• pixi,  pre,  sprint,  web os

    Palm webOS 1.3.5.1 Update Released

    Following just 7 days behind the webOS 1.3.5 update, Palm has released the Palm webOS 1.3.5.1 update. This update, according to Palm, is attended to address a very specific bug in the Calendar application when data is synchronized with a Microsoft Exchange Server.

    The release notes for the latest webOS update states:
    “This release fixes an issue in which the Calendar app displayed no events for any account after a user synchronized Calendar with an Exchange account. With this update, Calendar events now appear correctly after an Exchange sync.”

    According to a KB article published by Palm on Jan. 3, the nature of the problem is “that the turn of the year [to] 2010 has surfaced an issue that affects customers who use Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) to synchronize their calendars. Data remains intact on the device; however, this issue prevents the data from being displayed correctly in the Calendar application. It impacts all versions of webOS.”

    The Palm webOS 1.3.5.1 update is available for immediate download by using the Updates application on Sprint branded Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones and will take about 10-15 minutes to install. Aside from resolving the issue with the Calendar application, there are no new changes between 1.3.5.1 and Palm webOS 1.3.5 which was released on December 28, 2009.

    You can read the Palm webOS 1.3.5.1 release notes on the Palm webOS updates page. You can read the full Palm KB article on the Palm support website.

  • blackberry,  rim,  sprint,  tour,  verizon

    BGR: BlackBerry Tour 2 Hands On

    The folks over at BGR have gotten there hands on another BlackBerry. This time we get to eyeball the upcoming BlackBerry Tour 2 9650, which is a CDMA phone from RIM that will likely replace the BlackBerry Tour on Verizon Wireless and Sprint.

    The big changes for the Tour 2 seem to be a track pad and a speed bump. I really like the look of the Tour 2, however, I like the keyboard layout of the BlackBerry Curve 8530 better. Still, the Tour 2 is a nice upgrade for CrackBerry owners who haven’t upgraded to the Tour platform yet.

    Get all the details over at the BGR website.

    [Via BoyGeniusReport.com…]

  • att,  blackberry,  rim,  sprint,  verizon

    Research In Motion: YANO – Yet Another Network Outage

    In case you missed it yesterday afternoon, CrackBerry users where all in a tussle because there devices temporarily transformed into door stops. Turns out that there was some more trouble at the BlackBerry network operations center (NOC), the massive data center where most BlackBerry Internet traffic is routed from.

    CrackBerry.com provided a running commentary of what was going on:

    * Update 1: OK, preliminary word coming in is that it’s a partial outage affecting North American carriers: BlackBerry Messenger and things like the web browser and apps that use a data connection.

    * Update 2: BlackBerry data is no more. No emails, no web browsing, no BlackBerry messenger for it’s North American users. Estimated time for a fix to come through is 3 hrs to a day, yes..a day.”

    At about 6:30pm last night, I had four “dead” BlackBerry phones in my house and four BlackBerry addicts roaming around the house in a daze. We where seeing the data outage on the Verizon Wireless and Sprint networks. Based on what CrackBerry.com was reporting, no carrier was spared in North America. The good news was that my Palm Pre was still working!

    You can read the full article on CrackBerry.com.

    [Via CrackBerry.com…]

  • blackberry,  rim,  sprint

    BlackBerry Curve 8530 Arrives on Sprint

    BGR is reporting that the BlackBerry Curve 8530 has arrived at Sprint.

    “Sprint has just added a new device to its BlackBerry family — the Curve 8530. Though this is on the low-end for BlackBerry devices, that doesn’t mean it skimps out on any features. Best of all, for those of you who want a smartphone but are on a budget, the Curve 8530 is only $49.99 after two-year contract and [mail in rebate].”

    The good news is if you are looking to stick with Sprint, but don’t want to have to re-up for another two years, the good news is that you can buy the BlackBerry Curve 8530 out right for $349.99. That is much better than the $500+ you have to pay for a BlackBerry Tour or Palm Pre without a service contract extension.

    I have had my Palm Pre for six months now. Maybe it’s time for a new phone. After all, I tend to be a bit fanatical about my phones.

    You can check out the full Curve 8500 series specs over on the BlackBerry website. If you are ready to order, you should head over to the Sprint online store to get your CrackBerry addiction on.

    [Via BoyGeniusReport.com…]

  • android,  google,  sprint

    Sprint: Android 2.0 Coming Hero, Moment in 2010

    Sprint recently posted on their Twitter page that the Sprint Hero and Moment smartphones will be getting updates to Google Android 2.0 operating system sometime before the middle of 2010.

    Sprint writes:

    Happy to announce Android 2.0 is coming to Sprint’s Hero & Moment. Date TBD, but roughly 1H 2010.”

    6 – 7 months is a long time to wait for and update, but owners of the Hero and Moment should be still be excited. At least it isn’t a full year like Microsoft fans will have to wait for Windows Mobile 7.

  • blackberry,  blackberry os,  dataviz,  notifylink,  rim,  sprint,  verizon

    BlackBerry Tour Hands On Review

    As with the Motorola Droid that I recently reviewed, I had the opportunity to take Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Tour 9630 out for a few days for a test spin. The following is my hands on review of the Tour.

    The BlackBerry Tour 9630 is a CDMA/GSM “world phone” that works on popular wireless networks both in the United States (CDMA and EVDO Rev A) and aboard on 3G networks (GSM/GPRS/EDGE). The Tour is currently available on the Verizon Wireless and Sprint networks. My demo unit is from Verizon and has been loaded with a Verizon/Vodafone SIM card. As far as I can tell, the Verizon and Sprint handsets are the same, however, the service terms will likely vary. There is also a version of the Tour available for sale without a digital camera.

    The Hardware

    The BlackBerry Tour is a candy bar styled smartphone similar to the BlackBerry Curve. The Tour’s dimensions are: 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.6-inches and weighs in at 4.58 ounces. To put that in perspective, it is slightly thinner, taller, and wider than the popular BlackBerry Curve 8330. The Tour has a half VGA+ 480×360 pixel display; which I found very easy to read; and is powered by a removable 1400 mAh battery.

    All of the familiar BlackBerry hardware buttons can be found on the Tour. Just below the screen, is the button bar that is home to the call send/end buttons, the BlackBerry button, and the escape button. Nestled in the middle of the device is the trackball. After spending a few days using the trackball on the Tour, I thought it felt much sturdier than the one on my Curve. That said, I have heard reports from a local cellular retailer that their store has had a number of returns of the Tour early on in its distribution run due to faulty trackballs. The review unit that I used had no such trouble with the trackball. Below the button bar is the hardware Qwerty keyboard. Since this BlackBerry is slightly narrower than the one I’m used to using, I found the keys to be tight initially. The keys on the Tour, for all intents and purposes, have no space between them. After using it for about a day, I had gotten my keyboard bearings and was happily emailing away.

    Walking around the smartphone, you will find the camera convenience key and the volume up/down buttons, the 3.5mm headphone jack, and the microUSB charging port. On the top of the Tour, is the ringer silence and screen lock button. On the left of the Tour is the voice command activation button and the speaker. On the back of the phone you will find the 3.2MP, auto focusing digital camera lens and flash. The phone’s mic is located on the bottom left of the phone.

    Inside the Tour is 256MB of RAM, a microUSB card slot, a Bluetooth v2.0 radio supporting A2DP, and a GPS receiver supporting assisted, autonomous, and simultaneous modes. The GPS module also supports e911 and digital camera image geo-tagging.

    Interestingly, unlike the Apple iPhone and Motorola Droid, the BlackBerry Tour does not feature a capacitive touch screen or a Wi-Fi radio. This could be a deal breaker for some, however, in my opinion, you get much better battery performance without those two features.

    The Software

    The BlackBerry Tour 9630 runs RIM’s Java based BlackBerry OS 4.7.1.61 (Platform 4.1.0.81). If you have used a previous BlackBerry running OS 4.3 or 4.5 you will have little trouble using OS 4.7, however, for this edition of the OS, there is a wire frame style to all of the icons. They are easy enough to figure out and the icon’s name appears at the bottom of the screen when you use the trackball to highlight and icon. Personally, I liked the old style icons better. The good news is that there are literally tons of themes for BlackBerry available for download from the Internet.

    I was able to quickly and easily connect all of my Google Gmail accounts with the Tour. I was also able to use Notify Corp’s NotifyLink 4.5 client without trouble on this BlackBerry. If you want to sync the BlackBerry’s calendar with anything other than Microsoft Outlook, or a corporate messaging system like Microsoft Exchange using a BlackBerry Enterprise Server or Notify Corp’s NotifyLink Enterprise Server, you will need to get a third-party tool like GooSync for your Google calendar. Mac OS X users will need to download the BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac or purchase Mark/Space the Missing Sync for BlackBerry.

    Research In Motion has also opted to bundle DataViz Documents To Go Standard Edition on the Tour. Unlike the view only editions that come bundled with the Palm Pre or the Motorola Droid, the BlackBerry Standard Edition allows you to view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. You can also transfer files to and from the smartphone using the BlackBerry Desktop Software. I was able to read and update the same files that I used during my Motorola Droid test.

    If you plan on using Documents To Go on your BlackBerry, you will want to install the free maintenance release from version 1.006 to 2.0. Heavy users will want to consider purchasing the Documents To Go Premium upgrade to gain access to the stand alone Documents To Go desktop synchronization application, native Adobe Acrobat viewing, the ability to create new Microsoft Office documents directly on the Tour, the ability to spell check Word documents, and additional document formatting features. One thing that I did find annoying about the upgrade process to version 2.0 of Documents To Go was the requirement to uninstall the bundled version and reboot the phone prior to the upgrade. While it isn’t the end of the world, it bugged me to have to leave the browser, uninstall the phone, and then return to the upgrade web page. (You did remember to bookmark the upgrade page before uninstalling Documents To Go, right? See how annoying that is!) Documents To Go 2.0 Premium for BlackBerry retails for $69.99, and is on sale for $29.99 until December 20, 2009. For more information about DataViz Documents To Go for BlackBerry, visit the DataViz website.

    Just for the Fun of It

    All work and no play is boring. So I also played with some of the fun aspects of the BlackBerry Tour. Social media junkies will be happy to hear that the Tour comes included with a Facebook and My Space clients. (Facebook users will want to upgrade to the latest mobile client version right away.) The camera took nice pictures at a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The music player application worked well and I was able to watch Iron Man which I converted from DVD to an Mpeg-4 file.

    I also installed some other free applications from the BlackBerry App World, including USA Today Mobile, The New York Times Global Edition, Google Maps, TweetCaster, UberTwitter, The Weather Channel, and Fictionwise eReader. (Fictionwise eReader can be downloaded from the eReader.com website.)

    Conclusion

    The BlackBerry Tour is a great upgrade for previous BlackBerry owners. If you are looking to upgrade from another smartphone platform to the BlackBerry, you will want to sync your old phone to Microsoft Outlook before making the jump to BlackBerry to ensure that all of your data makes it over. The BlackBerry Tour, like most other BlackBerry phones does not have a touch screen. That detail, and the lack of Wi-Fi may be a deal breaker for some, however, you will be repaid with longer battery life. If I don’t charge my Palm Pre, or the Motorola Droid I was testing every night, I would wake to find two phones with dead batteries in them while the Tour was still ready to work with about 45-50% battery life left in it.

    The BlackBerry Tour is a solid business smartphone, however, if you are using a Microsoft Exchange email server, you will need to install a BlackBerry Enterprise Server or other third-party middleware server such as Notify Corp’s NotifyLink Enterprise Server since the BlackBerry does not support the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol as do most of today’s other smartphones.

    Pricing and Availability

    The BlackBerry Tour 9630 is available now from both Verizon Wireless and Sprint for $149 with a qualifying 2-year service agreement. For more information about the BlackBerry Tour, visit the BlackBerry website.

  • blackberry,  rim,  sprint,  tour,  verizon

    BlackBerry Tour On Deck


    Following closely behind the Verizon Motorola Droid, I have gotten my hands on a BlackBerry Tour 9630!

    The BlackBerry Tour is currently available from both Verizon Wireless and Sprint. Unlike the other CDMA/EVDO smarphones in their line ups, the Tour is considered a “World phone” because it also has a GSM radio and SIM card slot. The demo unit that I have from Verizon was shipped out with a Vodafone SIM card in it.

    Just like the Moto Droid, I’ll be testing this phone out as a replacement phone for my company’s fleet of Palm Treo 700p and 755p smartphones. I’ll have a short review of the BlackBerry Tour 9630 ready at the end of my demo period.

    If you are interested in digging into all the details about the Tour 9630 now, you will want to check out the BlackBerry website.

  • apple,  microsoft,  sprint,  verizon

    Black Friday Technology Deals

    Black Friday has become a crazy, insane, shopping frenzy that jump starts the holiday gift buying season and puts many retailer’s balance sheets “in the black.” Here are some deals that have caught me eye and might be of interest to you today as you build your plan of attack for tomorrow morning.

    Amazon

    Apple

    Best Buy

    • Sprint Palm Pre (requires 2-year service agreement), $79.99

    Staples

    • Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 3000 Keyboard & Mouse, $24.99 (online, phone only)
    • SanDisk 8GB Cruzer Micro Skin USB Flash Drive, $14.99 (online, phone only)
    • Jabra BT4010 Bluetooth Headset, $14.99 (online, phone only)

    Target

    • Western Digital Elements 500GB Portable Hard Drive, $59.98 (in store only)
    • Western Digital Elements 1TB Desktop Hard Drive, $58.98 (in store only)

    Verizon Wireless

    • BlackBerry Curve 8530, Buy One Get One (2-yr service contract, online, in store)
  • bell,  pre,  sprint,  web os

    Sprint, Bell Pre Customers Get Palm WebOS 1.3.1 Update

    On Friday evening, Palm released the Palm webOS 1.3.1 update for Sprint and Bell Canada Pre customers. The update arrives a few days earlier than expected. How every cool! Yahoo! users will be happy to learn that webOS 1.3.1 brings Synergy support for Yahoo! calendar and email.

    Palm webOS 1.3.1 has the follow nuggets of goodness baked in:

    Backup

    • Backup now includes browser cookies
    • Backup no longer saves online account passwords

    Calendar

    • Yahoo! now appears as a Calendar synchronization account. Open Calendar > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Add An Account > Yahoo!
    • All-day events that span more than one day now appear correctly in all Calendar views.
    • If you create a Google calendar event on the phone and the event location contains an apostrophe, the event now correctly synchronizes with Google online.

    Camera

    • After taking a picture, if you tap the picture thumbnail in the lower-left corner of the camera screen, the picture now opens in full-screen view, not Thumbnails view. Making the back gesture returns you to the camera.

    Contacts

    • Yahoo! now appears as a Contacts synchronization account. You can download contacts from Yahoo! online to the phone by opening Contacts > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Add An Account > Yahoo!
    • Automatic contact linking based on name matches occurs only if the first and last name fields are populated with the same names. If either field is blank, the Contacts app no longer links the contacts. In addition, the Contacts app no longer automatically links contacts with the same name but with different suffixes (such as Jr. and Sr.).
    • If you set up Contacts to synchronize with a Google account, the account synchronizes only entries in Google’s My Contacts, not all contacts.

    Device Info

    • If you copy a music file to the phone and then delete it, Device Info now shows the correct amount of available memory after the deletion.

    Email

    • Forwarded and replied-to messages include improved formatting, such as the original sender’s email address in forwarded messages and correct inline image display in replies.
    • The list of mail types available in manual setup now includes Google Apps (Hosted Google Domains) and Yahoo! Small Business Domain email accounts. Selecting one of these types automatically enters the correct settings for these accounts.

    Messaging

    • Yahoo! IM is available as an instant messaging account.
    • You can select a unique ringtone for new message alerts: Open Messaging > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Sound > Ringtone.
    • You can forward a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Forward.
    • You can copy the text of a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Copy Text.

    Phone

    • If the you are on a call, calendar notifications no longer partially cover the End Call icon.

    Screen & Lock

    • A new Secure Unlock preference allows you to set the time interval the phone is idle before the phone locks, requiring you to enter the PIN/password to unlock the phone. This can be the same as or different from the interval after which the screen turns off. To set the preference: Open Screen & Lock > Lock After.

    Web

    • Backup now includes browser cookies, so that after a restart, for example, if you stored your username and password on a web-based email site, you can continue to access the site without needing to log in.
    • If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.

    There are some other interesting changes in the Palm webOS operating system. The first is that you can now press and hold the Orange key and tap an application icon to pull up information about the application. Pressing and holding down the Power button now gives you more control over what the device does: turn Airplane mode on or off or Restart or Shutdown/Swap Battery.

    To read the complete list of feature updates included in Palm webOS 1.3.1, visit the Palm website. The 1.3.1 update is reported to become available for Europen GSM Pre customers by the end of November.