phonedeals

Wireless consumers face an expanding array of choices among different types of cell phone calling plans. Here are a few of the more prominent alternatives:•Monthly-minute buckets: The flagship plans of mainstream wireless companies such as Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless and AT&T require consumers to sign one- or two-year contracts and pay regular monthly fees for so-called buckets of 500, 700 or more calling minutes. Family members often can join the plan for additional fees.

Best suited: These plans are a good fit for consumers who can find a monthly minute package that meets their calling needs.

•Flat-rate: Last year, the largest wireless companies introduced plans that provide unlimited monthly calls for a flat fee. Sprint’s “Simply Everything” plan, for example, allows unlimited calls, texts and Web surfing for about $100 a month.

Best suited: A good option for heavy users of cell-phone services and others who want certainty that they will not be charged extra for using more minutes than those available in a monthly bucket plan.

•Prepaid: Plans offered by companies such as Virgin Mobile, Boost Unlimited and Tracfone allow consumers to avoid long-term contracts and sign up for pay-as-you-go use.

Best suited: This option can be attractive for consumers who rarely use their cell phones or for teens and others seeking an easier way to control spending on wireless service.

•No-contract unlimited: Newer services such as those offered by Cricket and Boost offer a flat monthly fee for unlimited calls.

Best suited: The selection of phones and additional services tends not to be as expansive as plans from larger carriers. But it can be a good option for those who want the flexibility of no contract or might need to switch between an unlimited package one month and a less-expensive pay-by-the-minute plan the next.

Boost Mobile, a division of Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) has launched a new low flat rate for international calls made to landlines in major cities in Mexico and has eliminated international charges for calls to Puerto Rico, Boost said in a statement.

Boost customers making calls to Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey will only be charged a rate of US$0.02 per minute plus standard airtime.

Customers will also have the convenience of directly calling international numbers from their handsets and without the use of international calling cards.

Boost Mobile’s walkie-talkie service is compatible with Nextel’s direct connect radio service in the US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru.

The Treo Pro has just made it’s long-awaited debut from Sprint. This is Palm’s latest Windows Mobile smartphone, with 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS,and a built-in keyboard.

Update: Sprint apparently didn’t mean to post this product on its website today, as it has been removed. It will likely return in the next few days.

This model has been available in the U.S. for some time, but Sprint is the first wireless carrier to offer it. Previously, it has been sold by Palm directly to consumers as an unlocked device. In Europe, the Treo Pro is available from Vodafone.

Sprint is charging $200 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate.

To order this model, visit Sprint’s website.

An Overview of the Palm Treo Pro

This smartphone has the design that’s become a hallmark of the Treo line, a candybar shape with 320-by-320-pixel touchscreen above a QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

It runs Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional on a 400 MHz processor from Qualcomm, and comes with the standard suite of productivity applications.

Sprint’s version is a CDMA phone with EV-DO. In addition, it has Wi-Fi and Stereo Bluetooth.

Other Treo Pro features include an external microSD card slot for additional storage, a built-in GPS receiver, and a 2.0 MPx camera.

Sprint says its 1500 mAh battery is good for 5 hours of talk time.

Blackberries are usually reserved for corporate customers, but more and more consumer customers are picking up those crackberries. T-Mobile has opened up a placeholder product page for the highly-anticipated BlackBerry Bold 8900.

The device will be available for non-corporate customers beginning next month and features slight upgrades from the Bold on which it is based, such as a higher resolution display (480×360), and a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and video recorder. The device also features quadband GSM/EDGE, a speakerphone, GPS transceiver, 3.5mm headphone jack, microSDHC expansion slot, myFaves and HotSpot@Home support for calls over Wi-Fi.

No pricing information is available at this time.

Application: Skype for Windows Mobile 2.5 Beta

Running on: LG Incite via Wi-Fi and AT&T Mobility’s 3G network

Yay: Sorta free calls. Sorta free instant messaging. Did we mention it was sorta free? Decent pricing on calls to non-Skype customers.

Nay: Voice quality was hit-or-miss. Requires access to Wi-Fi hot spot or data plan. Free calls only to other Skype customers.

We say: Skype’s Windows Mobile app is a strong offering in the VoIP space and impressed with good call quality and ease of use. Not all is perfect, though, as a decent connection is required. But for the price — free — there is little to criticize.

Review: It seems not a day goes by without a new startup offering ways to circumvent the traditional wireless model of paying for a phone call. Most of these rely on some sort of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to transform a voice call into a data session. While we view most of these skeptically, we figured it was time to at least get our toes wet and try out one of these offerings.

We decided to start at the top and test out Skype’s mobile VoIP service. Skype has long played in the wireless industry, and even became an early proponent of open access and net neutrality in wireless (likely due to the data-heavy nature of its service).

As for the company’s mobile service, setting up a Skype account was easy, once we found a certain permutation of the original name we wanted. We were able to download the Skype app to a PC and then load it onto the LG Incite within minutes. (As the Skype service is most useful when using Wi-Fi, a so-equipped phone is preferred.) If you already have a Skype account, you can log into the mobile device using the same info and have your current contacts and settings already set to go.

Adding contacts is straightforward, though there was a significant delay in having a requested party’s approval show up on the mobile device. This delay was also apparent whenever a contact would log in or out, as their status often took several minutes to update.

Once set up, initiating a call to a contact was quick, with the connection going through in a matter of seconds. Voice quality was on par with most cellular connections, meaning your mileage will vary. Using the Incite’s speaker phone seemed to degrade the voice quality a bit and added a seemingly extra layer of latency that, while still usable, was a bit annoying.

The Skype instant messaging app was also very quick and at least on par with traditional IM apps — and quicker than most text messages. The messaging was also threaded, which allowed quick access to a conversation.

Most of Skype’s functionality could be accessed from the mobile device, but — like surfing regular Web pages on a small screen — it was a bit tedious. The service also did not allow a video link between a PC and a handset, which is possible using camera-equipped PCs. We were also not able to set up a conference call from the mobile device, also possible via a PC.

Beyond the free services included in the download, users can buy access to voicemail and call forwarding. You can also purchase an online number that allows a traditional phone to call your Skype account. The service allows you to pick a number from a variety of countries, and for U.S. numbers you can pick a number from any state and from different cities in that state. For domestic numbers, Skype charges $60 per year for a number.

International calling ranged in cost, from 2 cents per minute to locations like Canada, Mexico, Europe and China to more than a couple of dollars per minute to places like the island of Diego Garcia.

We also ran the Skype service over AT&T Mobility’s 3G network. Results were very similar to the Wi-Fi network, with just a touch more latency in voice and data transmission that would not be very noticeable unless the two devices were in the same room. Of course, using Skype over a 3G network is really only viable if you have an unlimited data package since it’s hard to track actual data usage when inside the Skype application.

Overall, the Skype app is a good option for those who might be traveling overseas and want to avoid the additional costs associated with international roaming. Of course, a Wi-Fi hot spot is required to bypass those charges, but those are popping up like weeds. The service also makes sense for those looking to save their traditional cellular minutes or might want to downgrade their current bucket amounts.

Well, hello there 5730 XpressMusic, so nice to finally meet you! This admittedly odd looking Nokia has been brought to our attention courtesy of Russia’s own Mobile-Review, and while we’re still trying to decide whether or not the QWERTY slide-out keyboard is a turn off or totally awesome (with its dot matrix-styled font), we figured it prudent to pass along the information, anyway. Said mobile sports a 2-inch QVGA screen, backlit keys, a 1,000mAh battery good for 4.5 hours of yappin’, EDGE data, inbuilt GPS, 128MB of RAM, a microSD card slot, USB / Bluetooth and Symbian S60 running the show. We’re told to expect it out in European markets this April for €220 ($289), though worldwide availability remains a mystery. Have a look in the read link for eleventy billion more images and a poorly translated preview.

The Palm Treo Pro is finally coming to Sprint the 25th of this month!

Start: 1.25.09

The Treo™ Pro by Palm® is a feature rich Windows Mobile 6.1 OS PDA which is a perfect balance of robust productivity and simplicity. Features include embedded WiFi with a dedicated short-cut key, A-GPS, EV-DO REV.A and a 2.0 mega pixel camera. This device has an updated stylish and slim form factor design. Data services run on Sprint’s Nationwide Mobile Broadband Network.

Key Features

· Robust battery life with an 1500 mAh li-lon battery and 5 hours of continuous talk time.

· Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition (OS) providing a feature rich experience (with Enterprise SCMDM options)

· A-GPS – for navigation and turn-by-turn directions - Autonomous & Simultaneous GPS allows points of interests searching and mapping from contacts.

· Instant-on WiFi short-cut key - WPA/WPA2 certified

· Bluetooth v2.0 and A2DP Stereo Bluetooth enabled, enjoy the convenience of hands-free communication by using headsets, car-kits and other Bluetooth-compatible devices

· Thinner Windows Mobile Treo product with 320 x 320 touch panel display

· Full QWERTY keyboard and one-handed navigation and touch-screen

· Sprint Speed Data: EV-DO REV.A with mobile receive diversity for true 3G experience – with high-speed data download and upload speeds-

· 128MB program memory (DDR) and 256 non-volatile memory (175MB of user store)

· 2.0 Megapixel resolution Camera for still and video shots with BPP Basic Printing Profile

Supported Services:

· GPS Navigation Enabled, supporting both consumer applications such as Sprint Navigation, Telenav and Garmin, along with supporting third-party location based data applications such as Telenav Track, Xora, Airclick, @Road, Actsoft, Gearworks, and Vettro, which are popular with businesses.

· Pocket Express - to retrieve customized, up-to-date web content such as sports, weather, news, money and movie information with the push of a button.

· Sprint TV to watch the latest news, weather, sports and more.

· Sprint Music

· Sprint IM – Yahoo, AOL AIM and MSN Messenger

Pricing:

SRP: $549.99; 2 Yr Net $399.99; Flat Rate $249.99; Point of Sale Price: $249.99

Sprint Nextel Corp.’s (S) youth-oriented Boost Mobile wireless service plans to offer a $50 monthly unlimited nationwide calling plan in a bid to severely undercut the competition.

Boost Mobile will launch the plan, which includes unlimited text messages, mobile Web and walkie-talkie service, on Jan. 22, company executives said Wednesday. It represents the most aggressive move to win customers by Sprint, which has struggled to keep subscribers from fleeing its core service.

The Overland Park, Kan., company is looking to Boost to pick up the slack. The offering’s price is about half the $99 flat-rate plan offered by the other national carriers. Sprint itself offers a $99 “Simply Everything” plan that includes unlimited calling, text messages, faster Web surfing and other bells and whistles.

Boost has traditionally targeted younger customers, but with the cheaper plan, the service will go after consumers looking to save money. While its primary goal is to attract pre-pay customers, Boost is hoping to win over some consumers who traditionally sign long-term contracts. It plans to launch an advertising campaign to shift its message from youth to value.

Comparable plans from MetroPCS and Leap are in the $60 range. The $50 monthly rate includes other charges such as the telecom tax. The only additional charge comes from the state sales tax.

There are, however, trade-offs for the service. People looking to join Boost Mobile will have to switch to the Nextel network, which means buying a new phone not compatible with other networks. There are a limited number of phone choices, all from Motorola Inc. (MOT), although more phones are probably in the works. Phones runs between $20 and $100. Because there are no contracts, there are no subsidies for the handsets.

The iPhone nano is coming! The iPhone nano is coming! Or so does the Economic Daily News say, quoting sources at Taiwanese electronic parts manufacturers TSMC and UMC. The rumors are becoming louder and louder.

According to the paper, the bidding for some parts of a new low-cost entry-level cellphone from Apple—dubbed the iPhone nano—is near its end. The Economic Daily News says that the iPhone nano launch should happen not earlier than June.

Knowing that Apple is not showing external plastics designs around, has anyone thought that these new tiny chips will just be for a smaller version of the iPhone, no nanoness involved? Or maybe it’s a phone so small that only ants can use it? Have you thought about that? Huh?

The Samsung Show touchscreen projector phone may not be the first projector phone out there, but it is the first one that isn’t a prototype, and doesn’t come from a completely obscure manufacturer.

The bad news is that it’s a Korea-only phone (shipping next month) and according to Gearlog’s Sascha Segan no one seems to know much about it.

But on the good side, the phone runs on Samsung’s TouchWiz UI, can project any of the visual media stored on the phone, animated Korean kids stories and DMB-T mobile TV signals, or functions as a de facto flashlight.

Segan says Samsung reps promised more details soon. For now check out more pics on Gearlog, or take a peek at CrunchGear’s video below on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgnADSuF8MA&eurl=http://i.gizmodo.com/5129906/samsung-show-is-the-first-brand-name-non+prototype-projector-phone