T-Mobile Will Be First To Use Android 203
stoolpigeon writes to tell us that T-Mobile's upcoming phone will try to combine the best elements of many of the new smart phones, and will be using Google's Android software. "The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the 'dream,' will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard. A video of the phone has been posted recently on YouTube. A person who has seen the HTC device said it matched the one in the video. The phone's release date depends on how soon the Federal Communications Commission certifies that the Google software and the HTC phone meet network standards. Executives at all three companies are hoping to announce the phone in September because they would benefit from holiday season sales."
A video of the phone has been posted recently on Y (Score:3, Insightful)
From the summary:
Come on, link! I'm lazy!
Re:A video of the phone has been posted recently o (Score:5, Informative)
here [youtube.com]
No, wait! It's... (Score:5, Informative)
this one [youtube.com]
Re:No, wait! It's... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No, wait! It's... (Score:5, Funny)
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Heh, no. It's 'atheism', as in 'a-the-ism'. Nice try though.
Re:No, wait! It's... (Score:5, Funny)
You sure it's not this one [youtube.com]?
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Hmm... I clicked 'watch in high quality' but it didn't help.
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Re:A video of the phone has been posted recently o (Score:3, Informative)
Linked. [youtube.com] But only because you're lazy.
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<a href="your url here (with the quotes)">some witty text here</a>
Re:A video of the phone has been posted recently o (Score:5, Insightful)
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Right. Because there's no way an open source product is going to have an awkward or otherwise clunky interface. This must be editorial bias, no other explanation is possible.
"Use Android" (Score:3, Funny)
That sounds like a nice way of saying robot slavery! FREE OUR MECHANICAL BROTHERS!
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That sounds like a nice way of saying robot slavery! FREE OUR MECHANICAL BROTHERS!
Android Dream is clearly a female, you sexist pig! Think 'Gigolo Jane' from A.I. Android's Dream, however, is a novel.
Besides, it's clearly not slavery, as you won't be using it for more than a few years. It's more like being a serf.
Re:"Use Android" (Score:4, Informative)
Gynoid.
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Gynoid.
Gynoid-American(tm)! (assuming you're in the U.S.)
Note: Gynoid-American(tm) is a product of Fly-By-Night Corporation, a division of Harkonnen Heavy Industries, Ltd.
Do not taunt Gynoid-American(tm).
Re:"Use Android" (Score:5, Funny)
I disagree, an android dream is clearly an electronic sheep.
FCC (Score:4, Insightful)
The FCC has to certify software? That seem strange to anybody? Isn't regulation of the power and frequency enough, and everything else is between the carrier and the phone?
Re:FCC (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:FCC (Score:5, Informative)
http://ftp.fcc.gov/oet/ea/procedures.html [fcc.gov]
Re:FCC (Score:5, Informative)
The FCC has to certify software? That seem strange to anybody? Isn't regulation of the power and frequency enough, and everything else is between the carrier and the phone?
If software controls the power and frequency [wikipedia.org], FCC regulates the software.
Re:FCC (Score:5, Funny)
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There is nothing wrong with your government. Do not attempt to adjust the leadership. We are now controlling the information. We control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand unwarranted wiretaps or expand one your phone call to crystal clarity and beyond. We can hear you now.
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Re:FCC (Score:4, Funny)
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Well, considering that T-Mobile and Google are corporations and the FCC is a government agency, you don't expect it to have to follow the zeroth law, now do you?
Is the phone's code name "R. Giskard Relentlov" or "R. Daneel Olivaw"??
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you don't expect it to have to follow the zeroth law, now do you?
0. [Classified]
1. Serve the public
2. Protect the innocent
3. Uphold the law
Hmmm...*that* doesn't inspire confidence...
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Directive 4 was classified. I'm not sure what zeroth law is supposed to mean, but then again I've never read Asimov. Rather I recognize references to 80' sci-fi movies.
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Directive 4 was classified. I'm not sure what zeroth law is supposed to mean, but then again I've never read Asimov. Rather I recognize references to 80' sci-fi movies.
Clearly, you have not yet received the upgraded humour module. Please to look up, "creative license."
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I thought this was Directive Four:
4. Do not arrest or allow any senior OCP executive to come to harm
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Is the phone's code name "R. Giskard Relentlov" or "R. Daneel Olivaw"??
My guess would be Caliban.
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Of course they do! It said Android!! They have to make sure it follows the 3 Laws of Robotics or the phone might take over the world!!
Too late to worry about that - it's Google.
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This clearly falls under the commerce clause, as unregulated spectrum falls under a tragedy of the commons: he who shouts loudest is heard best, to the detriment of everyone else.
We can't very well allow any corporation with a many-megawatt transmitter to drown out everyone else and damn the consequences. Likewise, our broadcast television, cell-phone and wireless internet infrastructure would never work if people and corporations were permitted to just use whatever spectrum they wanted at whatever output l
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No, you simply just don't understand. The Constitution is a document perfect in crafting. There is no fault with the Constitution. Any fault here is your lack of faith in the rightness of the Constitution.
If the Constitution doesn't explicitly address things like fire departments, libraries, schools, space programs, health care, nuclear weaponry or electromagnetic communications, those things clearly have absolutely no need for governmental attention. All problems related to any such issue can be completely
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No. What if the frequency and power were correct, but then the phone decided to sniff out other phone calls and interfere with them? It'd still be within the correct frequency bands and power limits. They have to make sure that the phone "behaves" properly on the network.
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If the hardware stack is open source, good luck with that requirement.
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The NSA has to make sure they can turn it on in your pocket and bug you.. you know.. for your safety.. in case Bin Ladden ever got one.. and if you don't like that then you must be hiding something..
many gadget sites are calling the "dream" (Score:2)
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It's dream as in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". Best guess, anyway.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F [wikipedia.org]
Geek card. Now. Hand it over.
yes but what about the iPhone? (Score:5, Funny)
A mention of Android? Cue iPhone debate.
Open markets. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that Google has a 'shipping' product I am excited about the future for these reasons:
1) Google can pull an Apple'ish move and push for carriers to open up the networks.
or (even better)
2) Google can open up all of that dark-fiber that it has bought in the past and become a telecommunications juggernaught.
Google already has data centers all over the planet, they can match these up with worldwide GSM coverage and beat the existing companies at their own game.
I currently pay $150 CDN per month for the 'privilege' of using my phone anywhere in North America to make phone calls. If I try to use any data features I get charged $0.05/kb + US Roaming + US Data Rates/kb. To view the /. home page costs me almost $1.00 without viewing any stories.
Canada has been crippled by our 3 colluding state-sponsored ogilopies and I am desperate for another option.
Googles' ability to offer North America a non-draconian cellular service coupled with content/location-based advertising would be a god-send.
Scenerio: Motorist stranded on side of the road; does a Google search via cell-phone for tow-truck. Built-in GPS can show you the closest mechanics, and contact info.
Google; please take my money and give an option to ditch the horrible choices that I currently have.
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For all the reasons that you mention, it makes me very glad Google is around. In general they're responsible for opening up a lot of markets that would otherwise not happen.
Youtube doesn't make much money, but it enables other online video companies a respite because everyone targets youtube. Of course all this online video creates a huge demand for increased bandwidth. It creates more videos, since they can now be uploaded, and it creates more data that needs to be searched.
Even if Google doesn't make mone
$CAD150/month? (Score:4, Informative)
How on earth do you end up spending that much? Does that include making all your calls + roaming + etc?
When I was in the U.S. for 3 months I got a Cingular prepaid SIM card - traveled all throughout the U.S. and could make calls just fine.. cost me $10. I'd imagine it'd work just fine in Canada as well on any GSM provider there. So I can't imagine the $CAD150/month being some flat fee just so you can actually use the phone on GSM networks.
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1) Google can pull an Apple'ish move and push for carriers to open up the networks.
Apple hasn't pushed for carriers to open up the networks to anybody but Apple. With an iPhone, you're far more restricted than with a Palm, Nokia, or Windows Mobile on any of the major carriers.
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Surely the dark fibre is the easy part? Actually building out a GSM network means spending billions of dollars and years negotiating to build cell sites everywhere.
While they have a few pieces of the puzzle, the cell sites themselves are the biggest and hardest part.
t-mobile? why? (Score:3, Insightful)
It was bad enough when Apple locked the iphone to AT&T, but at least they have some 3G and good coverage (after acquiring Cingular.) But t-mobile? That's not going to be good for business
Re:t-mobile? why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not good business? From which perspective?
I have no idea about which companies have better coverage than the next in the US, but if T-Mobile is indeed the smallest, then it makes a lot of sense for Google to partner up with them for their first(?) phone, the contracts are probably better than they would get from going with a bigger corporation, bit cheaper, not as much loss if it fails, and from T-Mobile's perspective, they can't really go wrong, since its already got them a lot of publicity, stocks probably went up, more website/store hits, etc...
As far as I am aware there is nothing keeping "Android" from also being used on any other phone that supports it (or vice versa), and that may happen more now if T-Mobile's attempt is even a moderate success.
Besides, its a little more demand for 3G/better networks, or at least more awareness of the need even if it does fail.
Re:t-mobile? why? (Score:5, Informative)
T-Mobile 3G is rolling out (Score:2)
T-Mobile is in the process of rolling out serviceable 3G. The new phone will have 3G, at least in some markets.
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T-mobile may own fewer towers than other companies, but they have the same coverage as any other GSM provider - they all have "roaming" agreements between each other that don't cost the user anything. You're close about 3G though - the only place they have 3G coverage yet is New York City.
I like them because they have good prepay plans. In fact, AFAIK, they are the only major carrier that does - the other decent plans are with prepay-only carriers like tracphone. I don't use my phone a whole lot, and cut my
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How unfortunate. Isn't t-mobile the smallest network in the US, with the least coverage, and no 3G/high-speed data whatsoever?
It was bad enough when Apple locked the iphone to AT&T, but at least they have some 3G and good coverage (after acquiring Cingular.) But t-mobile? That's not going to be good for business :(
T-Mobile works off of Sprint.
Which does have 3-G and was the first large service provider to offer it.
Uh WRONG, T-Mobile [wikipedia.org] is a GSM provider [wikipedia.org] like AT&T/Cingular is. They have roaming agreements with AT&T, and therefore have similar coverage. They're way behind on the 3G, but they've begun to [dslreports.com] roll it out to markets.
Verizon, Sprint and Alltel OTOH are CDMA [wikipedia.org], you could say Cricket [wikipedia.org] "works off Sprint", as they are also CDMA.
Customer Service (Score:2)
I've used t-mobile in the UK and US for about 8 years and i've been consistently impressed with their customer service.
They've been head and shoulders above people like Verizon or Qwest
Knowing Verizon's tendencies... (Score:3, Insightful)
to lock their phones down tight and wipe out the OEM software in favor of their own crap, the chances of me ever getting to use it are close to nil. T-Mobile's coverage is spotty at best in the areas my wife & I frequent, even AT&T can get iffy, so we're stuck with Verizon.
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Now, if I could get 802.11 roaming to make up for the loss of coverage in my house FOR A REASONABLE PRICE, I'd switch to a T-Mobile based Android in a second.
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T-Mobile's coverage is spotty at best in the areas my wife & I frequent, even AT&T can get iffy, so we're stuck with Verizon.
T-Mobile will roam on AT&T/Cingular & Sprint's networks wherever they companies have agreements. m
The only catch is that if you roam "too much" (for undefined values of to much) they'll terminate your contract.
That said, you can always get a contract, try it out and you have 2 weeks to cancel it and get your money back.
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T-Mobile & AT&T's coverage maps for my area are nearly identical. Stray off major roads and you're rolling the dice.
OTOH, with Verizon, we've found at most a handful of dead zones, and they're at most 100 yards in radius.
But does it run Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
It will be very interesting to watch the mobile computing space heat up. Can Android steal away the momentum the iPhone currently has on third-party development?
Re:But does it run Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing which is choking iPhone development right now is the absurd NDA, and the absolute control Apple has over the App store. The NDA prevents any discussions about development, if you want to see the frustrations caused by this, just follow Craig Hockenberry's Twitter feed [twitter.com]. He's the developer of Twitterrific.
And why risk investing thousands in an iPhone app, if in the end, Apple can arbitrarily reject it? Not to mention the ridiculous wait times developers endure to push out updates, whilst Apple review them. Especially bad if you inadvertently ship a show stopper bug.
Apple needs to sort this stuff out, or iPhone development will gradually die out. Which would be a shame, because they managed to get an awful lot of developers very excited about it.
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If $30 million/month in sales is what happens iPhone development is choking, I'd love to have my business choke too.
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hmm (Score:2)
But if it's "open" why does it matter if it's T-Mobile who will be first. I can use it on my provider right......
iphone (Score:3, Interesting)
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Jailbreaking it is completely not scary. You download a program, load the software update (2.0.1 firmware support is working) from the iTunes folder, and let it run. When you update your phone with the 'new' software, you get a jailbroken iPhone
If it doesn't work, you can restore from the stock firmware. And you have a backup of all your contacts and settings for both cases.
What's scary is unlocking the phone from AT&T, which updates the baseband firmware. That will brick the phone.
"T-Mobile Will Be First" (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm.. Shouldn't it be "HTC will be first"?
Something must be seriously broken with the cell phone market in the US when $cell_carrier is considered more important than $phone_manufacturer.
Here is an infinitely better video (Score:2)
I found here [electronista.com] of an earlier prototype. Video was released sometime in February 08.
It does not look substantially different, saved for being black instead of white.
I played with this phone for a little bit (Score:3, Interesting)
I know someone (who shall remain nameless) who got a pre-production HTC handset like this from their (nameless) employer. :) and they've made it dead simple to download $999.99 useless apps. It all works together well.
To prove I've played with it: the friend's phone had a mode where unlocking it required connecting a grid of dots in a particular order. This may exist on other phones but I'd never seen it before. Cute gimmick.
Unless HTC and Google sort out the HW and UI it's a non-starter as an iphone competitor.
This may change in production but the touchscreen is simply horrible. It's unresponsive and inaccurate. This is plainly visible in this video [youtube.com] of the device. Apart from that, the device is big and fat. I did not get a chance to test call quality or battery life.
The UI itself is not as simple as the iPhone's. It's yet another spin on the usual icons in windows maze that invariably leave you lost.
Apple's "secret" sauce is execution. Their phone is pretty, their HW works with the software (the touchscreen anyway, not the 3G issues...
Shipping Android on subpar HW, such as the example I saw, will doom it to being yet another of the "other" phones.
Re:Better than the iPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
We'll see. I'm guessing Google probably won't totally drop the ball on the software, but the hardware and integration between hardware and software will be interesting to see in the real world. Lots of companies make good hardware, and lots make good software, but Apple is usually better than most at integrating the two, which in a device like the iPhone or HTC "Dream" is pretty key.
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Apple is better at integrating their own software and the hardware, but they have a tendency to put artificial restrictions in place to prevent that kind of integration between third-party apps and the hardware. Among other things, Apple's applications that come with the iPhone can run in the background and access the contents of the user's iPod...and those are just the two that you find out within 10 minutes of looking into what it would take to develop an app for the iPhone. When you dig deeper, there are
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Among other things, Apple's applications that come with the iPhone can run in the background and access the contents of the user's iPod...
If the Android SDK can focus on allowing third-party apps to have full access to the available hardware,
But, what you're asking for is full access to all the software. I don't think you're even going to get this on Android (or any phone in the near future).. your code all runs in a VM doesn't it? Hell, we don't even have full access to everything on OS X or Windows systems, just lots of clever work arounds that break in the next SP/release, right? Right now, how do you modify the iTunes DB without iTunes? Look what happened to anti-virus developers and Vista. Even Linux, about as open a system as you ca
iDon't care. (Score:2)
If it isn't locked to the carrier, is better than a Treo, and is in the same price range, then that will be good enough reason for me to get one. Although I'll probably wait till a few more Android phones are out before deciding.
I might think about getting an iPhone if they stop locking it to ATT, but $299 + 24*($69.99 - current plan) is way more than I am willing to pay for a smartphone.
Re:I looked at the Android software. (Score:4, Insightful)
more limiting than objective-c?
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I would say yes. I am a big fan of Java but on a small device like a phone I would think native code would be best for some applications. :) Seems like it could be good for some small screened d
On the other hand I can see the logic to keeping applications on a JVM so that locking up the device is less of an issue.
I have not really looked at the SDK yet so maybe it is all that and a bag of chips.
What I don't like is that I can not use it outside of the emulator. I would like to try it out as a Netbook Distro
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It's not really Java though, at least not when it's being run on the phone. The Android VM is very well done and specifically tweaked (from the design and onwards) to be suitable for embedded devices, even moreso than J2Me...
The SDK includes an optimizing JVM to Android VM translator, so performance shouldn't be much of an issue, while at the same time you don't have to worry about writing/porting code to a variety of different architectures.
Not to mention, you could probably compile other code to run on th
Re:I looked at the Android software. (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have preferred Apple had adopted Java back in the late 90's and done all of Cocoa in it, personally. That being said, yes, Java as it stands today is more limiting for writing rich client apps than Apple's Objective-C UIKit.
It's not about the language. It's about the libraries. And Apple is currently second-to-none in that department for user interaction.
And really, the amount of Objective-C specific stuff you have to know to write compelling content for the iPhone isn't that huge. The most popular apps seem to be either 90% Interface Builder work, or 90% OpenGL ES work.
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Well, it would have been nice if NEXTStep (aka Cocoa) had been written in Java, except that development started about ten years before Java 1.0 was released.
Keep in mind that the Apple/NEXT reverse takeover occurred in 1996, about when Java was showing up in web applets.
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It's not about the language. It's about the libraries. And Apple is currently second-to-none in that department for user interaction.
Really? As demonstrated by what?
Looks to me Apple has the same pushbutton/scrollbar/slider stuff as anybody else. And Objective C with XCode seems clunky and outdated compared to Glade and Python, or C# and Stetic.
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NeXT you're going to tell me that Trolltech's Designer tool is on-par with Interface Builder or the Visual Studio tools for UI design are on-par with IB, but I'm betting you'll throw out that abortion of designing interfaces known as Netbeans?
It's clear to me that you really know nothing of ObjC and Cocoa and the tools Apple includes as well.
Please don't talk about Glade/Python as being superior to ObjC/Cocoa and IB. I can understand you not wanting to pay a dime for the Mac Hardware to learn the tools but
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I'm guessing you've never used Cocoa. Try it, and be amazed.
I have. It blows Swing and Win32 away, but these days I prefer Python, mainly due lack of header files, built-in collections, everything-is-an-object (no primitive types or half-objects like SEL) and expansive standard library (where the heck is NSRegularExpression or NSTCPSocket?). wxPython isn't as good as Cocoa for the UI, but it's decent and cross platform.
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F***'in eh, you just made me throw up in my coffee.
Java is a poor-man's ObjC/Cocoa. It always has been. You'll agree with my prior statement after OS X 10.6 is released with all the changes being done.
The only reason SUN even went with Java is the political fallout between my former NeXT Management and Sun's former Management.
The Openstep Initiative had Openstep 4 ported to SUN Hardware, across the board, but they just couldn't put their egos aside long enough to manage an equitable arrangement on who gets
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Look, I develop Java all day long and work on an enterprise-class distributed workspace written in 100% Java. I also have an app for sale on Apple's iPhone App Store. I'm entitled to my opinion, and I'm not talking from a position of ignorance.
I really do prefer Java as a language. But for user interaction, you just can't beat Interface Builder and Apple's libraries. Especially Core Animation combined with the rest of UIKit for the iPhone.
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It's not about the language. It's about the libraries.
I dunno, I'm a Java pro and genuinely like the language, but Obj-C is really nice. Smalltalk-like true messaging with default handlers? Drop to C (or most of C++) whenever you feel like it? Infix notation? The libraries may rock, but the language is also on a higher level.
I'm not bashing Java - I love me some Java, but Obj-C is truly a thing of beauty.
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The video I saw of the HTC Dream prototype had a slide out keyboard.
The HTC Diamond is pretty impressive, and the Dream is supposed to be even better.
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That could be the case with the Dream, but doesn't the Diamond have auto-rotate?
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T-Mobile is rolling out 3g in the near future.
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I presume you meant that I don't curse the design.
I wonder why, though. Have you used it so much the slide is too loose? I could possibly see that after a lot of activity. I can also agree with the issue that you can't number-text well on the keyboard, since it doesn't have the abc def letters over the keys (presuming, like me, you haven't memorized the keys).
I've got the Hermes (well, the Cing 8525) and I like the real keyboard. It's not ideal, but it's worlds better than the damned stylus-centric onscreen