US Mobile Industry

Guess what everybody, I’m coming to SF and I’m putting a party together.  Nimbuzz, Attack Marketing, and GoMo News are sponsoring and we have a great lineup of stuff going on.  We have beta apps to give out, product launches and announcements coming.  In less then the 24 hours the event has been public we have more then 50 people coming.  You don’t want to miss out so head over to ourFacebook page or if you don’t have FB then out to EventBrite and RSVP.

The details are that it’s this coming Tuesday Nov. 10 at the Thirsty Bear in SF.  The address is 661 Howard St. and we will be there from 6:30pm till at least 9pm.

Thanks to our sponsors above and our media sponsors: GoMo News, Into Mobile, PhoneDog, Brilliant Expos,GuerillaSushi, MobileBeyond and US Mobile Industry

Don’t forget, this is a BrilliantExpos production…. That’s our good buddy Jeb Brilliant!

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In this episode of tlkng wth tnkgrl we discuss the missing Nokia N900, N86, HTC Touch Pro 2, Samsung Reclaim, and more!  We’re trying to talk faster and cram in more stuff.

This was filmed last weekend, and editing HD footage down to web sized (500MB) videos still sucks.  It took me 10 renders to get this the right size with decent quality.  It’s back to SD for me!  Enjoy.

Special thanks goes out to tnkgrl of tnkgrl Mobile. You can find the audio version of twtg16 on tnkgrl’s site!

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Truphone, an awesome VoIP company which has long supported S60 devices, is launching Truphone Local Anywhere. The service will give you a local phone number in many countries that Truphone supports, and now includes a SIM card which roams.

Here’s the senario : You’re a hipster international Jet-setter travel type. You’re in a different country every week, but you’re meeting with locals. They don’t want to call you on an international number, and you don’t want to take the expense of roaming charges. Truphone allows VoIP (Voice over IP, really voice over your unlimited data connection on your mobile device), but you still need a data plan that isn’t too expensive while roaming.

Truphone Local Anywhere solves that problem. It’ll give you a local phone number in any country they support, and allow for roaming data that won’t kill your budget. Oh yeah, it also works great with Google Voice I’m told, so your local phone calls get forwarded. Check out the fluffy marketing video below. Does this solve your problems?

I’m not sure if this combination will let you drop your main carrier yet, but I’m always looking for disruptive technologies like that. How’s your Truphone experience been? Leave a comment, and let us know!

–via @JebBrilliant on Twitter

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I was given a Samsung i8910 to try out for a week. I really liked it! I filmed this review right before we left for the N97 24/7 Across the USA Tour, and I felt guilty posting a Samsung review while on tour for Nokia. See how hard my life is?

And here’s a demo video filmed with the i8910. This was filmed before the big AMR update, so the device may get better frame rates now.

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talking with tnkgrl, featuring tnkgrl of tnkgrl Mobile and matthew bennett of usmobileindustry.com. In this episode we talk about the HTC Touch Pro/Fuze, the Nokia E75, the upcoming June Tsunami and a MOBILETRON 0.1 wrapup.

Filmed at Cafe Flore in San Francisco on a Nokia N95.

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The N97 is finally available for pre-order.  The cost is $699 in the US, and you’ll get a free BH-703 Bluetooth headset with it if you pre-order.  For that price, you can buy an N95 and an E71.  

Will you be pre-ordering the N97?  I’m on the fence.  I’ve been lusting after this device since October of last year, but that’s a big chunk of chedder.  I already own the almost-perfect N95-NAM, and I feel like the main thing I’d be gaining is the qwerty keyboard.  The built-in 32GB of storage would also be a big selling point for me, as I shoot a lot of video on my devices.

The 5MP camera may not be that much of an upgrade from my N95.  The lens is a little different, and more “fish-eyed”.  The N97’s camera will likely start-up, focus, and jump shot-to-shot faster than my N95.  The N97’s video editor is much waeker than the N95-NAM.  The N97 supports cut, merge, and title creation only, while the N95 has a full timeline based editor.  Is there any device with a better video editor than the N95-NAM?  Please let me know, because I don’t know of any.

What else would I gain?  S60V5 is touch of course, and the N97 will be context aware widgets to the platform.  I’m not totally sold on the touch interface; I’ve been using it on my 5800 XpressMusic.  Switching between the onboard keyboard is the most annoying part, so the physical keyboard of the N97 should be a nice fix.

Leave a comment, and let us know.  Are you gonna pre-order the N97 for $699?  Should I, so I can review it for you?

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One of the biggest complaints against S60 5th Edition is the lack of software. Sure most of the S60 3rd Ed software will run, some quite well. Be we’re looking for software that uses the touch interface and the full screen size, not some half-screen barely works sometimes warmed over port.

Answering the call for more software, the excellent site Tube5800.com has stepped up with their list of 100 games for the 5800, all with free trials! I had no idea there were this many games out for the 5800. Extra thanks to Tube5800 for doing the excellent digging!

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tlkng wth tnkgrl #9 from US Mobile Industry on Vimeo.

Here we talk about the devices from CTIA. The Nokia N86, OmniaHD, N97, Palm Pre, and more! Filmed on Easter in San Francisco, California on a Nokia N95.

Check out tnkgrl Mobile now! You can find the uncensored, unedited audio version here.

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This is a guest post by MobileDan.  Dan lives in NY, and does most of his computing on a mobile Nokia device.  This article is in responce to an earlier post of mine, E71x Comes to at&t, Nokia Fans Run Like Hell.

I would like to add my thoughts… If I may Matthew…

I would like to point out, as I gathered, and I may be missing something…

Howard Forums has a running thread, and all that I was able to get out of it was from a user “sr1329″ who stated

“The one thing FP2 brings is a whole new access point management system that can switch from 3G to a known Wi-FI access point if you get close to one. Where it fails is that when you leave the range of that access point it isn’t very good about switching you back to 3G. It will just say connection dropped or something like that. The next time you access data it will ask you again for the access point you want to use. “

Let’s do a comparison for $hits and giggles…

Mobile user “A” purchases a brand new E71x from AT&T with a 2 year contract for $99 for the actual unit and the required data plan of $30 per month your total cost(leaving voice out because we’re assuming that Mobile user “A” and “B” will be getting the same voice plan) would be $819.99 ($99.99 for the unit, PLUS the additional $720 for just data alone, )

Compared to

Mobile user “B” (the smart and savvy shopper who purchased their unit “unlocked” from, say… Dell.com for $340)

Mobile user “B” purchases the unit, unlocked for $340, at a much higher price then user “A” of $240.01 but aside from the FP 2 I can’t see why there is THAT much of a difference, when the ends justify the means… Let’s examine further… Shall we?

Mobile user “B” now has to purchase a rate plan (we’re assuming the same rate plan as user “A” here, so the difference is the data plan…) user “B” can purchase the $15 data plan, for the same unlimited data as user “A” above for a total cost over the 2 years of the contract of $700 ($340 for the unit, PLUS the additional $360 for just the data alone…)

Wait! Did user “A” pay $720 over the 2 years and user “B” only paid $360 FOR THE SAME DATA? another example of why it pays to be a smart shopper… they give it to you cheap in the front, but you take it in the rear!

AT&T DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW THS!

Come on people, When will you wake up? Sure, What’s a little $119.99 over 2 years when you can get FP2 on your E71?

Well, what’s to say that Nokia can’t do an OTA (Over The Air) update?

plus, you won’t have the AT&T branding of, disabled Nokia keys, un-movable (or deletable) menu items…

The device was made in such a way for a reason…

If you want it cheap, and as a knock-off, (which is how I view branded devices)

Then please buy this unit

Sincerely yours…

MobileDan

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Here at CTIA, Julien Fourgeaud from Nokia gave us a nice 15 minute walkthrough of the N97’s hardware, homescreen, widgets and WRT.  tnkgrl and I were both filming, but we’re presenting the entire video uncut.  The N97 firmware is shaping up nicely, and getting prettier every time I see it.  The widgets are pretty nice, as they take your A/GPS context into account to bring you up to the minute data on your contacts and relevant to your location.

Now, go watch the video!

N97 Exclusive Walkthrough CTIA from US Mobile Industry on Vimeo.

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