Thanks to our fans, word is getting out about how we help save your money and your gadgets! SquareTrade was featured in Gizmodo Friday: SquareTrade's iPhone 3GS Warranty Covers Clumsiness, Stupidity, and Human Nature
....and our updated iPhone study has been featured in TechCrunch: iCrack: The iPhone Is An Accident Magnet
The study has generated quite a buzz! You can view the full study or check out coverage in the news.
We have finally broken the LG, and it has spilled its guts about the LG Secret, third in their Black Label series. We now know everything. Everything!
The carbon fiber clamshell casing, the same material used for the making of aircraft, this is nothing shocking to us. It carries 100MB internal memory, expandable to 4GB with the Micro SD, this is good. We also now know that the Secret auto-synchronises with the PCs via Bluetooth, that its 2.4" touchscreen is resolved at 240 x 320, that it auto-adjusts the screen lighting to ensure readability, and that it auto-rotates the display should we tip the phone on its side. We tipped the phone many, many times to ensure this information is the truth.
BUT! The LG has also made the claim of a 5-megapixel camera AND that it will take the video at 120 frames per the second AND DivX-certified recording AND that this is the thinnest camera in its class in the world. Do we believe this information? Let us say we believe it for now. But as the LG Secret is but 11.8mm thick, we suspect its sensor may not be up to snuff. Our glorious state's photographers assured us under interrogation that the sensor is more important than the megapixels.
Rollout will be in Europe first, blitzkrieging through Asia, South America, and the world in the months following. The LG refuses to tell us how much will be the retail price, but we expect to know this shortly. A SquareTrade warranty will be mandatory for all citizens! Though they may choose whether Accidental Damage coverage is to be added, in case their Secret is... poorly kept.
All citizens reading this document without the proper authorization will be shot! Possibly we should have mentioned this sooner.
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Nokia announced some new toys today at a virtual press event, and while neither has a carrier pick-up yet, we've got high hopes for the bigger of the two: the Nokia XpressMusic 5320.
The smaller one, naturally, is the Nokia XpressMusic 5220, and it looks like it'll be a decent phone at a decent price ($250). The XpressMusic 5320, however, is bringing the 3G (reportedly set to AT&T bands), a 2-megapixel camera, and a new little feature they're calling "Say and Play" to the Nokia roster. And yep, it's exactly what it sounds like... name an artist or song on your playlist and the 5320 cues it right up. Pretty standard for an American car, but a first for Nokia. It's microSD slot will fit your 8GB microSD card nicely.
The 5320 is pricing around $400, and both phones are scheduled for Q3. And you know by now that a SquareTrade cell phone warranty is about half the price of cell phone insurance, right? Right.
If you want the 3G but the 5320 is too rich for your blood, worry not. Boy Genius reports an El Cheapo Nokia 3555 is headed for our shores to run on both AT&T and T-Mobile's 3G networks.
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Whoopsie! Somebody at Motorola's beleaguered mobile division let go of an internal roadmap for nine handsets they plan to launch this year, and only one of them looks vaguely RAZRish.
A few of these - the U9, the W270, the E8 - are already out in one country or another, but the big dog of the pack looks to be the ZN5, a Montavista Linux-run phone (2.6.1) with a 2.4" screen, 5-megapixel camera, TV-Out and a "morphing keypad" that sounds a lot like adaptive touch buttons that change depending on what phone function you're using at the time. Fancy.
We're also curious to learn more about the VE75, a slider with a 2.6" screen, 2-megapixel camera and, most interestingly, dual sim card support. And as far as we can tell, the L800T candybar phone is set to become Motorola's first TD-SCDMA device (that's a Chinese 3G standard, y'all); it sports a 1.9" screen, 2-megapixel camera, GSM/GPRS/TD-SCDMA support, bluetooth, etc.
No dates or prices yet on this stuff, of course... we weren't even suppose to see this stuff, after all. But when they do show up, rest assured that your SquareTrade warranty will probably run you about half what any carrier's insurance plan would. And we won't stick you with a refurb for your money, either.
It's a fairly ambitious roll-out. We'll have to wait and see if it makes a dent in Motorola's recent financial woes.
More details at Uberphones.
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Yep, the Verizon Wireless XV6900 just dropped and is currently available on Verizon's website in a cool, clean, almost Apple-ish white package. And baby, it's all about the Touching.
It boasts, for example, Verizon's patented TouchFLO Technology on that 2.8" touchscreen, which includes a virtual QWERTY touch keyboard, though basic navigation is done by its also-patented Touch Cube (or "control pad," as we call it). Windows Mobile 6 Professional runs the show on a 256MB hard drive, expandable to 8GB if you fork out for the right microSD card, with a 2.0-megapixel camera, broadband and Bluetooth access, and 210 minutes talk-time on a standard battery (upgradeable to 360) rounding out the already-rounded touch package.
The "online deal" knocks $100 off the price, and another $50 rebate means you can put this baby in your pocket for about $250, plus the obligatory two year contract. That also means its 3-Year SquareTrade warranty will run you $30, or ten bucks a year, or a little more if you want Accidental Damage coverage to go with that. Three years of Verizon's cell phone insurance? Starts at $72, and goes up exponentially from there. And our service has better customer reviews.
The real mystery is why Verizon thinks they need to put "wireless" to the XV6900's name. Is anybody going to think it comes with a cord?
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What's this? New T-Mobile blog TmoNews is reportedly flashing the first pictures of the brand new T-Mobile Shadow II.
There's no spec list yet, but indications are we're looking at more-or-less the same Shadow in a glossier, rounded package. We're assuming there's still a numeric slider under there somewhere (seriously doubting that's a touchpad) but you never know... maybe it's actually a QWERTY hiding under the revamped My Faves graphic.
TmoNews also reports that the Shadow II will be on T-Mobile's Hotspot@Home program, meaning it'll cheerfully snipe any unsecured WiFi (or from any router you've got the key for) and run off that instead of eating up your precious minutes (i.e. when you spare T-Mobile's slammed network). 3G? Not holding our breaths. But your 3-Year SquareTrade warranty's guaranteed to cost less that three years of cell phone insurance, and it'll almost certainly be less frustrating. After all, you'll get cash back on a claim with us. They'll just stick you with a refurb at best.
No price on these yet, but the T's super-secret plan calls for releasing it before the kids are back in school.
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Here's some welcome news: the Sony Ericsson Z750a, their first tri-band HSDPA cell phone, is about to make high-speed 3G phones an option for everybody. See? We told you everything would be way cooler in The Future.
The Z750a basically hitches a ride on AT&T's High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 3G network (clocking in at 600 to 1400 kbps) and they'll support AT&T's Mobile Email in the bargain. Otherwise, it's a fairly sturdy beast... 2-megapixel camera (no flash), 26MB onboard memory, upgradable to 8GB with the right card, which you'd definitely want if you plan to load it full of music, video, and Sony's promised 3D games. Plus it has those cool through-the-clamshell displays we're big suckers for.
Our only regret is that we couldn't find a photo of the Mysterious Purple model. You'll have to settle for Phantom Gray (Rose Pink is out there, too).
The Z750a is due for release in early April, at the price of $150... but it's coming with a $100 rebate, so you can put it in your pocket for only $50. And that's when you blow off any kind of cell phone insurance and get your 3-Year SquareTrade warranty for just six bucks. Hell, AT&T charges almost that much for one month.
So rejoice! We can all join the 21st Century on a budget now!
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AT&T wisely decided to not call their mobile television service
MediaFLO, with its toilet-flushing connotations, and has gone with AT&T Mobile TV instead. What it lacks in pizzazz, it more than makes up in descriptiveness. And they've finally announced what phones you'll get it on.
We all knew the Prada-like LG Vu would be one, and now it's come clear that the Samsung Access is the other. The Vu is definitely the sports car of the pair, with a wide touchscreen, a 2-megapixel camera, HSDPA, and a microSD slot. Samsung's Access is likely the budget option, with a much smaller screen and 1.3-megapixel camera.
AT&T Mobile TV launches with the standard eight chan nels, plus two exclusives to make it different from Verizon's much cooler-sounding VCAST. We don't know what they are, or what subscriptions will be (it's AT&T, so expect bundles), but that info's bound to show up soon given that these phones are both slated for release within the next month.
Naturally, you can put a SquareTrade warranty on these for about half what AT&T's insurance will run you... assuming AT&T offers insurance, which is not an assumption we'd make with a smart phone. They're tricky that way, sometimes.
All we can say is Thank Goodness we won't miss The Price Is Right anymore just because we're at work.
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Somehow, we don't think Asia's smarting over the whole "you don't get no iPhone" thing, particularly when Samsung's out there upping the game with their new Anycall Haptic SCH-W420 smart phone.
Sure, there's the 2-megapixel camera and the Bluetooth 2.0 connectivitiy, but that's not what we're here for, now is it? No, we want that 3.2" touch-screen, and considering there are only three teeny physical buttons on the whole phone, it's a given that just about everything is going to happen there.
Then there's that haptic feedback, which doesn't just let you know when you're actually touching a control... there's a 22-sound/vibration vocabulary the Anycall Haptic uses to let you know which controls you're touching and what's happening when you touch them, and that's just five kinds of clever. We approve. And they've loaded their new TouchWiz UI onto it with its drag-and-drop customizable widget set, which we've only heard good things about.
Of course, it's only available in Korea at the moment - so any SquareTrade warranty you get for one will be on the unlocked model you bought on eBay - but c'mon now, Samsung... you're really asking $700-$800 for these things? Let's see you try that in America!
Please?
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The last time we talked about the Nokia N95 8GB smartphone, it was New Year's Eve and we were already bleary-eyed and stunned by the grandeur of its feature set, and even more stunned by its ginormous price tag. Well, now that it's officially here, that $700 estimate has been revised... upward.
Yes. We couldn't believe it, either.
Nevertheless, Nokia is presenting a top-end slider (without a QWERTY keyboard or touch-screen, we have to mention) for the going rate of $750.
What do you get for that stack of cash? For starters, a super-fast HSDPA connection that might actually make downloading movies to your cell phone a practical endeavor, and the 2.8 inch QVGA screen will make it look really good despite the shrinkage. There's also a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and voice-directed GPS functions, and just for laughs, Nokia's throwing in a free 6-month A-GPS subscription, too.
Early reviews are calling the N95 8GB a very, very, very good phone, but we're stuck on $750 price tag. You could get three refurbished 8GB iPhones for that kind of cash! But if you do want the Holiest of Holies, seriously consider putting a SquareTrade warranty on it, with Accidental Damage coverage... that's way too much money to loose because somebody bumps you while you're crossing the street.
Final verdict: it's one sweet piece of gadget, but daaaaaaaaamn!
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