TechieGroups

Beginning this Sunday, January 22, AT&T will begin offering new data plans to its US smartphone and tablet customers, its first change to the plans since June 2010.

The new plans aren't designed to save money for existing smartphone customers: the previous entry-level Data Plus plan, which offered customers 200MB of data a month for , has been replaced by a Data Plus plan that offers 300MB for , a increase for just a 100MB increase. The hike is less ostentatious for the middle and top tiers: the DataPro 2GB () and DataPro 4GB () plans have been replaced by DataPro 3GB and DataPro 5GB plans that run and , respectively, which is in line with the company's /GB overage charges. As with before, tethering and mobile hotspot capabilities are only available for the top tier (5GB) plan.

The story is similar for tablet users: there are 3GB and 5GB Data Connect plans available for and , while the price and data cap remain the same for the .99 250MB plan.

Current AT&T customers can elect to stay with their current plans, which was the case when AT&T stopped offering unlimited data plans to new customers, but new subscribers will only be able to choose from among the new plans. For current customers, the new plans make sense only for 2GB and 4GB subscribers who regularly go over their caps – an extra GB for is more attractive than an extra GB for . Otherwise, I'd recommend sticking with what you've got.

Source:AT&T

CHIPMAKER Intel’s unveiling of an Atom-based smartphone reference design at CES is the most serious attempt yet by the chip giant to break into the lucrative handset market, and it heats up the rivalry between it and ARM, the dominant chip designer in the mobile device market.

Intel announced partnerships with Lenovo and Motorola at CES in Las Vegas to launch smartphones based on its latest Atom processor, the Atom Z2460, codenamed Medfield.

Although they are not expected to ship until later this year, the impending arrival of these handsets could bring competition to a market that has been almost entirely owned by the ARM chip architecture and its various licensees.

However, details about the Medfield chip and the handsets using it are sparse at the moment. The processor is a single-core 1.6GHz component, and so far we know that it supports hyper-threading and has an integrated PowerVR GPU.

Lenovo’s handset, as demonstrated at CES, combines the Intel Atom Medfield chip with 16GB of internal storage, a 4.5in display and an x86 version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

So far it seems that testers report having been impressed with performance of the reference design handsets, but power consumption is also a critical factor. Intel has not disclosed full details about Medfield’s power consumption so far, other than saying it is lower than the Moorestown processor from a couple of years ago.

Raw processing performance has always been one area where Intel’s x86 architecture has stood out against rivals such as ARM, but while Medfield is a single-core chip, ARM licensees are already introducing quad-core designs that promise to boost performance while consuming no more power than earlier chips.

KOREAN ELECTRONICS GIANT Samsung will report record profit for the fourth quarter driven by the success of its Galaxy range of smartphones.

The company said today in a statement that its estimated profit for the quarter ended 30 December will be 5.2tn Won (.5bn), up 73 per cent from the previous year. Meanwhile preliminary fourth quarter sales rose 12 per cent to 47tn Won.

Samsung said the surge was down to its handset division as well as a .4bn sale of its hard disk drive business to Seagate that it closed last month. The firm is expected to have sold a record 35 million smartphones in quarter four, up from 30 million devices in the previous quarter.

The company expects its full year results to reflect operating profit of 16.2tn Won and sales of 164.7tn Won.

Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone range has been key to the electronics maker’s strong performance. Just a year ago, experts feared that the South Korean manufacturer did not have a strong enough smartphone range to overtake Nokia and pose a threat to Apple.

Samsung will announce its full financial results later this month. µ

CHINESE HARDWARE VENDOR Lenovo has unveiled not one but two smartphones, the Lephone K2 and an unnamed Windows Phone 7.5 Mango device.

The Lephone K2 is the Android device and will come with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, not Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Details are very light on Windows alternative, apart from that it will run Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system and tip up in the second half of next year, according to PC Mag.

It is unclear whether either device will tip up outside of China, but that’s likely the case. The Lephone K2 will have a Qualcomm 1.5GHz dual-core processor and a 4.3in in-plane switching (IPS) display, according to Engadget.

Other specifications for the Android flavoured smartphone include 1GB of RAM, 1GB of internal storage and an 8MP rear facing camera. Lenovo leaked a slightly larger device with a 5in screen last week, which will be a tablet crossed with a phone called the Ideapad. µ

ANDROID BLOG Androidnz has confirmed that a 64GB microSDXC card works in multiple devices including smartphones and tablets.

In general, microSD card slots in today’s devices support up to 32GB of extra storage but despite Sandisk saying otherwise, you can now add up to 64GB. A Sandisk card has been tried in phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S II and tablets like the Asus Eee Pad Transformer.

Androidnx said, “Upon inserting the card in my phone I received an error notification stating that the card was damaged. After a quick trip to Settings to format the card, the phone recognised the SDXC card and showed 59.46GB of storage available.”

“The only issue I’ve found so far is that the camera doesn’t seem to be able to work out how many minutes of video or pictures can be taken with the available storage.”

One issue could have been that the device saw the card but only allowed use of 32GB. This myth was busted by first putting 47GB of data on the card and all the files were accessible.

The card runs across multiple versions of Android, on stock and rooted devices. This will come as good news to those who require large amounts of storage but don’t want to opt for a cloud service. Large files are becoming all the more common, with many devices able to record video in full HD 1080p quality.

Androidnx has confirmed that the microSDXC card works in both the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Motorola Razr, two recently launched devices. Older devices that also support the card include the HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy S. µ

CHINESE PHONE MAKER ZTE will launch three smartphones and one tablet in the UK before the end of the year.

Wu Sa, director of mobile device operations at ZTE spoke with The INQUIRER this morning about the firm’s upcoming products. He said ZTE will market three more smartphones and one tablet in the UK by 2012.

Sa confirmed that along with the Mango based Spirit smartphone, which we wrote about earlier today, ZTE will launch two Android handsets. These will be part of ZTE’s goal to launch 30 smartphones in 2011, the majority of which have already been announced, according to Sa.

These devices could tip up with some rebranding from mobile operators like with previous ZTE devices, and the same will be true for the upcoming tablet.

Sa confirmed that the tablet will be available from a UK operator but couldn’t say which one. It will be a 10in device running Google’s Android Honeycomb operating system.

If it’s the same tablet that we heard about way back in February then it’s called the ‘Light’ and will have a 1.2GHz processor.

We asked Sa if we could expect more tablets next year, to which he replied, “Definitely we are investing heavily on the tablet market. We believe the strategic value of the sector, be it for the consumer or for the enterprise.”

He also confirmed that Windows 8 is “certainly on the horizon, it’s in the pipeline, it is part of the roadmap”. µ

CHINESE PHONE MAKER ZTE has a trio of own branded smartphones, including the Skate, which are inbound today and next week.

In the UK we have Orange’s Monte Carlo, which is a rebranded Skate, but ZTE is releasing it as its own phone too. The Skate and Tureis are expected to tip up next Tuesday with the Libra expected today, according to online retailer Clove.

Clove said, “We were originally expecting the first stock of the newly released ZTE Skate to be here today, but the date has now been pushed back ever so slightly to Tuesday 27th September, so only a few days delay.”

The phone is priced at £219, whilst the Libra and Tureis have price tags of £166 and £144, respectively. The Skate will come with a 4.3in touchscreen and Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

The mainland Chinese firm doesn’t seem happy with releasing just three phones, with many more planned for this year.

He Shiyou, EVP and Head of the Terminal Division at ZTE said, “We are committed to developing smartphone products and will launch a total of 30 smartphone models before the end of 2011.”

The INQUIRER is meeting with Wu Sa, director of mobile device operations at ZTE next week, so we hope to get more details about its future products. µ

CHINESE ELECTRONICS MAKER Huawei has enlisted IBM to help it come up with a branding strategy to sell tablets, smartphones and cloud computing services.

Huawei is one of the largest telecoms equipment providers in the world and wins numerous contracts, but it wants to get into the consumer electronics business and has shown off impressive looking smartphones. Now it wants IBM, a company that has very little direct involvement in the smartphone and tablet markets, to help it build an image that will make punters lust after its kit.

Bloomberg is reporting that Huawei will seek 25 consultants from IBM to come up with answers by November. There is no information available about how much Huawei is paying IBM but Ross Gan, a spokesman for Huawei said, “It’s not a traditional branding project where they tell us how the brand should be positioned … It’s more from the management-of-the-process point of view: How do I manage the brand function within the organization? Who is responsible for what?”

IBM and Huawei have a long standing relationship and with the Chinese vendor wanting to triple its revenues in the next decade, that relationship is getting stronger. One way for it to hit its target of 0bn annual revenue will be to get into the smartphone and tablet business.

Huawei’s chief rival in China is ZTE, which has enjoyed considerable success with its range of cut priced Android smartphones. Judging by Huawei’s devices, it looks like the firm is not only going for the low end but also the more aspirational end of the market.

IBM will have its work cut out for it to help Huawei market its devices to consumers who already have Apple, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Nokia and ZTE to choose from. µ

ANALYST OUTFIT IHS Isuppli claims that smartphones will make up the majority of mobile phone sales by 2015.

Isuppli’s forecast puts global smartphone shipments topping one billion in 2015, a doubling of the current figure, which stands at 478 million. The upshot of this is that smartphones will make up 54.5 per cent of phone shipments in 2015 while presently accounting for just 32.5 per cent.

According to Isuppli the rapidly growing low-end smartphone market will fuel the rapid growth. Francis Sideco, senior principle analyst of wireless communications at IHS Isuppli said, “With their affordable prices, low-end smart phones are attractive to first-time users and to consumers in emerging economies where subscriber levels are rising at the fastest rates of all regions of the world, such as China, India, South Asia and Africa.”

Last year smartphone newcomer ZTE scored a big win with its Blade low-cost handset. Rebadged as the San Francisco and sold for around £100, it was an very compelling Android smartphone. More recently the incredible price cuts on HP’s Touchpad and Pre 3 have shown the appetite there is for cut price smartphones and tablets.

Isuppli claims that Samsung has benefited the most in recent times with its smartphone shipments going from strength to strength. The firm pegs Samsung’s shipment growth at 600 per cent for the second quarter of 2011 but interestingly puts that down to low-end smartphones that were popular in China and Latin America. However it can’t hurt to have the ultra-desirable Galaxy S II headlining its range, either.

What Isuppli’s forecast goes to show is that smartphones are becoming mainstream. The expensive devices that were purchased by early adoptors will still remain but mass market consumers, the ones who do not particularly care to spend the best part of £400 on a device, will be catered for between now and 2015. µ

UNDER ITS FRESH naming strategy, Samsung will bring a line of Galaxy branded phones to market including the W, M Pro, Y and Y Pro.

The smartphone maker has confirmed a set of smartphones along with a naming strategy. The Korean company is sticking with the Galaxy brand and splitting the phones into five categories which are ‘S’ for Super Smart, ‘R’ for Royal/Refined, ‘W’ for Wonder, ‘M’ for Magical and ‘Y’ for Young.

Other branding includes three tag on names that are ‘Pro’, ‘Plus’ and ‘LTE’. Pro simply means the phone has a physical Qwerty keyboard, Plus means the device is an upgraded version and LTE is short for long term evolution and means the handset has 4G connectivity technology.

JK Shin, head of mobile communications at Samsung said, “As Samsung continues to innovate, our goal is to provide consumers with an experience uniquely tailored to their needs. We have introduced steps to ensure users can simply identify the device designed to deliver the perfect experience for them,”

We already have the Galaxy S II and the R will be upon us ‘soon’. This morning mobile operator Three also confirmed that it will be selling the Galaxy W smartphone soon. That is in the middle of the range with a 1.4GHz processor and a 3.7in Super LCD touchscreen.

Samsung has confirmed that all four devices will ship running Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system.

Next up is the Galaxy M Pro which is Samsung’s version of a Blackberry with a 2.6in touchscreen, full Qwerty keyboard and optical track pad. The device is 9.97mm thick and “designed with professionals in mind”.

The Galaxy Y Pro is a budget version of the M Pro which also will have a touchscreen coupled with a Qwerty keyboard. Details are light but the handset will come with Think Free mobile office.

Lastly, the Galaxy Y is your classic budget Android smartphone, similar to the Galaxy Ace. Again details are light but the phone will have an 832MHz processor and will come pre-loaded with the Swype keyboard.

Samsung will unveil the four smartphones at this year’s IFA conference in Germany. µ