The Full Enchilada

Google seems to want to become a mobile carrier, and it’s not a bad move. First there was “Google Voice”.

Then came the various G google smartphones, Nexus, etc…and ANDROID.

Google then realized “Android Fragmentation” really is a problem and they bought MOTOROLA mobile division, not just for the hardware but very much for coveted patents, after they lost bids for some other lucrative patents (like Nortel’s patents).

HP may want to further help Google and Android if the price is right. Google may very well be interested in purchasing WebOS and acquiring all the Palm patents HP currently owns.

Google may wait to place official bid on T-mobile since what’s the point of driving up the price if government regulatory measures may take AT&T out of the bidding wars? Many think the ATT and T-mobile deal may fall through, with government regulators citing antitrust monopoly fears if they allow it since then they would have a very hard time not allowing Verizon to buyout Sprint which would be the next logical move by the big guys.

If ATT is allowed to buy T-mobile then we’ll have only two major cellphone carriers after Verizon absorbs Sprint PCS. Whereas they would be much more inclined to allow another additional player to enter the business, ie Google. Then Google could bolster T-mobile and they could easily deny any potential Verizon bid or takeover of SPRINT. The end result would be best for everyone, there would still be THREE strong major cellphone carriers to foster good competition, well unless they like playing under the table with each other as LCD panel makers, graphics cards manufacturers and others have been known to do to “fix” prices higher on clueless consumers. (Sure government regulatory divisions love to fine them for such conspiracies, and they do, in the millions of dollars albeit a slam on the wrist considering the profits made by price fixing. It seems to be more of a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship though between these giant law breakers and the regulatory institutions.)

But don’t fight the Google, resistance is futile!

And they’re not so bad either, when’s the last time facebook gave you even a penny for all the advertisement money they made off you? At least google spreads some of the love around!

Have you ever wanted to send a quick text message, of YES or NO? Perhaps you’re in a board meeting and can’t fiddle with finding some microscopic keys on your software keyboard!? It’s simple with the “Doodle Text!” Android App available on the Android Marketplace from http://www.doodletext.com

Well then just Doodle Text! Yes Doodle Text for Android comes to the rescue with an easy way to doodle an quick short answer on your phone and easily send it via MMS sms picture messaging. MMS stands for MultiMedia Message Service, while SMS was simply Short Message Service which supported just text. With Doodle Text you can quickly and easily text doodle photo messages. Just draw or write with your finger quickly and hit send. We do hope they offer a paid version soon without advertising but who can complain about free!

Another great feature is it can let you send text messages from an office with bad phone reception, it can send texts over a WiFi wireless connection instead of the phone network, and this also means you can send out unlimited doodle mms messages for free.

For those who like drawing, painting it has some pretty cool effects also. You have a lot of freedom customizing effects and its really fun, you simply do a long click for a couple seconds on one of the effects which takes you to the customization options. The shader effect lets you choose two different colors to draw with in an interesting way, like candy canes and you can even select two effects and combine them together for even more interesting effects.

So perhaps when you’re also taking a break from Angry Birds, you’ll do some Doodle Texting!

It was time.

I needed a ’smart’ phone. I had an iTouch, so it was going to be Android based not iPhone.

Luckily, even though I was on Tmobile, I wasn’t on a contract. Strangely though, it seems Tmobile stores have no idea about Tmobile.com sales and offers because when I happened to visit a local tmobile store to compare the Samsung Vibrant with the Google G2 and mytouch 4G, nobody told me tmoble.com was offering the Google G2 for free. (yes, with some fine print I’m sure, had to be a new contract etc and likely they wouldn’t waive the $35 activation and may even charge sales tax on highest msrp value around) It was later from home that I found out about the deals from browsing the tmobile website.

Unfortunately, even though I was on contract, I didn’t qualify since tmobile only wanted to offer that to ‘new’ customers, In other words, if I wanted to go from no contract to signing on for a 2year contract, they wanted to charge me $199 for the Google G2 instead of giving it for ‘free’, and yes I talked with Tmobile support. In fact a nice guy there even confirmed for me that, yes, I should do what I was thinking of doing to get the best deal…

What was I thinking? Well, I thought, why not just cancel my current tmobile service, and then go and sign up for a new 2year contract and get a nice FREE smartphone!? I found that BestBuy was giving the Google G2 for FREE also and the deal didn’t end on Cyber Monday like with Tmobile.com though they still charged for $35 activation fee and sales tax on the full price of the phone. This would bring the total cost to about $85 or so….but that’s not a bad price to pay for a brand new tmobile Google G2 phone with keyboard.

Wirefly had similar deals but they didn’t last as long, and what bothered me was that Wirefly seemed to ‘force’ you to buy into the “Unlimited” $30/month data plan. They would not sell you the phone at the advertised $49.99 plus tax without the $30/month data plan, and yes they charged the $35 activation also.

The sweetest deal came by way of Costco. Yes, thank God for Costco. No waiting for mail order, picked it up in store, price was $49.99 plus tax on retail (but their retail number was $399.99 which is set lower than other places) and Costco reimburses the $35 activation. The Google G2 actually was $69.99, but you can get the mytouch 4G for just $49.99 which is just as good if not better, but for the lack of a physical keyboard. So you can walk out of Costco with $86 less but a nice brand new mytoch 4G phone that would cost you about $550 + tax, almost $600 to buy on Amazon unlocked. Initially you do get a assigned a brand new phone number with your new 2year contract, but you can easily get your old number back by requesting it from your carrier. During the process, I once did a live chat with an operative that disconnected on me when I mentioned that it was a bit dishonest to list on their website that ‘A Web service is required in order to access this phone’s Web functionality and features, including Internet access and e-mail.’ when in fact they force you to enjoy those ‘features’ whether you want to or not, ie they won’t let you buy the phone without a data plan. On the other hand as I mentioned, on the phone I had talked to a very honest and helpful gentleman, and later I did talk to a pleasant support person on chat who helped fix some issues.

It is recommended to turn off “Mobile Network” ie 4G/data on the phone if you only have the 200MB/month $10/month plan since 200MB can go by fast and then surplus charges may be exorbitant. Since the phone has wifi, disabling Mobile Network isn’t a big deal if you’re around wifi spots often.

I didn’t explain how I made up my mind between the Samsung Galaxy S/Vibrant (which Costco was selling for $0.01, yes for one penny!), the Google G2 and the mytouch 4G….it will be the next post…so far the phone (mytouch 4G) has been great!

Do you want free calling? Do you want free text messaging? Do you want a new “extra” phone number? Do you want advanced incoming calls management? Do you want to set the order in which your various phones will ring depending on where you are or who is calling you?

Google Voice offers all that and more.

If you’re in a place with bad phone reception whether you’re using Verizon or T-mobile or AT&T(ATT) there’s always a place where the signal won’t work. Well, with Google Voice, if you have Wifi you can still make your calls! Google Voice does not require WIFI to work, you can still use Google Voice from just your PHONE, all you need to do is call your Google Voice phone number that you chose (many area codes are available you can even try to make one with letters that say something ie usual 1800 adverts) and put in your password and then the number you’d like to call. Your call will then not use your phone provider minutes! It will be a FREE call! Same thing with text messaging! I guess you must be crazy not to use it??

The other great thing, is great logging inside the online google voice interface and even SPEECH recognition and transcribing of your voicemails which are forwarded to your phone as text messages (FREE texts that is). You can even easily record phone calls for when you need to record that lying…..

And now that Google Voice is open to everyone you better sign up for it QUICK and reserve your favorite Google Voice phone number!

At CES 2010 Intel unveiled the x86 Moorestown Smartphone running Linux based Moblin OS and sporting two cameras, one in front for video conferencing and one in the back.

DELL is aso introducing their own pda/smartphone with a 5-inch WVGA 800 x 480 touchscreen, 3G, Bluetooth, a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, a microSD slot and a 1,300mAh battery, powered by Android 2.0.

Engadget reports that some prototype European Google Nexus phones in Germany have multi-touch pin and zoom features. The current US Google Nexus one phone lacks multitouch features found on the iphone.

One thing to note, the Google Nexus One does have haptic feedback which is missing on the iphone. Haptic feedback was introduced by HTC on the HTC Touch Pro and some other HTC Windows Mobile phones. On the HTC Pro and other Windows Mobile models, touch feedback was usable in games for a much more immersive experience, making the player be able to really feel, for example, like a ball is actually rolling around on the phone and bouncing off the sidewalls.

Will the iphone get haptic feedback before the US Google Nexus gets multitouch?

Interestingly, supposedly the Google Nexus One (sold at $529 unlocked without subscription plan and $179 with a two year subscription) has about $175 worth of hardware parts inside. How much more would a multi-touch screen add to the cost?

Has google finally brought the iPhone to its knees? The new Nexus One phone definitely has the contours to get the blood going, and the drooling just continues when checking out the specs:
A fast 1Ghz CPU and a huge 3.7″ diagonal AMOLED no less screen that now puts the iphone to shame with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, a 100,000:1 contrast ratio and a blazing fast 1ms response time (better than any computer or TV LCD monitors out there)! Looks like the Nexus One is now “The One”.
Here’s a comparison of the iphone 3GS, the Palm Pre, Motorola Droid, and the new Google Nexus One (Nexus one comes out with lowest price of ownership, cheapest unlimited data, unlimited voice, and unlimited messaging plans):

Nexus One specs
Nexus One flash demo
Processor
Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz
Operating system
Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair)
Capacity
512MB Flash
512MB RAM
4GB Micro SD Card (Expandable to 32 GB)
Location
Assisted global positioning system (AGPS) receiver
Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning
Digital compass
Accelerometer
Size and weight
Height
119mm
Width
59.8mm
Depth
11.5mm
Weight
130 grams w/battery
100g w/o battery
Display
3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen
800 x 480 pixels
100,000:1 typical contrast ratio
1ms typical response rate
Camera & Flash
5 megapixels
Autofocus from 6cm to infinity
2X digital zoom
LED flash
User can include location of photos from phone’s AGPS receiver
Video captured at 720×480 pixels at 20 frames per second or higher, depending on lighting conditions
Cellular & Wireless
UMTS Band 1/4/8 (2100/AWS/900)
HSDPA 7.2Mbps
HSUPA 2Mbps
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n)
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
A2DP stereo Bluetooth
Power and battery
Removable 1400 mAH battery
Charges at 480mA from USB, at 980mA from supplied charger
Talk time
Up to 10 hours on 2G
Up to 7 hours on 3G
Standby time
Up to 290 hours on 2G Up to 250 hours on 3G
Internet use
Up to 5 hours on 3G
Up to 6.5 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback
Up to 7 hours
Audio playback
Up to 20 hours

Google Voice is the newest cool thing no doubt about it. Some of the great features of Google Voice are that you can so easily manage and archive your voicemails, they even get transcribed but the accuracy needs some improvement. I have no doubt it will improve, in fact anyone can ‘donate’ some of their voicemails (continue reading…)