After doing a little research on the topic, all the information I needed about mobile broadband, where it is today, and where it is going, I found at http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk/. To sum it up and make a little sense of all those complicated letters you see in phone reviews, here is what I have gathered.

First we had EDGE or 2.5g, which anyone who had a first gen iPhone knows, provided a painful mobile browsing experience. Then came 3g, which made mobile browsing a decent option if there was no Wifi hotspot in the area. By the way the official term for 3g on a GSM network is UMTS.

After 3g came HSDPA or 3.5g, which already gave you the option to surf comfortably on a non Wifi enabled phone but still was not as fast! The newest speed is HSUPA, which surfs at a ridiculous speed that is similar if not identical to Wifi.

What we have in store for us is of course 4g or what is known as WIMAX. This will provide higher speed connections than today’s Wifi with no need for a hotspot due to its tremendous ratio of coverage!

There you have the breakdown of the different types of mobile broadband. I also found a useful table that helped me compare mobile broadband types and speeds implemented by the various providers. Now, what can you do with these connections? Well besides having a full internet experience whenever and wherever, you can use the connection to connect a laptop and surf using your phone’s mobile broadband. This was not the best option on 3g as it was still too slow but on HSUPA or Wimax, it might even beat Wifi!

An entire industry is developing around the fast moving mobile broadband market! There is the USB dongle (love that word) that enables you to insert your phone’s SIM card into the dongle, plug it into your laptop, and you are good to go, no matter where you are located at that given moment (almost, and depending on your network coverage). Here is a nice comprehensive list of various broadband offers, depending on your location.

The bottom line is with the rapidly developing smartphone market (see the video below for a look at the future), the evolving web browser arena, and the growing dependency on the internet, mobile broadband has to keep up with the pace! So far, it is doing a great job at that, let’s just see what tomorrow brings!

-Hillel

The Boy Genius has reported that the home activation of the iPhone will return. But it is far from what it used to be. Apple is just trying to cut the time it takes to sign the paper work. You have to fill out the forms online and they go into the Apple or AT&T store to activate the phone. They are not going to allow any phones out of the store without being activated.

I have a real personal agenda here against Apple and the mobile carriers, being that I believe that all devices should be able to bought unlocked and without a contract. They can mark up the price but sell the phones unlocked.

-Aryeh

Samsung recently released another truly amazing handset, which they refer to as the Samsung INNOV8 (get it? Innovate?). With the corny name and my resulting desire to hate the phone, I have to admit, they did a pretty amazing job with this phone. The specs are pretty much unprecedented, except for maybe the Sony Ericsson C905.

The INNOV8 boasts a ridiculous 8 megapixel camera, with crazy features that can only be found on high end digital cameras. These include geotagging, automatic panorama shooting, face detection, smile detection, and even blink detection to prevent photos of people blinking (is it just me, or have we come a REALLY long way with camera phones?).

I am not even going to mention all of the phone’s specs, just take any phone out there and the INNOV8 has all its specs. It also has a 16 million color display, stereo speakers, 8 or 16 GB of internal memory plus a Micro SD card slot (so for all you mathematically challenged people, the phone can hold 24 GB of memory with an 8 GB Micro SD card), download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps, Stereo Bluetooth, GPS, up to 8.5 hours of talk time, and did I mention an 8 megapixel camera, with a video camera that supports VGA at 30 frames per second and  QVGA at 120 frames per second.

This is all without even mentioning the handset’s great looks. It has a slider form factor, somewhat similar to that of the Nokia N95, only thinner and less toy looking. It really is one of the nicer phones out there.

I recently had a discussion with a friend, who claimed that there is no more room for cellphones to develop. He claimed that they might get faster or smaller, but there are no new ideas or features left to invent in the cellular market. At the time, I argued the point, but after reading about the INNOV8, I think he might just be right. I mean the thing has a freakin business card scanner.

-Hillel

Thanks Itamar.

My thoughts:

1. I think competition is very important because it will increase the quality of the apps.

2. I am pro the open sourced software, and I can’t wait to see what they have to offer.

3. It will be very interesting to see if they charge for the apps.

What do you think? Are you going to use Android?

Have a good one

Aryeh

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1504003&w=425&h=350&fv=]

The things that people are able to do with the iPhone SDK are really amazing. This is where innovation is at, when it comes to cellphone software. We will have to see what Android brings to the picture.