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Dwight “The Houston Tiger” Silverman, like so many tech dudes, likes the Palm Pre and Pixi and, in a way, doesn’t understand why Palm is on the rocks. However, he got an email from a reader who described her Verizon experience as sub-par at best. It began poorly: My original salesperson, upon hearing me say I was there for the Palm Pre, immediately mentioned that they were running a special on the Droid. I said terrific but I’m here for the Pre. The salesman finally got one out for me but no one at Verizon had any idea how it worked, how to set it up, or even how the screen functioned. It took Verizon over 3 hours just to the Pre “set up”, apparently because “the guy” who knew about the Pre was not there. I lovingly took my Pre home. And got worse. Generally, it feels like Verizon and, to a degree, Sprint, have lumped WebOS in with the rest of the feature phones OSes. It’s not flashy enough to be an iPhone killer nor is it popular enough to beat Android in the mindshare game. It’s a floater, friends, and we all know where those eventually go.

Capitalism! Sprint was cool offering Palm Pixi for $100, until Verizon’s Palm Pixi Plus slid in underneath at $79. Well Sprint’s having none of that, slashing the original Palm Pixi’s price to a mere $50 for new customers, after all of the rebates and contracts and what have you. Remember , the candybar Pixi doesn’t have Wi-Fi and has a slightly smaller screen than the Pre, but if you or someone you know isn’t quite ready for a big boy phone, a $50 Pixi could be hard to resist. Also remember , hard times ahead for Palm. [ Sprint ]

Likely a direct counterstrike to Verizon’s $79.99 Pixi Plus , Sprint has dropped the retail price of its original WiFi-less Pixi all the way down to $49.99 after $100 mail-in rebate on a new two-year contract. As you might recall, the Pixi debuted at $100, but now that the Pre’s leaving it in the dust with both high-quality gaming and Flash support, a little more price separation between the two makes a lot of sense. Alright, Sprint, strong work — now you’ve just got to drop the Pre a few bucks to distance it from Verizon’s Pre Plus and you’ll be good to go. Palm Pixi now $50 on Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

The last we heard the Nexus One was navigating its way through the FCC and Verizon was targeting a “Spring 2010″ launch. But now there’s a rumor floating around that states quite clearly that March 23, 2010 will be the launch date. Interesting… We reached out to our Verizon contacts and none of them could confirm this date. But the rumor doesn’t originate from a Verizon source, but rather someone within Google. The March 23rd date does fit within the Spring 2010 launch window and also happens to be during the CTIA wireless conference. So even though this is purely a rumor at this point, you may wanna hold of on your phone buying decisions a bit longer as the rumored launch date is less than 30 days away. The Nexus One is noice.

The folks at AndroidForums are at it again, this time doing a little detective work to connect a Flickr account to a twitter account to a YouTube account that revealed the following a video which forum members are speculating is the HTC Incredible: What do you think? Head on over to AndroidForums and join in on the HTC Incredible discussion! [Thanks OneNiner, woodraskam !]

Until I held the Motorola Devour in my hands, I assumed it would be a lighter, more plasticky version of the Motorola Droid with weaker specs but a better keyboard. As you’ll learn in this review, my perception gradually quickly changed. It’s difficult to review the Devour on it’s own merits when it has the same manufacturer, is available on the same carrier, and has a mirroring form factor with (virtually) the same operating system. But we’ll try… and in the end draw the necessary comparisons and conclusions because let’s face it – context is everything. Hardware Review Within 2 seconds of holding the Motorola Devour I knew it wasn’t the “light, more plasticky” younger brother to the Droid I had expected. It was heavy. It was sturdy. It screamed “tough” and wanted to be its own man phone. The aluminum body with black, ruggedized rubber contributed to the look and feel and honestly it seems like the most solid Android phone out there. The problem is that the sturdiness seems like the main attraction of a phone that’s aspiring to be things it shouldn’t: Don’t get me wrong, I like the Devour hardware and it isn’t bad when judged alone. But with a small screen (3.1-inch), average resolution (HVGA), mediocre camera (3MP/fixed focus/no flash) and other less than stellar specs, I almost wished it would just take its place in line. It’s way too big and heavy for what’s stuffed inside and while an outstanding keyboard could have come through with a buzzer beater in the clutch, it was only decent. Better than the Droid keyboard? Absolutely… but by no means one of the best keyboards out there. Keyboards: DEVOUR vs DROID vs G1 I was really hoping the Devour keyboard would knock one out of the park. In press pics it looked quite spacious, contoured and clicky. I tried to do quite a bit of typing with the Devour, even publishing a Phandroid article from the device , so I got pretty comfortable/familiar with it: The Devour keyboard is DEFINITELY an upgrade over the Droid keyboard. Not only was the Droid keyboard sub-par, the accuracy of the large 3.7-inch landscape keyboard nearly render the physical keyboard pointless (at least in my own opinion). It’s a good thing the Devour improves here then, as the 3.1-inch screen is less than desirable for typing out Emails and long text messages. Unfortunately I’d only give the Devour keyboard a “decent” rating – not terrible and not great, somewhere in the middle of the pack. You can see how HTC did a great job configuring their sliding mechanism to allow for maximum keyboard surface area. I’m hoping a few other companies make this a priority, and if you ask me, LG is a prime candidate by emulating their Voyager/enV clamshell style form factor. Software Review The Devour runs Android 1.6 with Motorola’s custom build of Android – MOTOBLUR. The idea is to aggregate all your points of communication into two virtual “filing cabinets: Happenings and Messages. Happenings are status updates from friends on Twitter, Facebook and the like – stuff that flies in by the barrels but isn’t essential to your existence. Messages are 1-to-1 points of communication that are more critical to your everyday life – Emails, TXT messages and that sort of thing. They’re displayed on your home screen as widgets and a universal status updater allows you to push your own updates to numerous social networking sites all at once. The most dedicated Android fans could have 2 main complaints about the Devour software: It runs an “old” version of Android They don’t particularly enjoy MOTOBLUR – it’s information overkill I totally dismiss those 2 arguments in the above video and I think it’s worth pointing out why. While most readers of this blog always want the most up-to-date version of Android so they can have all the bells and whistles, there are a lot of customers who this won’t bother. Even Android 1.6 is pretty darn good and coming from a dumb phone or feature phone, they’ve already got so many new features to enjoy that an extra thing here and there isn’t going to kill them. And don’t forget – Motorola says they WILL eventually update the Devour to 2.x, but until they you’re still able to enjoy the vast majority of Android goodness including Google Navigation. I understand why people don’t enjoy MOTOBLUR – it’s just not for them. Either they’re not social networking fiends, it is information overkill, or they prefer other 3rd party apps on Android Market. While I think MOTOBLUR is an interesting idea and I especially enjoy the News/RSS widget, I can appreciate that we all have personal preferences. What I can’t understand is people making a decision to purchase or NOT to purchase a phone based on whether or not it has BLUR. If you don’t like it, simply drag all the widgets into the trashcan, turn off the notifications and set up your phone as if it were a Google Experience phone. With the 1.6 and BLUR discussion out of the way, I have to say I was surprised how snappy and quick the UI of the Devour seemed. I didn’t put it under a ton of application stress, but it seems as though the processor had an easy time with the smaller and less resolved screen. The Voice Activation feature on the right side is a nice touch, especially useful if you’re in the car or multi-tasking – definitely a plus. The biggest detraction of the Devour’s UI isn’t the software at all, but the hardware. If you’ve gotten used to a Droid or Nexus, the smaller screen size and lower resolution are apparent, but all-in-all the screen is decent (although sunlight caused problems). When all is said and done, despite being an older version of Android the Devour software holds its own and all but those demanding the Android elite should be satisfied. Camera Review There are two sides to reviewing a camera/camcorder: the actual experience TAKING the picture including UI/Options/Features and then of course the result – how your pictures and videos turn out. I’m sorry to say that on both accounts the Camera is mediocre at best. The camera is only 3MP fixed focus with no flash so I wasn’t expecting amazing results, but I thought the MOTOBLUR integration might offer a little more in terms of customizing, editing and other options: The pictures are actually pretty bad. When the pixels are condensed and you’re viewing small versions of the full images they don’t look so shabby, but if you click through an image to see it’s original size you’ll notice how fuzzy and poor the quality truly is. For example in this picture there were actually several Robins jumping around the forest floor. Click on the picture, which is the full size taken at 3MP, and see if you can spot any of them. You probably can’t so here is some help – I cropped the Robin at full resolution and it looks like an Atari character: But again, you just have to know what you’re getting and why/when you’re using the camera. Other pictures came out fairly well if you just want to use them as 8

Early termination fees. No one likes them but they can sometimes be a necessary evil. If you become unhappy with your service provider or you are overwhelmed with lust for a new gadget on a different carrier, you pay the price. Carriers say that these termination fees, or ETFs, allow them to subsidize handsets and recover those costs over the course of a contract. Should a contract be broken, a carrier recovers those subsidies with an ETF. The FCC recently decided something was amiss with ETFs and probed carriers into explaining the rhyme and reason behind the fees . The carriers have finally spoken, albeit a little unconvincingly. Most of you are already familiar with why ETFs exist, but it is interesting to see the canned and obvious responses from the carriers. AT&T boils it down to choice and it really couldn’t have done a better job of playing Captain Obvious. Customers can either choose a subsidized handset with penalties if a contract is broken, or go pre-paid and pay for a device outright. Of course, the latter option can either limit handset selection or make a huge dent in one’s wallet. Again, it’s a choice consumers have to make. Sprint says that its customers are thoroughly informed about contract terms and conditions, and that ETFs are a part of the game. The carrier does everything it possibly can to make sure a customer knows what he or she is getting into before, during and after a handset is sold and a contract is signed to make sure the customer is satisfied and happy. Fair enough, and I agree having been a Sprint customer lately. Vonya McCann, senior vice president of government affairs for Sprint, says, “An unsatisfied customer is much more likely to leave Sprint for another carrier.” After recently doubling its ETF for premier or high-end handsets, Verizon actually had the gall to say that it was doing a favor for its customers. Verizon’s excuse is the same as everyone else’s: subsidies allow customers to purchase otherwise pricey handsets for more manageable costs, and ETFs are put in place in case a deal is broken. But still, does $350 seem fair on top of what a top-tier device usually costs? Lastly, there is Google, who recently got into the handset sales game with the Nexus One. Google either sells the Nexus One directly to customers, or sells it subsidized through T-Mobile, earning a commission in the process. If the customer bails, Google passes the cost of that lost commission down to the customer. What this all boils down to is handset subsidies, which are usually recovered via the pricey monthly plans we pay for. If a carrier fronts $300 on a device so we only have to pay $100, and we cancel a contract three months into the deal, the carrier does have a right to recover those costs because it just waved bye-bye to a shiny new handset. [via Associated Press ]

Motorola is cranking out Android handsets and its latest phone, the Devour, is here. The Devour has a 3.1-inch touchscreen, an aluminum body and a custom user interface called MotoBlur that aggregates contacts and feeds from different social networking sites, such as Flickr, Twitter and Facebook, into a single stream. Priced at $150 with a two-year contract, the Devour will become the third Android phone to run on the Verizon Wireless network next month. “The Devour is about streaming your social life into the phone,” says Dan Rudolph, director of product marketing for Motorola. “The more social networking accounts you have, the more value you will get from the phone.” Still, our first look at the Devour was disappointing. Under the hood, the phone isn’t state of the art in terms of its technical specification–it lacks multi-touch, it doesn’t feature the 1 GHz Qualcomm processor seen on the Nexus One and runs an older version of the Android operating system. Nor does it impress with its looks. The much-touted aluminum body aside, the phone is bulky, big and very retro in its styling. Here’s a closer look at it. The Devour is a slider phone with a physical keyboard that’s much more pleasant to use than the Motorola Droid . The keyboard, which seems carved directly into the aluminum body, has buttons that are soft yet respond firmly. But at 5.9 ounces the phone is a bulky beast. It weighs almost the same as the Droid but it is positively plus-sized when compared to its lightweight peers: The iPhone 3G S is only 4.8 ounces and the Nexus One is just 4.5 ounces. What makes the Devour seem hefty is its harsh, boxy look. Unlike the softer, rounded corners that are popular among most smartphones today, the Devour is a rectangular slab with sharp square edges in a hardware design that is reminiscent of the Palm VII. Motorola and Verizon say that they want to evoke a masculine look with the phone but hey, don’t boys want pretty devices too? The Devour screen is bright but not as vivid as the OLED display on the Nexus One and it seems to smudge very easily. Just a few minutes of using it left fingerprint marks all over the display. In an interesting twist, the Devour has a tiny touch-sensitive thumbpad on the right that can be used to scroll through the icons on the screen and select one. The slider, itself, though feels flimsy because it is also a toggle button on one of its sides. The phone has a 600 MHz Qualcomm processor that is a tad faster than the Droid’s but is significantly slower than the 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip used in the Nexus One. Instead of a removable back plane, the Devour has the cover for the battery and the microSD card at the side of the device–similar to what we see in a compact digital camera. It’s an attempt  to make the phone more stable, says Motorola’s Rudolph, since smartphones users have complained about the battery cover at the back slipping off in some phones. Beyond that, the Devour has its basics covered. It includes a camera capable of both video and still photos, a 8GB microSD card, accelerometer, Wi-Fi and GPS. Though it’s the latest phone from Motorola’s stable, the Devour runs Android 1.6, which is a surprise considering that most of the latest Android phones use version 2.0 or 2.1 of the OS. The older Android flavor also means that Devour users have to manually download an update to get turn-by-turn navigation on their phone. But what Motorola says will give the Devour its edge is the use of the MotoBlur skin, which is missing on the Android. After a quick initial set-up, the MotoBlur brings in your Twitter feed, Facebook updates and messages including e-mail and text messages into little widgets on the homescreen. Integrated contacts and data is the name of the game so the interface aggregates corporate and personal e-mail accounts and display them on a single screen–though you can keep them separate if you want. You can also arrange to view new messages in a card-like view (similar to the Palm Pre) or in an easily scrollable list. There are some sweet extras. User can back up their phone for free on the MotoBlur website through their MotoBlur account. They can also track their phone for free and remote-wipe it if it is lost, a service that Apple charges $100 a year for with its MobileMe service. Clearly, Motorola wants to get as many Android handsets out as it can, ostensibly in an attempt to give consumers the choice they want. But at this point, it feels like the process has lost its soul. There’s not much innovation in hardware design or in the user interface. The Devour is yet another cookie cutter phone churned out to keep the corporate coffers full. But in an extremely competitive smartphone market,  it’s an approach that may not be enough cut it with choosy consumers. See Also: Motorola Introduces New Android Phone, the Backflip Motorola Backflip Will Be the First Android Phone on AT&T Hands-On With The Motorola Quench Motorola’s First Android Phone Takes Aim at Social Networks Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Traditional mobile carriers and VoIP services haven’t really mixed in the past. Verizon Wireless, until their adoption of Android, had been considered one of the most “closed” carriers on the planet. Google Voice was a ray of hope that still hasn’t caught on with the masses but wait… what do we have here? Verizon and Skype are hosting a Joint Press Conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Tuesday, February 16th at 11:15am EST – mark it on your calendar.You can also call in and listen to the event live if it has you all giddy – nice little option! We’re not sure EXACTLY what they’ll announce but just because its Verizon and Skype you can venture a guess that probably wouldn’t be too far off. And if they announce a new Skype app/service for Verizon Android Phones I would be ELATED because the current app is sub par at best. They’ll probably announce a merger followed by a headquarter move to Scandinavia: Not funny? Fine… then what do you think they’ll announce? Any Android implications? The Who/What/When/Where: WHO: Verizon Wireless, the leading wireless provider in the United States, and Skype, the software that enables the world’s conversations WHAT: Verizon Wireless and Skype will hold a news conference during the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Speakers will include: John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Verizon Wireless Josh Silverman, chief executive officer, Skype WHERE: GSMA Media Centre, Hall 2.1, Press Conference Room 3 Fira de Barcelona Av. Reina Maria Cristina, s/n, 08004 Barcelona, Spain To listen to a teleconference of the news conference, participants may call: 877-883-4690 (toll free within the U.S. and Canada) +1 706-758-5386 (international) Conference ID: 57101247 WHEN: 5:15 p.m. CET (11:15 a.m. EST / 8:15 a.m. PST) on Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Everybody panic! Actually, don’t. A number of blogs are reporting on a story by OTR Global claiming that Palm has suddenly told Foxconn (the Taiwanese manufacturer building all of Palm’s handsets) to halt production of the Pre, Pre Plus, and Pixi Plus. This claim, it seems, is greatly exaggerated. We just got off the horn with our own sources on that side of the ocean – and according to them, all is well. There is a production break throughout a few days in February, but that’s been planned for some time now. The reason for the break? Chinese new year! Following the holiday, production on all models should resume as normal. Pixi Plus and Pre Plus units will presumably see less production than they did at the beginning of the year, as production was ramped up in preparation for the Verizon launch.