Buying a cell phone is more than a matter of choosing a handset–you also have to pick a service provider, or carrier, as well. Each carrier in the United States offers a different selection of technologies and services, so it’s important to think about your needs when making a choice. For that reason, selecting a carrier should be the first step in the cell phone buying process.
Twisting technology

Wireless carriers in the United States operate over two different networks: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM). Though each technology transmits voice and data, they do so in different ways, which makes them incompatible. As a result, you can’t take a CDMA phone and use it on GSM or vice versa.

Of the U.S. carriers, AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM while Sprint, Verizon, and smaller carriers such as such as MetroPCS and U.S. Cellular use CDMA. Though Nextel is part of Sprint, Nextel-branded phones use a third technology called iDEN, or Integrated Digital Enhanced Network.

CDMA coverage is very strong in the United States, particularly in rural areas, but GSM service has a larger global footprint (it’s the standard in Europe, for example) and GSM phones use the convenient SIM cards,…

By now product reviews, projected sales information based in some reality, and media input aplenty is out on Motorola Inc.’s new smart phone , the Droid.  The Droid was the first smart phone to utilize Google’s  new Android 2.0 operating system, introduced as a direct competitor to the Blackberry and Iphone operating systems, as well as the Palm, which is reportedly not doing well.  With any technology that has fans that are loyal to other products, getting a real feel for consumer sentiment on any new technology is risky at first, and best left instead to time.  Enough time has now passed for a good feel on this phone to be achieved.  Sales numbers appear to be decent to good.  The reviews on the phone itself are mixed, but mostly positive.  It has been as boldly called the Iphone Killer (which is ridiculous) to a washed up attempt to catch up in the smart phone space that is going to fail miserably(even more ridiculous). What is that old saying?  Somewhere in the middle lies the truth?  I think that is exactly the case here.

I don’t think the phone will be a failure, but the Droid has much competition, even within the…

“Cat got your tongue?” my wife asked as we bumped along the freeway one recent afternoon. “I wonder where that phrase comes from?” she added a moment later.

Now here was an opportunity for a husband to be useful. I knew I could simply say, “Origin of the phrase ‘cat got your tongue’ ” into Google’s new Nexus One or an Apple iPhone loaded with Microsoft’s new Bing search app — the two smartphones I happened to have in my possession — to answer her second question.

The spoken word is becoming an effective way to overcome the frustrations and limitations of typing on a smartphone. Google and Microsoft now offer speech-enabled Web search on a variety of mobile platforms. And a growing number of iPhone and Android apps — and services like Google Voice and YouTube’s recent launch of automatic captioning of videos — can transcribe speech into text. The technology has evolved to a point where speech is a central feature on the Nexus One, allowing users to speak a tweet, an e-mail or a Facebook update.

“2010 is the year when speech goes mainstream,” said Dariusz Paczuski, senior director for Tellme Mobile Speech, a Mountain View company that became a unit of…

Toshiba Australia is looking to enter the Smartphone market with a new Windows 7 TG03 series model. The move comes as telecommunication carriers and vendors like HTC, Samsung and LG face the prospect that every current model Windows Mobile along with current applications will be obsolete by September when Microsoft launches their new operating system.

Toshiba believe that they will be able to take advantage of the current situation by launching a brand new phone with a new operating system and a new Generation of applications that will work on both Toshiba notebooks and netbooks as well as a new TG03 Smartphone.

Senior Optus executives told ChannelNews that Toshiba has an excellent brand name and a combination of a Toshiba Smartphone and a netbook running the new Windows 7 operating system will appeal to a lot of customers. “They are not tainted by the problems that are emerging with current model Windows Mobile phones” they said.

Last week Microsoft confirmed that their new Windows 7 series phones, expected late this year, won’t run any applications written for older versions of Microsoft’s phone software.

Rob Wilkinson the General Manager of Toshiba Australia Information Systems Division said “Toshiba Australia is seriously looking at what opportunities are out there for…

AT&T’s first Android device is coming down the pipeline next week, the Motorola Backflip, for $99 on a 2-year contract on March 7. Other than being disappointed with the industrial design of this device there might be something else to complain about. A recent hands-on by Engadget’s Chris Zeigler found that all of the default Google search was taken out of the device and replaced with Yahoo search (which will use Bing soon enough). Let me repeat that; all Google search is taken out of AT&T’s Android device in favor of Yahoo search.

Is anyone else shocked by this? It seems that there are some type of deals going on behind the scenes between AT&T and Yahoo (possibly Microsoft). This wouldn’t surprise me as much if this were on any other device than an Android, but having Google search as the standard search is one of the ways that Google can monetize their free mobile OS. The more Android devices, the more Google searches, the more ad revenue.

Also some of the default Android applications are going to be stripped from the OS in favor of AT&T services / applications. If this is what a non-Google Experience device looks like on AT&T,…