Sprint spills its perfectly circular LG G Watch R release date

Now that is a smartwatch

The LG G Watch R is the only smartwatch out now that can rival the Moto 360 in terms of both style and functionality, and another US carrier has now announced its availability.

That carrier would be Sprint, which today revealed it will begin selling the LG G Watch R on November 14, one week from today.

AT&T announced its plans to carry the G Watch R back in October, and the smartwatch is already on sale there as well as on Google Play.

At either carrier or in the store the Moto 360 price runs $300, though Sprint is also offering a 12-month/$25-per-month program with no money down.

The perfectly round G Watch R went on sale in first in the UK toward the end of October, with further roll-out promised for the US in November.

Asia will follow soon after, according to earlier announcements.

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Sprint has doubled the data on its shared business plans yet again

Yeah it does

Sprint has doubled down on the double data offer that it debuted earlier this month, upping the ante yet again in its war against AT&T, Verizon and other US carriers.

Those three went on a data-doubling roll in late September and early October, doing their best to one-up one another with shared data plans.

AT&T offered plans starting at 30GB of data for $130, Verizon did much the same, and Sprint doubled that, offering 60GB for $130 (and up from there).

But now Sprint is offering even larger plans, according to a press release, giving customers 240GB for $400, 320GB for $540, or 400GB for $675 for up to 50 lines.

In addition Sprint users can now sign up 100 lines for plans with 600GB for $1,010 or 800GB for $1,350.

Like the previous doubled plans, these fresh rates are available for new and existing customers who sign up before October 31.

These customers will retain these rates indefinitely, but the plans won't be available for new sign-ups after Halloween.

The big question now is who will raise the stakes next - maybe T-Mobile can join the fray with a fresh trick? You know what, consider this an official call-out, pinkie. It's on.

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Sprint, Verizon and AT&T are on a data-doubling roll

It's almost like giving users more data doesn't cost carriers anything

Data is one of the many currencies with which wireless carriers do business, and three US carriers have just decided to give more of it away.

It began with AT&T over the weekend doubling the amount of data available to new and existing 15GB and up shared plan customers who sign up for the promotion before October 31.

These doubled plans start with 30GB of data for $130 and go up from there, and customers will retain these new rates indefinitely.

That was somewhat remarkable in and of itself, but then Sprint came along and upped the ante.

Sprint countered just days after AT&T's announcement that it will offer shared plan customers 60GB, 80GB or 120GB of data for $130, $150 80GB and $225 respectively, doubling AT&T's offer. Sprint also doubled the data on several of its business plans.

Like AT&T, Sprint will let new and existing customers sign up for these rates until October 31, but they'll keep the rates forever.

Then Verizon, not to be outdone, announced its own data plan increases, with 15GB now costing $110, 30GB costing $130, and all tiers above that doubling.

Meanwhile AT&T announced some other incentives, including an LG G Pad 7.0 LTE tablet for $1 or a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 for $100 with any smartphone purchase, as well as extending its $100 credit for customers who purchase phones on a Next plan and $200 off any iPad with the purchase of an iPhone on a Next plan.

Via CNET

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Sprint extends 4G coverage through additional roaming deals

Sprint is expanding its 4G LTE footprint through roaming partnerships it has signed with several rural and regional wireless operators.

On Friday, it announced that it has struck deals with 15 new rural wireless carrier partners, which will help it cover an additional 4 million potential customers with its 4G LTE network. Sprint announced initial deals with 12 rural carriers in June. That deal extended the 4G LTE network to 34 million potential customers in 23 states.

With this latest agreement, Sprint now has deals with 27 carriers in total and will offer 4G LTE access to 38 million people in 27 states.

In March, Sprint said it would take part in the Competitive Carrier Association's Data Access Hub, which provides an easy way for wireless operators to participate in reciprocal roaming agreements, and it announced a deal with the NetAmerica Alliance to work closely with rural carriers to develop an ecosystem of handsets and also offer unused wireless spectrum for further LTE deployment.

These two programs were designed to facilitate a way for Sprint to work more closely with rural operators to extend Sprint's footprint into markets where it doesn't have coverage and to help build a bigger ecosystem of devices all using the same wireless spectrum and technology.

One of Sprint's key problems in competing with AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which together control more than 70 percent of the wireless market in the US, is that its network primarily covers large urban centers and some suburbs. But the company has virtually no coverage in the most rural parts of the country. This puts Sprint at a major competitive disadvantage compared with AT&T and Verizon, which do cover rural markets.

Sprint executives acknowledge that Sprint customers expect to have 4G LTE wherever they travel. The roaming deals that Sprint is striking are helping the company build out its network via partnerships instead of investing in building its network in these underserved markets on its own. At the same time it also gives rural operators more incentive to build their own 4G LTE networks since the relationship will also enable those customers to roam onto Sprint's 4G LTE service in all the major markets it serves.

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Kyocera Hydro Vibe (Sprint)

Pros Waterproof. Affordable. Solid media support.

Cons Poor call quality. Unimpressive display. Mediocre camera. Bottom Line The Kyocera Hydro Vibe adds another low-cost waterproof smartphone to Sprint's lineup, but it's only average at best.

By Alex Colon

If the Kyocera Hydro Vibe sounds familiar, that's because you might be thinking of last year's Kyocera Hydro Edge. And it's not just the names that are similar. The Hydro Vibe ($29.99 with a two-year contract) is essentially the same smartphone as the Hydro Edge, albeit with a slight bump up in the spec department. That makes it worth the $29.99 premium over the Hydro Edge, but you can get a much better device if you're willing to spend your money on something that isn't waterproof.

Design, Waterproofing, and Display
At 5.02 by 2.50 by 0.43 inches (HWD) and 4.9 ounces, the Vibe is slightly larger than the Edge, but still easy to hold in one hand. It has a generic look, made completely out of plastic with a rubberized, textured back panel. The phone is mostly black, with silver buttons, and a dark gray band around the display.

You'll find a Power button and 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the phone, with two Volume buttons on the left. There's a dedicated camera button on the bottom right, and a micro USB port for charging on the bottom. Three touch buttons sit below the display.

The Vibe is certified waterproof for IPX5 and IPX7 standards. That means it can survive submersion in up to 3.28 feet of water for up to 30 minutes. You need to make sure the battery door is properly sealed, but the headphone jack and power port needn't be covered, which is helpful. I tested the Vibe by soaking it in a pitcher of tap water for 30 minutes. After a quick pass of a paper towel the phone emerged unscathed, so if you've ever lost a phone to water damage, the Vibe is a device you might want to consider. 

The phone has an unimpressive 4.5-inch LCD. It features 960-by-540-pixel resolution, which works out to 245 pixels per inch. It looks fine, but sometimes text can appear a bit grainy, and compared with most other displays on the market it just isn't compelling. It could also stand to get a bit brighter.

Connectivity and Call Quality
The Hydro Vibe supports Sprint's 3G, 4G LTE, and latest Spark network, but performance wasn't great where I tested it in New York City. Reception was average at best, and the phone often dropped down to 3G. It also supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies, and had no trouble connecting to our test network in the PC Labs.

The phone uses Kyocera's Smart Sonic Receiver technology, which transmits audio using tissue conduction rather than a traditional speaker. That means there's no speaker on the front of the phone—instead, the glass of the display sends sound vibrations to your ear. I've experienced this done well before, but that's not the case here. Call quality on the Vibe is abysmal. Voices sound thin, tinny, and grainy. When taking a call outside, it becomes difficult to hear. Calls made with the phone are only slightly better, but sound too digitized and suffer from poor noise cancellation. The speakerphone is fine, but far too low to hear outdoors.

The Vibe supports Bluetooth 4.0 + LE/EDR and connected to a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset. Calls over Bluetooth were much better, with a louder, fuller sound. The phone also has NFC, and can be charged wirelessly through the PMA (Power Matters Alliance) standard if you purchase a charging pad. Unfortunately, the 2,000mAh battery was only good for 6 hours and 59 minutes of talk time in our tests, which is on the short side.

Performance and Android
The Vibe is powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8926 processor and 1.5GB RAM. That's a step up from the dual-core chip in the Edge, but performance is only average. Home-screen transitions sometimes lagged behind the touch of my finger, and benchmark scores were only average. It should be able to handle most apps just fine, but it isn't a great phone for gaming.

Kyocera has made some heavy tweaks to Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), the dated OS that powers the Vibe. There's an Easy mode for smartphone beginners (which is somewhat difficult to find under Home Mode), which places up to six giant app icons at a time across three home screens, and gives you access to a simplified, vertical app menu. Back in Standard mode you get five home screens, which come preloaded with a minimum of apps and widgets. The Vibe is home to plenty of bloatware, though surprisingly it can all be deleted. Kyocera also includes a power saving feature called MaxiMZR, which lets you control background data connections for running apps.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
The Vibe has 8GB of storage, but only half of that is available to the user. There's also a free microSD card slot under the back cover, buried under the battery, which supports cards up to 32GB—it couldn't read our 64GB card.

Media support is pretty solid. The Vibe was able to play back all of our test files except WMA, as well as all of our video files up to 1080p, aside from DivX. Once again the phone's speaker is somewhat low, but audio was fine over both wired and Bluetooth headphones.

The 8-megapixel rear-facing camera isn't the best. It fires off a shot in just 0.5 second, but details are lacking and color reproduction is only average. On images taken outdoors, some of the brighter colors were completely blown out even though it wasn't even a particularly sunny day. Another annoying feature is that, right after taking a photo, you need to press the back button in order to take another one. And there really is no video button—the Vibe just starts recording as soon as you press the video icon. Video quality is also lacking. The camera is able to record 1080p30 video outside, but it looked jerky and was constantly refocusing. Indoors, the frame rate drops to a sluggish 15 frames per second.

So while the Kyocera Hydro Vibe is undoubtedly an improvement over the Hydro Edge, it's only an average Android phone at best. If you're extremely clumsy, or if you've ever lost a phone to water damage before, it might be worth a look, but you don't need to spend much more to get a better device. The Moto X costs $49.99 with a two-year contract, and it has a sharper screen, a better camera, and significantly improved call quality. The HTC One can be had for the same price, and will get you a super-sharp 1080p screen and much better performance, even though it's over a year old. Both of those phones are relatively solid, but they aren't waterproof. If you need some peace of mind, you can always buy a water-resistant case.

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Kyocera Hydro Vibe (Sprint)

Pros Waterproof. Affordable. Solid media support.

Cons Poor call quality. Unimpressive display. Mediocre camera. Bottom Line The Kyocera Hydro Vibe adds another low-cost waterproof smartphone to Sprint's lineup, but it's only average at best.

By Alex Colon

If the Kyocera Hydro Vibe sounds familiar, that's because you might be thinking of last year's Kyocera Hydro Edge. And it's not just the names that are similar. The Hydro Vibe ($29.99 with a two-year contract) is essentially the same smartphone as the Hydro Edge, albeit with a slight bump up in the spec department. That makes it worth the $29.99 premium over the Hydro Edge, but you can get a much better device if you're willing to spend your money on something that isn't waterproof.

Design, Waterproofing, and Display
At 5.02 by 2.50 by 0.43 inches (HWD) and 4.9 ounces, the Vibe is slightly larger than the Edge, but still easy to hold in one hand. It has a generic look, made completely out of plastic with a rubberized, textured back panel. The phone is mostly black, with silver buttons, and a dark gray band around the display.

You'll find a Power button and 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the phone, with two Volume buttons on the left. There's a dedicated camera button on the bottom right, and a micro USB port for charging on the bottom. Three touch buttons sit below the display.

The Vibe is certified waterproof for IPX5 and IPX7 standards. That means it can survive submersion in up to 3.28 feet of water for up to 30 minutes. You need to make sure the battery door is properly sealed, but the headphone jack and power port needn't be covered, which is helpful. I tested the Vibe by soaking it in a pitcher of tap water for 30 minutes. After a quick pass of a paper towel the phone emerged unscathed, so if you've ever lost a phone to water damage, the Vibe is a device you might want to consider. 

The phone has an unimpressive 4.5-inch LCD. It features 960-by-540-pixel resolution, which works out to 245 pixels per inch. It looks fine, but sometimes text can appear a bit grainy, and compared with most other displays on the market it just isn't compelling. It could also stand to get a bit brighter.

Connectivity and Call Quality
The Hydro Vibe supports Sprint's 3G, 4G LTE, and latest Spark network, but performance wasn't great where I tested it in New York City. Reception was average at best, and the phone often dropped down to 3G. It also supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies, and had no trouble connecting to our test network in the PC Labs.

The phone uses Kyocera's Smart Sonic Receiver technology, which transmits audio using tissue conduction rather than a traditional speaker. That means there's no speaker on the front of the phone—instead, the glass of the display sends sound vibrations to your ear. I've experienced this done well before, but that's not the case here. Call quality on the Vibe is abysmal. Voices sound thin, tinny, and grainy. When taking a call outside, it becomes difficult to hear. Calls made with the phone are only slightly better, but sound too digitized and suffer from poor noise cancellation. The speakerphone is fine, but far too low to hear outdoors.

The Vibe supports Bluetooth 4.0 + LE/EDR and connected to a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset. Calls over Bluetooth were much better, with a louder, fuller sound. The phone also has NFC, and can be charged wirelessly through the PMA (Power Matters Alliance) standard if you purchase a charging pad. Unfortunately, the 2,000mAh battery was only good for 6 hours and 59 minutes of talk time in our tests, which is on the short side.

Performance and Android
The Vibe is powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8926 processor and 1.5GB RAM. That's a step up from the dual-core chip in the Edge, but performance is only average. Home-screen transitions sometimes lagged behind the touch of my finger, and benchmark scores were only average. It should be able to handle most apps just fine, but it isn't a great phone for gaming.

Kyocera has made some heavy tweaks to Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), the dated OS that powers the Vibe. There's an Easy mode for smartphone beginners (which is somewhat difficult to find under Home Mode), which places up to six giant app icons at a time across three home screens, and gives you access to a simplified, vertical app menu. Back in Standard mode you get five home screens, which come preloaded with a minimum of apps and widgets. The Vibe is home to plenty of bloatware, though surprisingly it can all be deleted. Kyocera also includes a power saving feature called MaxiMZR, which lets you control background data connections for running apps.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
The Vibe has 8GB of storage, but only half of that is available to the user. There's also a free microSD card slot under the back cover, buried under the battery, which supports cards up to 32GB—it couldn't read our 64GB card.

Media support is pretty solid. The Vibe was able to play back all of our test files except WMA, as well as all of our video files up to 1080p, aside from DivX. Once again the phone's speaker is somewhat low, but audio was fine over both wired and Bluetooth headphones.

The 8-megapixel rear-facing camera isn't the best. It fires off a shot in just 0.5 second, but details are lacking and color reproduction is only average. On images taken outdoors, some of the brighter colors were completely blown out even though it wasn't even a particularly sunny day. Another annoying feature is that, right after taking a photo, you need to press the back button in order to take another one. And there really is no video button—the Vibe just starts recording as soon as you press the video icon. Video quality is also lacking. The camera is able to record 1080p30 video outside, but it looked jerky and was constantly refocusing. Indoors, the frame rate drops to a sluggish 15 frames per second.

So while the Kyocera Hydro Vibe is undoubtedly an improvement over the Hydro Edge, it's only an average Android phone at best. If you're extremely clumsy, or if you've ever lost a phone to water damage before, it might be worth a look, but you don't need to spend much more to get a better device. The Moto X costs $49.99 with a two-year contract, and it has a sharper screen, a better camera, and significantly improved call quality. The HTC One can be had for the same price, and will get you a super-sharp 1080p screen and much better performance, even though it's over a year old. Both of those phones are relatively solid, but they aren't waterproof. If you need some peace of mind, you can always buy a water-resistant case.

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Sprint and T-Mobile merger finally a reality

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the often rumored Sprint and T-Mobile merger is finally moving forward. The two companies have agreed to “broad outlines” that put T-Mobile’s value at $32 billion, or about $40 per share.

This deal isn’t official, but it’s expected to be during the early part of the summer. Of course, negotiations could fall through, but unlikely as it seems as though both companies really need this deal to happen. Sprint and T-Mobile are the 3rd and 4th largest wireless operators in the U.S., and it appears a deal between these two companies has the best chance of clearing the FCC.

If you remember, AT&T’s bid for T-Mobile fell through so it’s unlikely that the FCC would approve any combination of the major four operators if one of the companies were to be AT&T or Verizon Wireless. That leaves Sprint and T-Mobile, and to be honest, this marriage makes a lot of sense.

If Sprint and T-Mobile formally announce a deal, the actual merger probably wouldn’t take place until early next year since the approval process could take several months.

What do you guys think? Will this deal be a win or a loss for consumers?

source: WSJ

» See more articles by Robert Nazarian

Categorized as Android Carriers, Android News

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