AT&T touts new gadgets and more

Photos: AT&T's gadget array on display

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NEW YORK--The nation's second largest wireless phone company came to the Big Apple this week to strut its stuff.

At an event in a swanky boutique hotel in midtown Manhattan, AT&T representatives displayed several new handsets that are launching soon or have just launched on the carrier's network. Included in the lineup were several new smartphones, such as the hot Nokia e71x and the BlackBerry Curve 8900, which goes on sale Friday.

In addition to its new smartphones, AT&T showed off some new budget-friendly phones, such as the $20 Samsung Magnet and the new LG Neon, which hasn't been priced yet. These phones have full QWERTY keypads for quick typing, but they're inexpensive and don't require pricey data plans that come with smartphones.

As part of its push to offer wireless service to more consumer devices, AT&T also showed off its new Netbooks, or mini-laptops, that will go on sale nationally this summer. The company plans to subsidize the Netbooks for customers signing up for a two-year service contract for its 3G wireless network. So far, pricing hasn't been released yet.

But AT&T didn't just highlight its new gadgets. It also showed off some enhancements to its new applications and services, as in the case of its YellowPages.com application for the iPhone. This free application allows iPhone users to find local businesses and listings from their devices. The service just recently added mapping functionality to the application. And the company also played up its AT&T Mobile TV service, which is offered over MediaFlo's mobile broadcast TV network.

And finally, AT&T demonstrated its interactive U-verse TV service. And as of the end of the first quarter, AT&T said it had a total of more than 1.3 million U-verse TV subscribers.

[egghead1619]

I love my U-verse service and keep hoping AT&T expands into mine and my wife's parents areas. I was lucky in that, being in a newly constructed neighborhood, AT&T had already laid the high-bandwidth fiber to all the lots. Sadly, they didn't do any advertising for it in the area and I just happened to stumble across the website while looking for cable/satellite and internet service. If they had advertised it out here, I'm sure many more would have signed up instead of going with DirecTV or DISH Network (the only other options out here). I'm not even sure U-verse was around much before I moved in, they didn't have many of the introduction videos on the site (broken links) and it was a few months before total-home DVR service was rolled out and pushed to our system.

I would just like to see the price for U-verse Voice to come down a little closer to my bare minimum phone plan and maybe a little bit better integration through HDMI with HDTV monitors (I sometimes have to power cycle the monitor a couple times for the HDCP check to validate and let me watch TV).

Still loving the 4 simultaneous recordings, usually have 2-3 at the same time and it's happened, but rarely, that I have all four streams tied up in recordings; so I just watch one or go do something else.

[Maarek Stele]

Great for a starter smartphone for those switching from a regular phone and want more. If built wider the phone would have a better keyboard and larger screen, but I guess we all have to get used to it.

Great phone, but for now, I'm sticking with my HTC FUZE.

[madmongol]

Not much of major interest. Basically it follows a similar pattern in that they show off new devices, talk about their video services. The iPhone applications such as the YellowPages.com is nice but no mention of their Billing application on the iPhone or any other innovative applications at all. The netbook subsidy is nice but I am not convinced given the troublesome service of their current 3G wireless for the iPhone that a netbook is really that great. I was rather hoping for far better announcements that would from a consumer perspective or even an industry perspective make me stand up and take notice of AT&T's offerings. Hopefully this will happen in the near future.

[bonesbautista]

About the "hot" Nokia E71x, it's not hot. The E71 hit the streets almost a year ago, unlocked versions are on Amazon and CL. ATTWS took waaaay too long to get this one out.

[ecotony]

very happy with U-Verse... wish the compression level would go down so the PQ would improve, but overall a great service.

[joshdev]

I'm guessing no word was given on AT&T's femtocell solution?

[jefflac]

Limited release this summer. More cities to come in the fall.

[forever4now]

Netbook/tablet devices running a smartphone OS like Android, Symbian, etc., could become a big hit with mobile operators.

If these devices include smartphone hardware (touchscreen, 3G, GPS, accelerometer, compass, etc.) and support cell phone calls and SMS, the mobile operators would be able to generate revenue from:
1. data contracts.
2. phone calls & SMS.
3. app purchases (e.g. operators get a cut from Android Market app sales).
4. value-added apps & services that leverage the capabilities of these "smartphone" devices.

Netbooks/tablets running a desktop OS don't offer all of these same revenue opportunities for the operators.