SquareTrade Warranty Blog

Watch out iPhone, the BlackBerry goes BOLD.

Bringing sexy back.  BlackBerry takes on the iPhone with the new BlackBerry Bold (BlackBerry 9000), boasting a more powerful 624MHz Intel PXA270 processor (previous BlackBerrys had 312MHz processors).  Weighing in at 4.7 ounces and at 4.5 inches tall by 2.6 inches wide by half an inch deep, the BlackBerry Bold features a half-VGA (480x320 pixel resolution) and a 65,000-color display along with 1G of memory built in.  Rumor has it that the BlackBery Bold was designed to interest C-level executives with a 3G device that has GPS and Wi-Fi, but everyone can appreciate that the device is iTunes-compatible.  And for the snap-happy, there's the requisite digicam (2-MP) with a "flash" LED light, of course. 

You can find the BlackBerry Bold this summer at AT&T carriers (with more carriers to be announced) for around $300-$400.  For an additional $35.99-$47.99, you can protect your new purchase with 3 years of warranty coverage with SquareTrade.  Or better yet, protected it from accidental damage from handling at only $74.99-$99.99 for 3 years!  It could use a little extra protection - take this CrackBerry music video for example.

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One more thing - Steve Jobs is expected to announce the 3G iPhone at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, 2008 so you might want to wait for the dramatic unveiling of the new 3G iPhone.  Excited yet?  Personally, I can't wait for that iTunes "security update" which will mysteriously render the BlackBerry Bold's iTunes-to-Blackberry-sync useless.  Three cheers for competition! 

Super-Cheap AT&T smartphones at Amazon!

Hope you haven't gone out and bought a BlackBerry Curve lately, because Amazon just posted a sale where every single AT&T smartphone (sans iPhone, naturally) now costs just one cent.

Some of these are priced at one cent, and some are done through full-price rebates, but the deals include things like the Pantech Duo, the AT&T Tilt, the BlackBerry Curve, Curve Titanium, Pearl, and 8820, the Palm Treo, Samsung Blackjacks, LG Shine, and a whole mess of RAZRs if you're so inclined.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  You can even get a $75 rebate on that one-cent Curve Titanium with a plan activation, so they'll pay you $75 to get the phone. 

And naturally, you can put a 3-Year SquareTrade warranty on any or all of these for about half what AT&T would charge you for cell phone insurance... assuming they offer it on these phones.  We know they don't on the BlackBerrys.  Check out our reviews if you like... we sure would.

This is Amazon, after all, so there's no telling how long this is going to last.  They'll change it the second they feel like changing it.

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Motorola Roadmap leaked.

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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The Verizon XV6900 is here to white up your life.

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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Samsung's Instinct seems dull, may get sharper.

Samsung's not copying the iPhone, they're responding to market demands.  Ah, so that's why the (distinctly iPhone-ish) Samsung Instinct got a red carpet roll-out at CTIA and a $100 million ad campaign to sell it to every man, woman and child on Earth.  Good thing it's all coming off without a hitch... except for a few hitches.

No lie, Samsung's made a nice looking phone, and the Instinct is bringing an iPhoney candy bar in for under $300 retail (they're not quoting exact prices just yet).  That's a fairly major achievement.  It's built to run on Sprint's EV-DO Rev A broadband, packs a 2.0-megapixel camera, and has a microSD slot that takes it up to 8GB of memory.  Music, email, internet, games: check.

It's also sporting a haptic feedback system - something the iPhone sorely lacks - that makes typing on the virtual keyboard much easer, though we're hearing the touch interface is a little sticky sometimes.  There's also some weird things going on with the UI, like mandatory portrait views for navigation and landscape for web browsing, where the iPhone lets you switch on the fly. 

Viewing a webpage has its own special trick: you tilt the phone to scroll up, down, left, right.  Except the Instinct uses a camera to detect tilts, not an accelerometer, so people who initially tested it out in the dark and dangerous CTIA exhibition hall couldn't get it to scroll no matter how much they shook the stupid thing.  But Gizmodo just put up a video proving it does indeed work.  Under optimum lighting conditions, anyway.

The Instinct will hit the mainstream this summer, by which time Samsung's expected to hammer out the kinks.  If they can do it, you're looking at an under-$300 iPhone that's not slaved to AT&T, and if anyone survives the marketing push, that could equal a RAZR-like splash.  You even won't have to jailbreak it, so you'll get the full 3 Year SquareTrade warranty, and Accidental Damage coverage will be an option (not the case on unlocked phones). 

We've got our fingers crossed on this one.  Inexpensive coolness appeals to our cheap and fickle hearts.

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AT&T Mobile TV has mobiles to be mobile on.

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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Samsung's Anycall Haptic wants Asia's iPhone Cash.

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 Nokia N95 8GB gets shipped and (Holy Crap!) tagged.

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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Pantech Duo and LG Trax go Refurb at AT&T.

Well, that didn't take long.  AT&T's been offloading their surplus refurbished phones at a steep discount for a while now, but they just threw a bunch of G3 network smartphones up onto the refurb list, and wouldn't you know, the Pantech Duo is one of them.  Didn't it only come out five months ago?

This is the neat-looking Windows Mobile dual slider phone that came out late last year, with a vertical slide for the dialpad and horizontal slide for the QWERTY keyboard.  It's load-out includes a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, quad-band support, and that lovely HSDPA-level 3G network, which also gives you access to broadband goodies like AT&T Music and Cellular Video, including live mobile TV, all at iPhone-dusting speeds.  The refurb's $99 with a two year contract, half what a new Duo runs.

If the Duo's a little to plastic for your tastes, there's also the slightly older LG Trax.  It's got pretty much the same feature set, but crammed in a mirror-finish flip-phone without the QWERTY.  It's $230 new, and Free as a refurb with the two-year contract.

Again, these are cheap options for people who want the (second hand) latest and greatest, but it's strictly Buyer Beware.  If you stick with AT&T for insurance, you'll be stuck with refurbs until your contract runs out.  A SquareTrade cell phone warranty will run you half their price, and pays out in cash so you can choose your next phone yourself, instead of taking whatever they decide to send you. 

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The Blackberry Pearl 8120 now playing for Team U.S.A.

That's right, you smug Europeans who get all the cool stuff before we do... the Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerry Pearl 8120 has been liberated and is coming to our glorious shores well ahead of schedule, courtesy of AT&T.

The second-generation Pearl 8120 replaces the now refurb-only Blackberry 8100 with a few not-so-subtle updates... that Wi-Fi, which bumps it up into the 8800 and 8820 range, being the first.  It also ups the camera megapixels from 1.3 to 2.0 and adds video capture to the mix, upgrades to a better web browser, lasts longer on a single battery charge, and has the minty-fresh scent of pine.  Okay, maybe it's just our Blackberrys that smell like that.

If your old Blackberry is looking a bit dowdy and you're willing to part with $200 with a two-year contract, you should be able to score the 8120 within the next few days.  And when you do, consider that AT&T won't offer you any cell phone insurance for it, even as overpriced as it is, but you can put a 3-Year SquareTrade smart phone warranty on it for just $24... a bit more if you want Accidental Damage coverage.  Up to you.

Next on our list of things to take from Europe's greedy paws: universal health care!

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