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Whether you covet your Irish friends' ability to make in-flight cellphone calls or value your aerial naps too much to care either way, you must admit that the promise of in-flight SMS, MMS, voice messaging, and text email is tantalizing. To this end, the kids at Asiq have announced a little something called the Bluetooth Access Point. This device uses the aircraft's satellite link to send data to your respective carrier, eliminates the need for a picocell, and boasts up to 3Mb/s speeds. Now let's see how quickly this bad boy gets approved for use! (Or not.) PR after the break.

Continue reading Bluetooth Access Point brings text messaging, voice messaging, email to the friendly skies

Bluetooth Access Point brings text messaging, voice messaging, email to the friendly skies originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/10/bluetooth-access-point-brings-text-messaging-voice-messaging-e/

Granted, they got off to a slow start -- but every since the Dream and Magic originally launched, Rogers has done a pretty commendable job of leading the Android charge north of the border. Latest in the line is Samsung's venerable i5700 Galaxy Spica, a phone that won't win any awards for running up-to-date firmware (it still rocks Cupcake) nor any medals for being high-end (the camera's just 3.2 megapixels with no flash), but at the very least, it makes an interesting, cheap Magic alternative with a high likelihood of an Android 2.x upgrade down the road. If you're willing to commit three years upfront, you can score this bad boy for CAD $79.99 (about $78) right this very second -- or a more daunting CAD $399.99 ($390) commitment-free if you're into that sort of thing.

Samsung Galaxy Spica comes to Rogers originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more: http://mobile.engadget.com/2010/03/10/samsung-galaxy-spica-comes-to-rogers/

It feels like the Brigade's been in the public conscience for forever and a day (and let's be honest, November is forever and a day ago by phone standards), but amazingly, Casio's latest rugged G'zOne for Verizon still isn't being offered -- at least, not in any official capacity. It seems some HowardForums posters have managed to order and receive their Brigades by calling the carrier's telesales directly, and a few uploaded shots of the boxed QWERTY clamshell is enough to have us believing it's the real deal. For what it's worth, this tends to happen pretty frequently with Verizon -- they'll start selling and shipping new devices over the phone a couple weeks before announcing availability or offering them via the web -- so it doesn't come as much of a surprise that we're going down the same road again here, and a few brick and mortar locations have apparently started to take delivery, too. Expect to pay $249 after $50 rebate -- in other words, enough cash so that you'd better really need a messaging-centric dumbphone with a tough shell.

Verizon selling Casio Brigade on the downlow? originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more: http://mobile.engadget.com/2010/03/09/verizon-selling-casio-brigade-on-the-downlow/

We know you've barely recovered from our Devour review, but Moto just threw another Blur-ified phone in our laps this afternoon - the CLIQ XT. We've been playing around with the Android 1.5-based, Flash Lite-supported, multitouch-capable handset for the last couple of hours -- but before we grace you with our first impressions, just a fair warning: we don't yet know the price of the new T-Mobile Android handset, though Motorola did promise us that it will hit shelves this month. With that said, hit the break for a quick rundown of our early thoughts.

Continue reading Motorola CLIQ XT hands-on

Motorola CLIQ XT hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/motorola-cliq-xt-hands-on/