Droid Bionic Now Available

With absolutely no lack of enthusiasm, Verizon Wireless has officially announced the release of the much anticipated Droid Bionic by Motorola. This much talked about device was first announced and unveiled all the way back in January during CES and eager Verizon customers have been waiting ever so patiently to get their hands on it.

The device, which looks stunning in my opinion, is physically available today at any Verizon retailer or online store for $299.99 with a new two-year agreement as is customary with Verizon.

The Droid Bionic is a 4G LTE device that runs the latest Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread OS. It is powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor and comes with a beautiful 4.3-inch qHD display. What's more, this beautiful screen is scratch resistant thanks to Corning Gorilla Glass. The screen also has a dual-layer anti-reflective coating to make it all the more special.

Full specifications of the Droid Bionic include:

• 1GB of RAM


• 32GB of memory with 16GB on board and 16GB on a pre-installed microSD


• Front-facing camera that allows for video chatting via 4G LTE, 3G or WiFi


• 8 megapixel auto-focus rear camera with flash and full 1080p HD video capture


• Mirror Mode with HDMI out that supports full 1080p HD video playback


• MOTOPRINT application allowing you to print through a WiFi-enabled printer


• Multi-window options for easy multitasking


• Adobe Flash Player pre-installed


• HTML 5 capabilities


• Wireless charger support


• Business ready with advanced security features

In addition to the Droid Bionic, Verizon is also offering all the bells and whistles that one might want or need when using this device. Verizon is also offering the Lapdock for $299.97, the HD Station for $99.99, the Webtop Application Adapter for $29.99, the Car Navigation Dock for $39.99 and the Battery Dock for $49.99.

Needless to say, this definitely looks like the device everybody has been waiting for. I'm just mad that I don't have an available upgrade on my Verizon account for another 9 months. But by then, something bigger and better than this will probably have already come out.

Source: TFTS - Verizon Wireless Makes It Official: Motorola Droid Bionic Coming September 8th

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One-Year Contract Option Dropped By Verizon

According to a report released Friday, April 8, Verizon Wireless has made the decision to end its one-year contract option which customers previously had been able to sign up for in place of their more popular two-year agreements. The report, which was released by PhoneScoop, stated that the one year-contract option will be terminated on April 17. The site went on to quote a Verizon Wireless executive saying, “Keep in mind, a majority of our customers select a two-year contract when buying our devices, so we are responding to what our customers want. They still have options available, such as two-year contracts, month-to-month and prepaid plans.” So far, Verizon representatives have not responded to any requests for comment on the claims that PhoneScoop is making. This may not be a big deal to many people, because if you were like me, I didn’t even know that Verizon offered anything like a one-year or month-to-month plan. On their Web site there is not mention of any plan besides the usual two-year agreement. In comparison to other major U.S. mobile carriers, Sprint does not have a one-year plan available on its Web site, but if customers go into a Sprint store, they will have the option of selecting a one-year plan. It’s interesting that Verizon reps claim that they are “responding to what our customers want,” because how can customers know whether or not they might want a one-year plan if they don’t even know that such an option exists? I think that Verizon has been a little shady about it, but honestly, it doesn’t even matter anymore since in a week the option will be completely obsolete. For those of you looking for a one-year contract, I guess you’ll have to start looking somewhere other than Verizon now.

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Lawsuit Filed Against AT&T Over Inflated Data Charges

A man from California is filing a suit against AT&T saying that their data charges for Apple’s iPhone and iPad are inflated.

Patrick Hendricks, the frustrated AT&T customer that filed the suit, claims that the billing system that AT&T has adopted for their data plans is like a “rigged gas pump.” Hendricks is an AT&T iPhone user with a $15 per month data plan that allows him 200MB of data transactions. He said that late last year AT&T charged him for 259 individual data transactions that totaled 223MB; however, according to court documents, Hendricks claims that “many of these charges were phantom data transactions” that never really occurred.

A two-month review of Hendricks’s claim and other aspects surrounding the claim was conducted by an independent consulting firm that was hired by Hendricks’ lawyers. According to the lawsuit that was filed on Thursday, January 30, 2011 in the California district court, the consulting firm found that AT&T consistently overcharges their customers for their data plans by 7 to 14 percent.

The suit said that this proves that “AT&T's bills systematically overstate the amount of data used on each data transaction involving an iPhone or iPad account.”

After the filing of the suit, AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

Hendricks not only accuses AT&T of billing him for phantom data usage, but also for consistently overbilling him for legitimate data usage. The consulting firm that was investigating for Hendricks went to an AT&T store and purchased a iPhone. They then proceeded to turn off push notifications, location services, closed all apps, and did not enable e-mail on the phone. After a ten day trail period, AT&T still charged the phone for 35 data transactions that totaled 2,292KB of usage.

Hendricks said that although the overbilling really just has a “modest effect” on customers, for AT&T there is a “huge effect.” He claims that AT&T is receiving a “significant portion” of their data revenues from these inflated data transactions.

What Hendricks is really actually suing for is a breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and a few other things. Hendricks says that he wants damages as well as costs.

AT&T announced in June 2010 that it was revamping its system for the data plan lineups. The company decided to adopt a metered usage model in place of their old methods. They offered their customers 200MB of data for $15 per month, 2GB of data for $25 per month, and a tethering plan for $20 per month. They did allow for their existing customers to keep their unlimited data plans. There have also been recent reports that said that AT&T also allowed any of their customers who had downgraded their data plan within the last year to return to their unlimited status.

In late October the FCC said that to settle the compliant issues about the incorrect data charges Verizon Wireless would be forced to pay $25 million. This came just a few weeks after Verizon had said that they would issue refunds to over 15 million different customers who had found mistakes with their phone bills.

"Verizon Wireless works very hard to simplify the wireless experience for customers and to ensure that customer bills are accurate," Verizon said in a statement. "Nonetheless, internal billing processes can be complex and, in this case, we made inadvertent billing mistakes. We accept responsibility for those errors and apologize to our customers who received accidental data charges on their bills."

"We are notifying eligible current and former customers that we are applying credits to their accounts or sending refunds in October and November," the company said. "Current customers will be notified in upcoming bills; former customers will receive a letter and refund check in the mail. In most cases these credits and refunds are in the $2 to $6 range; some will receive larger amounts."

The settlement "sends a clear message to American consumers: The FCC has got your back," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement. "People shouldn't find mystery fees when they open their phone bills – and they certainly shouldn't have to pay for services they didn't want and didn't use. In these rough economic times, every $1.99 counts."

"Today's settlement also includes strong FCC oversight and accountability to ensure that Verizon Wireless fully repays what they owe to their customers and puts new measures in place to improve customer service," he said.

More recently than all of this stuff with Verizon, Microsoft has said that there have been inefficiencies between the synchronization of e-mail between the Windows Phone Mail client and Yahoo Mail, and this resulted in a much larger than expected data usage for certain users.

It looks as though AT&T will definitely be shelling out some big bucks when all of this is settled. It may just take a while to make it through the legal system.

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AT&T Losing iPhone Customers to Verizon

According to data that was released Thursday, January 13 by ChangeWave, approximately 26 percent of current Apple iPhone users that are on AT&T’s plan are planning to switch to Verizon’s iPhone when it is made available in February.

ChangeWave polled 4,050 people a few days before the big announcement that Verizon Wireless made on Tuesday, January 11. They asked those polled that if Verizon were to announce that an iPhone would be made available on their network, would they be switching providers in the next 90 days? Ten percent said that they were planning on switching within 90 days. About 16 percent said that they would be purchasing a Verizon iPhone but not necessarily right away. Among the AT&T users polled, 26 percent said that they would be ditching the AT&T version of the iPhone for the Verizon iPhone.

About 41 percent of those polled, who said that they would be switching from AT&T’s iPhone to Verizon’s, said that they would be making the switch sometime within the next three months. Another 31 percent said that they would be making the switch within the next year.

AT&T users aren’t the only customers that plan on switching service providers though. About 15 percent of T-Mobile users said that they will switch to Verizon for the iPhone, 10 percent of Sprint’s customers also plan on doing this as well, and 4 percent of the existing customers at Verizon said that they will be switching from their current device to the iPhone.

ChangeWave reported that this is the biggest churn rate that has ever been recorded for AT&T. The most prominent reason for AT&T’s customers leaving and choosing the Verizon iPhone is due to poor reception or coverage. A whole 42 percent claimed that this was their reasoning. Another 27 percent said it was because of dropped calls, while 17 percent said their decision was due to the cost.

ChangeWave did report though that AT&T has made improvements in its dropped call history.
"While AT&T continues to struggle in this very important area and trails Verizon by a wide margin, it has made significant advances since our previous survey –improving from its all-time worst 6.0 percent rating last September to 4.7 percent in the current survey," ChangeWave said. "The findings suggest AT&T is now taking concrete steps to try to improve long-standing service issues. But can it do so quickly enough to forestall large-scale defections to Verizon?"

Who knows if consumers are really going to dump AT&T and jump on the Verizon bandwagon, but as data that was released by comScore on Thursday, January 13 suggested, the Verizon iPhone is really a big turning point in the smartphone market.

"The iPhone Verizon deal will no doubt bring even greater competition to the smartphone arena throughout the coming year as Android, iPhone and RIM jockey for the leadership position," Sarah Radwanick, comScore's marketing communications manager, wrote in a blog post.

Radwanick also pointed out Verizon’s smartphone market share that grew from four percent in the last year to 27 percent. Obviously, that’s less than AT&T’s 38 percent market share, but AT&T did drop 7 percent last year due to the abundance of different smartphones that were made available in the last year. Verizon’s numbers really rose mostly because of the strong Android-based devices that the company added to their lineup of smartphones.

In just overall mobile device market share, Verizon has 31 percent, while AT&T has 27 percent.

ComScore also suggested that the iPhone customers that Verizon does end up nabbing will most likely be in customer segments that are attractive to mobile providers. This basically means younger users that come from higher income brackets. Also important to note, iPhone users seem to remain loyal to the iconic Apple smartphone. More than half have subscribed via AT&T for more than three years now, while another 28 percent have had subscriptions for one to three years.

"Although it's too early to tell exactly how consumers will react to the Verizon iPhone announcement, it is fair to say that this deal represents a potentially significant turning point in the ascendance of the smartphone market," Radwanick concluded. "Only time will tell which carriers and platforms will emerge as the market leaders, but it's clear that right now the consumers are winners as they gain yet another option when making their smartphone choice."

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Apple’s Co-Founder is Buying a Verizon iPhone

Lots of people are extremely excited about the announcement that Verizon Wireless made Tuesday, January 11 about featuring the iPhone at their stores and online. Everyone has been waiting for quite some time for Verizon to finally make this announcement. AT&T’s exclusive iPhone contract made things a little difficult, so there were a lot of things that had to be worked around. Fortunately, the wait is now almost over, and you’re not the only one who is excited about the iPhone from Verizon.

When Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak was questioned about whether he would be getting the Verizon iPhone at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on Jan. 11 after the announcement was made by Verizon, he responded, “A VeriPhone? Of Course.”

"I'm definitely going to get one," Wozniak said. "I always have at least one Verizon phone on me at all times, just in case I'm in one of those bad areas. You can find those areas where Verizon doesn't work and AT&T does, but in truth, it's usually the opposite."

"And I also love the mobile hotspot," Wozniak added. "I hope it's the standard $30 a month. I wish it was free like the Palm Pre because that made the Pre a cheaper Mi-Fi. Anyway, so I'm expecting that it's no big new iPhone, not even a new color. It's just going to be on the Verizon network."

The Verizon iPhone has been rumored for years, and the rumors have escalated and really started flying around in the past few months. Well, Verizon has finally officially launched the Verizon iPhone. Verizon says that they will offer a CDMA EVDO version of the iPhone 4 as of February 10. Any exsisting Verizon customers will be able to pre-order the smartphone as early as February 3. The 16GB iPhone will cost customers $199 with a two-year contract, and the 32GB iPhone will cost $299 with a two-year contract.

Wozinak went on saying, “I'm actually playing games in my head about which phones I want to keep. I actually want to keep at least one Android phone."

All this talk about the multiple phones that Wozinak has had me wondering exactly how many phones the guy has.

"I came to the conclusion last night that I'll have three activated AT&T iPhones, so if the battery runs down I have a spare," Wozniak said. "And I'm in Europe a lot of times, so maybe one of them will be Verizon, one of them will be AT&T. So I'll have two AT&T, one AT&T with the international plan, and one Verizon if I need it. Although the tethering's only to a computer. Although maybe I can give one number up and give it to Verizon. And I'll keep the Droid X. And I'll probably give up the Palm Pre because I now have another Mi-Fi."

Wozinak also added, though, that data plans are always an issue.

"I have those grandfathered [data] plans," Wozniak added. "I love those grandfathered plans, but you have to watch them [carriers] like a hawk."

I’m so excited that Verizon has finally worked things out so that they can carry the Apple iPhone. We’ve all been waiting for a very long time, but now we finally have an end date to the wait. I think we can all definitely make it until February. Many people suspected that the “event” that Verizon was holding in New York on Januray 11 had to do with the announcement of a Verizon iPhone, and all of those people were correct. I’m glad the cat is finally out of the bag, and everyone can start making their plans concerning Verizon’s iPhone.

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Verizon's New York Event Concerning the "Latest News"

Verizon has invited reporters to an event in New York on January 11 where the company will share what they have dubbed “the latest news.” Everyone is speculating…could this be an announcement about a Verizon version of the iPhone?

The announcement by Verizon really seemed to confuse many of the people that were at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This is probably because Verizon had already made a ton of announcements at the CES. Most of the announcements concerned the release of its high-speed LTE network. This included the introduction of ten of its LTE devices, including the highly-anticipated HTC Thunderbolt.

It’s possible that the event in New York that Verizon is holding, which is being held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall at the Lincoln Center, is simply a recap of everything that they announced at the CES for the reporters who missed the announcements, but who knows?

Based on reports of conversations with a source that is close to the company, it seems as though the announcement will be about a device.

Many people believe that this announcement simply has to be concerning the rumors about the Verizon version of the iPhone. The rumors have been that the smartphone would be released sometime in 2011.

It appears as though Apple has been working overtime recently. The company has reportedly limited the vacation time of lower-level employees and have also kept on their holiday staff. Other reports (that are complete with drawings) are suggesting that this announcement could be about a next generation iPhone (or a Verizon iPhone) that would be delivered by late February.

Based on the information from a source that is close to Verizon, this announcement could also be about some sort of tablet. Verizon didn’t just focus on phones at the CES. They also discussed hotspots and notebooks, so it is very possible that they want to discuss tablets and how they will be the leading service provider in the tablet industry.

Who knows what Verizon will be announcing? Hopefully, we will be seeing an announcement concerning the iPhone, but for now we’re just going to have to sit around and wait to find out.

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Apple's iPhone is Still Going Strong

Apple’s iPhone is arguably one of the most successful companies of our time, and if you don’t agree with that statement, than you can’t argue with the fact that in the past few years the company has been incredibly successful. The iPhone is one of the factors that add a good bit to Apple’s success story. The iPhone revolutionized the smartphone industry and continues to do so. Many would say that it is the most popular and coveted phone right now. Well, according to DigiTimes, Apple must feel that their success will continue with the phone.

On Monday, December 27, the popular Taiwanese publication DigiTimes claimed that Taiwan-based suppliers could confirm that Apple was planning to increase its global shipment of iPhones for the first quarter of 2011. They seem to be planning on increasing the number of units from 19 million to 20 or 21 million.

It has been reported that Apple’s supplier Foxconn is shipping out between 14 and 15 million WDCMA iPhones, which is up from 13 million. It is also said that Foxconn and Pegatron are going to be shipping out 5 to 6 million CDMA iPhones. It is expected that these devices will be released in Asian Pacific and the United States (on Verizon’s network) in early 2011. A rumor is flying around that China and the U.S. will be the first countries to offer a CDMA compatible iPhone.

There have been rumors about Verizon carrying an iPhone for quite some time now, but the Wall Street Journal seemed to hint in October at the idea that Apple planned to introduce a Verizon version of the iPhone sometime in early 2011.

According to JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, if Verizon were to launch some type of version of the iPhone, there is a potential for Verizon’s stock to add at least $1.25 in incremental earnings per share annually.

For the fourth quarter, it is expected that global iPhone shipments are going to come in somewhere around 15.5 million. For the entire year, it is predicted that Apple’s total iPhone shipments are going to be close to 47 million.

Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said that his firm was forecasting iPhone sales to reach 13.3 million in the first quarter of 2011, and those numbers do not include what sales would be if Verizon were to release a version of the iPhone.

White wrote that if the number of CDMA iPhones that Digitimes claims to be shipping are correct, "these are big numbers and directly point to the growing popularity of the iPhone around the world in our view and the potential for a healthy upside to our earnings estimates.”

White said that during a trip to China, he noticed that the demand for iPhones definitely seemed to exceed the supplies that the country was receiving, as the exclusive official carrier of the iPhone, China Unicom, still seems to struggle to meet the demand for the iPhone 4. "For example, we indicated that the iPhone 4 was sold out for two months at authorized Apple resellers, Apple stores and China Unicom," he said. "We also mentioned that China Unicom was unable to fulfill approximately one-third of the iPhone 4 orders due to shortages." He said that China is still “in the early stages of catching ‘Apple Fever.’”

Earlier this month, Shaw Wu, one of Kaufman Bros. analysts, predicted that Apple would sell more than 62 million iPhones in 2011. This prediction did include Verizon contributing 2 to 3 million units in the U.S. per quarter or 8 to 12 million annually. Another analyst, Gene Munster, from Piper Jaffray said that Apple could sell another 2.5 additional iPhones next year if they add Verizon Wireless as a service provider.

iPhone sales are doing incredibly well, and it looks as though the sales will only continue to do well. Analysts are predicting that the first quarter of 2011 should be extremely successful. If Verizon can secure a version of the iPhone, I think that sales numbers will skyrocket. I know so many different people who prefer the iPhone to the Droid, but since they like Verizon Wireless service much better than AT&T, they settle with the Droid or some other smartphone offered by Verizon. If Verizon offered the iPhone, Apple would be sure to increase their iPhone sales by a good amount. The Wall Street Journal seems to think that Verizon should have some version of the iPhone early in 2011. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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According to Consumer Reports, AT&T Is the Worst Mobile Service Provider

Yes, AT&T is the service provider of the coveted and ever so popular iPhone, but many customers are not even close to being satisfied with the service that the company provides. Consumer Reports did an annual survey of different cell phone carriers and reported Monday that AT&T is the worst cell phone provider in the country right now. Consumer Reports polled 58,000 ConsumerReports.com readers to compile the numbers for their survey. More than half of the respondents whose carrier was AT&T said that they owned some version of the iPhone, but they didn’t seem too happy with their service.

Consumer Reports continued saying that AT&T was the only carrier whose overall satisfaction scores dropped significantly since the survey was conducted last year. AT&T only had a 60 percent score for overall customer satisfaction.

The data that was collected showed that iPhone owners were much less satisfied with their service provider than owners of comparable iPhone-like smartphones that were on another carrier. Electronics editor for Consumer Reports Paul Reynolds said in a statement, “Our survey suggests that an iPhone from Verizon Wireless, which is rumored, could indeed be good news for iPhone fans.” This rumor has been circulating for quite some time. It’s been shot down many times, but I guess it’s begun swirling around again.

“We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience. The fact is, wireless customers have choices and a record number of them chose AT&T in the third quarter, significantly more than our competitors," said AT&T in a statement. "Hard data from independent drive tests confirms AT&T has the nation's fastest mobile broadband network with our nearest competitor 20 percent slower on average nationwide and our largest competitor 60 percent slower on average nationwide. And, our dropped call rate is within 1/10 of a percent - the equivalent of just one call in a thousand - of the industry leader."

So how did the other national carriers do with overall customer satisfaction? Well, Verizon and Sprint were almost tied. Verizon had 74 percent satisfaction, and Sprint had 73 percent satisfaction. Consumer Reports said, "Verizon Wireless has an edge in voice service overall. Sprint scored better in some aspects of customer service, which is a remarkable turnaround from past years when that was a weak point for the company,"

The fourth top national mobile carrier, T-Mobile, came in with 69 percent overall satisfaction rates, making it the third top carrier in satisfaction.

There is also one regional cell phone carrier that did quite well with customer satisfaction. US Cellular is available in 26 different states and has an 82 percent satisfaction rating. Consumer Reports said, "It stands out for value, voice service, and customer service.”

Consumer Reports also went on to evaluate the best smartphones from each carrier. They checked out the Motorola Droid X for Verizon, the Samsung Epic 4G for Sprint, the Samsung Captivate for AT&T, and the Samsung Vibrant for T-Mobile.

It was very interesting to see that one of the most popular smartphones is on the worst national service provider. That is encouraging for Verizon though if they are be able to secure the rights to the iPhone sometime soon. AT&T needs to step it up, or they are definitely going to face some major issues in the future.

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Apple’s iPad Available from Verizon?

Unfortunately, despite all the rumors, Verizon Wireless will not be carrying the iPhone anytime soon, but they will be offering something else from Apple. As of October 28, over 2,000 Verizon stores across the nation will be carrying Apple’s iPad.

Now this statement may cause you to question how this is possible. Doesn’t Apple have a completely exclusive contract with AT&T? Hasn’t Verizon been attempting to get an Apple product as part of their line for a while now and been totally unsuccessful? Well, with the iPad the company has been able to pull a few strings.

The trick is that Verizon will not be selling the iPad (Wi-Fi + 3G). This is the version of the device that runs on AT&T’s 3G network. They will instead be providing the Wi-Fi only iPad that will run on Verizon’s MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot.

There will be three different bundles that Verizon will offer to customers: a 16GB iPad with MiFi for $629.99, a 32GB with MiFi for $729.99, and a 64GB iPad with MiFi for $829.99. Verizon will only offer one data plan for the iPad: up to 1GB of data for $20 per month.

It’s no surprise that AT&T announced recently that they will be selling Apple’s WiFi + 3G iPad in their retail stores as of October 28 as well.

The bundle prices that Verizon will offer will be about the same as AT&T’s 3G packages, but with AT&T there will be the option of two different data plans. You can either get up to 250MB of data per month for $14.95 or up to 2GB of data per month for $25.

So which carrier should you consider purchasing your iPad from? Well, the up side to getting your device from Verizon is the convenient versatility of their MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot. Verizon’s MiFi provides Internet access for up to five different devices ranging from 30 to 40 feet away. Unfortunately with MiFi you have to carry it around with you. It is very small though, measuring about 3.5 x 2.3 x 0.4 inches.

Battery life is another thing that you must take into consideration. When you have other devices connected, the life can be drained very quickly. Some testing revealed that when four other Wi-Fi connections were made, the battery dropped to one single bar in about an hour or so. In about an hour and a half, the battery was almost completely drained. On the other hand, AT&T’s iPad with Wi-Fi + 3G was able to last about eight hours, while having the 3G modem running constantly.

Where you decide to buy your iPad is entirely up to you. There are advantages with both of the carriers. No matter what, I just think that it is great to see an Apple product made available from Verizon. It may still be awhile before we see the iPhone, but the fact that they are now providing the iPad is definitely a step in the right direction.

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The New Kin Family of Phones from Verizon

On Monday, Verizon Wireless introduced their two newest Microsoft phones called the Kin One and the Kin Two. The first and most important thing to note about the Kin phones is that they are not smartphones. On first glance they may seem very smartphone-like, but they do not feature apps or games.

The Kin One and Kin Two are aimed more towards customers in their teens and twenties. They are both sliding phones that feature fantastic keyboards for easy texting. These are classified as “quick messaging” phones, and they are perfect for those who spend most of their time messaging on their phone.

The phones are both Windows phones. They are made by Sharp and run a new operating system that is very similar to the Windows Phone 7 OS that is coming out soon. The Kin phones share the heart of the Windows Phone 7’s design but are more geared towards the social networking side of things.

As I mentioned previously, the Kin phones are not smartphones. They cannot download apps or games. They are not expandable like smartphones. They are simply cool, fun, easy to use messaging phones.

The Kin phones feature the “Loop” home screen that brings any possible social networking information that you might want straight to your attention. It feeds any social networking information or messages from your friends directly to your home screen for easy viewing. You are even able to prioritize your friends and come up with a top friends list. By creating this list, all of your top friends updates will show up in a larger font than your other friends. Derek Snyder, the senior product manager at Microsoft says, “We're the only phone that actually keeps your close friends close and treats them differently.”

The Kin One and Two feature the ability to sync music with any PCs running Zune software. Snyder says that they are, “the first Windows phones to ship with Zune.” The phones have built-in FM radios, and Zune Pass owners can listen to unlimited subscription music. Both Kin phones also feature either 5- or 8- megapixel cameras with a LumiLED flash that is much brighter than the usual cameraphone flash.

One of the only criticisms of the Kin phones would be the size of their screens. The Kin One features a 320 x 240 screen, while the Kin Two features a 320 x 480 screen. These can both be a little difficult to navigate when viewing Web pages, but they aren’t horrible.

The Kin phones are great phones for anyone that likes to use them mostly for messaging purposes, and honestly, I think that they’re just awesome looking. Their unique shape, cool sliding keyboard, and amazing features make this family of phones quite appealing. The Kin One is now available from Verizon for $49.99, and the Kin Two is listed at $99.99. These are two great phones to consider from a great service provider that are at the same pricepoint as the LG EnV line.

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AT&T Making Changes

AT&T is making some changes and it probably has something to do with Apple's impending announcement of the iPhone 4G, which is expected to come any day now. In addition to adding Wi-Fi to a struggling 3G network, the company has announced that it is increasing early termination fees from smartphone and netbook-using customers.

As of yesterday, early termination fees that were once $175 will grow to a whopping $325. The company sent an open letter to its customers last week about the fee increase. On the other hand, if you have a phone that is not a smartphone, your fees will drop from $175 to $150. If you are within an existing service agreement, the fees will not apply to you, but they will apply to new and renewed contracts.

With the new early termination plan, for every month a customer stay with AT&T, their fee will be lowered by around $10 each month (that's for smartphones and "high-end devices). The fees for basic phones will drop about $4 each month.

Despite what seems like an extreme increase in fees, AT&T's fees are still lower than Verizon's, which can run $350 on a Droid and other Smartphones. And the price of the iPhone is dropping. As a matter of fact, at Wal-Mart, you can purchase a 16GB iPhone 3GS for just $97.

Even so, AT&T will probably not be winning any new fans with the price increase. The network is already the target of thousands of complaints about dropped calls and other wireless data issues. In an effort to make some improvements, just last week, AT&T began attempts to support its 3G wireless service in New York City. The company added a free Wi-Fi hotspot to Times Square. If all goes well, you can probably expect more free Wi-Fi hotspots in cities around the world.

According to Wall Street analyst, Drake Johnstone, AT&T could lose about 40% of its iPhone customers when Apple releases the iPhone for Verizon networks, but will the increase in fees and attempts at increase in service make a difference or affect iPhone owners' migration to Verizon? Johnstone says they might, but no one can say for sure until actually happens.

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Verizon's HTC Incredible May Be Closer Than You Think

Confirmation has set in. A word from sources at Verizon Wireless announced that the highly anticipated HTC Incredible is supposed to begin arriving at Verizon stores in two weeks. This isn't that surprising considering the fact that Verizon recently announced that it was beginning a test deployment of Android 2.1 to the Motorola Droid smartphones. Android 2.1 is the OS that is speculated to power the Incredible.

Android 2.1 has a lot of cool features. It adds pinch-to-zoom in the browser, better voice-to-text support, animated wallpapers and tweaks to Google Maps. The Droid is already operating under the Android 2.0 OS but received a slight bump up to the Android 2.0.1 OS through an over-the-air update. But most people are focused on the HTC Incredible, which may turn out to be the slickest Android handset on the market.

According to most reports on the device, the Incredible will boast a 1GHz Qualcomm QSD 8250 SnapDragon ARM CPU as well as 512MB of DRAM, exactly like the Nexus One. Different from the Nexus One, the Incredible's CPU will be underclocked to 768MHz. Some people may frown on the underclocking but even so it should prove to be more than enough speed to run almost any app as well as providing longer talk time than the Nexus One.

The Incredible comes with an 8-megapixel camera with a noticeably larger lens than that of the Nexus One. The camera does make the Incredible ever so thicker than the Nexus One coming in at 117.5x58.5x11.9mm. Another rumor floating around about the Incredible is the addition of 6GB of flash, a microSD expansion slot and an FM tuber with a standard 1300 mAh battery. What carrying the Incredible could mean for Verizon is that they may hold off on the Nexus One for now. However, Sprint is wasting no time on getting the Nexus One out on the its powerful 3G network.

A lot of people are excited for the HTC Incredible. It looks like major U.S. networks besides AT&T have, for the most part, abandoned the Apple iPhone. Most companies are now hotly pursuing the deployment of new Android handsets. The next iPhone is supposed to come out this summer and could see a substantial challenge from the Nexus One an Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile as well as the HTC Incredible on Verizon.

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Verizon Wireless Doubles Early Termination Fee

According to reports from Engaget Verizon Wireless has doubled its early termination fee from $175 to $350. It's applied to anyone who has purchased a phone on the "Advanced Device List" after November 14th, 2009.

On bright side, for each month you complete of your contract, $10 is deducted from the $350 total. Unfortunately, even if you complete 23 of the 24 months of a contract, you're still sitting with $120 early termination fee. But that's still better than paying the $350 fee.

Its clear that Verizon is trying to keep its customers and their contracts. The low prices on phones offered to new customers isn't enough to keep them, so Verizon probably felt this is the best way to make sure they're getting their money's worth.

I'm not sure that this will keep anyone from second guessing choosing Verizon as their provider, but if you're looking to get a subsidized price on a Verizon phone just for the sake of reselling it on e-bay, you might want to think again.

Verizon's HTC Droid Eris

So as much hype as there has been about the new Verizon Wireless Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris, sales have started out relatively slow. Friday was when the phones officially went on sale across the country. There were very short lines or no lines at all outside Verizon stores on Friday morning. Reports claimed that if there were any lines outside one of the many stores, they really only consisted of about 15-20 people.

A Verizon spokesmen said that the lack of lines outside the stores was not a concern at all. He said that what Verizon really wants is not a line but a steady stream of people coming throughout the day and the following few weeks to examine the new phones.

Some people claimed that they liked the look and the feel of the HTC Droid Eris better than the Motorola Droid. Compared to the Motorola Droid, the Eris is basically just a slimmed-down, lighter, less powerful Droid phone. It is based off the HTC Hero that Sprint has, but it has been reworked.

The Eris measures 4.45 x 2.19 x .51 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.23 ounces. The front of the phone features a 3.2 inch touch screen. Below the screen is a navigation trackball and several physical buttons. The Eris does not feature an actual physical keyboard but instead has two virtual keyboards.

Although the Eris and the Motorola Droid share a name and 12,000 Android applications, they are very different phones. The Motorola Droid runs Android 2.0, while the Eris runs Android 1.5 with HTC’s Sense extensions. The differences that these bring up include various things. With the Eris’s Web browsers you use mutitouch pinch-to-zoom, while with the Motorola Droid you double tap to zoom. The Droid Eris has seven home screen panels and some very useful widgets, and the Motorola Droid has only three panels and a lot less interesting widgets. The virtual keyboard is much more accurate and easy to use than the keyboard on the Motorola Droid. You can keep going and going on all the various differences between the two phones, but none of them are really huge. Most of them involve personal preferences.

The Eris handles messaging well. It supports Microsoft Exchange, Google, and POP3/IMAP e-mail. Unfortunately for some, it does not support Yahoo mail. There is an SMS/MMS application for text and picture messaging, but regarding instant messaging there is nothing included but Google Talk. Fortunately, you are able to download a free IM application from the Android Market.

The music player on the Eris is quite decent. It supports tracks in WMA, AAC, and MP3formats. The video player on the phone though definitely has some issues. The playback of most videos is fuzzy and disappointing. The 5-megapixel camera is also very frustrating with the soft images that it captures. If you looking for a good video recorder and camera, the Motorola Droid is definitely the better phone for you.

So to pick between the Motorola Droid and the Droid Eris, you really just need to consider what it is that you want in a phone. Your decision should be purely based on preferences. They are both great phones from Verizon and are both going to serve you well. I hope you are able to figure out which phone suits you best and then go on to thoroughly enjoy your new Droid smartphone.