Full FeedGet paid $100 to get a BlackBerry or Sidekick mobile phone from Walmart
Quickly becoming the place to buy cellphones on the cheap, Walmart is bringing its low-cost ways to the weary cell phone buyer. One has to wonder about some of the deals on their site offering up to $100 to take home some very decent phones. Have they gone too far?
$100 in your pocket #1: Sidekick Slider from T-Mobile
Walmart will send you a check for $100 after you agree to a two year contract with T-Mobile on their LetsTalk site. Is the Sidekick that bad a phone? Or is it the recent trouble Microsoft ran into with Sidekick owner information?
The phone was launched back in 2007, and only received 3 out of five stars for most reviews. The keyboard isn’t fantastic and it is a bit chunky by today’s standards. It is probably a safe bet that the incident that involved user data being lost is not likely to happen again.
$100 in your pocket #2: BlackBerry Curve 8330 (pink) from Verizon
This BlackBerry, first sold back in 2008 might be an older model, but it is one of the best. Featuring GPS, 2.0 mp camera and of course, the great BlackBerry messaging service. Getting paid to bring this one home is icing on the cake.
While there are other phones that offer you a bounty to order them, there are many that are free as well. Phones like the original BlackBerry Bold, considered to be the best BlackBerry ever by many, Samsung Instinct and lots more. If you are looking for a new mobile phone this holiday season, check out Walmart’s LetsTalk site.
Product Page: [Walmart]
RelatedWalmart cuts Nintendo DS Lite price by $31
Walmart is showing off their Black Friday deals and chief among them is a major price slash for the Nintendo DS Lite portable game system. The event this Friday takes the price from $129 down to just $98. The sale looks to cover all colors and is for just the console, no bundle here.
Walmart is helping us out by showing us some of Friday’s big savers based on your local store. After entering in your zip code on their website, shoppers are directed to their local advertisement and a map of the store, so you can plan your sprint, weave and spin moves to get you into the sale item line. Remember, this year most Walmarts are staying open to alleviate any lines at the door, the lines will be at product displays, inside.
Read: [Walmart]
RelatedSave money with Google Mobile coupons
Remember coupons? Those little rectangles of paper designed to bring you to one store or to purchase one brand? Their back and their mobile. Thanks to Google, these coupons are now added to their search results and can be shown to clerks to reap the savings.
If a business adds a mobile coupon to their Local Business listing on Google, the coupon will appear in a Google search on the “Places” page. I searched in vain to find a local retailer offering a coupon but it looks like existing offers by local merchants will have to be enabled to go mobile, new offers from here out will be offered mobile as the default. It will take a little for savvy businesses to catch on but when it does, a simple Google search as you head to check out might save you some money.
If you are a business owner and want to learn how to turn your coupons into mobile coupons, click here.
Read [Official Google Mobile Blog]
RelatedCreative drops new HD handheld video recorder
Creative launched their 3rd generation Vado video camera yesterday, selling at $179. The new version is glossy, better looking and addresses a list of issues that plagued the first two designs. Is it ready to be added to your holiday wish list?
Creative touts their ease of use for the Vado and previous Vado’s featured a HDMI out port along with a wide angle lens. The third generation updates the device with a microphone jack (as complaints about the original audio recording were common), improved video in low/high light recordings, headphone output, motion detection to activate recording based on movement, PC and Mac compatibility and still image capture.
The only thing keeping me from recommending this video camera is memory. The 3rd gen Vado comes with 4GB and no expansion slots. In this day of relatively inexpensive SD cards featuring up to 32GB of space, I am uneasy about being locked into just 4. Even a 4GB SD card gives me the freedom to swap out cards and keep going without stopping to download and clear memory on the device. I see myself on a Caribbean island, wedged between some giant rocks filming whales in the setting sun when a out-of-memory message pops up. Is it just me that worries about these things?
If you can live with 4GB, check out the new Vado, it is a fine looking device.
RelatedFree GPS comes Android 1.6 devices
In an early Thanksgiving present, Google has rolled out Google Navigation to Android 1.6 users. Phones such as the T-Mobile G1 and myTouch can all access the free turn-by-turn navigation Google announced with the Motorola Droid. Be jealous no more, or at least, less jealous.
Also included in the release is layers for these phones. Now, users can overlay their maps with transit maps (oh so handy!) as well as info from my maps, Wikipedia and more. Sales of phones still running Android 1.6, like the HTC phones with the Sense UI, will be helped by this addition. Nice move Google.
Users can download the latest version of Google Maps from the Android Market and begin navigating all over the US (the only place it will work) today. The service is in beta and is free.
Note: some Android 2.0 functions will not work on Android 1.6. For example, the “navigate to” voice command will not work on the older Android release.
Read: [Official Google Mobile Blog]
RelatedDell’s new touchscreen smartphone gets specs, shipping by end of month
It’s a bold move on the 23rd of the month to say we are shipping soon, by the end of the month as it doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room. The Dell Mini 3i must be locked and loaded, ready to explode onto the scene in China where the phone will debut. China Mobile let loose some interesting specs about the phone.
The Dell Mini 3i runs China Mobile’s OPhone open source OS and comes loaded with localized 139Mail e-mail, Fetion chat and digital maps. The phone does not feature a 3G radio. The Mini 3i will come in fashionable Passion Red or Oiled Bronze, hot right?
Specs (from the press release):
Dell Mini 3i OPhone Specifications: * Form Factor: Tablet/PDA * Dimensions: 58.35 x 122 x 11.7 * Display: 3.5” nHD, 640x360 * Bands/Modes: Quadband GSM/EDGE * Weight: <105g (grams) * Bluetooth * GPS * Micro SD (up to 32GB) * Connector: Mini USBChina Mobile is the world’s largest carrier with more than 500 million subscribers. This Dell phone could do quite well. The FCC recently reviewed the Mini 3iX for the US market complete with 3G, WiFi, and Android. The phone is expected to launch in the US on AT&T in early 2010. Read release: [VPO Press Release] Related
Keep track of travel plans, now on Android: TripIt beta
Reduce the stress of traveling with all your details in one easy to access place: TripIt. The info-keeping service has launched a beta version of its application for Android just in time for the holidays. TripIt has had an app on the iPhone for some time.
TripIt allows users to simply forward confirmation emails from Travel agents, travel websites or even directly from the airline or hotel. TripIt converts these confirmations into travel plans and stores them for your trip. Users can quickly call up the info, pertinent weather data and on the latest iPhone version, see a map of the terminal so you can plan your sprint to make your connection.
Having your info in one secure place is comforting but also very useful. TripIt provides links so you can get the very latest info on your flight, often well before the agents at the gate get it.
The availability of the app on Android is a good sign. The service from TripIt is fantastic (I use it) and opening it up to more users is a very good sign. Oh, and the basic service is free.
Read: [GigaOm]
Related
Major price drop for Motorola Droid, this time from Dell
Can any phone hold onto its price longer than one month? We’ve seen several phones as of late launch at one price only to be blown out of the water by another retailer just weeks or even days. The price chopper strikes again, this time with the Motorola Droid which is now $119, down from $199.
The Motorola Droid is Verizon’s hottest smartphone of the moment. Running Google Android 2.0, the phone features several new features not the least of which is Google Navigation providing turn by turn directions for free. The phone’s slide out keyboard and extreme customization are among its chief stand-out features.
Dell offers the Droid through Simplexity, an authorized reseller and carriers the same restrictions to new customer and 2-year contract. The price includes the device as well as FedEx shipping.
Interested? Just drop the Android in the Dell shopping cart, enter in your zip code and the price is shown at $119. Sweet.
Product page: [Dell] via [IntoMobile]
RelatedWine the geek way: mini-survey+QR code+iPhone app=wine for you
If you are like me, you can’t remember what wines you love and what you just end up pouring down the sink. 94 Wines looks to solve that problem by offering 94 different, purportedly high quality wines and an ultra-geeky way to find out which you might like.
94 Wines uses a quick 6-question survey that pits flavors and textures against one another. Questions like sorbet or ice cream? Tapas or full meal? Butter or olive oil? The questions end result is three wines that would suit your tastes. But the fun doesn’t end there.
A QR code (fancy bar code) is on each bottle. With their mobile phones, users can snap an image of the code with their phone and decode it with available apps, even for the iPhone. Each bottle can be labeled with a custom QR code for your order. Users can leave messages for one another, private messages sent to your user profile, images, you name it. Making wine more social is the name of the game.
The bottles are simple, attractive and if there is good wine in them, the more the better. Each bottle costs about $12 which certainly isn’t expensive.
The concept is great. Unfortunately, 94 wines is currently only available in the Netherlands. You’ve been thinking about moving anyway right?
Company site: [94Wines]
Related
Who’s on Crack in Tech: 11.20.09
This has got to stop. Holidays have got to stop creeping further and further toward summer. The nutjobs that scheme, “well, if we get our sale out first we’ll be the richest in the tri-state area” are morons. Seriously, the ABC Family channel is doing a countdown to the 25 days of Christmas. A frickin’ countdown to a countdown? Could it get more ridiculous? Here are 4 entries that attempt it:
Ah crap, the rumors been delayed.
Prepare for Black Friday
FLO TV for straight to TV movies and straight to sale bin hardware
Palm eats its young
An unannounced product gets an set back from an unannounced launch window.
This is just getting crazy. I blame everyone in media for this: from the big hitters like CNN Money to countless magazines who are reporting on Apple’s coming tablet. Apple hasn’t announced anything yet we are chomping at the bit to talk about. Even if launched yesterday, there is no way this tablet could ever live up to the hype. Not that we as consumer are even sure we want such a thing. I propose a month moratorium on not mentioning Apple’s iTablet. Who is with me?
Yeah, I didn’t think it would work.
Black Friday sales in the toilet
Anyone want to bet on something with me? The economic data that will come from Black Friday will be dark and gloomy. They’ll report consumer spending will skip this Christmas much like Kris Kringle wanted to do in the old TV movie. It is an all but sure bet. Why?
The monkeys are messing with the date. These Pre-Black Friday sales are very tempting and are going to lower how much we spend on that one day we use as an indicator. By stretching the buying season out, we’ll be so frickin fed up with the holidays we’ll throw in the towel before the season even starts. My inbox won’t stop the deluge of sale announcements, each one, killing a little bit of Santa.
FLO TV for the masses
Qualcomm’s little TV player sure is cute. The device plays TV, costs $250 and has a $9 monthly fee with 3-year commitment. That’s a total cost of $574 to watch, you know, free TV. The device is roughly the size of a cell phone, a cell phone that you can probably play some TV on for a fee. The cell phone in your pocket is free (at this point) and you know, in your pocket. So watch TV on that.
Even our ever positive editor, Robert Nelson can’t hold back, ” but thinking positive, 9 bucks a month could be worth it for the simple reason that this little device could serve as a nice entertainment device for the child in your back seat. As long as you do not mind handing them a $250 gadget to play with.” Nice try Robert.
This brings me right back the awesome gadget that just delivers RSS feeds. I love gadgets as much as the next idiot but come on, quit repeating stuff that is already out there in a better form factor. Now get to work on flying cars.
Palm eats its young
How are customers supposed to respect a phone that tumbles in price more than $70 its first 5 days on the market??? The 2nd entry in the webOS world from Palm, the Pixi, is so cute and cuddly, we thought it a smash at $79. But then anarchy reigned and Wal-Mart upset the apple cart at $29.99, then Amazon one-upped even Wal-Mart with $24.99.
Why devalue the phone so quickly? Too much Pre inventory seems to be the root cause. The Pre’s price has fallen down like a drunk senior citizen in the early morning. The Pre began at a reasonable $149 but now lives at the $79 price on Amazon. The welcome the sibling Pixi got is move over in the sale bin. Odd reception, even for a sibling.
At the very least, Palm commercials for the Pixi didn’t give anyone the willies as did the Pre versions. Bonus points to Palm.
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Black Friday 2009
Black Friday is almost here! Gadgetell's got you covered with all the latest news on who's offering the best deals. Dangerous crowds? You're on your own.
Palm Pre Information & Updates
Palm just introduced their next-gen smartphone, the Palm Pre, and next-gen operating system, Palm webOS. Gadgetell's got the latest Pre and webOS information and news for you right here.
