Posts Tagged ‘AT&T’

We just posted a link to Amazon where the Samsung Captivate was on sale for a low $100 with two year contract.  Well, we now have an even better deal for you – LetsTalk.com is now offering the Samsung Captivate for free with a two year contract, including free shipping.

This deal does require you to sign up for a new 2 year contract with a minimum $60 monthly service plan (900 minutes) plus a data plan, which starts at $15 per month.  But if you were already planning on subscribing to a $60 monthly plan, this is a pretty sweet deal.

The Captivate was just released yesterday for $200 with a two year contract, so it’s interesting to see the phone’s price drop so quickly.  A year ago, who would have thought that we’d be able to “buy” an Android smartphone with a 1GHz processor and 16GB of internal memory for free?

The Samsung Captivate, AT&T’s latest and greatest Android smartphone, launched quietly this weekend for $200 with a 2 year contract.  But why not save yourself a C-Note and head over to Amazon, where the Captivate can be had for $99, with a service plan.  Better yet, that price includes Amazon’s instant rebate, so there’s nothing to mail in, and no waiting for a check in the mail.  Amazon will also waive the $36 activation fee for qualifying upgrades or new contracts.

Today is a big day for Android lovers on AT&T.  The Samsung Captivate is now officially on sale through AT&T’s online store.
The device costs $200 with a two year contract, or $500 month to month.  AT&T will also throw in free overnight shipping when you buy online, so if you order now you can get your Captivate early Monday.

What could be worse than spending a few hours in front of a computer on June 15th to preorder the iPhone 4, only to have your preorder cancelled a few days later?  It appears that is the case for some iPhone 4 preorder customers.

Engadget is reporting that several iPhone 4 preorder customers have received the following note today:

“Dear Customer,
We were unable to complete the authorization process for your iPhone
order. As a result, we had to cancel your iPhone order. To complete the
purchase of your iPhone, please visit an Apple Retail Store or an AT&T
company-owned retail store.
We apologize for this inconvenience.
Sincerely,
Apple Online Store Team”

It’s not clear why Apple would be cancelling preorders due to authorization issues.  On June 15th, most customers faced authorization issues with preorders, and were allowed to reserve a phone for pickup at an Apple Retail store.

With iPhone 4’s currently not shipping until July 14th, this is bad news for unlucky preorder customers.  At this point you just have to cross your fingers and hope your iPhone 4 order doesn’t get cancelled.

It appears that AT&T is jumping on the Android bandwagon after all.  Today, the company announced the Samsung Captivate, an Android 2.1-powered smartphone that rocks an impressive 4 inch Super AMOLED display.  Other specs include a 1GHz Cortex A8 Samsung application processor, 5MP camera, 16GB of onboard memory and support for up to 32GB of external memory.

The Samsung Captivate is based on Samsung’s Galaxy S design.  In fact, AT&T describes the captivate as a “Galaxy S smartphone.”

It appears that Samsung plans to offer the Galaxy S platform worldwide, and will allow carriers to customize the look of the phone’s bezel as well as the placement of hard buttons.  The core features of the device, including the 4” SAMOLED screen, 16GB of memory, 5MP camera, 1GHz processor and TouchWiz, appear to be standard features of the platform – at least so far.

The dust has settled from Apple and AT&T’s iPhone 4 preorder mess, and according to Apple preorder traffic was record breaking.  In a press release today, Apple revealed that it took over 600,000 preorders for the iPhone 4 – the largest number of pre-orders the company has ever taken in a single day.  Apple also mentioned that this large number of preorders resulted in “many order and system malfunctions.”

If you didn’t get your hands on a preorder yesterday, you’re out of luck until July.  The expected ship date for the iPhone 4 is now listed as July 14th on Apple’s US website.  You can get an iPhone 4 a bit sooner if you’re in the UK – the ship date for the iPhone 4 on Apple’s UK website is July 2nd.

It’s been a long and frustrating night for some of those eager to preorder an iPhone 4.  Some users, including myself, have been able to preorder an iPhone 4 for pickup at an Apple Retail store.  Ordering an iPhone 4 for delivery has proven to be quite difficult, however.

However, as of 6:40am PT, it appears that this may no longer be the case, and it has been difficult to avoid the error note above.  It’s unclear at this point if the problems stem from AT&T or Apple, although AT&T does seem to be taking the brunt of user’s frustration online.

A few choice comments from Twitter:

8bus – The ordering process for iPhone 4 fails when Apple has to communicate with AT&T’s servers. Just like making a phone call.

alialithinks -Just ordered an iPhone 4 for me and my wife. I have to pick it up from the Apple store though:(

emajik – iPhone 4 = reserved

Jakanapes – oh AT&T, why am I not surprised that you are woefully unprepared to handle the iPhone 4 pre-orders?

kevinallgaier – It took 22 minutes to pre-order my iPhone 4 on att.com this morning… but it’s done!!

PDelahanty – Since the iPhone 4 ordering process hangs at "Please wait while we access your AT&T account information"…I’m blaming AT&T. Again.

Bandido – You know you are desperate when you are happy that the failure pages are showing up a lot quicker when pre-ordering the iphone 4

alanxing – Late Night Fanboys Bring The iPhone 4 Pre-Order System To Its Knees http://w.sns.ly/23247

AndrewDumont – Is anyone else having a hard time pre-ordering the iPhone 4 in the US?It’s unclear at this point

TechCrunch – Afraid Of Commitment? iPhone 4 Available SIM-free And Unlocked In UK – http://tcrn.ch/aIltRS by @sohear

maryvarn – Anyone preorder an iPhone 4 yet? I can’t get past the ATT check.

twonnyc – Just got my iPhone 4 preorder holler!

Engadget has uncovered an internal AT&T guide to the iPhone 4 launch, giving us an inside look as to how AT&T plans to handle the iPhone 4 crowd.

The good news? AT&T stores will open at 7am on iPhone 4 launch day.  If lines are long, you may be provided with complimentary bottled water.

The bad news?  Existing customers and new customers will only be able to order 1 iPhone 4 per eligible line.

The awful news?  If you’re in a U-verse location, expect a “Line Manager” to try and sell you U-verse while you’re standing in line.  Oh, and the line manager will be wearing the new “Rethink Possible” shirt, pictured above.

Want to save yourself some time?  We’d suggest that you just order the iPhone 4 by mail.  This has worked pretty well with the iPhone 3, 3G S and iPad.  Hopefully this will be an option for the iPhone 4, as well.

AT&T today, in a tactfully worded press release, announced the end of their unlimited mobile data plans.  The company positioned this move as a way to “make it more affordable for people to enjoy the benefits of the mobile Internet.”  In reality though, this move places a 2GB data cap on formerly unlimited plans, which can potentially increase your mobile bill substantially.

Currently, AT&T offers unlimited data plans for mobile Internet enabled devices, such as the iPhone, for $30 a month.  Under AT&T’s new pricing structure the same plan, now known as DataPro, will cost $25 per month, with a 2GB per month cap on data.  Customers that use over 2GB will be charged $10 for an additional 1GB of data.  This pricing scheme applies to users of the iPad 3G, as well.

A Tethering option is available with the DataPro plan for an additional $20 per month.  However, the data used while Tethering comes from the 2GBs allocated to your DataPro plan.

AT&T is also offering a DataPlus plan for $15 per month that includes 200 MB of data.  If these customers exceed 200MB of data, they will be charged $15 for an additional 200MB of data.

These new pricing plans will go into effect on June 7th.  Existing customers will be grandfathered in with their current unlimited data plans, as long as no changes are made to the grandfathered plan.  That means, if you add Tethering to your plan, you will no longer be grandfathered in, and you will be subject to AT&T’s new pricing scheme.

AT&T claims that 98% of current smartphone customers use less than 2GB of data per month, on average, while 65% of customers use less than 200MB.  That figure may be a bit misleading, however, since it includes devices such BlackBerrys, which are generally less data hungry than iPhones.  It would be interesting to see how much data the average iPhone user consumes.

AT&T’s new pricing structure is bad news for those that stream audio or video on their iPhone or iPad.  It’s not hard to exceed the 2GB limit, although AT&T will notify you via text message when 99% of the data in your plan has been consumed.

The 200MB DataPlus plan also seems like a poor deal for customers.  Although this plan is 40% less expensive than the DataPro plan, you get 90% less data.  Not only that, but when you surpass your 200MB limit on the DataPlus plan, you need to re-up with another 200MB for $15 – that’s an absurd 7.5 cents per MB.  In contrast, with the DataPro plan, you get an additional 1GB for $10, which breaks down to 0.5 cents per MB.  That’s a 15x difference in price per MB between the two plans.

So is AT&T making it more affordable for people to enjoy the benefits of the mobile Internet?  Smartphone users that consume less than 2GB of data per month will save $5 per month on their plans.  However, those that use over 2GB per month are out of luck.  You’ll be paying at least $35 per month, and that’s only to extend your data cap an additional 1GB.

And if you’re thinking about paying an extra $20 for tethering, beware.  You’ll likely use your 2GB of data quickly on a laptop, especially since e-mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook entire messages, including attachments.

While AT&T’s new data plans will help the company to reduce the strain on their network while generating more revenue from heavy users of data, this move is an unfortunate indication that the era of unlimited data may be coming to an end.

We first spotted the HTC Legend on the FCC back in February when it appeared as the PB76100.  At that point the Legend sported WCDMA bands I and VIII – not friendly with US 3G networks.

Today, the Legend made a follow-up appearance on the FCC, this time with the model number PB76110.  The best news here is that this version of the Legend supports WCDMA bands II and V – the same 3G bands used by AT&T.

Hopefully, this means that the Legend will be making its way to the States via AT&T, ideally with a nice carrier subsidy.  We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.