So today is the big day for people who have been predicting that Apple would launch a Verizon iPhone at every single Apple event since the original iPhone announcement in 2007. Nice work guys, your “predictions inch came true 4 years later. For those who didn’t follow any of the live blogs, the Verizon iPhone 4 will be, for the most part, aesthetically identical to the AT&T version, and is priced the same. And while it’s still just the iPhone 4, there’s actually some advantages over the AT&T version. Engadget is pointing out that the Verizon iPhone has some slightly changed notches on the steel antenna band, which points to an antenna redesign. I think this is likely because Apple surely doesn’t want a repeat of “antenna-gate inch. Also, the Verizon iPhone 4 is going to feature Verizon’s mobile-hotspot which will let you share the device’s 3G CDMA connection to up to 5 other devices over WiFi (this feature comes with a costly monthly fee, of course). If you’re interested in the iPhone 4, you can order it from Verizon on February 10th, or if you’re a “qualified inch Verizon customer, you’ll be able to pre-order it on the 3rd of February.

The Catch

One downside to the iPhone 4 on Verizon is actually one of the reasons that compelled Apple to go with AT&T in the first place. That is: Verizon’s CDMA technology doesn’t allow for simultaneous data and voice. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been on a call with someone on my iPhone 4 and also been referring to emails/attachments/websites/apps that were pertinent to the conversation. With Verizon’s iPhone, you’ll end up with a lot of “Hey did you get that super important attachment? inch, “Uh…. let me call you right back inch. Still, for those already on Verizon and who prefer it’s service to AT&T, a slightly compromised iPhone is better than no iPhone at all.

Why I’m Glad the iPhone Has Come to Verizon as an AT&T Customer

It’s about damn time that AT&T had some competition! The city in which I live must have the worst iPhone service ever. I’m lucky if I break 10kbps up and 5kbps down in some places. Thank the lord that there’s usually WiFi. With the iPhone now in Verizon’s hands, there will finally be competition for the best iPhone service, and AT&T is going to be forced to step up their game if they don’t want new cellular customers going straight to Verizon for the iPhone. After being recently called out by consumer reports as the worst carrier in the US, AT&T won’t be able to hide behind it’s claims of “Nation’s fastest 3G network inch for long. I’d much rather have Verizon’s 3G reliability than AT&T’s 3G, which is fast in well covered rural areas, but horrendously slow in densely populated places. There’s finally someone to give AT&T the kick in the pants that it’s needed for several years.

There’s also FaceTime. More people with iPhone 4’s means more people with FaceTime, the simple to use — but so far under-deployed   video calling service that’s built right into the iPhone 4 and latest generation iPod Touch. With more people having access to the service, it will become more widespread, which is always good for users. Still, it won’t be until the carriers feel that their networks are fast enough to remove the WiFi ball and chain from FaceTime that we really see it take off. And hey, what do you know, maybe this would be a good opening move for Verizon against AT&T… I love competition!

And furthermore, I’m glad that the iPhone 4 has come to Verizon because I don’t have to listen to the same Apple rumor over and over! Four years was long enough. Now that the iPhone is on Verizon and the iPad has been released, the Apple rumor mill will have to devote it’s attention to something else. I just hope I’m not hearing about touchscreen iMacs for the next four years….

Samsung was one of the partners today at Verizon’s CES conference, and in addition to an upgraded version of the Galaxy Tab, they also announced a smartphone for Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Oddly though, the press release issued by Samsung is simply calling the phone “The Samsung 4G LTE Smartphone inch. I’m presuming it’ll come under the Galaxy S brand at some point down the road, but for the time being it’s name is somewhat perplexing.

Samsung started with the AMOLED screen, then they went to Super AMOLED, and now they are touting the “Super AMOLED Plus inch display on this phone. What’s next, the “Super AMOLED Plus Ultra Mega inch display? Anyway here’s what we know so far about Samsung’s 4G LTE Phone:

• Android 2.2
• 4.3 inch capacitive Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen @ 800×480
• 1GHz CPU (likely Samsung’s Cortex A8 based “Hummingbird inch)
• 8MP rear camera with LED flash
• 1.3MP front facing camera

We’re still waiting for more details (especially a catchier name!) so stay tuned!

Source: Samsung Press Release

Today at Verizon’s CES conference, JK Shin, the president of Samsung, whipped a 4G equipped Galaxy Tab out of his coat pocket. This slightly upgraded version of the Samsung Galaxy tab has a faster CPU and better rear camera.

The Cortex A8 CPU has been slightly increased from 1GHz to 1.2GHz. The rear camera has been bumped up from 3.2MP to 5MP. Samsung also says that the device will have pre-loaded LTE specific applications. Aside from this, it’s the same device as the original Galaxy Tab. I’m interested to know how the battery life will differ between the 3G and 4G version. You can find the specs of the original Galaxy Tab at our tracking page in the device database.

Chippy’s been relying on his Galaxy Tab quite heavily during CES and I bet he wishes he had the upgraded version right now!

I feel like Verizon will end up with some angry customers on it’s hands after original Galaxy Tab holiday sales. I can only hope such customers will find out about the upgraded version so that they can return the original and get the latest one.

Samsung is also giving availability information for the launch of the WiFi-only Galaxy Tab in the US. They say that it’ll be available in the first quater of 2011. Note that the WiFi only version shares the same specs as the original.

Source: Samsung Press Release (4G Galaxy Tab) & Samsung Press Release (WiFi-only Galaxy Tab)

This is the first year that Verizon has an official presence at CES and they’ve blown the top off with a big conference. Stay tuned for a live blog, we’re looking forward to seeing upcoming 4G/LTE devices from Verizon.

4:16 – Promo video… major players represented, Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, etc.

4:17 – Talking about rural carriers… using LTE to bring broadband to places which don’t have in-ground infrastructure.

4:21 – Tony Milone on stage. Talking about launch of LTE… smooth rollout, etc. Explaining why Verizon went with LTE over WiMAX (time-to-market over longterm performance).

4:22 – Tony is claiming that 1/3 of the US population is covered in LTE coverage from Verizon. 12Mbps and 30ms ping is seen commonly for LTE users, according to him.

4:25 – Not surprisingly… talking about expanding LTE to cover more of the US. Now to the good stuff “devices and applications… that’s what this show is all about”.

4:26 – Devices are rolling onto the stage. 10 devices in total, a few of them familiar… Droid Bionic, Motorola Xoom tablet, and some LTE hotspots. “All devices available by midyear”. 4 smartphones, 2 tablets, 2 mobile hotspots, 2 notebooks.

4:27 – “It’s not about the devices themselves” … I think some of us would beg to differ!

4:30 – Dr. Jong-Seok Park from LG on stage. Introducing the “LG Revolution” smartphone. “Faster, richer, multimedia experience”. Not a lot of detail on that one. Next up…

4:33 – Interesting… CEO of Skype, Tony Bates now on stage (love the accent). Video calling through Skype coming to Verizon. Short video demo showing on screen behind Bates. Looks like Verizon didn’t want to wait for Google to come up with a video chatting solution. Bates is promising “deeply integrated” Skype into Verizon devices with front and rear cameras. “One touch video calling”. Says that Skype IDs will be integrated into device’s phone book.

4:37 – Peter Chao, CEO of HTC now on stage. Announcing HTC’s “Thunderbolt” 4G smartphone for Verizon. He’s pulled the device out of his pocket. Looks a bit like the HTC G2. Claims that he’s been using it as his personal device and that it’s “blazing fast”. 4.3″ “Super LCD” screen. WiFi hotspot functionality to share 4G connection.

4:39 – EA (Electronic Arts) VP, Travis Boatman on stage. Talking about gaming on mobile devices. Showing off portfolio: Tetris, Need for Speed, Monopoly, etcetera. Now showing off Rock Band Mobile. “Leveage speed and mobility of 4G to create a band…”. Jam with friends in real time over 4G.  Video reel now playing: “4 ways to play”, “20 songs”. Drums, Bass, Guitar, Microphone, all being played on 4 difference devices.

4:44 – Samsung bringing 3 devices to Verizon’s service. JK Shin, president of Samsung now on stage. 4G smartphone, 4G Galaxy Tab (!), 4G mobile hotspot. He’s pulling devices out of pockets, doesn’t know which one they are in! Crowd is laughing along with him. I think I might have heard him say 1.2GHz CPU in 4G Galaxy Tab.

Smartphone details: 4.3″ Super AMOLED+ display, 8MP cam, HD recording, 1.3MP front cam.

4:46 – HP and Compaq netbooks with integrated 4G. New 4G MiFi from Novatel will be launching. Motorola Droid Bionic and Xoom tablet – 10.1″ Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) adobe flash, etc. (all the classic bullet points). “Look for all these devices in the first half of the year with some devices coming as early as March.”

Audience Q&A:

Q (from tnkgrl!): Asking about battery lfie with 4G and global roaming devices.
A: Spent a lot of time working with partners to achieve battery life that customers expect. With regard to roaming… devices will be able to roam overseas utilizing 3G networks, 4G networks, etc.

Q: What’s the pricing models for 4G?
A: We are not announcing any pricing models today. Not announcing pricing on devices or rate plans.

Q: Asking about devices being locked to network, bringing up the inteooperability clause when Verizon bought parts of the specutrum their using for 4G.
A: “We will comply with the open access requirements”

Q: Will there be data caps on smartphone plans?
A: As we come to market, we’ll have pricing that you’re used to now. We are looking at different models. The type of structure we have in place now for smartphones is the type we’ll have in place for the forseeable future, caps may be in place at some time.

Q: Are all the phones you showed off today running Android? (me: I guess this question was about Verizon and WP7)
A: Yes.

Q: Can you give an opinion about net neutrality on 4G LTE?
A: In terms of NN, we’ve been very specific about the terms of the network and our resposibilities. We think that for innovation, for the benefit of the customers, that an unfettered development environment is the right thing to have. We think that the free market system works very well and that we don’t need a lot of heavy intervention. With that said: we’ll have open dialog with the folks in Washington. We think that how we got here — with the free market system — is what we need going forward.

Q: Plans for tethering?
A: Some of the devices will have mobile hotspots, but not prepared to comment on tethering at this point.

And that’s a wrap, thanks for tuning in. Stick to the front page for more CES info and more details about these devices as we find them!

Motorola is stepping up it’s game with a powerful new Droid phone, the Droid Bionic. This is Motorola’s first 4G phone that will take advantage of Verizon’s LTE 4G service. This powerful new Droid sports a dual-core 1GHz CPU and Motorola claims that it’ll be able to record and edit 720p HD video directly on the phone. Looks like Motorola is also going to be providing some sort of integrated videoconferencing functionality to take advantage of the phone’s front and rear cameras, though there isn’t a lot of detail about this yet. I hope we don’t see proprietary videoconferencing solutions from several different OEMs… Google should really  create a universal system for this, but they’ve yet to do so. The Droid Bionic has a “qHD” display (960×540) that levels the playing field with the iPhone 4’s “retina” display (960×640) [note that the resolution difference is due to Android’s 16:9 screen ratio, while Apple prefers 4:3].

We’ve got the full specs for the Droid Bionic straight from Motorola:

• Android 2.2
• 4.3” capacitive touchscreen @ 960×540
• nVidia Tegra 2 AP20H Dual-Core CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 14GB of integrated memory
• MicroSD slot with support for additional 32GB of memory
• 4G / 3G – LTE band 13 / EVDO
• WiFi b/g/n + Bluetooth 2.1
• HDMI out (likely mini-HDMI, but it’s unclear)
• 8MP rear camera with dual LED flash and autofocus, 720p recording at 30 FPS
• 0.3MP fixed-focus front facing camera

Pricing and availability has yet to be announced, but we’ll let you know when we hear something (possibly at Verizon’s CES conference later today).

A quick heads up. You can now check out the full specs of the Samsung Fascinate on our tracking page. On top of that, you can catch an early glimpse of the Samsung  Fascinate in our gallery while you await the upcoming full review.

Here’s a quick hands-on with the Motorola Droid R2D2. The R2D2 edition is the same phone as the Droid 2 [product page][review] but it has interesting Star Wars branding and content included.

The phone is themed to look like the famous droid from the Star Wars saga and the phone features custom Star Wars themed unlock sliders, live wallpapers, a video, a widget, and an app. The box that it comes in is designed to look as though the phone has been encased in carbonite and the effect is rather convincing, though I think they could have bumped up the box presentation a bit, it’s just a regular old cardboard box with graphics on it (as you’d expect from any regular phone). Some of the stuff is really gimmicky, but I think a major Star Wars geeks might enjoy the phone, particularly for it’s looks. In fact, I know a friend who would absolutely love this thing! The phone launched yesterday in the US on Verizon.

Verizon has revamped its Droid line of Android Smartphones over the last few months. We already looked at the large Droid X [tracking page][review] and today we’re going to walk you through the latest of the three, the Droid 2.

Hardware

As usual, we’re going to start with a spec rundown and a hardware tour. Check out the Droid 2 tracking page for more detailed info and don’t forget about the Droid 2 gallery which includes shots that you won’t find in our review.

Specs

• Android 2.2
• TI OMAP 3 CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 8GB inbuilt storage (6.5GB user-accessible)
• Included 8GB MicroSD card (slot accepts up to 32GB)
• 3.7 inch capacitive touchscreen @ 854×480
• 5MP camera (capable of up to 720×480 video recording)

Hardware Tour