All You Need to Know About: Summer Cell Phones ’09

Palm Pre Priced, Dated, Debunked

Sheesh, with all this Palm Pre hype you’d
think it was coming out soon. Wait, it is? June 6th you say? And
only $199?! So what’s the catch, some lame ass mail-in-rebate? Oh…

Get out your Sharpies and circle June 6th
you technophile. Palm’s Pre will debut on that fateful day on Sprint’s Now
Network. Retailers include Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Walmarts, Sprint.com,
and of course, Sprint stores.

With the purchase of a brand new handset
you also get an automatic subscription to the Everything Data plan for the low,
low rate of $70/month ($10 more than the entry-level iPhone plan). Carry the
one (199+(70×48)) and you get a Palm Pre with two years of service for just
$3,559!

But don’t forget the mail-in-rebate. You
see Palm’s done some research. Or rather, they’ve read up on someone else’s.
Possibly Professor Sridhar Moorthy’s, who concludes that the highest redemption
rate he’s seen is 50% on mail-in-rebates. Meaning half of the Palm Pre’s sold
will be purchased for the full price of $299, leading to the question; just how
lazy is the average consumer?

Source and Source

There’s a Storm 2 A-Brewing

A BlackBerry Storm with a clickscreen-less
screen? It must be the 2nd generation and it just might be on its
way out the (manufacturer’s) door in June. The speculative report also claims
that it will be no later than July before the original Storm is being shoved
aside on the BlackBerry shelf for its younger, revised sibling. Take that,
early adopters!

Source

The Next iPhone?

All this talk of revision…Man, I can’t wait
until the Pre 2 comes out. In the mean time, rumour has it that a new(er)
iPhone is en route. What’s new this time around? In addition to the speculation
of a matte-black casing and specs leaked last week (see below), this latest
round of Cupertino gossip suggests an OLED screen, a glowing Apple logo on the
back of the phone, and a specific launch date of July 17th.

With the Pre squarely in the smartphone
spotlight, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Apple strike back but this annual
upgrade is eventually going to lead to consumer hesitancy. Or at least a ton of
iPhone 1.0s on eBay. Here’s hoping!

Potential specs:

• 32GB and
  16GB storage

• 
  $199 and
  $299 price points

• 3.2-megapixel
  camera (up from the current 2-megapixel camera)

• Video-recording
  and editing capabilities

• Ability
  to send a picture & video via MMS

• 1.5 times
  the battery life of the current models

• Double
  the RAM and processing power

• Built-in
  FM transmitter

• Built-in
  compass

• Turn-by-turn
  directions

Source

Steve | My Bio & Articles

Steve is a self-confessed gadget addict with a soft spot for all green gizmos. He has a BA in English Literature and is currently completing his MA in Communication and Rhetoric.