Press shots of the Motorola i465 leaked out

We’ve known what the upcoming Motorola i465 iDEN has looked like for at least a month but upon seeing this leaked press release photo, it looks Motorola has succeeded in doing something we think is has secretly been trying to do for years — create a full-QWERTY phone that is uglier than Jocelyn Wildenstein. Specific specs are sparse but we think we’re going to see a VGA camera, Bluetooth 2.0 and that crazy iDEN PTT that so many love. Of course we suppose those bad specs aren’t too big of a deal considering that the main selling point is iDEN connectivity with a QWERTY keypad thrown in for messaging fiends. We can definitely see the i465 being somewhat popular for Boost which still doesn’t have a QWERTY phone in its bag, so we hope Sprint goes that route as opposed to having it compete with the BlackBerry 8350i. Because honestly…

Softbank prepare to offer iPhone 3G for free in Japan

The iPhone 3G might be selling like hotcakes here in the US but it looks like other countries may be a bit reluctant to hand over standard functionality such as MMS and copy/paste in exchange for the smooth touchscreen ride the iPhone affords. According to a press release issued by SoftBank Mobile early this morning, the Japanese carrier is preparing to introduce some unheard-of pricing for the iPhone 3G — free. And you thought $99 was a good deal… Starting Friday and extending though the end of May, SoftBank’s “iPhone for everybody Campaign” will offer the iPhone 3G 8GB for free or the iPhone 3G 16GB for $117 to new subscribers. There is a mandatory 2-year contract involved of course, and but the iPhone data plan will run $44.75 per month as opposed to the standard $60. So basically, new SoftBank subscribers are looking at an instant savings of around $230 on either iPhone 3G model — standard pricing is $230 for the 8GB and $350 for the 16GB — and they’re saving over $15 each month on data. Ok AT&T, what’s up?

Rimm releases a 3G Bold....In Japan

Not to rub salt in the wounds of T-Mobile customers who are still crying out for a 3G BlackBerry, but not even the Mighty Magenta could pull off a feat the likes of what Japanese carrier DoCoMo did: convince RIM to add in a fourth band of 3G on the Bold. That’s right, the Japanese Bold that went on sale over the weekend is a quad-band 3G device containing the 2100, 1900, 850 and 800 MHz bands of UMTS/HSDPA. It was wise of RIM to omit this intel from its English press release of course, because it would definitely cause T-Mobile customers to start complaining about the Bold’s lack of of AWS 3G. And just for those of you who are wondering, the 800MHz UMTS/HSDPA band is a part of DoCoMo’s FOMA Plus Area network which is used in rural areas where the low-frequency spectrum is better able to navigate long distances and mountainous terrain. Tell us, T-Mobile 8900 users, are you green with envy that Japan got a special HSDPA band put into the Bold or is UMA enough for you?

Nokia 5800 Xpress Music gets all NAMed up

It’s a day early and though some might say it’s still a dollar short, Nokia die hards in close proximity to a Flagship store will be happy to learn the the 5800 XpressMusic NAM is now in stock at Nokia’s retail stores - all set to go on sale today around 3:00 pm. Initial launch details slated the 5800 release for tomorrow but we’re fanboys won’t be complaining about getting their paws on the handset slightly ahead of schedule. The price is set at the reported $399, up from the announced $360, but it’s still a pretty good deal and should tide people over until they get the handset they really want — the N97. Those who took advantage of the pre-order discount opportunity this past Valentine’s Day will be happy to learn that orders will likely ship in the next few days. Woo hoo! So is anyone getting ready to fight the elements and head down to a Flagship store?

T-Mobile Samsung Memoir arrives

The Samsung Memoir has been rumored to make its way to the nation’s newest 3G network for a very, very long time. Starting today, however, it’s available in all of T-Mobile’s retail stores, online, and over the phone. Samsung’s high-end optics on handsets are nothing new, but an 8 megapixel sensor certainly trumps anything available in the U.S. market (sold by a carrier). In terms of raw specs, you’re looking at T-Mobile 3G support, touch screen with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface (we’ll get into that in a bit), Xenon flash, HTML web browser, A-GPS and nifty photo functions such as smile and face detection along with geo-tagging capabilities.

LG watched phone price at $1,450; not even dick tracy wants one

Well, watch phone fans… It was fun while it lasted. When we first caught wind of the LG Watch Phone, we laughed. When LG unveiled it, we were silenced. When Orange reportedly priced it late last week, we laughed again — and then cried. For the time being this is a rumor as Orange and LG have yet to confirm it, but word on the street is LG’s Watch Phone will be announced by Orange soon for a whopping £1,000 ($1,454) or £500 ($727) on contract with a monthly rate of £40 ($58) and up. Wow. The 3G is great, the UI is nice, the touchscreen is cool and the functionality is respectable but the price? No, no, no. That ugly little Phenom watch phone isn’t looking so bad anymore, is it?

HTC Pro 2 confirmed to North America

As you might recall, when HTC unveiled the Touch Pro2 and Touch Diamond2 during this year’s Mobile World Congress, all HTC would commit to was a Q2 European release. Obviously not wanting to have another Touch HD fiasco on its hands, it was widely speculated that HTC would not be so foolish as to leave North Americans high and dry with another extremely attractive handset this time around. The problem however, was that many were concerned a North American version of the Touch Pro2 would arrive quite some time after its release in Europe. In other words, most people eager to get their hands on the device would have already moved on by the time it actually reached US soil. Fear not, HTC fans; along came HTC’s official Twitter account to explain that “The Touch Pro2 will be broadly available in all major markets, including North America.” But when would this North American release be? Seven minutes later another tweet stated that the Touch Pro2 “Will start to roll it out late Q2.” It’s ambiguous at best, but could we be looking at a near-simultaneous North American/European release?

Samsung S5600 feature phone from Russia

It looks like our pals over at Mobile-review are at it again and they almost managed to slip this one by us. Buried amongst some other handsets in a recent Sammy-centric post, Mobile-review shows off a shiny upcoming Samsung handset that stuffs a whole lot of sexy into a tiny little package. Despite some hands-on pictures, little is revealed about the S5600 for the time being so we don’t have much to go on specs-wise. We know it will be a feature phone making use of Sammy’s TouchWiz UI and plastic is the material of choice from the case to the screen so we can expect a pretty low price point to position the S5600 well amongst entry to mid-level handsets. As far as detailed specs and release info, unfortunately we’re all in the dark for the time being. Hit the jump for a couple of live shots.

Launch details of the T-Mobile's first USB modem emerged

While several other North American carriers are tossing around tales of LTE development and blazing 4G speeds, T-Mobile looks to be preparing its first entry into the realm of 3G USB modems. No matter though, T-Mobile’s 3G network is so young we’d probably fall off our seats if the company started talking about 4G beyond the stock “yeah, we’re working on it” it already handed out last year. According to a purported screen shot of T-Mobile’s internal system, the webConnect USB Laptop Stick will finally see the light of day on March 25th. It will be rated perfectly in line with AT&T and Verizon, running $59.99 per month for 3G, EDGE and HotSpot connectivity with a cellular data cap set at 5 GB. T-Mobile’s software will automatically choose the best available network on the fly which is nice, but if you move around a lot expect to be using one of the latter in most areas. The last caveat is that these modems will only be available to customers already holding a T-Mobile account. We would hardly consider that a big deal of course — if you’re using another carrier for cell service are you really going to opt for a younger, much smaller data network when choosing a USB stick? We love us some T-Mobile, but it still has a long way to go before its 3G network can compete

Is the RAZR3 aka Ruby VE1 back from the dead?

The last and only time we talked about the RAZR3 aka Ruby was when we reported that Motorola had pulled the plug on it in order to allocate more resources towards developing Android-based handsets. But now thanks to Mobile-Review, press images of the RAZR3, apparently to be named the Ruby VE1, have surfaced which leads us to believe one of two things — either these are old photos or there is indeed a possibility that the clam shell with 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi and a 5 megapixel shooter might actually find a way to market. Now, there is also the possibility that Motorola did not kill off the RAZR3 but simply delayed it while trying to find a new OS — something that would be necessary as this phone was rumored to be running on Symbian’s now defunct UIQ OS. At this point we’re not even sure anyone cares enough to figure this out.

T-Mobile unlimited voice pilot goes live

If you’re a long-time T-Mobile customer in San Fransisco, you may be interested to know the new unlimited voice plan options we reported this past week have indeed become a reality. Woo! The above screen shot comes from MyT-Mobile.com where users in SF should now be able to get the skinny on these pilot plans straight from the horse’s mouth. To quickly recap, T-Mobile customers who have been with the company for at least 22 months and have accounts in good standing now have access to these unlimited voice plans. The individual plan runs $49.99 for voice only and you can cherry-pick data and messaging bundles to suit your needs. Those looking to go all out will pony up a very competitive $84.97 each month; $49.99 for the voice plan, $24.99 for unlimited data and $9.99 for unlimited messaging (SMS/MMS/etc). BlackBerry users will have to spend an extra penny each month ($49.99/voice, $34.99 for BlackBerry data) and family plans start at $89.99 for two lines, with up to three additional lines for $39.99 each. In other words, these are pretty amazing deals. We’re still keeping this one filed under rumor however, as we’ve yet to confirm with our ninjas that T-Mobile does in fact plan to take these puppies national on March 1st - just 10 days after beginning the pilot.

Apple sales numbers down so far this year

According to an analyst over at Piper Jaffray, the God-like company is experiencing a bit of recession-era strife. Analyst Gene Munster has posited that the company’s iPod sales have dropped 14% as compared to the same period of time last year, with Mac computer sales down 6% in relation to last January. Sales drops are never good, but when compared with the state of the market at large, it’s no surprise that Apple hasn’t been able to continue posting positive numbers. That being said, Munster also notes that the MacBook Air was launched last February (not to mention the fact that Steve Jobs was still active as the public face of the company last year), so unless Apple has some impending product refreshes up its sleeve, we might see a similar drop next month. All told there’s nothing terribly shocking here, and certainly nothing to indicate that Apple isn’t well poised to weather the market’s downturn for the foreseeable future. Then again, proof that Apple is indeed fallible when it comes to sales numbers might make some folks question their spiritual standing in this world. We’re just sayin…

Sprint still bleeding badly, loses 1.3 million subscribers in Q4 2008

Following Sprint’s earnings call, the company wrapped up a pretty dark 2008 with more of the same - there’s really no way to sugarcoat this so we’ll just get right to it. Sprint lost $1.62 billion in Q4 for a total loss of $2.79 billion in 2008. Actually that’s not terrible, all things considered. As for subscriber figures, 1.3 million fled the carrier in Q4 rounding off Sprint’s total number of lost subscribers in 2008 at 4.5 million. The company carried 49.3 million subscribers into 2009 and seemed optimistic that the new year would bring a slowed bleed rate along with it. While 2009 is certainly looking a bit brighter for the company, it still appears entirely too reliant on a single device to turn things around. The Palm Pre is indeed one of the most highly anticipated handsets of 2009 but it certainly isn’t the messiah and it’s going to take a whole lot more than one sexy phone to make up for a 2008 that was $2.8 billion in the red. As strong as Sprint’s network is, where available, the company has the behind-the-scenes goods to make things happen. If it can pepper in a few more solid handsets and somehow get WiMAX back on track, we could definitely see things start to look up for Sprint as 2010 rolls around.

Nokia relaunches the N86

In what has to be one of the sloppiest undertakings we’ve seen in recent history, Nokia has officially announced the N86 8MP today at Mobile World Congress. First it was presumed to be a leak, then it was revealed to be a bungle and now Nokia has finally decided to show off its first 8 megapixel camera phone in Barcelona. In other words, a company that has openly complained about leaks on several occasions went to Singapore and publicly displayed an unannounced handset, allowing it to be handled and photographed by the public. While you try to wrap your head around that one, let’s move on to the specs…

Aside from the 8 megapixel shooter with a shutter speed of up to 1/1000 of a second, f-stop range of 2.4-4.8 and a wide-angle lens that Nokia absurdly states is equal to that of a wide-angle 35mm SLR, the N86 8MP runs S60 3rd Edition FP2 and features a 2.6″ AMOLED QVGA display, 8 GB of internal storage, Wi-Fi and aGPS with Nokia Maps 3.0 pre-installed. Thankfully, it will indeed be available for use in North America by way of our very own tri-band HSPA model though we can’t say for sure if it will launch around the same time as the Euro model. Battery life isn’t terrible with a rated talk-time of 3.9 hours 3G / 6.3 hours EDGE and standby falling in at 11.5 hours 3G / 13 hours EDGE. Last but not least we have the dimensions and the N86 8MP a big boy indeed, coming in at 103.4mm x 51.4mm x 16.5mm and 149g. All in all it’s a handset with a great camera, above average specs and horrible display resolution - Nseries up and down. Expect to see the N86 8MP begin shipping sometime in Q2 for €375 ($474 USD) and hit the jump for some pics and the obligatory press release.

Danger Alert: Sidekick 2009 spotted in the wild

Sidekick fans everywhere are drooling, and now there’s a real picture to back up all the rumors and rendered images from just a few weeks ago. If there was any doubt about the legitimacy of this new swivel phone it should certainly be squashed now (still, cross your fingers!). This sweet new device looks exactly like the images we showed you a while back with a darker theme and is a little more contoured than the current Sidekick 2008. Of course, this new Sidekick, currently codenamed “Blade,” is going to be the first to sport 3G connectivity - a major bonus for those who are sick and tired of surfing the Internet at GPRS/EDGE speeds. No official word on pricing or release yet, but we’re guessing it will be Fall 2009 and perhaps just a hair over the cost of a non-3G Sidekick. Of course, we’ll keep you updated as news comes our way.

Motorola i9 shows up on Boost Mobile site

We’ve been following the Motorola i9 here on Upnext Wireless since it was just a glimmer in its Boost’s eye. It was finally made official by Sprint / Boost Mobile earlier this month and now we’re closer than ever to Boost’s sleekest handset yet becoming a reality. As you can see, the i9 is now live on the site and while it’s listed as coming soon you can expect that to change to a buy now link before you know it. No real surprises here as the specs and pricing are old news but it’ll be nice to finally see a modern phone come to market from Boost. Maybe we’ll send one Fat Joe’s way… Anyone else getting ready to shell out $300 for this bad boy?

Nintendo DSi US launched slated for April 5th, $169.99

It’s been out in Japan since November 1st of last year, but this April 5th is as good a time as any for Nintendo to finally launch the DSi in the United States. With the MSRP set at $169.99, Nintendo is hoping that potential customers will be able to overlook the somewhat steep price as a small cost when compared to the advantages the DSi has over its predecessors, the DS and DS Lite. Equipped with a VGA camera on the rear of the system and one on the front which can be used in part to control certain aspects of supported games, the DSi is roughly 12% thinner than the DS Lite and features more spacious 3.25″ displays. A word of caution: If you plan to sell your existing DS/DS Lite and upgrade to the DSi you might want to reconsider if you plan on getting some more mileage out of your Game Boy Advance cartridges - there is no longer a slot for them. Game on!

San Francisco Gets $50 Unlimited Plan from T-Mobile

T-Mobile said that it is testing a $50 per month unlimited plan in San Francisco. T-Mobile is also offering a $135 credit for new customers who switch from another network operator. The $50 monthly plan will only be available to customers who've already had contracts for 22 months or longer. T-Mobile may expand the trial to other regions of the country in the coming weeks.

Verizon Details LTE Launch Plans

Verizon Wireless today announced its plans for deploying LTE 4G technology. The company will launch its LTE network commercially in 2010 using its recently-acquired 700 MHz spectrum, which covers the entire US, excluding Alaska. The technology has been tested to deliver peak speeds of 50-60 Mbps, although typical real-world speeds are yet to be determined. In addition to more populated areas, the company plans to deploy LTE in rural areas not covered by land-based broadband. Verizon has already been testing LTE in existing spectrum in Minneapolis, Columbus, and New Jersey, and will expand those trials this summer in the 700 MHz band. Once the commercial network launches in 2010, the company plans "aggressive deployment throughout Verizon Wireless' entire network, including areas not currently covered by the existing Verizon Wireless footprint." The company has chosen Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent as primary network vendors, Starent as a packet core vendor, and Nokia Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent as key suppliers for a new IMS network that will deliver new converged multimedia services.

Vodafone, HTC Announce New Android Phone

At a Vodafone press conference today, HTC and Vodafone announced the Magic, a new smartphone from HTC running Google's Android OS platform. The Magic is a slab-style device without a physical keyboard. It features HSDPA 7.2, a 3.2-inch QVGA capacitive touch display, trackball, GPS with compass for pedestrian navigation, 500 MB of memory plus memory card slot, and Wi-Fi. Like all Android phones, it features Google Mail, POP and IMAP email, Google Talk, Google Maps, and YouTube. It will be launched in the spring in the UK, Spain, Germany, France, and Italy.

T-Mobile, Nokia to Tie Up Content Stores

Nokia and T-Mobile announced a co-promotion plan that will let consumers search for widgets, applications and other content from each other's mobile stores. This means end users can browse and download widgets from both the T-Mobile widget gallery and Nokia's Ovi Store using T-Mobile's web'n'walk widget platform. The new marketplace will support Series 40 phones and should be available in the second half of 2009.

Nokia to Load Skype onto N Series Phones

Nokia and Skype announced a partnership whereby a Skype client will be integrated into Nokia N series phones starting with the N97. The client will provide presence and instant messaging, as well as the ability to make and receive free Skype-to-Skype voice call over both 3G and Wi-Fi. The N97 will become available in the third quarter of 2009.