touchscreen
Android
ROM: 512 MB
RAM: 288 MB
Qualcomm MSM7200A, 528 MHz CPU

Just also keep in mind, since HTC heavily modified this device, this won’t come stock with any of those Google Apps you’ll see in full Google Experience phones, such as the G1 (HTC Dream) or the myTouch (HTC Magic), but be sure that someone like Cyanogen or someone from XDA will be able to hack it in there somehow.

BlackBerry Tour Available Now on Verizon and Sprint

Peter To — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:00:25 +0000

Looks like those BlackBerry fanboys on Verizon and Sprint have finally got what they’ve been waiting for, a new and updated Blackberry, in the form of the BlackBerry Tour. Get it while its hot at your local Verizon and Sprint for $199.99 on-contract, $499.99 for those not eligible for upgrades.

Key highlights below:

480×360 LCD
256 MB Built-in memory W/microSD card slot
aGPS
3.2 megapixel camera
4.7 OS platform
Qualcomm MSM7600 processor
Fully-functional World Phone that supports global roaming on 3G networks
Quad-Band: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks
Single-Band: 2100 MHz UMTS/HSPA networks
Dual-Band: 800/1900 MHz CDMA/EVDO Rev A networks

RIM

Sprint

Verizon