Posts tagged att
The Teen Review: AT&T HTC Inspire 4G
Mar 9th
The first two months of 2011 have been pretty big ones for AT&T– first in January they announced their first three 4G phones at CES and then releasing the first two of them last month—the HTC Inspire 4G and the Motorola Atrix 4G. For the last two weeks we’ve been testing the first of AT&T’s 4G phones, the HTC Inspire 4G, and we gotta say for the carriers first 4G phone its pretty impressive.
What are you waiting for? Read on for our full teen review.
Watch March Maddness Live From Your iPhone, iTouch or iPad This Year– For Free (UPDATE– It’s Out)
Mar 3rd
The new March Madness On Demand for iPad
If you’re a crazy basketball fan like me, March Madness is one of the most exciting times of the year. Incredible basketball games pretty much 24 hours straight back to back to back, crazy Cinderella runs, and of course, brackets. For the past few years CBS, who broadcasts the games on TV, has allowed free streaming of all the games online while at the same time offering apps with the same feature on iOS for $10 if you wanted to watch the Madness on the go.
Now of course paying $10 for something that’s free on your computer (and which only lasts a few weeks) is pretty annoying to say the least, but thankfully for any college basketball fan (or someone who’s even moderately interested in seeing if they’ll win their pool) CBS has made this a ton easier this year; well at least for iOS users. Yup, this year you can catch all of March Madness right from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch– for free (and yes, there will be an optimized iPad app in addition to the iPhone/iPod touch app as you can see in the pic above). Sorry Android and any non-iOS users, no word about if you guys will get this just yet (though now that Android has Flash, we don’t see why the normal CBS Sports site wouldn’t work and let you stream games to your phone or tablet that way).
The free app isn’t on the App Store yet, but with Selection Sunday only 10 days away we should see it any day now and we’ll make sure to let you know once its out.
Enjoy fellow basketball fans, and try not to look completely distracted while you watch the games under your desk.
UPDATE: And it’s out. You can now download the app for free for your iPhone, iTouch or iPad from iTunes. Enjoy and good luck with your brackets!
[More info at Media Memo]
Atrix 4G Launch Date Pushed Up– Now Launching Next Week
Feb 17th
Counting down the day until you can get your hands on AT&T’s hottest new 4G phone, the Atrix 4G, comes out? Well, awesome news– prepare to knock two weeks off that countdown as AT&T has just announced that the superphone will be coming much earlier than initially announced: next Tuesday the 22nd as opposed to the previously announced March 6th date.
Price is still $199 with new 2 year contract and data plan, with the same option to buy the laptop dock and phone for $500 with tethering data plan. Anyone going out on Tuesday to pick this beast up?
Ask TeensTalkTech: Should You Buy the Verizon iPhone?
Feb 17th
Ask TeensTalkTech is where we try to answer your questions on technology– from computer problems to cell phone questions and everything in between. Have any questions of your own? Either comment below, email us at ask@teenstalktech.com or tweet us (@teenstalktech) and we’ll try to answer them in a future post!
The Verizon iPhone, it’s finally here. After years of begging, wishing, praying and waiting the end of AT&T’s exclusive control of Apple’s iconic cell phone has finally come to an end. This is the what people on Verizon have been waiting for years for.
Now don’t get me wrong this is a very big for both Verizon and AT&T– Verizon gets the device everyone’s been waiting for, and AT&T finally gets rid of those people who keep bashing their network (which personally I’m the most excited for. If all these people leave AT&T and they are the ones that constantly are using up data and slowing up the network for the rest of us, it means AT&T should only get better and faster than before); and of course for anyone on any carrier this means even more competition which should hopefully lead to much better phones and plans.
We’ve been receiving a ton of questions recently on whether you should buy an iPhone 4 on Verizon no, and personally, I’d say no. Here’s why.
HTC Announces 2 New Facebook Phones Coming to AT&T Later This Year
Feb 15th
The HTC ChaCha
Remember how last year we wrote about all this talk of Facebook actually making dedicated Facebook phones? Well, contrary to Facebook’s denial of such things last year it looks like there are gonna be some special Facebook-focused phones coming later this year to AT&T thanks to HTC.
Today at MWC HTC took the wraps off of these two new phones– the ChaCha (pic above) and the Salsa (pic below), two Android powered phones with as you’d expect, a heavy emphasis on Facebook.
The Facebook loving HTC Salsa
The Salsa looks a lot like any other HTC phone with a sleek 3.4 inch all touchscreen design, while the ChaCha looks more “BlackBerry-ish” with its full physical QWERTY keyboard underneath its smaller 2.6 inch touchscreen. Both phones also feature a dedicated Facebook button on the bottom of their respective designs for one-touch Facebook sharing. One tap of that button and you can instantly share whatever you’re doing– what song your listening to, what restaurant you just “checked-in at” or what website you just looked at– with all your Facebook friends.
Specs wise both are pretty similar: Both have a 5-megapixel back camera with auto focus and LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera for video chat, Android with HTC Sense (including new widgets for Facebook chatting from the homescreen), 600 MHZ processors (not gonna be EVO or ThunderBolt fast, but should be more than enough for constantly updating your Facebook all day. And this lower processor speed should allow for much better battery life so you can stay connected even longer), and a 480 x 320 resolution screen (again not as powerful as HTC’s other Android phones, but more than enough for the target goal of Facebooking 24/7).
The question is though, can this succeed where the Microsoft KIN phones failed? I mean, if the price is similar to what AT&T is charging for an iPhone, BlackBerry, Inspire 4G or Atrix 4G wouldn’t you just want to go with the much more powerful phone and use the very good iOS, BlackBerry or Android Facebook apps that millions are currently using today? Personally, unless there is some special data plan (this is where I think the KIN really failed– smartphone price for a phone that clearly wasn’t a smartphone) that makes monthly data cheaper on these phones compared to those “normal” AT&T smartphones I’d go with a normal smartphone and just use a Facebook app.
But that’s just me– what would you do? Do you want a specific “Facebook phone” or are you more than happy with a more powerful phone and a Facebook app? Let us know in the comments.
You can see more on the ChaCha here, and the Salsa here.
AT&T Giving Away 1,000 Free Rollover Minutes To Customers– How To Get Them For Yourself
Feb 14th
Now this is the type of competition we want to see. This week was a pretty tough week for AT&T, what with Verizon ending AT&T’s exclusive on the iPhone and all– a move that we’re sure led to some people bailing on AT&T for Verizon (exact numbers no ones saying yet). So if you’re AT&T, how do you say thank you to those that were loyal and stayed with you? Give them free stuff of course! Yes, this weekend AT&T began giving out 1,000 (yes, one thousand) free Rollover minutes to its subscribers, meaning if you had for example, a plan with the lowest 450 minutes per month, you now will have an extra 1,000 in the “bank” in the event you overuse that allotment in a month. Very nice indeed.
Now how to do you take advantage of this awesome gift? Simple, text “Yes” (without apostrophes) to 11113020. That’s it. Within 4 weeks or so your account should now have an extra 1,000 available Rollover minutes for you to use (even better, these are Rollover minutes and will keep on carrying over from month to month until they’re all used up). The deal runs from now until March 31st, and yes this isn’t just for iPhone users, we also tested this on an AT&T BlackBerry and it worked just the same.
So there you have it. A nice little weekend gift from AT&T, enjoy!
Verizon iPhone Is The Most Awkward iPhone Launch Yet
Feb 11th
Well this must’ve been incredibly awkward. Usually when Apple releases a new iPhone the lines start for days and run around blocks of streets and floors of malls. Apparently that was not the case yesterday for the Verizon iPhone, one of the most anticipated phones seemingly ever.
The video you see above is one of the scenes from Apple and Verizon stores yesterday all across the US– lots of anticipation for crazy long lines, few to zero people actually showing up. The above YouTube video (via ojezap) was taken yesterday from outside the Apple Store at the Mall of America in Minnesota, and here’s a shot CNET got of the Apple Store in NYC– both right around the time when doors were supposed to open at 7 AM.
Oh, and here’s the scene at the same NYC Apple Store in the middle of the day (read: hours after the doors opened) last year when the original iPhone 4 launched (Pic via CNET).
Yes, that long group of people almost at the street is the line!
Of course this could just be because of the freezing and otherwise really bad weather seemingly all across the country (compared to last summer’s launch weather when it was a little hot but otherwise clear and sunny) and people have decided to wise-up and have the phone shipped right to them instead (which with pre-orders for the device selling out we’re sure a ton of people did). Regardless, yesterday must’ve been some kind of let down for all those people who woke up early to try to beat these “lines.” (On the bright side though, we’re sure they had no trouble finding a salesperson to help them!)
And the Battle Begins
Feb 3rd
Today is February 3rd, and you know what that means– today was the first day the Verizon iPhone went on sale, as a pre-order for existing Verizon users. And pre-orders have gone so well that Verizon and Apple have stopped the pre-orders tonight because there were just too many (meaning if you are on Verizon and haven’t pre-ordered yet you’re gonna need to head to a Verizon or Apple store at 7 AM next Thursday and try to score a iPhone then).
And while that was expected, the bigger thing happened tonight– Verizon has begun a new war with AT&T, this time over who has the better iPhone. Just look at Verizon’s newest ad above.
Now the early reviews of the Verizon iPhone have it like this: if you want crystal clear calls and more reliable coverage Verizon hands down wins, but if you have a need for speed AT&T is a ton faster. So we ask you– with Verizon’s iPhone one week away from launch, which do you need most in your phone: blazing speed or crystal clear calling?
AT&T Announces Second 4G Phone Release Date– Motorola Atrix 4G Coming March 6th for $199
Feb 3rd
Inspire 4G not doing it for you? Really waiting for AT&T and Motorola’s 4G superphone the Atrix 4G? If so, your wait is almost up as AT&T has announced today that the Atrix 4G will finally be coming out on March 6th for $199 on a new 2 year contract and data plan (yeah, a little later and more expensive than what Amazon rumored but what can ya do). You also can pre-order the Atrix starting February 13th so you can insure that yours will come ASAP.
AT&T and Motorola have also announced bundles for the Atrix– such as $500 for the Atrix and laptop dock (remember you can dock this in that special laptop case and turn your phone into a full-fledged laptop). Compared to buying them separately this is a pretty good deal because buying the laptop dock add-on after you already bought the phone will cost you an additional $500 (basically, if you buy them both together it’s $500 on 2 year contract, separately it’s a whopping $700). Of course, to take advantage of this bundle you’ll also need to sign up for a tethering plan on top of the data plan ($45 a month for 4 GB of shared internet between your phone and devices you tether it to compared to $25 for 2 GB on only the phone). If you don’t plan on sharing your internet with other devices this may not be worth it to you in the long run.
Compared to just buying a laptop and phone separate of each other, this deal doesn’t look anywhere near as nice as you can buy some pretty solid full featured laptops with Windows 7 and much more power at a Best Buy, Walmart or Amazon for well under $500– though they don’t look as nearly as cool as this. If AT&T/Motorola lowered the price on this laptop dock to $100-$150 separate from the phone we’d see this as a much, much better deal (all the laptop is adding is a bigger screen and keyboard, it’s not like your getting more power).
AT&T also plans to offer an “Entertainment Access Kit” for Atrix customers which includes the Motorola HD Multimedia Dock (seen above), a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and a remote control for $189.99– perfect if you wanted to use this as a media center for your TV and have more money to burn.
So, what’s it gonna be– Inspire 4G or Atrix 4G?
HTC Inspire 4G Is AT&T’s First 4G Phone, Launches February 13th for $99
Feb 1st
Looks like that Amazon leak last week had something to it after all. Today AT&T and HTC have announced the first AT&T 4G phone will be the Inspire 4G when it launches in just under two weeks, February 13th, for an incredibly solid $99.99 on new 2 year contract and data plan.
Just to recap the Inspire 4G’s features, we’re talking about a very impressive phone with not just that 4G but also a 4.3 inch high-res screen with aluminum casing, 8 megapixel camera with flash and HD video recording (but no front camera), ability to turn the 4G into a WiFi hotspot, HTC Sense 2.0 with new features like tracking down your phone, 12 GB of built-in storage, HTC Hi-Fi for surround sound (featuring Dolby and SRS surround sound for awesome audio quality), 1 GHZ processor, and Android 2.2.
All in all, this looks like a very solid deal particularly for $99.99. So, will this keep you from bailing on AT&T for the Verizon iPhone next week?
