Cell Phone Hits! – Daily Phone Buzz

Palm Centro the Obsidian Black variant

It seems that the Centro is a great success for Palm as more than a million units (of all its variants) have been sold since the release. Although not as pretty as HTC’s Touch, this cheap smartphone offers a lot for its price: a touch display, a QWERTY, Palm’s OS and a neat design. The Palm Centro is a smartphone offering a full range of features. Transfer data or go hands-free with USB, Bluetooth® and infrared connectivity. Keep up with work and friends via email, Instant Messenger and Push-To-Talk. Enjoy the sounds of AT&T Music and XM Radio. Snap pictures and record video with the 1.3 MP camera, and store it all comfortably with up to 4 GB microSD(TM) expansion memory.

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Google win on the C Block auction.

If it wasn’t clear going into the auction, it’s pretty much obvious now that the dust has settled: Google wasn’t in the 700MHz Block C auction to win it — though it was certainly ready to pony up the cash in the event of a win. It was conjectured that Google was driving the bidding early on, in an effort to get hit that magical 4.6 billion reserve price that would require the winner to allow open access of devices and applications to the resulting network, and now Google has confirmed that it was pretty much a Google show in the early days of the auction.

Apparently ten of the bidding rounds involved Google raising its own bid, “but it was clear, then and now, that Verizon Wireless ultimately was motivated to bid higher,” reads the Google Public Policy Blog. read more…

New Nokia N-Gage gaming service goes live

It’s apparently saving the full, official announcement until Monday, but Nokia just dropped word on its N-Gage blog that the final version of its new N-Gage gaming service / application is now live and ready for your taking. To take advantage of that right now, however, you’ll need an N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95, or N95 8GB handset, although Nokia says that support for additional N-Gage compatible devices is “coming soon,” including the N73, N93, and N93i.

You can download the application straight to your device from Nokia’s mobile site (n-gage.mobi/d).

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T-Mobile iPhone low pricing in Germany

Calling the iPhone “anonymous” really doesn’t do it justice, admittedly, but the fact that T-Mobile Germany’s new pricing plans can net you an 8GB model for a scant €99 (about $155) on contract is an interesting move any way you slice it. The blowout price is only obtainable by signing up for the “Complete XL” plan, which runs €89 a month (about $139) and includes 1,000 minutes, 300 texts, and unlimited EDGE and use of T-Mobile’s WiFi hotspots. Is it all a sign that they’re looking to cut down on inventory ahead of the inevitable?

Motorola fired 2,600 jobs

The tough times just don’t seem to end at Motorola — the company announced today that it’s laying off another 2,600 workers, for a total of 10,000 positions eliminated since the start of 2007. That’s on top of the various high-level executive departures that have been taken place lately, not to mention the company’s plan to split off its mobile phone business, which will undoubtedly lead to more cuts down the line. The goal is to reduce costs by some $500M by the end of the year, and some of the jobs being lost come as Moto closes a factory in Singapore and a WiMAX development lab in Florida. There’s no word on when the cuts are going to come, but here’s hoping all these aggressive steps lead to a little vacation for Sad Moto here.

The board of directors has agreed to split Motorola into two independent, publicly-traded companies. The new entities will be called Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions. The Mobile Devices business will focus on the design, manufacturing, and sales of mobile handsets and accessories globally.
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