Sprint’s new device lineup leaked

Thanks to someone who knows someone and so on, the mobile device roadmap for Sprint has been leaked.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/03/16/sprints-q1-q3-2009-device-roadmap-leaks/

Most interesting to me is the GSM HTC version of the Touch Pro, the HTC Rhodium.  Being locked down to CDMA only has been one of the only setbacks from the HTC Touch Pro being the “superphone”.

Great find!

Xohm getting closer to reality

A big milestone in WiMAX history.

As you may remember, earlier this year Sprint and Clearwire announced an agreement to combine their next-generation wireless broadband businesses to form a new company to bring WiMAX to the market faster. Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks committed $3.2 billion to the new company.

And now, it’s official.

Announcing the new Clearwire. A true mobile broadband experience across the nation is now closer than ever.

Read the press release here, and be sure to check the Support section of xohm.com later this week for FAQs about the merger.

Sprint Touch Pro – First Impressions

I received my Sprint Touch Pro yesterday and performed an off-camera unboxing.  There are plenty of videos up on youtube already if you are interested in seeing one.  Also there is a good gallery over at Engaget of in hand shots.

Referenced from Engaget

My first impressions of the device have left me staggering.  It was well worth waiting for and skipping the Mogul.  Here are a few of my thoughts on the device so far, more posts to come.

• The build quality of the device is very high, the keyboard mechanism is more solid than the mogul/apache models, and slides out from the same side as the apache.
• The backlit keyboard is very good and the key feel is accurate, although the buttons feel slightly smaller than the apache counterpart.
• The stylus is magnetic like the diamond and alerts the phone that it needs to be ready and an extra one is included in the packaging.
• The touchflow interface is smooth so long as you don’t leave many (5+) applications in the background.  Combined with the screen resolution, it provides the best Windows Mobile Navigation to date. 
• Comes with Tomtom Pocket Express, need to test it more
• Windows Livesearch (available without this particular phone) rocks, the speak function works very well, where’s google voice activated search??
• The TV-out function (with the correct cable) has yet to be tested, but is a great feature not available on many smartphones.   IT supports NTSC and PAL which almost all projectors have.  It won’t be VGA quality, but in a pinch could serve very useful.
• The business card reader has yet to be tested, but it’s a great concept to be able to photograph a business card and have it OCR and import on the fly.
• Put the included screen protector on immediately after removing the Sprint shipping protector and be sure to make sure there aren’t any oils or dust on them.
• The inertial sensors are very sensitive as displayed by the maze/ball game.
• The screen resolution is striking, the pixel pitch is very hard to see (I couldn’t) even when looking very closely.
• Includes a 1gig Micro SD card
• The 3.2 MP camera does better than I’ve seen any phone.  Decent controls and resolultion, video works well
• Active sync works like a champ, and a new configuration option was added to automatically setup your account (I think this was added in 6.0)
• The opera web browser (IE is still available) is very good an provides the scroll/zoom feature like the iphone New York Times Demo.
• Includes Acrobat Reader, a must.
• Includes an IM client that supports, AOL, MSN and Yahoo
• Includes JetCet Printing over Wifi.  Printing from your phone!
• MP3 trimmer for those audio recordings and making ringtones on the fly
• RSS reader, does what it says..
• Sprint TV works much like the other phones but now has auto orientation depending on how you hold the phone
• Includes a dedicated youtube application that works well, but takes some time to buffer large videos
• Includes Windows Voice Command (push and hold the phone send key) I believe it’s v1.6
• Includes an audio booster for use with headsets and car BT pairings.
• I have yet to test the phone as modem, but it looks like the PCS vision option has been removed, so I’m curious if they are locking down on data access.

More to come!

Sprint Touch Pro Delayed – Sometime in Nov

As reported by Cnet and a local anxious fellow geek, the news has broken that the Touch Pro from Sprint has been delayed.  Bonnie Cha of Cnet quoted her Sprint contact:

“Sprint expects to slightly delay launch of the Touch Pro by HTC to ensure we have adequate inventory in all channels before making the device commercially available. Customers can expect the device to become available in select national retailers by the end of the month and then in all Sprint sales channels including online at www.sprint.com and Sprint Stores by early November.”

Boo.  But I’ll still wait.

Sprint Touch Pro Passes FCC muster

In another chapter in bringing a decent phone to Sprint after a 3 year hiatus, the HTC Touch Pro received it’s approval from the FCC for the CDMA version. Sounds like it’s still going to be a few months, but i hope to see a preview of it at the upcoming Microsoft Partner Conference next week.

If you haven’t seen an overview.. here’s a short video

Xohm coming to Baltimore, then DC!

XOHM announced this week that it will be launching its first commercial market in Baltimore, Maryland in September 2008.

Up next are Chicago and Washington, DC, with commercial service planned to be ready by the end of this year.

WiMAX network preparations continue in Dallas, Fort Worth, Boston, Providence, and Philadelphia. Launch dates for those cities have not yet been decided.

It’s interesting to me they are pushing ahead now to Philadephila considering the folding of the prior city wide wifi effort that I posted about here:

 

Finally! a Sprint PocketPC that has my interest

Many of your know I’ve held on to my good old PPC-6700 with a modified OS using WM6.  I stay with sprint for their great mobile bandwith and inexpensive plans.  Of course CDMA is useless outside the US, but I use other devices while abroad (perhaps the subject of another post).

HTC has finally taken the cover off their “Rafael” codename and is bringing the HTC Touch Pro to market and to Sprint later this year!

This phone has all the features that the market has been pining for and a form factor to make even an iphone blush.  Critics will say its still WM under the covers, but GPS, decent storage, full keyboard and a 3.2 MP camera are just some of the many highlights.

Picture from Engadget

My first hand look at iPhone’s ActiveSync Support

So there has been a lot of talk about Apple supporting and licensing ActiveSync to connect to Enterprise Exchange servers.  I finally got a chance to see it work in person from someone that is involved in the beta program with Apple.  Of course the catch still is that you have to move to AT&T if you aren’t there already and deal with the cripplingly slow Edge network.

Some things I noticed during the demo. 

Sharepoint sites perform quite well in the safari browser thanks to Microsoft’s testing for Firefox and Safari’s compatibility.

When you sync iPhone with Exchange, it doesn’t appear to handle tasks, or when you don’t want to accept a meeting request, it doesn’t handle suggesting a new time. 
It does allow you to combine your exhange contacts with the internal SIM card though with is a cool feature.

Additional hardware capabilities will include more storage (up to 32GB) Native GPS support and wifi.

Will this make me switch to AT&T?  Doubtful.

But will I subscribe for a “test” account and test device?   Perhaps.

Bad news for Philly

What I thought would be the archetype for Wimax, Philadelphia and Earthlink are pulling the plug on the city wide wifi project. http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/13/philadelphia-citywide-wifi-officially-shut-down/

Does this mean bad news for the DC Sprint Wimax “Xohm” project? I hope not, I’ve already started planning my wiring to the car’s rooftop receiver.