Verizon Wireless Razzle
(Credit: Verizon Wireless)Verizon Wireless has just announced the Verizon Wireless Razzle, a phone that can tilt and swivel to fit both your messaging and music-playing needs. Developed by PCD, the phone's lower half twists to reveal either a full QWERTY keyboard or external music controls.
It has a 2.2-inch color display, a 1.3-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, voice commands, a speakerphone, a microSD card slot, and access to Verizon Wireless' V Cast Music with Rhapsody. However, it doesn't have EV-DO and won't support over-the-air song downloads. The Razzle is available starting October 6th for $69.99 with a new two-year service agreement.
On Sale Now: $19.99
View the latest prices for Verizon Wireless Razzle
Verizon Wireless Escapade
(Credit: Verizon Wireless)World phones are typically of the smartphone variety, like the RIM BlackBerry Tour for example, but Verizon Wireless has laid that theory to rest with the new Verizon Wireless Escapade.
Developed by PCD, the Escapade has dual-band CDMA 1x as well as quad-band GSM/GPRS with a preinstalled SIM card. You'll only be able to use the SIM card overseas though, as Verizon does not have roaming agreements with AT&T and T-Mobile USA.
The Escapade is decidedly middle of the road, with simple features like Bluetooth, mobile e-mail, a 2-megapixel camera, and VZ Navigator support. That sits fine with us, because the Escapade is only $30 with a two-year agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate.
On Sale Now: $29.99
View the latest prices for Verizon Wireless Escapade
Cricket's new TXTM8.
(Credit: Leap Wireless)When we first saw the TXT8026 at the PCD (Personal Communications Devices) booth at this year's CTIA, we thought for sure it would be a successor to the Verizon Wireless Blitz--they're both square and slightly chubby, with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
Now it appears regional carrier Cricket has first dibs at the little messaging phone, and they've dubbed it the TXTM8, pronounced "textmate"--get it? Features include a 1.3-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, voice recognition, a music player, and a microSD card slot. You can get it now for $159.99 without a contract.
(Via PhoneScoop)
There was no hardware on hand in the booth, but this poster of the TXT8026 from PCD shows the goods.
(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)
Another new phone that's been announced by PCD, the TXT8030, was also here only in poster form.
(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)PCD didn't have any major announcements at CTIA, but it did give us a brief sneak peek at what we can expect from them this year. All of the offerings appear to be messaging phones, with full QWERTY keyboards for easier texting. I apologize in advance for just taking photos of posters; they didn't have any real hardware on hand at the booth.
The first handset we saw was codenamed the TXT8026, which has a 2.2-inch color screen with a 1.3-megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth 2.0, an MP3 player, and measures around 3.8 inches long by 2.7 inches wide by 0.7 inch thick. This was one of the only new devices on display at the PCD booth, and I think it looks a lot like the Verizon Wireless Blitz.
A giant poster displayed both the TXT8021 and the TXT8020.
(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)The other handset, which I think looks a bit more interesting, is currently called the TXT8030. The TXT8030 has a rotating angled keypad, with external music player keys and a speaker on one side, and a full QWERTY keyboard on the other. The TXT8030 also has a 2.2-inch display, a microSD card slot, a 1.3-megapixel camera, a music player, and it measures around 4.5 inches long by 2.4 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick.
There's still no sight of the actual TXT8020 here at CTIA, the swiveling messaging phone that we saw at CES, nor have we seen the TXT8021, which also looks a little like the Blitz. We did see a giant poster of the two phones at the PCD booth.
Of course, no word on pricing or availability on any of these devices, but we hope they'll come out some time this year. And considering they're all CDMA phones, we can at least narrow down the prospective carriers.
The Verizon Wireless CDM8975 is one of a few Verizon Wireless phones that has push-to-talk capabilities, and we managed to test it out recently. It has quite a lackluster design, but we do like its roomy keypad, colorful screen, and external music player controls. We also like that it has EV-DO Rev. A, which makes downloading music and loading Web pages quite speedy. Other features include a 1.3-megapixel camera, a music player, A-GPS, stereo Bluetooth, and access to Verizon's V Cast broadband services. Check out our full review of the Verizon Wireless CDM8975 for more details.
AT&T Quickfire in silver
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)AT&T introduced a slew of messaging phones recently, like the Pantech Matrix, the Samsung Propel, and the Pantech Slate. But its most popular announcement by far has been the AT&T Quickfire, a touch-screen and QWERTY keyboard hybrid that promises more than just the normal messaging phone. And we had the chance to get our hands on it this week.
Despite a few design quirks, we have to say we're pretty impressed. The Quickfire is definitely the bulkiest messaging phone we've seen; it's even thicker than the T-Mobile Sidekick. We're not exactly fans of its blocky design either. But we have to give props for its nice 2.8-inch touch-screen display, and the easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard as well.
As for the touch screen, we're very impressed that it's a capacitive touch screen similar to the one used on the Apple iPhone and the T-Mobile G1, allowing us to use just a light tap of the finger for a press to register.
That doesn't mean we didn't have problems with the touch screen though. We had to be very precise and accurate when selecting something, because when we didn't, we sometimes pressed the wrong thing. Also, occasionally we had to hold a press for a much longer time than expected for the press to register. While intuitive, the touch-screen experience is certainly not as refined as it is on the iPhone.
Similarly, we were not impressed with the browser interface. Though we can drag on the screen to scroll through Web pages, there was often quite a bit of lag between when our fingers hit the screen and when the touch registered. Certainly we're impressed that the Quickfire has a full HTML browser at all (remember that the Sidekick does not), and it's on par with some of the other touch-screen phones out there, but again, it's just not as good as we wanted.
Other features of the Quickfire include a 1.3-megapixel camera, HSDPA, GPS, stereo Bluetooth, and a microSD card slot. It's available now for $99.99 with a two-year service agreement and mail-in rebate. For more details on whether we liked or disliked the Quickfire, please check out our full review!
AT&T Quickfire
(Credit: AT&T)In case you've forgotten, the AT&T Quickfire is officially on sale Monday. Made by PCD, the Sidekick wanna-be was actually unofficially in stores a couple days ago, so some of you might have gotten yours already. The touch-screen phone comes with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and features 3G/HSDPA, GPS, a music player, and a 1.3-megapixel camera.
The Quickfire is available for $99 with a mail-in rebate and a two-year contract. We're trying to get our hands on a review unit soon, and we will let you know when we're done.
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