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T-Mobile Launches GSM/802.11 Phone In Germany
prostoalex writes "German subscibers of T-Mobile can now get a hybrid PDA phone that supports both GSM and WiFi wireless networks. The new Mobile Digital Assistant (pretty pictures) will connect to cellular and wireless hotspots built by T-Mobile as well as any 802.11a/g Wireless LANs."
The Mobile Digital Assistantpage lists two products. One is the MDAI, and the second is the MDAII. The pretty pictures link actually only shows the OLD MDAI model, which still had an external antenna. It is NOT the upcoming MDAIII. I've had the XDAII (same thing as the MDAII, but it's called XDA in the UK for three months now. It's a great product (I love being able to use MSN messenger/IRC from practically anywhere, over a GPRS link, and paying next to nothing [since I'm billed for data transfered and IM/IRC isn't bandwidth intensive]). My only gripe is that its size/weight is a bit larger than standard pocket PCs (then again hardly susprising considering the extra features). WI-FI is the only thing that is missing IMHO, so I am looking forward to the next one.
s id -3146,en.html?w=1075&h=847a u/browse/page910.html
I read some more info and an original press release. It was posted on www.xda-developers.com (great resourse for MDA/XDA owners). Here are some additional links regarding the upcoming MDAIII:
http://www.t-mobile.net/CDA/tmd_mda_iii,20,,new
http://www.mtekk.com.
Would this mean that when you come home (provided you have a WAP) you would be able to access your phone via your computer over the network ??
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Seeing how this thing will be sold in Germany, shouldn't it be a QWERTZ keyboard, or are they trying to irritate their customers? If it is a QWERTY, does it have Umlauts?
http://www.uk-net.org/modules.php?name=News&file=a rticle&sid=163&mode=nested&order=0&thold=- 1
Can the keyboard be remapped to Dvorak in software?
The article talks about the MDA III yet the photos show an MDA I and II which have been out for ages and a reasonable amount of time respectivily. The most noticable thing about the MDA III is that it has an integrated sliding keyboard.
Photos of the MDA III can be found here.
I have one in my desk drawer and although I haven't had a proper play with it, it's rather heavy, thick and the back is made of cheap feeling black plastic. The OS is Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.
However it does come with an impressive line up of software - fonix voice apps, album, clearvue pdf, enroller, clearvue ppt, kse truefax, midlet manager, photo contacts, video mms and xBackup to name a few.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Whether you're moving to 3G or Wi-Fi/WiMax, you're ready to roll. I have to hand it to these guys, at least they're thinking ahead. Now it doesn't matter which technology wins out as The Ultimate Wireless Solution. If only other mobile phone companies thought this way...
On the other hand, at this point, I don't think 3G OR 802.11 have managed to break out on a global scale a la GSM yet... so your pretty toy will remain just that for another 3/4 years....
My Favourite Meme
This sort of thing could provide a convenient gateway to the private mobile neworks for worms and the like. I'm sure there are Russian "businessmen" rubbing their hands with glee at the thought. The screenshot is WinCE? [ROTFL] It's only a matter of time now.
I wonder if they will allow you to make VOIP calls over the WiFi link using this handset. That would be really neat, but unfortunately VOIP is a threat the the profits of companies like T-mobile. So they will probably do something to prevent this. Unless of course they charge for the WiFi connection by usage, which of course removes the principal benefit of VOIP for the user.
WiFi on your phone/PDA is the obvious next step, but I never thought it would happen because WiFi threatens all the major revenue earning modes of the mobile phone companies.
The threats are VOIP and IM. It doesn't look like this phone supports VOIP natively, but there is plenty of code which does on that platform. IM threatens the insanely lucrative SMS revenue and the major users of SMS (ie teenagers) are already using IM.
I guess since T-Mobile have a big stake in WiFi access points they can afford to produce a product like this, unlike their competitors which don't and can't. We'll see!
Every man for himself, all in favour say "I"
If this will let you make VoIP calls from any wifi network it would be really useful (read cheap), especially in metro areas like Berlin. On the way from home to work (a 20 minute drive) there are just over 100 wifi access points. About a dozen are cafes and T-com public APs but most are personal APs built into the DSL modems/routers that are given away for free with the internet service. Half of them wide open and on default settings. Someone *could* park their car just about anywhere and make free calls etc, if they were into that kind of thing...
What post? The one you're carrying inside your rusty innards!
Care to share a link to them? I would be very interested in the functions you described.
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This is not the only one. They will also have Wi-Fi in the new Nokia 9500 Communicator. See the Feature list on Nokia's site
It's a shame it's a PocketPC device. I spent months last year trying to use and being frustrated by the PocketPC OS. It's crap and clever marketing (like this) can't save it.
I think a sub-notebook with a WLAN and GSM card will probably be more use.
Now I can use GSM in Germany! With my T-Mobile mobile! Super!
An MDA is a PDA with mobile (voice) and connectivity, a SmartPhone is a mobile phone with PDA capability.
Are these converging or diverging and trying to control the markets with double speak? I would suggest that MDAs are more powerful, but the only real SmartPhones that are around are the Sony P900s, which looks fantastic.
Do you really want to lug an MDA around just for voice? I think seperating the application of a voice unit and a computing unit is best left alone, and a standard PDA and mobile is better, but that is me, and because I haven't seen anyone talking into one.
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You didn't read the submission, either:
will connect to cellular and wireless hotspots built by T-Mobile as well as any 802.11a/g Wireless LANs.
My site
I guess this will cause similar problems with thumb wear as game pads do. Still anything is better than hunched up typing over a keyboard...
.etc
The key to good miniature keyboard design is limit the contact space between the digit (finger) and the key.
By making a meyboard out of 1mm diameter 'nipples' with the letter printed larger behing, the total distance between the pressable surface of each key becomes much greater:
The test:
Press the following five boxes with your grubby finger (will need to wipe monitor afterwards)
[ ][ ][ ][ ]. etc
Now press the following smaller dots.
. . . . .
Easier huh? But takes up the same room, but each button eare is bigger, as they over lap. (almost double the size)
It is possible to fit a usable keyboard onto a creditcard in this way. Usable meaning, you can type fairly fast with thumbs, index and middle fingers without getting too cramped.
Cool huh?
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Nope.
I read that, but I was wondering why they are explicitely stating that it can connect to "hotspots built by T-Mobile". Why should they mention it at all if they are standards compliant?!
BTW, I now RTFA.
WiFi will be available on the new Communicator as well. The downside with that one, I hear, is the new "improved" keyboard.. But other than that, it looks set to continue the Communicator tradition of a really successful blend of phone and PDA.
include the Motorola MpX, due in Q4, and the iPAQ 6300 series, due out in the next 30-60 days. Both are GSM/GPRS phones -- my understanding is that they'll be software-upgradable to EDGE once the carriers roll it out.
...but I still want a Nokia D311 from Cingular.
FLR
Last time I checked a couple of days ago a "T-Hotzone" pass cost EUR 8.00 an hour, that's $9.75 an hour. What's worse, once you've started using the "T-Hotzone" pass the clock doesn't stop ticking when you disconnect from the network.
BTW some select Burger Kings(one I know of in Ingolstadt) offer wireless internet for free, (food/beverage purchase required).
If all he wants is to educate us, then let him do it without the karma points.
I have yet to check the specs, but i assume the phone would have bluetooth built in. so woulden't the wap abilities of the phone make it more suseptable to a hybird of the cellphone virus?
About the only thing that's new about this is that is in one package... I've done something similiar along time ago with an old iPAQ 3660 and a dual PCMCIA jacket with a gsm card in one slot and a 802.11b in the other.
Okay it didn't do auto handover but if I'd bothered to write a litte app to monitor the 802.11b/GSM connection status it could easily have been setup to fail over as needed...
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Assuming they can easily detect when a phone is connected to GSM and when it's connected via WiFi, and further assuming that GSM is more expensive overall to the provider than WiFi, I wonder if WiFi sessions will get billed at a cheaper rate...
- Karma whore
Why do you care?Instead of buying a $600 active repeater, or bodging together a passive repeater, people could simply use their existing broadband connection and 802.11 network.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I always get so puzzled when people create a phone with a touchscreen (read: FRAGILE) and not make it clamshell design.
like the Motorola MPX
I walk around with a phone, not in an armoured purse, not with 4 bodyguards around me but no.. *drumroll* just in my jeans pocket.
If I, for some alcoholic reason, bump phone-first into something less soft than say a baby's bottom, Id like the screen to survive, please.
And don't come to me about protective cases, this design is flawed from the beginning, and I don't want to have to peel of 4 layers if 'skin' before I can answer the phone or use more than 2% of the device's functions. Thanks.
I'm still going to wait to see what PalmOS 6 has to offer. And $300 is still about the max I want to pay for a phone+pda.
And you should draw 3 horizontal lines, which gives you 36 boxes :-)
Hot sunny days and math don't mix well.
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I've used the existing T-Mobile GSM phone, and the Pocket PC software was just so unreliable it made the lousy sound quality a minor issue. I was routinely rebooting before calls and answering the phone with "Hi, I'll call you back in a minute after I've reset the phone".
Especially since the normal objection to a clamshell (moving parts, bending cables that break and hinges that wear out) don't apply, since it's already got all that complexity in the sliding keyboard.
I don't understand why PDA makers seem to be averse to not only clamshells but even hard protective covers. I avoided replacing my Visor Prism for a long time because all the new handhelds... PalmOS and Pocket PC alike... seemed to be designed witt the idea that broken screens ensure a steady revenue stream.
Yes, I'm half kidding. But only half.
Where is the palm devices that can do this?
The marriage of wifi and gprs *seem* cool, but the practical limitations of the device really limit it. Take, for example, the Motorola MpX -- sure, it'll run great on a gprs connection. However, unless you remember to explicitly stop and start the wifi module, your battery will be dead in a matter of hours, as both the gprs radio and the wifi module are not exactly the most power-efficient chips.
Review of aforementioned Motorola MpX
Very nice pictures. Anyone else notice that this is Windows CE with Mac OS X scrollbars?
:-)
Uh-huh, show me real screen shots.
Your Windows PC is my other computer.
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Few people have a kind word to say about telecoms regulators. But the success of Wi-Fi shows what can be achieved when regulators and technologists work together
===
So instead of regulating it all, they let a few percent be unregulated and a success was born.
I don't really see why that should make me have kind words for regulators.
...albeit the first with *built-in* GSM/GPRS and WiFi. If you can make VOIP calls over WiFi using your standard Pocket PC, you can do it with this device (whether T-Mobile makes it easy or integrates it into their software is another matter.)
T-Mobile don't have any control over the use of the WiFi in the phone, if you want to use it on your own AP, or anyone elses for that matter. The only scenario where they would is if you *happen* to be using a T-Mobile hotspot, which you could also use with any other WiFi-enabled device (for a fee).
The mobile phone biz is built on "give away the phone, and sell the minutes". Sure, they'll charge hundreds of dollars (-> yen, won, pounds, euro) for this phone. But will that cover the thousands they'll lose in airtime, when it connects over a WiFi net that doesn't charge for T-Mobile? Or are they planning some kind of proprietary WiFi login, limiting connections to only T-Mobile hotspots?
--
make install -not war
Try the Treo 600. ARM/PalmOS5, 16M/SD(IO), USB, Sprint CDMA@144Kbps (bursty), iPod-comparable stereo headphones for WAV/AAC/vorbis/MP3 and shoutcast playback, (crappy) camera. It's a little large compared to a tiny phone, but any smaller and I wouldn't want to type/read on it. It's really a phone, and it's really smart - the PalmOS integration of programs and phone is really tight, and open - all the current PalmOS apps run on it (small color screen). This thing is convergence - and the most "Personal" Computer I've had in 27 years.
--
make install -not war
The phone is a modified XDA. The latest model from them is O2. They are powered by Microsoft Pocket PC and supports Wifi cards. Xda was first released on July 13th, 2002.
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
Am I the only one that finds mobile phones on an 802.11 network to be a BAD thing? We have enough war driving and such on unsecured 802.11 networks as it is, and now we have cell phones compatible with them. I'm just waiting for the first virus to be written to swipe all the phone numbers in your address book to be sent to telemarketers or simply hose your $300 phone in general.
The Intermec 700 series mobile computer has been shipping with optional GSM or CDMA and 802.11 and bluetooth for over a year now. It even has a built in 'frigen laser beam! Intermec 700
He posted AC.
>...IM threatens the insanely lucrative SMS revenue...
T-Mobile also already has a plan that is $30/mo, has unlimited AOL IM and unlimited SMS. (And unlimited email and web browsing). It's the Sidekick plan.
I think they mean 802.11b/g. While I've seen single-chip 802.11b/g solutions, I've yet to see a single chip 802.11a/g. Also there are antennas to consider - a broadband antenna for 1.8-2.4 GHZ (supporting GSM and 802.11b/g) isn't particularly difficult to do, but if the phone supported 802.11a (5.3 and 5.8 GHz) it'd have to have more and different antennas. Couple that with the battery drain from 5GHz and I somehow doubt the phone on the market today is really a/g.
The MDA II has a sliding keyboard. The photo in the link goes to an old model, the MDA.
The MDAIII picture is available on Geekzone for example.
The Pocket PC will also be available on a CDMA version on Sprint (USA), Verizon (USA) and Telecom New Zealand (New Zealand) sometime very soon.
The first release was in China, dubbed as CU928 (image of Chinese version available).
> I don't really see why that should make me have kind words for regulators.
Trying having an unregulated nuclear power plant in your backyard.