This week was so jam-packed full of news that I can’t wait to have Memorial Day off to recover. Google Wallet was introduced and it could change the way we pay for goods, Microsoft unwrapped the details of Windows Phone Mango and Verizon had a big week with the release of four high-quality smartphones on a single day.
Exhale and relax, friends. Let’s go over the week in mobile news!
Google Wallet
Google Wallet was introduced this week and it really wants to turn your phone into your wallet. Yes, we’ve heard that many, many times before but the partnerships with MasterCard, Sprint, Citi and some big-name retailers may make this a reality.
Google Wallet is an app that uses the NFC chip inside the Sprint Nexus S 4G to make secure transactions at retail establishments. Basically, anywhere that has the MasterCard PayPass system will be able to use this.
The Google Wallet will let you use a Citi MasterCard or a prepaid Google credit card to pay for things. It will also include things like your rewards card and even the Groupon-like Google Offers. The IntoMobile team broke down what this could mean to you, so you should check it out.
The Google Wallet service is going to face multiple challenges from other competitors and even in the court, as PayPal is suing it for misappropriation of trade secrets.
Say hello to Windows Phone Mango
Hopefully, you saw our live blog of the Windows Phone Mango announcement and you saw how the mobile platform will be getting more than 500 new features. While we knew many of these details before – third-party multitasking, Twitter integration, SkyDrive support – there were a few surprises.
Windows Phone Mango will include LinkedIn integration, increased tools for developers to finally get access to the camera and live tiles, unified inboxes, group search and an improved Bing that can even do augmented reality-style services. We can also look forward to a full version of IE9 on the Windows Phone Mango update.
Microsoft also added a few partners to its lineup, as Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE join Dell, HTC, LG, Nokia and Samsung as companies committed to making Windows Phone handsets. The Mango update won’t be landing until the Fall, so we’re going to have to wait for a while before we know how it stacks up against the competition.
Verizon releases Xperia Play, LG Revolution, Motorola Droid X2 and HTC Trophy
If you’re a cell phone free agent, then you should definitely take a look at Verizon because Big Red had a massive release day which included the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, LG Revolution with 4G LTE, the Motorola Droid X2 and the HTC Trophy, it’s first Windows Phone 7 handset.
The Xperia Play Android handset features a slide-out gamepad, a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, a 4-inch screen along with WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth. We were happy to see a near-stock version of Android 2.3 land with it but we’re unsure how appealing this will be to everyday users. From our official review:
I would tell hardcore gamers to sit tight on this one and wait for the next iteration, when the games library, as impressive as it is at launch, will be much bigger and of higher quality. I suspect shady third-party emulators will also have a field day with the standardized controls. For now, casual gamers who find that they have a lot of time to kill, and don’t necessarily want to be productive in that time, the Play might actually be a good fit.
The LG Revolution is the third smartphone that supports 4G LTE and it’s quite a beast of a device with a 4.3-inch screen, 1 GHz processor, 4G, WiFi, Bluetooth and Netflix preloaded. Does it live up to the hype?
From our official review:
It’s not quite as sexy as the HTC Thunderbolt or even the Droid Charge but it is a beast of a smartphone that should satisfy users who want 4G LTE speeds and ample power without design frills.
The Motorola Droid X2 doesn’t look all that different from its predecessor but inside beats the ultra-powerful, dual-core NVIDIA processor to go along with the 4.3-inch qHD screen and 8-megapixel camera. We would have loved to see this with a front-facing camera or 4G LTE but it’s still a worthy Android 2.2 handset.
From the review:
The spec junkies of the world will admire the Droid X2?s superior screen and NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor but data junkies may not be in love with only having 3G data. Either way, the Droid X2 should make anyone happy coming from the original and those who like a nice set of specs before a data network that’s sure to kill your phone in no time. If you need both a dual-core CPU and LTE on your phone then you may have to wait a little longer for the Droid Bionic.
We’re not quite done with our HTC Trophy review but you can check out our hands-on impressions here. It sports a 3.8-inch screen, 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and, of course, it will be the first Verizon phone to run Windows Phone 7. In my brief time with it, I can tell you that it looks like an incredibly well-designed device and the software should be smooth as silk. We’ll have the full review up shortly but check out this video below to hold you over.
News in 60 seconds
- Samsung Galaxy S II outsold the iPhone 4
- We review the Case-Mate case for the BlackBerry PlayBook
- HTC does the community a solid by unlocking Android bootloader
- There’s now a 64 GB microSD card
- Will iOS 5 not work with the iPhone 3GS?
Happy Memorial Day
What a week, friends. We’ll be updating over the weekend and on the holiday Monday but the real fun kicks off late next week with the Qualcomm Uplinq conference and more. You can follow all of our news by visiting the home page (of course) or by following IntoMobile on Twitter @Intomobile. I’m there too @Marinperez.
Mavs in 6.
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The Mobile Roundup: Google Wallet, Mango and Verizon’s big day is a post from: IntoMobile
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