Camera Phones Plaza

It’s not bad. With each day that passes by, we are offered more and more cheap cell phone plans for all sorts of handsets that are meant to help us surpass these tough times. If you remember well, back in January FCC gave its approval to a Samsung phone, called Samsung Smooth U350. It took a couple of months until a carrier took it under its wing, but it’s better late than never. Not always, but the rule applies to this situation, that’s for sure.

The device can be purchased from Verizon Wireless, and the announcement comes after the introduction of another Samsung handset in the Verizon line of products, the Samsung Trance. According to Verizon, the Smooth “appeals to tweens, teens and parents alike”. And it might be true, because as you’ll be seeing shortly, it doesn’t come equipped with ground-breaking features, even if you can find the GPS technology and the VZ Navigator on board.

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If you are not looking for the most advanced mobile phone available right now on the market, then the following features might satisfy your needs: a 1.9 inches internal display with a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels, a VGA photo camera, Bluetooth, voicemail, email and web browser. The Samsung Smooth measures 3.78 x 1.87 x 0.76 inches and weighs 3.35 ounces. As for the battery, it provides approximately 300 minutes of talk time and no more than 336 hours of stand-by time.



If you’re willing to sign a 2-year contract agreement, you can purchase the affordable flip phone for only $29.99. For signing a 1-year agreement, you’ll receive a price of $99.99, and if, on the other hand, you want to get it free of a contract, the price goes up to $199.99.

(Source: unwiredview.com)

Because this is what everyone was expecting, Verizon Wireless made yesterday an official announcement that didn’t come as a surprise for anyone. To be more precise, the North American provider announced the availability of the Samsung Trance that is being sold starting today (meaning April 24th).

We told you about this Samsung cell phone a couple of weeks ago, when the guys over BGR had an information concerning the availability of the Trance. And it seems that the information was more than reliable, even if some of us preferred to wait for the official thing.

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As you probably remember, the Trance was presented by the provider as a “high-powered music phone” which is a consequence of the fact that it comes with the Bang & Olufsen ICEpower amp. And, as some of you know, this is designed to help the user enjoy a better audio quality.



As for the features, to refresh your memory a little bit, the phone comes with a 2.1 inch TFT display with 262k colors (the resolution is of 176 x 220 pixels), 1.3 megapixel camera, a navigation pad that is touch-sensitive, stereo Bluetooth, a 3.5mm headset jack, an internal memory of 1GB and a microSDHC card slot of no more than 16GB.

It measures approximately 4.0 x 1.97 x 0.55 inches and weighs 3.53 ounces, while the battery provides no more than 270 minutes of talk time and up to 300 hours of stand-by time.

Available in two color versions, Electric Red and Piano Black, the Samsung Trance will cost you no more than $49.99 if you’re willing to sign a two year contract agreement. This way you will get a $50 mail-in rebate.

(Source: Press release)

When Verizon Wireless brought the HTC Touch Diamond in its line-up, everybody thought that Verizon will try its best in order to sell it under a very good price, so that people can afford having the very well known and highly appreciated device. Nevertheless, their efforts (if there were any) were futile, because the Touch Diamond is quite expensive, as it is being sold for $300. And no, you won’t get this price free of contract, you must be willing to sign an agreement with the North American carrier.

In the given context, the new Samsung Trance U490 seems to be just what the doctor ordered, because it’s not only fashionable, but also very cheap. Maybe it’s ridiculous to compare the two handsets we brought in discussion, but if what you are looking for is an affordable device, that is cool as far as the design is concerned, then you don’t have to think this twice. The Samsung Trance is perfect for you.

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This is a mid-end cell phone, a music centric one, that comes with the following features on board: a 2.1 inch display with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels, a 1.3 megapixel camera, the Bang & Olufsen ICEpower audio technology, Web browser, Email, Bluetooth connectivity, 3.5mm headset jack, the VZ Navigator service, an internal memory of 1GB (which is quite impressive) and a microSD card slot for expandable memory of no more than 16GB.

The guys over BGR said that the phone will come with cheap phone plans, as it will become available via Verizon Wireless starting April 24th and it will be sold for only $49.99, after a $50 mail-in rebate. But you’ll have to be willing to sign a 2 year contract agreement. On the other hand, if you don’t want to do this, you can have it for $219.99.

(Source: unwiredview.com)

The BlackBerry Storm, the first touchscreen device ever built by Research in Motion (also known as RIM), was launched by Verizon Wireless in November 2008, as you probably know. Even if it is, undoubtedly, a very uncommon device, different from anything that you might have run into in the market, the Storm lacks a very important feature: Wi-Fi.

It’s kind of weird, because this is one feature that is characteristic to all modern smartphones that are available these days. But, great news, guys! It seems that the next generation of the BlackBerry Storm will come with what you’ve all been waiting for: the Wi-Fi.

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Unfortunately, this isn’t official, as the information comes from the guys over SlashGear, who said that “a source very close to the issue” made the confirmation of the fact that the American carrier has spectacular plans when it comes to some BlackBerry Storm updates. In other words, Verizon is preparing the second generation of the phone which is said to be brought in the spotlight later this year, in September to be more precise.

The same source added that Wi-Fi won’t be the only new feature to come on the board of the Storm 2, as the smartphone will also be equipped with other advanced features that weren’t unveiled. For the moment, the only thing we can do is to just wait, patiently, and see whether these are nothing but rumors.

(Source: unwiredview.com)

Because there weren’t enough music media stores already for people to download music from, Verizon Wireless decided that it’s just about the time for them to follow the trend and have an online store of their own. Because when you are the United States’ largest wireless telecommunications network, you must be as “fashionable” as possible.

This is why the American carrier announced a couple of days ago the release of the Verizon Wireless Media Store, a place from where customers can download MP3 music from. This way, once the songs are downloaded, the songs they love most in the whole world, they can be played on any device that is compatible with the MP3 format file.

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Because people are usually interested on how much they will have to spend on such a service (completely understandable, if we think about it), let me tell you that the prices won’t be the same for all of the songs that will be available in the new media store. This means that criterions such as popularity or the size of the track will be those to decide the price.



Anyway, you’ll be able to download a song for a price from 69 cents (this is for classics, they say) to 99 cents (this one, on the other hand, is for standard tracks) or $1.29. The latter is, of course, for popular hits (I wonder who decides which songs are popular and which are not) and for new releases.



Verizon Wireless says that there will be a very wide variety of tracks, more than 5 million, and that they will be DRM-free. All of them. Actually, they already are. If you want, you can go to the Verizon Media Store and download music online right now.

(Source: phonearea.net)