verizon

Casio showed off its new G'zOne Type-S for Verizon Wireless in black and silver at the UTStarcom booth here at CTIA. It's almost exactly the same as the original rugged clamshell, but it now supports push-to-talk capabilities. The rest of the Type-S Casios will have this feature as well, it's just that the black and silver version is the first out the gate with it. It's saddled with only a VGA camera, but a rugged phone like this doesn't need a lot of bells and whistles. Verizon is offering it now for $99.99 after … Read more

There's a good piece by Saul Hansell over on The New York Times' "Bits" blog.

Hansell describes how Comcast is being criticized for low picture quality on certain broadcasts. That's interesting, especially in light of the contention between Comcast and DirecTV on this very issue, but it isn't the most important point in Hansell's post.

Hansell goes on to give a reasonable explanation of the basic issues involved, and mentions the likely future of cable TV: digital video distributed over Internet-like network switches. Instead of always sending every TV channel to every house, a … Read more

Samsung used CTIA to officially introduce the Samsung Alias, the upgrade to Verizon's Samsung SCH-U740. Though we're known about the phone since the beginning of this month, this is the first chance to see how it compares with its predecessor. From what we learned, the differences are minor. The Alias just has a silver color scheme and a few of the alphabetic keys on the full keyboard now are black and white to make them more identifiable as dialing buttons. So really, that's about it. You can get the Alias with Verizon Wireless for $49 with service. … Read more

After we were done giving the LG Vu the once-over, we shifted our attention to the LG enV(2) to see how different it really is from the the original enV. The answer: a lot. Measuring 4.0 inches by 2.13 inches by 0.65 inch, it's smaller, slimmer, and just overall better looking than the first enV, especially its front face. Yeah, we're not too thrilled with the tiny front display, but it provides a lot more room for the keypad, which is surprisingly roomy. The internal screen gets a sizable bump to 2.4-inch over … Read more

Updated 12:30 p.m. PDT with comment from the Open Internet Coalition.

LAS VEGAS--It seems mobile operators have dodged a regulatory bullet by promising to open up their networks on their own.

On Tuesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said he was rewarding U.S. wireless operators for their efforts to open up their networks by not pushing for more regulation.

During a keynote address here at the CTIA tradeshow, Martin said he is going to circulate an order among the FCC commissioners to dismiss Skype's petition to apply Carterfone rules to the wireless industry. The Carterfone … Read more

Last but not least of today's Verizon smartphone news is the Verizon Wireless XV6900.

In a nutshell, the XV6900 is the carrier's version of the HTC Touch, which has been available in GSM and Sprint flavors for a little while now.

The XV6900 does get a fresh coat of paint, stepping out in a vibrant white, but it seems everything is pretty much the same under the hood. You still get the TouchFLO interface that lets you navigate the phone's menus with the swipe of your finger; a 2.8-inch touch screen; Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition; … Read more

Verizon Wireless opened the floodgates today, introducing a number of additions to its cell phone and smartphone lineup, including the Motorola Q9c shown here.

Unlike the multimedia-centric Motorola Q9m, the Q9c goes after the road warriors with its integrated GPS and VZ Navigator support. In addition, it offers Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition with the Documents to Go suite, Bluetooth 2.0, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and 128MB Flash memory.

Being a more business-centric device, Verizon will not offer the more flashy lime-green version, which was announced for U.S. Cellular and Alltel. The Motorola Q9c for Verizon will be … Read more

A day ahead of its scheduled announcement, Verizon decided to spill the beans and put out a press release announcing the LG EnV2, which is the genuine successor to the LG EnV of years past. As we mentioned awhile ago, we originally thought the Voyager was the EnV successor, but as it turns out, the Voyager is in a completely separate class. Which is fine, since the LG EnV2--yes, we find the parentheses a little odd as well--is a pretty good-looking phone in its own right. Smooth and slim, it mimics the original EnV design with a clamshell look when … Read more

Come and get it! I got your hot, piping pre-CTIA 2008 news for you right here. Today, Verizon Wireless announced that it will deliver the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 to customers starting in May (an exact ship date was not available). It's the first Curve to hit the CDMA carrier and is similar to the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8310 for AT&T in that it offers integrated GPS. The smartphone will work with Verizon's location-based service, VZ Navigator, and also one-ups the GSM version with EV-DO support. Other goodies include Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, … Read more