Sprint News & Phone Reviews from SprintUsers

Samsung Moment Price Difference

Juan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:23:56 +0000

Our sources have let us in on the following information:

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Price is: $79.99 for new Sprint customers with 2-year agreement.

Current price is: $149.99

Tell your audience to wait until next Friday, if they want to save $70!!

Catalog page for the Moment:
http://www.wirefly.com/r.aspx?Referringdomain=sprintusers&p=Samsung+Moment+With+Google&c=Sprint+PCS

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Minor update for Hero.

Matthew Pankey — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:42:29 +0000

Sprint has starting pushing an OTA update to the HTC Hero for Sprint. The update provides some bug fixes. While it doesn’t update the system beyond Android 1.5 (cupcake), it is supposed to fix the “awake” issue that caused a problem with battery life.

WebOS 1.3.1 for Palm Pre Released

Jeff Estep — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:07:28 +0000

Palm has released the much anticipated WebOS 1.3.1 update for the Palm Pre the seventh one since the device launched on Jun 6, 2009 and even though the website states Nov 15 as a release date it will download immediately . The development team at Sunnyvale has added several new features including Yahoo synchronization with synergy which allows users to have their Yahoo contacts and calendar show up on their device just like Google and Exchange accounts do. For some users this is secondary in importance to the Yahoo messenger functionality now included in the messaging client along with Google-Talk, AIM and of course SMS.

One of the chief complaints that many Pre users expressed was the inability to copy, paste and most importantly forward texts. This is remedied with a simple pop up menu in the message thread. Changing ringtones for incoming messages is also supported for the first time. Another complaint was overall lag and Palm states they have included some software optimization that will help the overall performance. I haven’t personally noticed a huge difference but it does feel snappier.

Playing YouTube videos from links is much easier now. If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.

Head on over the the Palm website for a full list of features and improvements.

Link is:
http://kb.palm.com/wps/portal/kb/na/pre/p100eww/sprint/solutions/article/50607_en.html

Sprint Announces Workforce Reduction of 2000-2500 employees

Jeff Estep — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:33:06 +0000

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse announced yesterday that Sprint is reducing its workforce by 2000 to 2500 employees Part of the reduction will come from call centers which are not as necessary due to the decrease in calls to customer care. All employees affected will be notified by the end of the 2009 calendar year.

For the NY Times report follow the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/technology/companies/10sprint.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Mobile-apps Contest – are you game?

Juan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:31:06 +0000

Make sure to head on over to www.mobileappsshowdown.com/ and take a look at a new contest for developers of Mobile apps being held on Jan 9, 2010 at the CES in Las Vegas, NV. Encourage any developer you think should be there to enter their app for consideration.

SU Blogger Jeff Estep is the expert judge on behalf of SprintUsers.com!

“It took McDonald’s years before it could flip the sign to 2 billion served. In late September, a different kind of Mac passed the 2 billion mark.

Apple released its statement that over 2 billion mobile apps had been downloaded to the iPhone and iPod touch. Now it’s been a whopping menu of apps for smartphones – and across all platforms, including Blackberry, Google Android, the Palm Pre, and Windows Mobile, and Nokia. The apps range from the mundane to the sublime. Which are which?

Enter Mobile Apps Showdown — from the same folks who bring you the perennially popular Last Gadget Standing at the Consumer Electronics Show each year. Mobile Apps Showdown will feature the top 10 apps in five categories, chosen by tech vet Robin Raskin, a team of mobile experts from the NetShelter Technology Media network of sites, and their vast communities of smartphone enthusiasts.

All entrants will be acknowledged with write-ups, screenshots and a “Download Now” button on this site, so you can try them, too. The seminfinalists will demo live from the Mobile Apps Showdown stage in the North Hall at CES 2010 when it begins on Jan. 7.

The top ten apps will be finalists in a live demo competition in front of a live and online CES audience and a winner will be declared based on audience applause o-meter and online vote.

The end game? Let the best apps rise to the top, with you as one of the judges. Applicants from all platforms have been entering their prize apps. We’ll keep posting them on this site, starting right now.

Check in early and often as we set out to separate the best from the rest.

Now, drum roll please, as we present the first contestants in this year’s Mobile Apps Showdown.”

Source: Mobileappsshowdown.com

Sprint announces BlackBerry Curve 8530.

Matthew Pankey — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:26:55 +0000

Although no specific release date was mentioned, Sprint released a statement saying they would release their version of the popular BlackBerry Curve 8530. No pricing was available, but the phone can be had in either black, purple or red (although I have not seen images of a red one at this point).

Update You can sign up to get notified of the release here

More at Sprint.

Photo Credit: Sprint

Google Voice and Sprint…IT WORKS!!

Jeff Estep — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:30:58 +0000

If you have a Google Voice account but can’t use the visual voicemail feature on Sprint due to the current $.20 per minute charge for call forwarding take heart!! According to Google sometime THIS month Sprint is doing something that will eliminate this problem. Details are scarce but the guess is that Sprint will either eliminate the charge altogether or at least for the conditional call forwarding required to do visual voicemail. Since employees aren’t charged for call forwarding I was able to set it up and fully test it on Sprint using the Palm Pre and IT WORKS beautifully!!!

I currently have it set to send a me text and I also use Gdial Pro from the Sprint app catalog. I actually now have 2 ways to READ my voicemails and other than it having trouble figuring out names (for instance Lynn Croad was translated as link road) It is very accurate and timely. There is a lively discussion about Google Voice here:

http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184712&highlight=google+voice

SCP-3810 by Sanyo now available

Matthew Pankey — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:47:47 +0000

Fed up with all the fancy schmancy smartphones recently released and don’t need a full QWERTY keyboard, well this might be for you. This compact phone sports a large, easy to use keypad, GPS, Bluetooth, 1.3 megapixel camera and Sprint Mobile Email. You can also expect to see a vibrant 2.4″ internal screen. Available in two color choices, Regal Red or Black Onyx. The SCP-3810 will be free with a 2 year contract and rebates.

Check it out at Sprint

Photo credit: Sprint

Sprint/Nextel release their third quarter numbers.

Matthew Pankey — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:28:15 +0000

Sprint has done much better this time than they have have in the past. They have only lost 135,000 net retailer subscribers.

““Sprint achieved its best net retail subscriber results in more than two years and improvement in both post-paid and prepaid gross subscriber additions in the third quarter,” said Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel CEO. “Sprint is beginning to attract more customers with the industry’s best device line-up and the clarity and simplicity of our offers, seven sequential quarters of improvement in customer care satisfaction, a network declared to be most reliable by PC World magazine, and recognition from Newsweek magazine which ranked Sprint 15th of 500 companies on its 2009 Green Ratings list — the only telecom company in the Top 100. ”

More at Sprint.

Palm Pixi expected on Sprint for Nov 15th.

Matthew Pankey — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:28:33 +0000

At only $99 bucks on contract, the Paml Pixi offers WebOS at a bargain price. You’ll get WebOS, a full QWERTY keyboard, a Multi-Touchscreen and a new Facebook app. You can get all this starting on November 15th.

More details from Sprint

and yes, an Everything Data Plan is required.
Per the Sprint statement

“Palm Pixi requires activation on a pricing plan including unlimited data, such as Sprint’s Everything Data plans with Any Mobile, Anytime”

Don’t kill the messenger.