Filed under: Cellphones

With LTE a few years out yet, Alltel needs something to get it over the 3.5G hump — and seeing how it’s presently a CDMA carrier, you can pretty much guess where this is going. Sure enough, Verizon’s newest partner in crime has announced that the rollout of its EV-DO Rev. A upgrade is now underway, promising a bump in downlink speeds from 400-700kbps on the existing Rev. 0 network to somewhere between 600kbps and 1.4Mbps. Uplink speeds are where Rev. A really shines, though, blazing as much as ten times faster than it did before — 800kbps on a good day with bursts of up to 1.8Mbps. Two data cards are being offered to take advantage of the service — one from Huawei and one from UTStarcom — while compatible handsets currently include the HTC PPC6800 and Touch. The rollout is targeted for “select markets” right now — Charlotte, New Orleans, Phoenix and Tampa among a total of 18 — with overall EV-DO coverage continuing to expand as well; Alltel’s targeting 82 percent of its footprint to be upgraded by year’s end.

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Filed under: Cellphones

With LTE a few years out yet, Alltel needs something to get it over the 3.5G hump — and seeing how it’s presently a CDMA carrier, you can pretty much guess where this is going. Sure enough, Verizon’s newest partner in crime has announced that the rollout of its EV-DO Rev. A upgrade is now underway, promising a bump in downlink speeds from 400-700kbps on the existing Rev. 0 network to somewhere between 600kbps and 1.4Mbps. Uplink speeds are where Rev. A really shines, though, blazing as much as ten times faster than it did before — 800kbps on a good day with bursts of up to 1.8Mbps. Two data cards are being offered to take advantage of the service — one from Huawei and one from UTStarcom — while compatible handsets currently include the HTC PPC6800 and Touch. The rollout is targeted for “select markets” right now — Charlotte, New Orleans, Phoenix and Tampa among a total of 18 — with overall EV-DO coverage continuing to expand as well; Alltel’s targeting 82 percent of its footprint to be upgraded by year’s end.

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Filed under: Laptops, Wireless

It’s not all just cellphones at Mobile World Congress — HP and Qualcomm have just announced plans to ship laptops with Qualcomm’s Gobi dual-3G chipset that supports both EV-DO and HSPA. That means you won’t be locked into a carrier when you buy a laptop with an integrated WWAN modem — and hardcore road warriors with multiple subscriptions will even be able to switch on the fly to the network with better coverage. HP says Gobi (officially the MDM1000 chip, but that’s no fun) will be available on a range of laptops from ultraportables to high-performance models later this year, but there’s no word on pricing just yet — let’s hope it falls into the “might as well” range, eh?

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Filed under: Handhelds

Although the article doesn’t contain much more information about the Amazon Kindle that we hadn’t seen before, Newsweek’s cover story on the device is the first official confirmation that the device exists. Featuring an interview with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the article lays down the feature set — $399, 6-inch E-ink screen, no backlight, EV-DO “Whispernet” on Sprint for over the air book purchases — and the company’s vision for digital books replacing “the last bastion of analog.” Books will go for $9.99, and users can even subscribe to newspapers and “select blogs” for monthly fees. Also news is that the Kindle gets 30 hours of battery life, and can fully recharge in only two. One thing’s for sure, this is looking way more compelling a package than previous attempts at the eBook idea.

[Thanks, Alex]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Wireless, Networking

While Kyocera’s old KR1 EV-DO router should still get the basic job done just fine, those looking for a few new features may want to consider the company’s just-announced KR2 model, which brings the router up to date with some of the latest and greatest specs. Chief among those is support for 802.11n WiFi, as well as support for an expanded range of EV-DO devices, including various PCMCIA cards, ExpressCards, and USB devices. Otherwise you’ll get the usual four Ethernet ports to connect the odd non-WiFi device, an “industry leading” firewall, over the air updates, and a fail-over capability that’ll automatically kick the EV-DO into gear if your DSL or cable connection drops out. No word on what it’ll cost, but it’s apparently “coming soon.”

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Features

Well, here’s the shiny little Centro, in all its slightly-less-than-breathtaking beauty. Truth be told, the phone doesn’t look or feel too bad — we still don’t get the gray stripe through the middle, but what can you do? The keyboard is unbelievably tiny, but we’ll take it where we can get it. The surface of the cherry red or metallic black phone is quite slick, and we suspect will go tumbling out of sweaty hands like gang busters. Of course, the EV-DO connection was snappy, but the thing we’re most stoked about is the fact that Palm has finally eliminated that 2-pixel border around the screen. Hey, no new OS… but that border is gone. The Centro is due mid-October for the shockingly low price of $99.99, which should help push more than a couple of these out the door. Hit the gallery and check out all the hot photos.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!