Filed under: Cellphones

We hate to see a nifty technology like FOTA (firmware over-the-air) getting such a bad rap early on in the game, but in the same breath, our mommies always told us “measure twice, cut once” — and we think that’s an imminently appropriate adage in the aftermath of Sprint’s recent attempt to re-up Fusics already in the field. It seems the firmware update, pushed just a couple days ago to customers’ handsets, quickly and efficiently bricked each and every one of them. The whole situation is a full order of magnitude more frightening than Nokia’s similar experience with the E70, seeing how Nokia’s update was optional and at least required the user to manually perform the upgrade. Naturally, Sprint’s pulled the bogus firmware and is offering a free replacement to affected customers, but it’s still a shame that they’ve cost Fusic owners a trip to the Sprint Store.

 

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

The 700wx looks to be trickling into Sprint retail locations as we speak, and it seems everything we’ve been told about the device so far has been spot-on: it really is bound for Sprint, the addition of the “x” to the name is legit, and it rocks double the RAM (much to the chagrin of plain ol’ 700w users everywhere), though we weren’t necessarily expecting the big, scary floating head on the box. Still no solid word on an official availability date, but stores who’ve received them have apparently been instructed to keep them under lock and key until Sprint proper starts offering them, meaning the previously-reported August 27 date for business customers still seems perfectly plausible. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a Treo 750 rumor mill to attend to.

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Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, Sprint-Nextel, CDMA

If the i880 wasn’t really doing anything for you when it surfaced in the wild, perhaps this here i885 will. Motorola’s upcoming halo iDEN devices will see service on both Nextel and Boost, sporting pleather and faux snakeskin exteriors — pick your poison — and a trick button-operated flip mechanism. (If they’re going to get creative with case designs on us, we can only hope they deep-sixed the standard Nextel “beep beep” while they were letting those creative juices flow.) Besides minor cosmetic differences, the phones’ guts are presumably identical; both should be rocking 2-megapixel shooters, music players, and dual color displays. We’re getting mixed reports on whether these are CDMA hybrids, but even if they aren’t, the pair gives Nextel much-needed love in a market segment they aren’t typically accustomed to servicing.

[Via Mobile Magazine]

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Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, Sprint-Nextel, Verizon Wireless, EV-DO, CDMA

Alright, Sprint users: who's pumped to land a SLVR of your own? Show of hands, please. How about you Verizon folks? The handful of you with your arms raised high right now, bursting at the seams with anticipation for Moto's rumored CDMA port of the L7, don't have much longer to wait. Buried in with the goodness that Motorola dropped on us Monday was the official news that the L7c is indeed a real device -- though beyond the fact that it rocks EV-DO, we aren't given much to go by. Exact dates, carriers, thickness -- you know, the important details -- all remain mysteries, though Sprint and/or Verizon will clearly be getting the device, and some duration of exclusivity seems to be a logical assumption. The SLVR's GSM variants haven't managed to rock many boats, but decently-equipped candybars are a slightly rarer breed on US CDMA networks, so we can imagine some level of excitement here. Motorola Q-style pandemonium, probably not, but excitement nonetheless.

[Via Mobile Guerilla]

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Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, Sprint-Nextel

Moto sure is giving its iDEN-only product line a healthy sendoff before CDMA hybrid handsets start to drop later this year. Besides the upcoming high-end i880 and the virtually indestructible (we’ll eat those words, we’re sure) i580, Nextel looks to shore up their low end by adding the i670, a basic clamshell whose main selling point appears to be its “color display.” Of course, no-frills is a big selling point among some Nextel clientele, so the phone should find its niche. Other features include Direct Talk (off-network walkie talkie) support, speakerphone, and a reasonable $49.99 price tag on two-year contract.

[Via phoneArena]

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Filed under: Sprint-Nextel, Misc

It sure feels like Sprint usually just can't buy a break when it comes to quality customer service. This time around, JD Power's sometimes basement-dwellers have been called out for an automated line that was just a little too ready and willing to dish out customer data to anyone who called in. Basically, you'd call the line, enter any Sprint customer's number of your choosing, and promptly be asked to verify the customer's compu-spoken name and home address --among other juicy details -- while calling another number would spit out their bill balance. Understandably, this raised a ruckus in the user community; to their credit, Sprint patched the system rather quickly and issued a statement to that effect -- but not without going into full CYA mode, pointing out that "this process operated well within the bounds of applicable federal and state privacy laws."

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Filed under: Sprint-Nextel, CDMA, Misc

In a move that surprises absolutely no one keeping up on the aftermath of Sprint Nextel's merger, the acquisition of Sprint affiliate UbiquiTel has closed this week in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.3 billion. In exchange for taking on UbiquiTel's $300-odd million of net debt, Sprint Nextel adds an additional 452,000 direct subscribers and gains territory in 9 states for a total of roughly 8.3 million in population. Even better, they avoid the wrath of yet another affiliate miffed by the non-compete clause busting merger, which added Nextel territory to many areas serviced by Sprint affiliates and vice versa. With the billions Sprint has now shed on affiliate buyouts, mergin' ain't as cheap as it used to be, it seems.

[Via The Wireless Report]

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Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, Sprint-Nextel, CDMA

Nextelites saving your pennies for the i880, hold up just a minute. Deets are emerging on the ic502, and while it's not the highest-end phone around, you could be the first kid on your block packin' hybrid iDEN / CDMA heat. As usual, the FCC has done the honors, releasing the user's manual where we see that the ruggedized flip will support CDMA on the 1900 band only, iDEN on 800, and old-skool walkie-talkie on ISM 900; handoff between networks is not supported. Otherwise, not much to talk about -- no Bluetooth, no camera. On second thought, that i880 is looking pretty sweet, ain't it?

[Via phoneArena]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

While much of the world awaits 3G to grace their airwaves, a coalition of companies in the wireless industry are putting together a nonprofit organization in the UK this month to promote the development of 4G. The “Next Generation Mobile Networks” group, consisting of founding members KPN Mobile, Orange, Sprint Nextel, Vodafone, and T-Mobile plus add-ons China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo, is looking to 2010 for the commercial deployment of 4G devices – that’s less than four years away, folks. We’re somewhat skeptical 4G is going to come together for any substantial population in that amount of time, but just in case, we’re going start compiling our list of things to do with 2.5Gbps of WWAN bandwidth now.

[Via EE Times]

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Filed under: Sprint-Nextel, T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, Misc

While much of the world awaits 3G to grace their airwaves, a coalition of companies in the wireless industry are putting together a nonprofit organization in the UK this month to promote the development of 4G. The "Next Generation Mobile Networks" group, consisting of founding members KPN Mobile, Orange, Sprint Nextel, Vodafone, and T-Mobile plus add-ons China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo, is looking to 2010 for the commercial deployment of 4G devices -- that's less than four years away, folks. We're somewhat skeptical 4G is going to come together for any substantial population in that amount of time, but just in case, we're going start compiling our list of things to do with 2.5Gbps of WWAN bandwidth now.

[Via EE Times]

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Filed under: Handsets, Samsung, Sprint-Nextel, CDMA

The A640 isn’t new to us, nor is the fact that it’s coming to Sprint, but we thought we’d pay this flip another visit now that it’s gone all official on us. We’ve heard rumors that it packs Bluetooth 2.0, but otherwise the feature list is pretty uneventful, with a VGA camera and Ready Link support in the package. If the A640 speaks to you in ways that other Samsung flips simply haven’t, it’s available for $49.99 on contract from your friendly Sprint outlet.

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Filed under: Handsets, Sanyo, Sprint-Nextel, CDMA

When we were young'uns, we walked eight miles to grade school in waist-deep snow, and if we had to get in touch with our folks, we did it the old fashioned way: with a quarter and a pay phone. And we liked it. Times are changing, though, and virtually every carrier has come to the table with a kid-friendly service, device, or both. This time it's Sanyo's turn, bringing the SCP-2400 in five tasty colors with an integrated parental control feature. The software allows parents to enter in a list of phone numbers the user is allowed to call and / or receive calls from, restrict data usage, and hopefully turn off texting to prevent the ridiculously early onset of RSI. The SCP-2400 drops into the weary hands of parents with excessive phone bills in early July for $29.99 on contract after rebates.

[Via Slashphone]

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Filed under: Cellphones

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Filed under: Handsets, Sprint-Nextel

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Filed under: Software, Sprint-Nextel

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Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Samsung, Sprint-Nextel, T-Mobile, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, CDMA

Quick: what’s the diff between the two flips on the left? Very good, one’s branded T-Mobile and the other wears a Sprint badge. The SPH-M500 for Sprint (pictured left) and SGH-T619 for T-Mob (center) are virtual dead ringers for one another, the only obvious difference being that the T619 sports GSM with EDGE data, while the M500 is a CDMA piece with EV-DO. Other notable specs include dual color displays, 1.3-megapixel shooter (“notable” might be a stretch there), and a microSD slot. Moving to moderately more interesting Sprint equipment, we told ya about the A720 a while back — and thanks to our pals at the FCC, we no longer need to go cross-eyed looking at shoddy cameraphone pics of this thing. The squarish clamshell is clearly music-oriented thanks to external controls (touch-sensitive, no less) and A2DP — a viable alternative for folks turned off by the name of LG’s Fusic.

Read – SGH-T619 for T-Mobile and SPH-M500 for Sprint
Read – SPH-A720 for Sprint

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Filed under: Multimedia, Sprint-Nextel, 1xRTT, EV-DO, CDMA

Just in time for the playoff race to heat up, Sprint’s inked a deal with Major League Baseball to provide every — yes, every — major league game via streaming audio to Vision and Power Vision-enabled handsets. What’s more, each game will be available via both team’s flagship stations in addition to a Spanish feed. Called “Gameday Audio,” the service will run ya $5.99 and should be available this month. Now just throw in a little A2DP, maybe some Sirius for entertainment during the seventh-inning stretch, and you’ve got yourself a pretty wicked setup for baseball on the move.

[Via PhysOrg.com]

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Filed under: Boost Mobile, Sprint-Nextel

Where we come from, common sense dictates that you push the products that are doing well for you and dial back the ones that aren’t. Perhaps that’s what separates us from the fancy-pants businessfolk within Sprint’s corporate offices who’ve decided to “slow Boost down quite a bit.” Boost’s been doing extraordinarily well for Sprint, accounting now for some 8% of Sprint Nextel’s customer base — largely because it’s an inexpensive way to get in on Nextel’s iDEN PTT goodness — and therein lies the problem, it seems. With the radio interference iDEN’s had with public safety frequencies, Sprint’s been forced to dial back its total iDEN capacity in some markets, and at the end of the day they’d rather give that limited capacity to their more lucrative Nextel customers than the prepaid Boost crowd. How Sprint ultimately intends to “slow Boost down” remains to be seen, but if you’ve been jonesin’ for an i885, we might suggest you keep your eyes peeled and get it while the gettin’s good.

[Via Phone Scoop]

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Filed under: Sprint-Nextel, CDMA, Misc

The endless barrage of legal fallout resulting from Sprint Nextel’s merger continues, the latest onslaught coming from iPCS, a Sprint affiliate operating throughout much of the Midwest. According to Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois, the merger violated Sprint’s agreement with iPCS to not infringe on their territory (a common theme in affiliates’ lawsuits) and is demanding that Sprint file a plan for divesting itself of its Nextel operations in Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Nebraska by September 6. Naturally, Sprint intends to appeal “vigorously,” though as in so many other cases, an acquisition ultimately seems possible — if not probable.

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Filed under: Handsets, Palm, Sprint-Nextel, Windows Mobile, EV-DO, CDMA

The 700wx looks to be trickling into Sprint retail locations as we speak, and it seems everything we’ve been told about the device so far has been spot-on: it really is bound for Sprint, the addition of the “x” to the name is legit, and it rocks double the RAM (much to the chagrin of plain ol’ 700w users everywhere), though we weren’t necessarily expecting the big, scary floating head on the box. Still no solid word on an official availability date, but stores who’ve received them have apparently been instructed to keep them under lock and key until Sprint proper starts offering them, meaning the previously-reported August 27 date for business customers still seems perfectly plausible. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a Treo 750 rumor mill to attend to.

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Filed under: Multimedia, Reviews, Sprint-Nextel

It seems like staring at a sub-3 inch display for hour upon hour could prove to be a punishing experience, which is exactly what Sprint is asking bleeding-edge customers to do with their new Sprint Movies service — but in practice, how does it pan out? LAPTOP Magazine spent a few minutes straining their way through Spiderman 2 on an SPH-A900 and found that the image quality and sound synchronization were both surprisingly good; in fact, it sounds like they’d actually have come away with a positive recommendation if it weren’t for the fact that the viewer is restricted to an approximately 1-inch area of the phone’s screen. Obviously, the screen’s small enough as is, so we share LAPTOP’s sentiment that Sprint needs to maximize the available real estate and provide a full-screen player if they’re actually going to go through with this (especially at $4-6 a pop). Otherwise, they saw the occasional (expected) dropout, but came away with the belief that this might all actually make for a compelling product one or two iterations down the road. If true, we’re hoping California drivers don’t start feeling the urge to catch a flick on the 10.

 

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Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, Sprint-Nextel

Nextel’s always seemed to be a solid choice for those whose lot in life involves inflicting brutal damage to their phones. The trend continues with the military-spec i615, a candybar (though the term doesn’t really seem to do this thing justice) that makes up in ruggedness what it lacks in appearance. It comes packing Bluetooth, a speakerphone, and what appears to be a pretty healthy-sized display, but lacks Direct Talk for off-network walkie talkie action. The i615 can be had immediately (before you go and break another handset) for $250 on contract after discounts.

[Thanks, Reemusk]

 

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Filed under: Multimedia, Sprint-Nextel

Despite some evidence that mobile TV isn’t the coolest thing since Elvis in consumers’ eyes, carriers are pressing on with efforts to build out their made-for-mobile video offerings. Most recently, Sprint has announced its Power View network of sports programming, and the use of the term “network” is surprisingly appropriate here — most, if not all of the content will be produced specifically for Power View, with a full 15 camera crews shooting on-location footage of sports events. A host of big-name anchors are filming weekly segments, too, and any handset compatible with Sprint TV will be able to rock the new service at no charge. Let us see the action full-screen (that goes for Sprint Movies, too) and you can count us in.

[Via MobileTracker]

 

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Filed under: Handsets, Sanyo, Sprint-Nextel, 1xRTT, CDMA

No this isn’t what a mobile phone would look like in an A-HA! video. (Actually, it is, but that’s not really the point.) Pictured here is the best eye candy Sanyo saw fit to provide the FCC of its upcoming SCP-7000 for Sprint, a phone that SprintUsers suggests will debut on November 5 for $180. Not much else is known, but it should be a ruggedized version of the SCP-2400 (hey, isn’t that Nextel’s job?) with the same parental controls, Ready Link, speakerphone, and customizable faceplates.

[Via phoneArena]

Read – SprintUsers
Read – FCC

 

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Filed under: Handsets, LG, Sprint-Nextel, 1xRTT, EV-DO, CDMA, Misc

We hate to see a nifty technology like FOTA (firmware over-the-air) getting such a bad rap early on in the game, but in the same breath, our mommies always told us “measure twice, cut once” — and we think that’s an eminently appropriate adage in the aftermath of Sprint’s recent attempt to re-up Fusics already in the field. It seems the firmware update, pushed just a couple days ago to customers’ handsets, quickly and efficiently bricked each and every one of them. The whole situation is a full order of magnitude more frightening than Nokia’s similar experience with the E70, seeing how Nokia’s update was optional and at least required the user to manually perform the upgrade. Naturally, Sprint’s pulled the bogus firmware and is offering a free replacement to affected customers, but it’s still a shame that they’ve cost Fusic owners a trip to the Sprint Store.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.