smartphone

Time to dump smartphone data plans? Why not? The cell phone market is stagnating--and worse while only a fraction of wireless customers own smartphones. Any way you look at it, the global cell phone market appears to be in miserable shape.

Some recent headlines to consider:

• Motorola loses $3.6 billion

• Sprint Nextel announces plans to cut 8,000 jobs

• Nokia's profits plunge 69 percent

• New subscriber growth at T-Mobile USA (which coincidentally offers the only Google Android phone in the U.S. market) suffers a steep decline.

•  While the fourth quarter is usually … Read more

This week we explore the depths of the Helio Ocean 2 and Motorola goes green with the world's first carbon-neutral cell phone. We also dish on the latest Palm Pre launch date rumors and check out an awful Nokia phone. Finally, we go a little off topic today and talk about the Snuggie blanket--seriously, it's gotten out of hand. All this and more on this week's Dialed In.

Rumors of the week Palm Pre launch date rumors abound LG Neon for AT&T?

News Helio Ocean 2 announced Motos' green phone … Read more

Acer isn't yet an official entrant into the smartphone market and already it's having the same problems keeping secrets as established players Apple and Palm.

On Wednesday, a smartphone called the Acer DX900 popped up for preorder on the Web site of Clove Technology, a retailer based in the U.K.

It appears to be the same device as the E-Ten Glofiish DX900--same features, same look, just a different brand name--which makes sense since Acer bought E-Ten last year. It's being offered for the equivalent of $570 (unlocked, we presume).

Acer plans a high-profile introduction of several handsets … Read more

Cell phone sales around the world took a nose dive in the fourth quarter, as the weakened economy hurt demand for new devices. But sales of smartphones continued to grow.

According to IDC, overall sales of cell phones in the fourth quarter were down about 12.6 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. In the fourth quarter of 2008, manufacturers shipped a total of 289.0 million units, compared to 330.8 million units shipped during the fourth quarter a year ago.

''The fourth quarter was the perfect storm of factors to produce this result,'' Ramon Llamas, senior … Read more

On Wednesday, Garmin and Asus announced a strategic alliance to develop and distribute co-branded GPS-enabled smartphones to be known as the Garmin-Asus Nuvifone series. This includes the original Garmin Nuvifone, which was introduced over a year ago, and will now be rebranded as the Garmin-Asus Nuvifone G60.

The partnership isn't a strange one, considering that Asus has been working on the original Nuvifone for over a year as the ODM (original device manufacturer). Both companies still plan to ship the Nuvifone G60 in the first half of 2009. In addition, Garmin-Asus said it will offer several Nuvifone models this … Read more

In less than two weeks, Acer plans to unveil its first line of smartphones, but a picture of at least one of the purported models is already making the rounds online.

On Wednesday, the Boy Genius Report blog posted the blurry photo to the right. It has a swivel keyboard and a touch screen--according to BGR's source--but it's unclear which mobile OS it will run, Windows Mobile or Android.

If this is indeed one of the handsets to be introduced at Acer's event at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we won't have to wait long … Read more

Though we're only two months into 2009, it's not too much of a stretch to say the Palm Pre is the most anticipated smartphone of the year.

Ever since it was announced at CES 2009, the Pre has created quite a buzz for its functionality and interface, and in our opinion, it comes closest to rivaling the iPhone pound for pound. Of course, the question remains of whether the Pre will actually deliver, but perhaps more at the forefront of people's minds: when will it be available?

At CES, Palm and Sprint said they expect to ship … Read more

While Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco thinks Dell's move into smartphones is a good idea or, at least, the way it's going about it. I can't agree. Has he forgotten Dell's MP3 player?

The rest of the world certainly has.

In the smartphone market, as Capobianco notes, Dell is planning to do an open-source Google Android-based phone and a Windows Mobile-based phone, which he thinks makes sense:

I think it is a smart move. They do not take risk, they do not expose themselves too much, they will pick the winner later. The only risk of not … Read more

Updated Feb. 4, 12:13 p.m., PT: This post has been updated with more details about the fixes and new features included in the RC33 firmware update.

On Tuesday, T-Mobile announced that it will start rolling out maintenance release (1.1 RC33) to T-Mobile G1 customers this week. The update will be delivered over the air and should reach all owners within the next two weeks, the carrier said.

Unfortunately, what it didn't reveal are the exact details of what's included in the release, simply stating that it would provide "new features and software updates." … Read more