Is Apple ready to offer the iPhone at a huge discount? Is a $99 iPhone something that could materialize in the near future? What would Ballmer say about such an event?

Charlie Wolf from Needham Research said that Apple’s doubled revenue in the last year has been hidden due to accounting rules. But that might be just a factor

for dropping the iPhone’s price below the current $199 entry price. Apple sold 6.9 million iPhones worldwide and a third of those have landed in the USA only. That leaves lots of room fore more sales. And what better incentive for customers than a significantly lower entry price?

We’ll just have to see tight and see how this whole economic crisis blows over. And let’s not forget that Android is marching strong these days. That alone might be another important factor in a future Apple decision to sell cheaper handset!

Here’s a new phone from Samsung. It’s similar to the BlackJack series only isn’t. It’s the C6620 which is a totally new phone available in Italy only via TIM. The FCC has been kind enough to approve the device so it will hit the US of A and probably other markets soon.

Here are some of the specs of this Samsung:

Tri band GSM connectivity, 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz

UMTS/HSDPA connectivity

Bluetooth

Music player

2MP camera with video recording

20MB of internal memory plus a 1GB card

full QWERTY keyboard

non-touchscreen QVGA display

Windows Mobile 6.1

The C6620 costs 199 Euro if you’re anywhere in Europe and want one.

via Mobileblog.it

Word has been made official that a brand new slider from Samsung, entitled the Sway SCH -u650, will make its way to Verizon.

The Samsung SCH-u650 Sway will be a typical run-of-the-mill

slider, clocking in at 0.47-inches thick and sporting a 2.2-inch display. Also featured on the phone is a 2MP camera along with a bunch of preinstalled software like IM, a personal organizer, and a web browser. The phone’s battery at full juice is expected to pump out 270 minutes of standard talk-time, or 312 hours of standby.

Samsung’s new slider u650 will be available on Verizon come October 14th for $69.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate, with a 2 year contract of course.

(Via: PhoneMag)

Samsung SCH-u650 Press release after the break.

It seems as today is a good day to make announcements about small laptops, which means that on top of the Averatec AVN270N, there was another company presenting a new product - HP and the Pavilion dv3500t series.

Believe it or not, this is the first laptop made by HP that has a screen measuring 13.3-inches, and taking a look

at the specs + price, it looks like they did a nice job. The computer is already available online, with a starting price of $1,000.

Besides the usual features, there are two details that stand out and will help the users: under-keyboard backlighting, and a LED backlight panel.

Since the Pavilion dv3500t series can be configured by the buyer, it means that are a lot of options available. For example, the Intel Core 2 Duo processor can go from 2.0GHz up to 2.53GHz, while the memory RAM starts at 2GB and ends at 8GB.

HP

Sure the specs are the same as any other netbook in the highly saturated market right now, but Samsung at least got one thing right: price!

The company will sell its NC10 netbook later this month

for 299 GBP, and that’s including VAT. This comes out to approximately $530 in US dollars, but Samsung is sure to cut the price further in the States, so it’s all okay.

For 300 GBP, you will land a 10.2 inch, 1.3kg netbook with a 160GB hard drive and 1GB RAM. And it doesn’t look too shabby either.

Remember the Samsung u430 that we mentioned in June? It is an entry level cellphone so maybe it didn’t cause any good impressions for you to remember, but the good news is that Verizon officially launched the phone.

It is available online for $100 with a 1-year contract, but if you opt for a 2-year contract the cellphone costs zero.

Why is Verizon offering the u430 for free? Because you can’t get a cellphone more simple than that. The colorful (65K) TFT screen measures 1.9-inches, and provides a resolution of 128×160 pixels.

It can make/receive calls, and send/receive text messages - how useful, isn’t it? Other details include bluetooth, a phone book with a maximum of 500 entries, and a media center that lets you download games and ringtones.

Verizon

For the type of people that need a ruggedized cellphone (read modified for military use) check out the latest offer by T-Mobile. It is simply called Motorola Active, but if you want to go technical the real codename is MOTOACTV W450.

As you can see by the image, the Motorola Active can be inserted on the “clamshell” category,

and since it has a material similar to rubber, it means you can drop it and it is suppose to keep working. Made for exercising sessions, like jogging, hiking, cycling and others, it includes an easy way to “attach” the phone to your belt.

An interesting application is the Mayo Clinic software that helps users identify medical troubles.

In terms of normal features, the MotoACT W450 has a microSD slot that can handle 2GB cards, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and is able to playback audio. The phone is already available in gray or white, and costs $30 with a 2-year plan.

T-Mobile

Samsung Pixon which is an 8 megapixel camera phone which we might have already seen before as the Bresson. The Pixon’s camera has auto focus, face detection and geotagging. A 3.2 inch touchscreen will help you visualize and manage all those pictures.

The phone is going to be ready in France in a few days. Other European and Asian countries are going to get it pretty soon but we’ll keep you informed. You will probably see the Pixon everywhere starting with this October.

We’re waiting for the first 9 megapixel handset to arrive since there’s such a camera module ready to be added to phones.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that we have seen iPhone firmware 2.1 officially launched and Apple seems ready to be moving on. The next version is the 2.2 and there’s a beta 1 available for developers. What are we going to get from the new version? We don’t exactly know, but since Apple is moving so fast we should expect some decent changes to emerge. Background push notification anyone?

via BGR

Well well T-Mobile, you sure have an Amazon store ready for your future customers. There are 6 million DRM-free songs available which is quite nice. But how are we to listen to it? It’s been reported that there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack available.

So who’s fault is it? T-Mobile’s? Google’s? Well last time I checked, the manufacturer

was HTC. It seems that’s an old problem with the HTC. They tend to forget about the music jack in their models. The Touch HD is the only exception so far.

That means you should buy an USB dongle to mediate a connection between your faithful headphones and the G1. And the adapter won’t arrive by the time the G1 gets released.

Do you think Amazon should be a little pissed off by all this? I mean they will be loosing some money for a while right? Why buy songs you can’t listen to anyway?

via Engadget