But if you aren’t on Verizon or don’t want to be, and if HSPA+ speeds are good enough for you, here’s some good news. You can now purchase an unlocked Galaxy Nexus from Expansys, and you’ll be able to use it on either AT&T or T-Mobile – with full ’4G’ HSPA+ speeds possible on both carriers thanks to the pentaband HSPA radio found inside the Galaxy Nexus.

Really the only caveat here is the price. Expansys would like you to shell out no less than $749.99 for the privilege of being among the first people in America to own a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Sure, you won’t be forced to stay with a particular carrier for two years, as there will be no contract signing here. But still, that price point is a bit steep, and we’re hoping it will go down in the coming months.

That said, if you absolutely must have a Galaxy Nexus right now, you’ve probably already gone to Expansys and ordered yours.

• Unlocked Samsung Galaxy Nexus can be ordered in Canada, should ship in a few days
• Verizon Samsung Galaxy Nexus now just $229.99 at Wirefly, may not be in stock for long
• Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy Nexus can be yours for just $154.99 at LetsTalk (and $149.99 at Amazon)
• Telus to launch the Samsung Galaxy Nexus on Friday for $99.99 with contract, Galaxy Note coming soon
• AT&T-compatible Nokia Lumia 800 now available in the US unlocked for $789.99

And if you were wondering whether the Optimus LTE would make it to the USA, wonder no more. It will. AT&T will sell its very own version of this handset, dubbed LG Nitro HD. That may just be an appropriate name.

The Nitro HD can be seen pictured above and it will have a 4.5-inch 720p HD touchscreen, a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, an 8 MP camera, 1 GB of RAM, 4 GB of ROM, microSD card support, Bluetooth 3.0, 21 Mbps HSDPA, 4G LTE, and a 1,830 mAh battery. It will run Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Unfortunately even if we do have the name, specs, and first leaked render of this device, we still don’t know just when the Nitro HD will be in stores, or how much it will cost. However, because of the upcoming holiday shopping season, AT&T would be smart to launch it as soon as possible.

Via PocketNow

• UK: LG Optimus One now on Orange, white BlackBerry Bold 9780 on Vodafone
• LG Nitro HD announced by AT&T – its first HD Android phone
• LG Optimus One coming soon to Three UK with free car mount and charger
• Quad-core LG X3 leaks with 4.7-inch HD touchscreen
• LG Optimus 2 shows up with CDMA support, already listed at CellCom

The Motorola Atrix 2 was announced last week at CTIA, and it’s basically an improved version of its predecessor. The Atrix 2 has a dual-core 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, a 4.3-inch 960×540 touchscreen, an 8 MP camera with LED flash and 1080p HD video recording, a secondary front-facing camera, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of built-in storage, microSD card support, 21 Mbps HSDPA, 5.76 Mbps HSUPA, Bluetooth, GPS, and a 1,785 mAh battery. It runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

The Motorola Atrix 2 is offered directly by AT&T for $99.99 with a new two-year contract, just as expected. However, if you’d like to get an Atrix 2, there’s a much cheaper option. The same device can be had at Amazon, with the same two-year AT&T contract, for just $49.99. That’s half the price that AT&T is asking, so unless you enjoy wasting money, there’s really no reason for you not to go to Amazon and order from there.

• AT&T’s Motorola Atrix 4G now even cheaper at Amazon: $129
• Motorola Atrix now available from Bell in Canada
• AT&T Samsung Infuse 4G now only $89.99, Motorola Atrix 4G just $0.01 with contract
• AT&T Motorola Atrix 4G may cost just $149.99, HTC Inspire 4G only $99.99
• Motorola Xoom and Atrix sales are disappointing (or so it seems)

But do phone sequels work the same way, or are they truly what they should be in the first place: improvements to the first piece of work?

The Motorola CLIQ was a run-of-the-mill Android 1.5 handset launched in late 2009 that didn’t really make any ripples in the time-space-phone continuum besides being the primary vehicle to launch MOTOBLUR, a proprietary Motorola UI which gets mixed reviews depending on who you talk to (When it launched I looked at it as a pointless user interface that bogged down the phone’s processing speeds in order to “enhance” your social networking experience).

But the landscape for Android is much different now. The CLIQ did well enough that a sequel was born, though current handset component standards are much higher. The average Android phone will typically have 800 MHz-1 GHz CPU with 512 MB RAM, 5 MP camera, HD video recording, and the list goes on; the original version barely even halfed those stats, and only in some categories. The point is, the CLIQ was obsolete within a matter of a couple months and the new version, the CLIQ 2, aims to appease T-Mobile customers who are looking for a good standard Android phone without having to pay too much.

So does this sequel improve upon the original in ways other than just higher specs? Read on to learn my take on the Motorola CLIQ 2 MB611 for T-Mobile.

Unboxing the Motorola CLIQ 2

Here’s my unboxing video of the CLIQ 2. Good wholesome entertainment, that’s for sure. It gives you a good idea of my overall first impressions of the phone.

Hardware and Software of the Moto CLIQ 2

The CLIQ 2 is a solid device that will definitely not feel too cheap in your hand. The 3.7” 480 x 854 pixel capacitive touchscreen makes it just the right width to feel comfortable holding for long periods of time, but the only concern will be the thickness and weight. Weighing 6.17 ounces does indeed make it heavier than the average phone. It also comes in at 14.5 mm thick, which is right about average for a smartphone with full keyboard attached.

The CLIQ 2 actually reminds me a lot of the HTC EVO Shift 4G in that it uses the same screen and takes advantage of a full physical QWERTY-style horizontal keyboard and adds weight. It does feel a slight bit bulkier than the Shift, but wasn’t so bad that I was uncomfortable holding it up to my ear to make calls.

On the back, the battery cover has a few ridges built into it which allows for extra grippiness, always a must-have with phones in my opinion. I don’t like the polished glossy plastic feel because it ends up being way too slippery for my taste. I don’t mind the phone being a little less pretty just to ensure it survives without being dropped for a longer period of time.

Upon turning on the phone I am greeted with a request for MOTOBLUR logins. This version of MOTOBLUR has been improved over the last year and this is the same version you’ll find in the Motorola Bravo, Droid Pro and Droid 2 Global. It overall is very close to the original, but among the enhancements that have been made, you get: improved business security and encryption capabilities, battery manager, more power over your social networking widgets (the ability to change widget sizes, add in photos, filter out what you don’t want in your feeds, etc.), to name a few. The new version of Motoblur appears to do a better job at managing CPU resources so as to not cause the phone to become sluggish.

The CLIQ 2 runs on Android 2.2, better known as Froyo, so it will have better battery life, faster web browser and of course Flash 10.1 capability. Anyone looking to get an Android phone now should be looking at getting one with Froyo on it at the least, if not even better. There is simply no reason to choose a phone anymore that still runs on Android 2.1 or lower. Slower, less features, and has been technically obsolete for months. Not to mention there’s no guarantee that your 2.1 phone will ever be upgraded in the future.

Under the hood you’ll find a 1 GHz TI OMAP 3620 CPU unit with 512 MB RAM, a much-needed improvement over the original CLIQ’s 528 MHz Qualcomm CPU with 256 MB RAM. The TI OMAP 3620 CPU is the same as you’ll find in the Droid Pro and Droid 2, so look for comparable performance between this and those other devices.

Almost everything you see on the CLIQ 2 could be considered standard for a midrange Android. There really isn’t anything I can think of that sticks out to me about the phone that differentiates it from any others — except for the unique keyboard design.

And I definitely mean unique, since something like this has not been attempted before. It looks like a cross between a beehive and the back of a turtle shell (a friend calls it the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle phone; I think it’s too long a nickname to stick), what with its array of hexagon-shaped buttons that raise above the rest of the board. The keys are very well spaced and sufficiently raised. I think using the keyboard is pretty easy. What I don’t like on the keyboard is that the keys are so stiff and pointy that it takes me longer to type on it.

I appreciate the added dedicated keys, like @, comma and period. The only dedicated keys I would also like to see included are the .com and messaging buttons; I can survive without them, but why make a smartphone that thrives primarily on emailing and web browsing without having these keys in mind?

Also handy to have on the CLIQ 2 is a dedicated toggle switch on the right hand side that switches the phone back and forth between ringtone mode and vibrate/silent mode, much like the iPhone toggle switch.

I lament the neglection of 4G on the Moto CLIQ 2. Sure, it’s a midrange Android, and I assume it was left out because it was an added expense T-Mobile deemed unnecessary, but if you are advertising a new Android phone at CES alongside two other 4G phones being sold by your biggest competitors, it’s probably a good idea to throw it in for good measure to keep it relevant. As it currently stands, the CLIQ 2 is capable of a theoretical max of 10.2 Mbps on regular HSDPA. It still ends up being faster than some competing 4G networks and much better than any other 3G network. The CLIQ 2 does offer a mobile hotspot so you can share that 3G connection with 5 other devices.

Notable Features of the Motorola CLIQ 2

Surfing through the programs that come preloaded on the CLIQ 2 was nothing exciting for me, as I didn’t see anything offered that I haven’t seen before several times on almost every single T-Mobile Android handset over the last 6 months. 3G Mobile Hotspot, Amazon MP3 downloads, Google Latitude, Blockbuster, DLNA, CarDock, QuickOffice, Telenav GPS and WiFi Calling are all normal included apps these days on T-Mobile. This isn’t a bad thing, but I was expecting at least one or two bloatware apps that were completely new.

I also noticed that the CLIQ 2, being a Froyo Android device, has a nice built-in task manager that lets you kill selected apps and even tell certain apps to die as soon as your phone times out (or the screen locks). This is something that I wish was in every smartphone. It also uses a dedicated file manager and battery manager to help you stay organized and keep your battery from falling victim to the same blunders that has affected so many Android phones before the CLIQ 2 ever came around.

The CLIQ 2 also uses a 5 MP camera and HD video camcorder with 720p resolution. Here’s one of the first things that came to my mind when I saw this: while the camera is the same, the camcorder is better than that of the Nexus S, currently considered a top-of-the-line device with fresh features.

Internally, the CLIQ 2 includes 1 GB memory and comes loaded with a 2 GB MicroSD card, though you can stick in your own memory chip (up to 32 GB) to load your own music, movies, and pictures.

The CLIQ 2 also comes with a FM radio, a feature overlooked by many but can be very important to anyone wanting to listen to the same overplayed songs again and again. You will, however, need to use your headphones to activate the radio. I’ve always been told it’s the only way to activate the radio’s antenna, but it’s probably to keep everyone else from having to listen to your music too.

Performance of the Motorola CLIQ 2

Motorola has put its proprietary CrystalTalk Plus technology into the CLIQ 2. This is Motorola’s patented noise cancellation tech that allows you to talk in a loud room at normal volume. With that, it gave me the ability to hear and be heard perfectly fine, either through the phone or through speakerphone.

Mentioned before, the 1 GHz CPU speeds coupled along with 512 MB RAM help keep the CLIQ 2 stay fast and fresh. Every app I tried to use in the phone loaded pretty fast with no sluggish behavior. The only sluggish part of the experience was when I would move my fingers up and down in the app tray and there was a slight delay waiting for the screen to catch up with me.

All in all, I’d say the CLIQ 2 is a great buy for a midrange Android handset. The call quality is good and loud, it has sufficient programs and specs to fit your needs well, and is pretty darn quick when looking for something. The keyboard is a hit and miss experience, and it all depends on how you feel once you get it broken in. At first impression those keys are stiff and too pointy to be able to type my normal speeds on. But I give them all the brownie points in the world for coming up with such a clever design, and look forward to seeing more unique designs down the road.

Below you will find my review in video format, with less written and a lot more talkative. Hopefully that makes it a good thing.

You can also get the Motorola CLIQ2 Android Phone on Amazon!

Video Review

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• Unboxing the T-Mobile Motorola CLIQ 2
• Motorola Cliq XT available at T-Mobile USA, $129.99 on contract
• Motorola Dext / Cliq previewed. Low price apparently confirmed
• T-Mobile Motorola Cliq 2 leaks, may launch on January 19
• T-Mobile Motorola Cliq 2 with Android 2.2 officially unveiled

And the HTC Freestyle doesn’t really have specs that will impress the gadget-centric readers. It is, in all respects, a very basic smartphone. Why it’s important, however, isn’t in the hardware; it’s in the direction that AT&T is taking, and the Freestyle is just the beginning. The Freestyle marks the change of how the phone industry will be flipped upside-down.

Let me explain. The Freestyle is the first AT&T smartphone to use Brew MP, a relatively new OS that will be aimed toward the low-end smartphone demographic. It is thought of as a good starter smartphone, one that is more capable than QMP (Quick Messaging Phones) but without the hardcore top-of-the-line specs in the latest superphones.

Instead of AT&T and OEMs paying millions of dollars to develop custom UI’s and crazy cool features, Brew MP is already set up and ready to go. The amount of money invested in bringing these phones to market, on top of the inclusion of lower-end hardware specs, will mean that these phones can be sold for much less than the average smartphone today.

And AT&T announced at the Developer Summit that we should expect to see around 5 more Brew-powered devices coming to AT&T this year. So I am now envisioning over the next year or so that we’ll see the smartphone market grow exponentially and concurrently the QMP market will steadily decrease as these Brew MP-powered phones take over. “From this point forward, all of our quick messaging phones will be on the BREW MP platform,” AT&T CMO David Christopher said.

Don’t be confused by the name of Brew. It is nothing similar to the BREW platform that Verizon relied so heavily on for several years that was basically JAVA-powered. This is completely different. Having this new platform in place makes sense as a QMP replacement, since there are so many QMP devices being sold today that use different platforms, are very difficult to make quality apps for, and make it even more confusing for the customer to transfer from one phone to another.

With that all said now, let’s turn to the Freestyle specifically. It is roughly the same size as the HTC Aria that is currently sold at AT&T stores, only without having Android support. It also has an aluminum unibody casing on the outside which we welcome with open arms (and hands, of course).

The phone was tiny in my hands. Considering its size, that’s no surprise. It’s a 3.2″ HVGA capacitive touchscreen, measuring 12.4 mm thin, and weighs 4.52 ounces.

Here are a few other specs for the HTC Freestyle:

• Qualcomm MSM7225 528 MHz processor with 256 MB RAM
• 512 MB internal storage with external MicroSD support
• 3.2″ HVGA 320 x 480 capacitive touchscreen
• 1300 mAh battery
• GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• HSDPA/UMTS 850/1900 MHz
• FM radio
• GPS
• Proximity Sensor
• FriendStream social networking interface
• HTC Sense UI

I didn’t have the opportunity to play with the Brew MP platform or software because the Freestyle could only be shown turned off. It’s still awaiting technical certification, much like the Inspire 4G, which should happen sometime very soon considering Mr. Christopher mentioned a February release timeframe for the Freestyle.

So let us know what you think about this concept of Brew MP taking over the QMP market. My only real concern with this is if AT&T requires $15 minimum data plans for using these phones, considering there are many people out there who want a messaging phone but won’t need internet, and families who don’t want their children having access to the net as well. It should be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Below you will find a full photo gallery of the HTC Freestyle. Enjoy!

• AT&T HTC Freestyle non-smartphone will be available on February 13 for $99.99
• AT&T HTC Freestyle Unboxing
• AT&T HTC Freestyle non-smartphone shows up unannounced
• Brew-based Motorola EX300 touchscreen phone coming soon
• #CES 2010: Qualcomm announces new Brew MP, Snapdragon Android smartbook from HP

The Dell Venue is an indication of the company’s commitment to improve and broaden its mobile lineup. Some are calling the Venue the little brother of the Venue Pro because of the Pro’s inclusion of a full portrait QWERTY keyboard and additional Enterprise-friendly features, but the Venue itself is a very capable Android 2.2 handset.

My first impressions of the Venue when looking at it for the first time is that it looks incredibly similar to the Sanyo Zio. Whether that’s a good thing or not can be left up to your own personal opinion, but I don’t mind the design of the phone as long as it doesn’t have similar performance to the Zio. The Venue has a very slick 4.1″ AMOLED screen with Gorilla Glass and smooth edges, fully chromed-up side, and then a special pattern-design back that feels somewhat plasticky.

As for the interface, the Venue uses a brand new Stage UI that I saw on the Dell Streak 7, which takes each individual home screen panel and converts it into a certain category. For instance, you can find Stages for Social, Email, Recent Apps, Contacts, Music, Videos, and more. If you hate these stages, they can be removed and replaced by whatever else you’d normally like, so at least you have the ability to choose for yourself how you want to decorate the innards of your phone, whether you want to add widgets or folders or regular apps. The Stages themselves have been designed very well, and will be interesting to see if there will be any additional Stages thrown in down the road. I would be very interested to see it open up to developer support, much like Sprint ID does, where you can choose from several customized Stages of all sorts of categories.

Besides the Stages, most of the interface is vanilla Android with exceptions in the contacts and dialpad. Dell will also be throwing in an extra proprietary app called VideoStage, a fee-based streaming video and movie service, which will be loaded on the phones in time for shipping, though it wasn’t available for me to view on the prototype unit I played with.

Among the Venue’s specs:

• 800 x 480 resolution
• 8 MP camera with 720p HD video recording
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM
• HSPA  up to 7.2 Mbps
• 12.9 mm thick
• Weight: 5.78 ounces
• 1 GB internal storage, up to 32 external available

Overall, I’m very excited to see one of the final versions of the Venue when it’s ready for shipping. So far I’m excited to see a huge difference between the Venue and the Aero that launched last year. Certainly, just by judging the difference I can tell that Dell is on the right path to becoming a strong player in the mobility market.

Here is the video and a photo gallery showing off all aspects of the Dell Venue.

• Dell Venue with Android Froyo gets official in Korea
• Unlocked Dell Venue with Android 2.2 coming soon to the US
• Dell Venue Pro now just $299.99 SIM-free and unlocked, and starting at $0.99 with contract
• Dell Streak 7 tablet now available in the UK for £299
• Android-based Dell Venue launching in India next month?

The two companies have singed a 3-yr agreement and they plan to start the rollout in the first half of this year. The 84Mbps HSPA network should cover most of Denmark, as well as four major cities in Sweden (most probably including Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö).

The upgraded network will allow 3’s subscribers to easily enjoy Web applications and services like videoconferencing, social networking and online gaming.

As you may recall, Ericsson and 3 launched Europe’s first 21Mbps network in 2009.

“We were the first to launch turbo 3G in the Nordic region and now we are first signing up for the world’s fastest 3G. Our Scandinavian customers are sophisticated users with high demands in terms of mobile broadband services. Ericsson is evolving our network so we can meet these demands and give our customers true connectivity, wherever they are – from city office to country cottage,” declares Peder Ramel, CEO at 3 Scandinavia.

Ericsson and 3 have also announced the upcoming deployment of Sweden’s first 900MHz 3G network, which will improve coverage for the 84Mbps network.

Via Press release

• 3 Scandinavia and Ericsson to launch Europe’s first 21 Mbps network in 2009
• The world’s first LTE network fails to live up to expectations?
• Bell to Deploy HSPA Network by Next Month
• Sprint announces 17 new WiMax (4G) markets for 2009
• AT&T to upgrade its 3G network to HSPA 7.2Mbps

If I understood correctly what I read in the press release issued today, the Japanese companies are preparing one or more cell phone models capable to offer HSUPA speeds of up to 5.7Mbps, in addition to HSDPA speeds of up to 7.2Mbps.

Manufactured with 45-nm process technology, the SH-Mobile G4 is designed to provide uber-fast processing and advanced integrated functions, including enhanced support for applications that use 3D graphics and HD (high definition) videos.

The SH-Mobile G4 will only be available in 2010. The good news, though, is that the handsets built on the platform are planned to be released not only in Japan, but also worldwide.

• HTC TYTN II to support HSUPA?
• NTT DoCoMo tests Super 3G system with up to 300Mbps data transfer rates
• Japanese consortium to launch new mobile app platform for Symbian and Linux smartphones
• Samsung UFO SCH W300 7.2 Mbps HSDPA slider
• Vodacom Launches HSUPA Service in South Africa

According to the executive, the company already has a test version of HSPA 3G network running in their labs which is able to deliver download speeds of up to 7.2 mbps. The current network of AT&T can theoretically provide half of that, and it seems that it will soon get an upgrade.

The promised “exceeding 20 megabits per second” speed is another matter though; the current HSPA standard only supports download speeds up to 14.4 mbps (and even that’s in theory), so the company will switch to HSPA+ (also known as HSPA Evolution), a 3G mobile data protocol defined in 3GPP release 7 and capable of providing data rates up to 42 mbps on the downlink and 22 mbps on the uplink. Now tell me that’s not impressive!

Despite the large increase in speed, de la Vega explained that the upgrade won’t require major hardware modifications of their cell towers, and will instead be achieved mostly by means of upgrading the software on already existing electronics.

He also outlined the company’s roadmap up to year 2010, when AT&T plans to offer 700MHz 4G access based on LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard to their customers, again increasing download speeds fivefold and reaching the 100 mbps mark.

The steps to get there are very logical and they’re all building on the same GSM technology that we’ve been using for a while. LTE will allow for backwards compatibility to GSM and HSPA, which is a great benefit to customers. And our path forward to LTE allows us to get there step-by-step, with interim steps that will deliver more and more speeds everyday.

So, what are their competitors doing? Verizon plans to launch their own LTE-based 4G network, and what’s more, to do that before AT&T. Sprint on the other hand teamed up with Clearwire in an attempt to build a nationwide WiMAX network. For those interested, WiMAX offers 70 mbps download AND upload in theory, although the actual speeds are usually much lower like it’s often the case with wireless broadband.

Quoting Mr. de la Vega again, “It’s clear to us that we are in the very early stages of what I would call a wireless data revolution”.
Via: AppleInsider

• AT&T to upgrade its 3G network to HSPA 7.2Mbps
• 3 Scandinavia and Ericsson to launch Europe’s first 21 Mbps network in 2009
• Qualcomm Announces Data Modem Chipset, Capable of 84 Mbps HSPA+ Speeds
• T-Mobile Announces New MiFi, Laptop Stick, and Availability of 42 Mbps 4G
• Sprint announces 17 new WiMax (4G) markets for 2009

The Sky Duke will feature no less than a 2.4-inch QVGA screen, built-in music and video players, a 1.3-megapixel camera and is made from glossy material. So in short, this is a just a low-end handset that offers more of the basic features that can be found on other similarly priced phones.

The difference, however, of the Sky Duke from other low-end/ mid-market handsets is that it offers a Subway Map feature and M-Commerce functionality, although I’m betting that since the handset will only be available in Korea, these features will tailored only for the said country.

The design is at par with a few of Nokia’s or even Sony Ericsson’s latest model handsets but the Duke still carries the distinctive aura of a generic handset. But at least it tries to look good. If you’re in Korea or will be there any time soon, you can have one of these for a measly 400,000 Korean Won or about $403 USD. YOu gotta love the conversion rates.

Read: Press Release

• Nokia 6210s launched in Korea without navigation capabilities
• Nokia X6 coming to South Korea in June
• Sony Ericsson gets into Korea with XPERIA X1
• Samsung to present the world’s first 12MP phone at MWC 2009
• LG is the world’s third largest handset producer, with 100 million phones shipped in 2008