Today Motorola and Boost Mobile announced the Bali, a lightweight flip phone. The Bali sports a 1.3 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, GPS, as well as an mp3 player with external music controls. The Bali also comes with a microSD card slot for adding more storage.
The Motorola Bali is available now from Boost Mobile through retail stores, independent wireless retail locations, or on Boost Mobile’s website. The Bali is priced at $149.99 without taxes, but comes with free shipping.
Verizon has announced its FiveSpot which is a little 3G WiFi hotspot device that allows you to use it anywhere in this world. The FiveSpot lets you get 3G connectivity via Verizon’s CDMA network in the US and also HSPA connectivity from any GSM-based networks around the globe. So, there isn’t a need to buy separate 3G modems if you’ve been traveling between US and other countries.
Inside the US, the data plan from Verizon is definitely not the lowest. It costs $40 a month for a mere 250MB of data and $60/month for 5GB of data. Apparently, the former plan is overpriced. There are also a number of pre-paid plans which are $15 for 100 MB (one day of use), $30 for 300 MB (one week of use), $50 for 1 GB (30 days of use), $80 for 5 GB (30 days of use).
There are also a number of GlobalAccess plans if you’re frequently traveling abroad. Such as a monthly fee of $130 gets you 5GB for use in US and Canada and only 100MB allowance for use in select countries. And also a $220/month plan gets you the same 5GB for North America but only doubles the International data to 200MB.
Anyway, the FiveSpot 3G WiFi hotspot will be available on verizonwireless.com on Oct 7 for a price of $100 after a $100-mail-in rebate. And of course, you’re to be bound by a 2-year contract as well
AT&T today announced the latest member of its Quick Messaging Device lineup, the Sharp FX. The FX features a touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard and comes with a form factor that will remind many of the T-Mobile Sidekick line of devices, which Sharp was largely responsible for manufacturing.
The phone comes equipped with a 2 megapixel camera, a music player that is backed by a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a full HTML capable web browser that takes advantage of the phone’s HSDPA(INFO) 3G download capabilities. The FX also supports AT&T services like AT&T Navigator, AT&T Social Net, and AT&T’s Mobile Email application.
The biggest feather in the FX’s cap, however, might be the AT&T Mobile TV support that it offers, allowing users to watch live digital television broadcasts on the phone’s large 3-inch WQVGA resolution display. The TV service costs an additional $9.99 per month and includes channels like ABC Mobile, CNBC, Comedy Central, and ESPN Mobile TV, among many others.
The Sharp FX is set to go on sale on July 25 in AT&T stores across the country for $99.99 with 2 year agreement, after a $50 mail-in rebate that comes in the form of a debit card. The Sharp FX requires a minimum $20 per month messaging or combination data/messaging add-on plan on top of the monthly voice contract.
Today Motorola and T-Mobile announced the Motorola CHARM, an Android 2.1 powered smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard, a touchscreen, and Motorola’s unique BACKTRACK feature for navigating using a touch-sensitive area on the back of the phone.
The CHARM offers a 2.8-inch display, Adobe Flash enabled web browsing, and a 3 megapixel camera with Kodak Perfect Touch, which Motorola claims to provide better and brighter pictures. The CHARM also offers Motorola’s CrystalTalk PLUS technology that uses two microphones for better voice quality and background noise filtering.
Other features of the CHARM include a 1,170mAh battery that offers up to 5 hours of 3G talk time, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR, and an included 2GB microSD card. The microSD card slot can support 32GB cards, for further expansion.
The CHARM is also a MOTOBLUR device, which means that it’s very tightly integrated with your social networks including Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. You can also upload pictures with one-touch to Facebook, MySpace, Picasa, and PhotoBucket. Widgets are provided on the homescreen for viewing status updates, and your contacts are automatically synced to the phone from the aforementioned social networks, as well as your email and Google accounts.
Motorola says it expects to release the phone, available in golden bronze and cabernet, on T-Mobile USA this summer, but it has not yet announced a price for the smartphone
If you’re the type of person who can’t remember what you did yesterday—let alone a year ago—then you might find the new free Twitter-centric app Tweetago to be an interesting find.
Tweetago is not a Twitter reader, nor is it a Twitter posting portal. Instead, using just your username, Tweetago is able to access your Twitter timeline (public accounts only, please) so you can see what you’ve done in the past. Currently, Tweetago will display tweets you posted on today’s date one year ago, as well as your Twitter activity from the past month, week or day.
There aren’t many extras in Tweetago—the inability to search your Twitter archive for a specific date is frustrating, for example. Because the app doesn’t pull in the other side of Twitter conversations (it shows @ replies), I didn’t gain much from looking at my tweets for the past week or month, but extremely prolific tweeters might feel differently. Tweetago does not require a password, so you can review any user’s public timeline activity through the app.
Tweetago is basic and an app I could live without, but it was an easy way to see what trouble I was getting into in early October 2009 (ahem, Las Vegas) and take a quick jaunt down memory lane. And really, that’s the whole point.
Today Samsung announced the SGH-t359 
(Smiley) phone for T-Mobile USA. The device features a slide-out vertical QWERTY keyboard, dedicated keys for launching applications, and Exchange and personal e-mail support.
The Samsung Smiley comes equipped with a 1.3 megapixel camera, a microSD card slot for up to 16GB microSD cards, and a 1000mAh battery good for up to 5.5 hours of talk time. It also has support for aGPS, visual voicemail, T-Mobile’s web2Go web browser, Bluetooth, and a host of personal information management tools. Like the Gravity 3 and Gravity T, the phone also has T-Mobile Social Buzz installed for keeping up to date with your social networks easily. Social Buzz can run in the background and send pop-up alerts to the homescreen.
The Samsung Smiley is available from T-Mobile today for $19.99 with a 2-year contract.
