Archive for February 28th, 2011

T-Mobile USA reports $4.69 billion in revenue

The American branch of the T-Mobile Corporation has reported its revenue for the past year and the company reached a pretty hefty $4.69 billion in revenue last year, a growth of 0.9% compared to the previous year. Despite this increase in profits the company still is losing subscribers and the large part of its revenue is generated by prepay customers.

Despite having one of the best and fastest 4G networks in the US ( according to them at least ) the company still has issues in gathering new subscribers to its data plans. With the data ARPUs rising faster than any other US rival company the carrier is still losing ground in the race. Considering that they have Carly ( that beautiful brunette that starts in their T-Mobile Commercials ) they should be on the rise yet they still are losing customers. The company managed to grab 33.73 million subscribers in the 4th quarter of 2010 according to some figures recently released, yet that’s a step down compared to the 33.76 million subscribers for the 3rd quarter of 2010.

T-Mobile did mention where the large shift occurred and that comes as sort of a surprise as they did lose on-contract subscribers, which went down a massive 318 thousand users in the 4th quarter. That’s 5 times more than they lost in the other three month period. Although pre-pay customers are up when compared to the 3rd quarter, the sales figures still seem down a bit when comparing them to the achievements reached in 2009.

Average Revenue Per User ( the previously mentioned ARPU ) was $46 in the fourth quarter of 2010, down slightly from what the company managed to grab in Q3 of the same year, but consistent with the figures generated in 2009. The contract ARPU was $52 in Q4 of 2010, which didn’t go down compared to Q3 of the same year, and which was up when comparing it to the $51 generated by contract based customers in 2009. The prepaid sector did shine more in this past year, as the company managed to get an ARPU of $19 in the fourth quarter which is slightly up when comparing it to the $18 generated in 2009.

Data service revenues where a sector in which the company did rather well for itself as it generated $1.29 billion in the 4th quarter of 2010, which is up by 25% compared to the 4th quarter of the previous year. The revenue generated by data services represented roughly 28% of what the company managed to reach in the ARPU sector. This is again another statistic which went up when compared to 2009 when the percentage represented 22% of the blended ARPU or $10.2 per customer.

T-Mobile did say that the competitive smartphone market had a part of the blame in this downfall in sales as more people switched to smartphone rather than feature phones. With the increase in smartphones sales the company reached in 2010, we might see where the smarphone sector came into play, yet the company CEO Philipp Humm did say that “High contract churn and significant contract customer losses in the fourth quarter of 2010 indicate that we still have a fair amount of work ahead of us” and that “any turnaround will take time”. I can only wish the company the best of luck as a market filled with competitors will only be beneficial for the customer as the quality of services will be increased in order to stay alive in such a sector. Until the next time, do you have a contract with T-Mobile or did you recently terminate it, and if yes, then what was the reason? Make sure to drop a line in the comments below.1

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February 28th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android News

HTC Merge going live!

HTC Merge seems to be one of those Android phones which is really shy when it comes to the camera. Although the first hands on videos were posted around October of last year, we didn’t hear much or see much from this little device offered up by HTC. Rumored to be released only on Verizon, also partly because of the read ear piece and the red led shining below the capacitive search button, HTC recently announced that the device will be actually coming to several carriers this spring. That’s the HTC Merge release date so far, this spring.

HTC Merge represents the first step the company took in creating HTC’s first Android-based CDMA world phone. The Merge will feature a full QWERTY slide out keyboard which sports for the time being the same red coloring as the ear piece and the search button, which does make it a touch harder to actually look at the buttons when in direct sun light as far as I could tell, so in this aspect I would be rather tempted to give the advantage to the Motorola Droid 2 ( or Milestone 2 for those in Europe ) which did come with a very nice keyboard. Still considering the first few clips I would be tempted again ( yes, I’m easily tempted ) to say that the HTC Merge uses the QWERTY keyboard a touch better than the Motorola Droid 2 as the keys seem to be better spaced and that this will improve typing speed, yet I couldn’t go into any more details from this standpoint.

The display is a 3.8 inch capacitive touch-screen, with no resolution announced yet but if I were to go out on a limb I’d say it’s the standard 480 x 800 pixels. The HTC Merge will ship with Android 2.2 Froyo running on it and HTC’s Sense UI. On the back you’ll find the 5 megapixel camera which despite seeming rather similar to the one found on the Motorola Milestone 2 or Droid 2, can record 720p HD videos. The processor seems to be an 800 MHz ARM 8 Cortex processor, yet HTC didn’t give any specifics on that. The Merge will have all the standard GPS, Wi-Fi b/g/n connectivity features as well as 3G connectivity when talking about operators.

In a nutshell, the device seems rather solid from what I could tell in the first few videos and images of it and I would say that the Motorola Droid 2 finally has a worthy contestant to challenge it in my book of reference at least. If build quality is on par with the one I’ve come to love in the Droid 2 than we might have a serious device right here under our noises as the two devices are very closely specked. The only issue which would arise in my head would be pricing and availability along with another crucial fact – if you have a Motorola Droid 2 would you consider swapping it for a Merge? I for one like to go by a very old proverb, if it ain’t broken don’t fix it.

Probably the biggest aspect of this upcoming Android phone will be the pricing and how good the keyboard actually fairs when compared to the one on the Motorola so we’ll have to wait and see for that. HTC said that it will be out this spring across multiple carriers to make sure to keep an eye out for this one. Until next time, I’ll be busy telling my Droid 2 that I love it and make sure to tuck it in this time I’ll put it in bed.

Last 2 images via Android Central – make sure to check them out!1

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February 28th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android Phone

Archos Android Tablet

Some people might frown at the $800 price tag the Motorola Xoom comes to the show with and some might argue that most tablets in this market area are still dedicated to a rather reduced sector of the market. Because of this I thought I’d give the Arnova Android tablets from Archos a quick look as they are producing and selling at the time being 2 models, one with an 8 inch display and a second one with a 10.1 inch display.

Arnova 10 is the name of the larger tablet and it will be shipping with a 10.1 resistive multi-touch display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The tablet does have 24 bit colors on it so don’t think that because of the resistive display you’ll get a downgrade in quality because colors look pretty good on the tablet. A version with a capacitive display will be coming out sometime in Q2 according to the manufacturer although no certain release date is set for that version. The Arnova 10 Android tablet will be shipped with a 600 MHz ARM9 processor, which again will be changed when the capacitive version will be released to an ARM Cortex-A8 1 GHz processor ( the same processor you have in the iPad ). You will get Android 2.1 Éclair on this version but supposedly the successor will be shipping with Android 2.3 Gingerbread yet Honeycomb might stay out of it reach for a touch longer.

The Archos Arnova 10 will be able to playback 720p videos at 30 fps in avi, mp4, mkv, mov and flv file formats with the subsequent version touting 1080p video playback. You’ve got your standard interfaces with USB 2.0, micro SD slot, WiFi b/g, built in speakers and a front facing camera. The device will come with 4 GB of on board storage which can be extended via a micro SD card. All of this fun will measure in at 272 x 152.3 x 13.5 mm ( that’s 10.7 x 6 x 0.5 inches ) and will weigh in at roughly 570 grams ( that’s 20.1 oz ).

Arnova 8 is the little brother of the previously detailed Arnova 10 and will also come with a resistive touchscreen which measures 8 inches in this model and has a standard resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. A capacitive version will be released most likely in the same time period as the capacitive version of the Arnova 10. Video playback is the same as well as connectivity and the processor powering this little device is the same 600 MHz processor which again will be changed once the Arnova 8 with a capacitive display is released. The only differences between the two are the measurements really, as the Archos Arnova 8 will come measuring in at 205 x 153 x 12 mm ( that’s 8 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches ) and will weigh 500 grams ( that’s 17.6 oz ).

The real selling point of the Archos Arnova tablets is the price tag for all of this. Consider the specs of the Motorola Xoom and now ask yourself – is it actually worth it the $800 price tag it comes with? Well I know for a fact that these two Android tablets sure deserve their price tag as the Archos Arnova 8 will set you back $149 in the USA and 149€ in Europe while the Archos Arnova 10 will set you back $199 in the USA and 199€ in Europe. According to the company these prices won’t change for the capacitive versions of the tablets. So if you are in the market for a budget tablet, make sure to give these little monsters a look because you can’t get any cheaper than this and not end up with just an empty cardboard box. Until next time, I’ll be preoccupied doodling with these little attention mongers – come here you two!1

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February 28th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android Phone

Android OS update – Android 2.3.3 live on the Nexus S

The awaited Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread update has started rolling out for users of the Samsung Nexus S so if you have one keep on reading because I’ll try to give you boys and girls a quick run on how to get this update on your device. In order to manually upgrade your Samsung Nexus S to the latest version of the operating system you’ll have to follow the following few steps.

First of all get your hands on the OTA package HERE. Once you download it make sure to rename the file to update.zip, although this step is not exactly necessary for the Nexus S booloader, it does help to simplify things in the following few steps. Copy the file to your Nexus S and once finished copying the file, make sure to power off the device. When the device is powered off, hold the volume up and power button to reboot to the bootloader of the device. Now in order to navigate through the menus use the volume key and once you reach the recovery button, use the power button to confirm your selection. Once you get to see the warning triangle and arrow, hold down the power button and tap the volume up button and this should bring you to a menu. From the menu you now need to select “apply update from /sdcard” and chose the previously copied update.zip file from your list.

Now simply let the updater start installing and update your system, your radio and other partitions. Once this step is finished select reboot system now and there you go, you’ve successfully applied the Android 2.3.3 update to your Samsung Nexus S. There are some point you’ll need to take into consideration when updating the device though as there seems to be an issue with the new color scheme Google introduced in this update.

The issue with the Android 2.3.3 update for the Nexus S is referring to some users having their screen appear discolored. To be more accurate, colors seem to be washed out or on some displays they even get a yellowish tint. You might be tempted to play with the brightness and color settings of the device, but this won’t help as others have tried that method as well. There is an official statement given by Ry Guy via the Google forums and the change is intentional. This is his reply :

“With your new OTA complete, you may notice a slight difference in the way colors are displayed on your Nexus S. For Nexus S, we have adjusted the color temperature settings to more accurately reflect darker colors at all brightness levels. The Gingerbread UI being darker, we found that the colors were not as accurate when the device was being used at lower brightness levels. For example, some users reported that the initial color temperature was too high leading to some darker grays having a reddish tone; with the new color temperature this is no longer the case.”

It seems that this modification has been added to improve the colors in certain light conditions and I’ll make sure to add up some screenshots gathered to see what it looks like. In my opinion it’s not as bad as it may sound, but I think it all depends on a users viewpoint. Until next time, drop a line if you experienced any issues with your update and if your screen looks the same.1

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February 28th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android OS
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2013-05-18 11:50:54