CTIA!

The CTIA conference is a huge conference where all the major and minor companies that have to do with wireless communication show off their newest products. For those of you who didn’t pay much attention to the conference in Orlando this year I am going to briefly recap on some of the most important announcements.

One of the biggest announcements was that AT&T was going to buy T-mobile from its parent company Deutsche Telekom. You may be wondering, how much is a cell phone provider worth, well apparently its $39 billion dollars! $25 billion in cash and $14 billion in stocks to be exact. This is actually good news for AT&T customers because of the fact that T-mobile as its own cell provider and had its own towers, once the merger is complete AT&T customers will get to use the T-mobile towers too. This will result in much much better coverage than now.  Not only just any coverage though, LTE coverage! Once the merger is complete, AT&T claims that their LTE network will cover 95% of Americans or 294 million people! This is significant because President Obama, in his State of the Union address, said, "Within the next five years, we'll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans," said Mr. Obama. "This isn't about faster Internet or fewer dropped calls. It's about connecting every part of America to the digital age."

Next, the HTC EVO 3D was announced for the Sprint network. The EVO 3D as you can probably guess is the successor to the widely popular HTC EVO 4G. As you can guess from the name, the EVO 3D has a glasses-less 3D screen and it has a 3D camera. It also comes with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor which is up from the 1 GHz single core processor in the EVO 4G. The EVO 3D also comes with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with the newest version of HTC Sense stuck on top. One of my co-authors on Gizmo-teched described it as “soo sexy.” Personally, if I had to pick, I would pick the EVO 4G over the EVO 3D because the EVO 3D has lost some features that the 4G had and I liked. First off I think the whole 3D thing is gimmicky; it’s cool the first couple times you use it and it’s cool to show off to friends but otherwise completely useless unless. 3D TVs are way too expensive for the average consumer to buy and even if someone had a 3D TV there is not enough 3D content for it to be worth it your money. Another gripe I have against the EVO 3D is it has no kickstand!! Are you kidding me HTC?? When the EVO 4G was first released, it stood out because it had a huge screen, it was the first 4G phone, it had an amazing camera and it had a KICKSTAND! Now that the EVO 4G has been on the market for about a year, there are many phones with the same features but the one feature that still makes the EVO 4G stand out is its kickstand (I can vouch for this because I have one). So when making the next generation EVO, HTC deiced to get rid one of the signature features of the previous phone?

Speaking of the HTC EVO, HTC has made the HTC EVO View 4G tablet official. Being one of the newest tablets on the market, it of course has every feature imaginable plus some:

·         1.4 Ghz dual core processer

·         1 Gb of RAM

·         4G capable (if you didn’t figure that out from the name)

·         5 Megapixel rear facing camera and a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera

·         7 inch multi touch screen

·         4000 mAh battery

·         Digital compass

·         HTC Scribe compatibility

The View will be shipped with Honeycomb with the latest version of HTC’s Sense UI. The View 4G is also compatible with the HTC Scribe pen which allows you to write, draw, hightlight and much more on the tablet. The View is set to be released “this summer” on Sprint. I have to say, I really am not sure why HTC is pretty much redoing the exterior of the HTC Flyer, adding a 3G/4G radio into it and calling it the View 4G. Since the specifications are identical, they should have just called it the Flyer 4G or something but I guess the PR guys at HTC know better than I do!

Well those are the most important things that i think were announced at CTIA, maybe some of you will go next year!.....and maybe buy me plane tickets while you are at it to:)

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Possible features of the iPad2?!

I'm sure many of you have heard about Apple’s big event next week on the 2^nd,and the most talked about device that is expected to be released at this conference is the iPad 2. Here are a couple features that are likely to appear on it: 

• Two cameras would be the most obvious choice to add on to the iPad 2 as it is one of the biggest disadvantages the iPad has against its competitors.
• Apple's newest A5 processor which hopefully will be a multi core processor to help speed it up
• A dedicated graphics chip which will make it the best gaming tablet out there. That will be appropriate as the iPhone is the most popular mobile gaming platform at the moment.
• It may or may not have a Hi resolution retina display because they are expensive to manufacture
• A dedicated SD card slot. Like the camera...or the lack thereof, is one of the biggest drawbacks to the iPad when compared to other 

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the the iPad 2 will be sleeker and thinner which is probably an accurate guess becasue most new gadgets are sleeker than the ones they are replacing. It is also being speculated that since the iPhone is now available on both AT&T and Verizon that the new iPad 2 will have a dual GSM/CDMA chipset that will enable it to work on Verizon's as well as AT&T's 3G network. Hopefully the iPad turns out to be exactly what we are all looking for by having all these features!

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How the Kindle is Winning the Hearts of Many

The amazon kindle has been one of the most succeful products amazon has ever had. They claim to have sold millions. This revoulutionary product allows you to read on a screen made up of E-ink. This is important because other E-readers like the iPad have a back light like a computer and it hurts peoples eyes if they read it for too long. With the kindle it is like reading a book with the capability of turning pages and browsing the web all without compromising you eyes comfort. The kindle comes in two versions, one with unlimited 3g and a WiFi only version. It is a $50 difference between the two and I honestly think that the 3G version is worth it because you will receive unlimited 3G from AT&T for life. When searching the web though the only thing available is text based. The device is here to stay in the homes of America for years to come.

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Is the Incredible, Incredible?

Well as the Incredible is coming closer and closer to being extinct many people are starting to think that it is the last of a dying breed. Over CES weekend Verizon Wireless released a couple new phones such as the new HTC Thunderbolt. This phone is powered by their 4G LTE that will most likely require a new type of data plan that won’t be unlimited which can really hurt some hard internet users. The plan Verizon has right now is unlimited 3G data for $30 a month. This means that you can use as much data as you want for only thirty dollars. With the 4G LTE plan it will likely cost maybe hundreds if you go over and use tons of data. To some people it is worth having unlimited 3G versus limited 4G LTE. So I would say if you are not into limited data plans I would go for the incredible and use Verizon’s $30 a month for unlimited data. 

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