News

Nokia has announced the Comes With Music edition of the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic. Consumers who purchase this special edition will be allowed unlimited downloads in Nokia's Music Store for one year.

Nokia has not yet provided pricing or availability information on the new Comes With Music version of the 5310 XpressMusic.

Sprint and Motorola have announced the Motorola V950 Renegade. The phone comes in a black color scheme and features a 2 megapixel camera with video capture, a microSD card slot for extra storage and a built-in GPS receiver.

The V950 supports the Direct Connect walkie-talkie service for instant communication with friends and co-workers and also supports the Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV, and Sprint Mobile Sync.

The V950 Renegade is available today, priced at $129.99 with a 2-year commitment and a mail-in rebate.

It seems that the BlackBerry 9530 Thunder is headed to Verizon Wireless in the USA with a different name: 9530 Storm. The phone comes with a 8GB microSD memory card as well as a wired pair of 3.5mm stereo headphones and features a SIM card slot and support for some GSM networks.

The handset is rumoured to ship in mid-October.

Sony Ericsson has announced the relaunch of its PlayNow Arena, which offers users quick access to mobile games, applications, and, more importantly, music.

It offers a catalog of 1 million music tracks from the major record labels, including Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI.

The Sony Ericsson PlayNow Arena's music will be sold DRM-free, meaning that they can be transferred and played back on any MP3 player, without restrictions. Pricing is roughly in line with other mobile music offerings. Tracks sold in Sweden, for example, will cost SEK9 (US$1.40). Sony Ericsson plans to expand PlayNow Arena to 5 million tracks and global availability by 2009.

A fuzzy image of a Verizon slide discussing the company's mobile email service shows that the carrier plans to launch several new handsets over the next few months, all of which will support its Mobile Email application. The unannounced Motorola VU30 Rapture appears to be the next to launch, on September 9th, followed by the Samsung U440, LG VX8360, Motorola V6c, and Nokia 7205 later in the year.

Verizon's Mobile Email application allows users to access their web-based email directly from their cell phone, with free alerts for incoming mail.

AT&T announced the new CB630 Invision from LG. This candybar cell phone comes with a low-end 1.3 megapixel camera and support for AT&T's Video Share video calling service.

The LG CB630 Invision is said to be available in stores and online and pricing is set at $99.99 with a 2-year commitment, after $50 mail-in rebate.

On Monday AT&T announced new international data roaming plans. The new international data plan for smartphone users provides 50MB of data usage and costs $59.99/month. Travelers using a LaptopConnect card are allowed 5GB of data in the U.S. and 200MB of international usage for $229.99/month.

The company also announced an increasing roaming coverage, now topping 150 different countries. The number of cruise ships covered also rose from 75 to 120.

T-Mobile will launch its new Family Allowances service in August. This service allows parents to control how much money family members are allowed to spend on T-Mobile services on a monthly basis as well as control other aspects of phone use. they can limit the number of talk minutes, messages, and downloads (games, ringtones, etc) that a family member can access in a month.

A phone will still be able to access normally available "unlimited" features that the family plan might have access to, such as MyFaves or free mobile-to-mobile minutes.

A service can be completely disabled by setting its limit to 0, and the system also provides parents with a way to block voice and messaging to the family from specific numbers.

The service will go online sometime in August for $2 per month. T-Mobile has not said how long that introduction rate will be available, though.

Sprint has lost a California lawsuit regarding its Early Termination Fees (ETFs). The court found that Sprint's practice of charging customers an ETF for canceling their contract early to be unlawful and has ordered the carrier to pay $73 million to its former customers.

All carriers who require customers to sign up for a contract on their cell phone service utilize ETFs to deter customers from canceling the contract early. This court decision sets a new precedence and will affect other lawsuits against other mobile operators. Sprint is reviewing the findings and will have an opportunity to respond.

The FCC has recently approved a new version of the HTC Touch Diamond dubbed the 'DIAM110'. It supports dual-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850/1900MHz) and features a large touchscreen display and 3.2 megapixel camera.

HTC's finger-friendly TouchFLO user interface makes using the handset a breeze, and Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional allows the handset to keep you organized on the go.