smartphones

Joining the other carriers, Alltel added the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 to its lineup. It's available now for $49.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, with a one-year contract and qualifying Smart Choice Pack (rates start at $69.99 per month for unlimited data, e-mail, and Web access).

Though more of an entry-level device, the Curve 8530 offers plenty of features, including Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, and GPS. The smartphone also has a 2-megapixel camera, 256MB Flash memory (expandable up to 32GB via the microSD/SDHC slot), dedicated media controls, and optical trackpad.

The RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 for Alltel … Read more

Nokia is making its navigation service free to all GPS-enabled Nokia devices in a move that will help the company better compete in the smartphone market against the likes of Apple and Google.

Starting Thursday, Nokia users will be able to download for free the client that enables GPS phones to get Ovi Maps and Navigation, as well as, various city guides on their phones. Nokia has been offering the maps and navigation service for more than two years. After its acquisition of Navteq announced in 2007, it enhanced the service by adding turn-by-turn pedestrian navigation. And it added premium content from partners, such as Lonely Planet.… Read more

Palm didn't make quite as big of a splash at CES 2010 as it did the previous year, but the company still had plenty of news to share, including the introduction of the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus.

Both WebOS devices will be launching on Verizon Wireless on January 25 and bring improvements over their Sprint counterparts. The Palm Pre Plus is the more exciting of the two, offering double the memory, a more streamlined design, and a better keyboard than the original Pre. Meanwhile, the Pixi Plus didn't receive a makeover, but it did … Read more

Some people are calling the new tweaks to AT&T and Verizon Wireless' pricing plans the start of a mobile price war, but for many wireless consumers, they'll actually be paying more each month.

The companies each revised pricing late last week in separate announcements. The price cuts follow new aggressive pricing from Sprint Nextel, which last year introduced plans that allow customers to call any cell phone in the U.S. for free.

AT&T's and Verizon's new plans were supposed to simplify pricing for consumers. But the fact is that the new plans … Read more

The ongoing patent battle between Apple and Nokia escalated Friday, when Apple moved to block imports of Nokia cell phones to the U.S.

Apple made its request in a complaint filed with the International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency that examines issues including unfair trade practices involving patent, trademark, and copyright infringement.

In December, Nokia filed its own complaint with the USITC in Washington. In it, the Finnish company alleged that Apple infringes seven Nokia patents "in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers" and sought to ban imports of Apple's iPhone, iPod, and MacBook products.

Responding to Apple's latest move, Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant told Bloomberg that "Nokia will study the complaint when it is received and continue to defend itself vigorously. However this does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree to appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia's innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007."

Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment on the filing.

Back in October, before the patent debate between the two companies moved to the trade commission, Nokia filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Delaware regarding 10 patents related to wireless handsets, which Nokia says Apple has refused to license. Every iPhone model since the original, introduced in 2007, infringes on those patents, Nokia has charged.

The 10 patents it accuses Apple of violating are related to making phones able to run on GSM, 3G, and Wi-Fi networks. They include patents on wireless data, speech coding, security, and encryption, according to Nokia.

Apple then filed a countersuit accusing Nokia of copying technology inside the iPhone. Apple said Nokia is violating a range of patents, from real-time signal processing methods to list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display. … Read more

First the divas and now the rockers. On Thursday, T-Mobile announced that it will release a special edition of the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G that has been redesigned in partnership with renowned guitar manufacturer, Fender.

The myTouch 3G Fender Limited Edition model will be available starting on January 20 for $179.99 with a two-year contract and features a new sunburst finish inspired by Fender guitars as well as a number of enhancements centered around, not surprisingly, music. For one, the phone now has a 3.5mm headphone jack and also ships with a 16GB microSD card for storing all your … Read more

Gazing into the future with Gartner, what can we expect in the world of tech?

The research firm recently revealed its forecast for 2010 and beyond, envisioning a world where more of us live and breathe online and more often through our smartphones than our PCs.

Although the predictions target Gartner's corporate clients, most will certainly affect smaller businesses and consumers too.

"As organizations make plans to navigate the economic recovery and prepare for the return to growth, our predictions for 2010 focus on the impact of critical changes in the balance of control and power in IT,&… Read more

LAS VEGAS--CES 2010 didn't produce quite a showstopper like last year's Palm Pre, but there's certainly one theme that dominated the show in the cell phone and smartphone categories and that's Android, Android, and Android. After a false start at CES 2009--last year's show defied expectations to produce no Android announcements--Google's OS finally emerged from its shell this year.

Of course, there was plenty of buzz about it even before CES started, after the official announcement of the Nexus One. Though neither Google nor HTC were officially showing the Nexus One in Las Vegas (… Read more

LAS VEGAS--We stopped by the Sony Ericsson booth at CES 2010 to catch a glimpse of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (check out Kent German's hands-on impressions here), but we also happened to stumble upon the Xperia X2. Remember that Windows Mobile smartphone announced a while ago? Yeah, we almost forgot about it too.

We took the opportunity to ask Sony Ericsson about it and representatives quietly revealed that the Xperia X2 will be available from SonyStyle stores this spring. Company representatives didn't provide a specific release date or pricing, but hopefully, it won't be as exorbitant … Read more