AT&T released the Motorola BACKFLIP today on their website and in stores. Back in January, we brought you a hands-on with the phone from CES and we were impressed with the design. The BACKFLIP goes for $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year contract. The phone does require a $30 a month data plan. With MOTOBLUR, the phone is great for social media and updating all your statuses on the go.

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Today AT&T announced the availability of its first Android phone, the MOTOROLA BACKFLIP. You may remember our hands-on with the BACKFLIP back at CES. This phone runs MOTOBLUR which is powered by Android. MOTOBLUR syncs yours contacts with your social networks and delivers the content right to the homepage. The phone will be available on March 7 at AT&T stores and online for $99.99 after mail-in rebate with a two-year contract.

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It’s finally here. The moment that will change the computer industry forever. Apple’s iPad. This bad boy has been in speculations, talks, rumors, you name it, for almost half a decade. The first ever  “iPad” was announced in May 1992 and it was called the Newton. Now back then that was godly, for today’s standards, not even close to what Apple just created. The “new” iPad, consists of:

• Half-Inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds
• 9.7-inch capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD display
• Custom 1GHz Apple “A4″ processor chip developed by the P.A. Semi Team
• 10-hour battery life and a month of standby!
• Comes in 16, 32 and 64GB Flash Memory sizes
• 30-pin dock connector for charging and connecting with a keyboard
• Microphone (Skype anybody?)
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 802.11n Wi-Fi (free at AT&T Hotspots) and optional 3G on-board (AT&T)
• Accelerometer
• Compass
• World “Pad”

That’s a lot of stuff right? There’s more. Here is where the fun comes in. Every application that is in the App Store that works on your iPhone/iTouch, works on your iPad! Amazing! Now for the AT&T part. I know, I know. You were hoping that this would become availabe on Verizon Wireless or another carrier, shame on you Apple. Apple and AT&T have teamed up once again to deliver a monstrous package deal for the wireless and 3G data pricing. Packages start at $14.99 for 250MB of data and $29.99 for Unlimited data per month. You’re asking yourself what’s the catch? Is there a two year commitment? The answer to those two questions are simply NO. There is no catch and there is no two year agreement. Hmmm, World”Pad”, what does that mean? It means exactly what you see. You can take the iPad abroad and insert any sim card from all over the world because the iPad is unlocked! The gates of heaven have finally opened. Now God Steve Jobs said that prices for international data will come “this summer” with further informaton. Prices for the iPad are as follows, $499 for the 16GB, $599 for the 32GB and $699 for the 64GB. Adding 3G to either model is a whopping $130 extra for it to run on broadband speeds when not in a Wi-Fi environment. Sales for the iPad start for the Wi-Fi version in 30 days and the Wi-Fi/3G version in 90 days. So who’s ready to get online for this one? I will. Now if only AT&T could fix there network even more now….

Update: The iPad is running iPhone OS 3.2 and has no camera. Also has no multi-tasking so I guess we’ll have to wait for iPhone OS 4.0 to come out. There is also no Flash support as well, should’ve known that already.

We’ve all heard this phrase before, “I want it but I don’t want ATT”. The speculations and rumors are heating up about the latest iPhone news and Apple breaking their ties from ATT. Now while it is not a 100% guarantee that will happen is unknown. One of Hot Hardware’s inside sources feels very confident that AT&T will lose its iPhone exclusivity during Apple’s big announcement this week. The announcement should be made following the introduction of the iSlate/iTablet/iPad and iPhone 4.0. Now if this comes to be true, sales for Apple will sky rocket. Look what not having exclusivity in Europe has done to the profits they’ve made, A LOT. The question(s) that will be asked if that does happen is where will the iPhone go next? Will Apple sell the iPhone unlocked in their stores? Who will puchase one if it is unlocked? What about Big Red, can they handle the exsessive amounts of data the iPhone clogs uses if they get it? Only time will tell. One thing is for sure though, if ATT does lose exclusivity, who will walk into their stores now?

Source Business Insider

It’s the most wonderful tiiime of the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve all heard that before. For this month, that doesn’t seem to be the case. RIM has seemed to epically fail once again. Three times in one month and two times in one week, their services has shut down and CrackBerry BlackBerry users are in disgust; and Tuesday’s outage once again affected all U.S carriers as well as our next door neighbors in Canada as well. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’m a fool. The third time, I don’t know anymore. BlackBerry BES/BIS users have been widely affected this whole  year with outages from RIM’s servers. The one thing that is supposed to work and have vital reliability for heavy Enterprise users, is starting to show a pattern is making people everywhere wonder, “Should I keep this”? Here is what RIM had to say about the outage:

A service interruption occurred Tuesday that affected BlackBerry customers in the Americas. Message delivery was delayed or intermittent during the service interruption. Phone service and SMS services on BlackBerry smartphones were unaffected. Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM has taken corrective action to restore service.

RIM has also provided a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (version 5.0.0.57) and is encouraging anyone who downloaded or upgraded BlackBerry Messenger since December 14th to upgrade to this latest version which resolves the issue. RIM continues to monitor its systems to maintain normal service levels and apologizes for any inconvenience to customers.

Yes, it’s understandable that RIM has gone from just being a corporate brand to becoming a household name, but you have to admit that they should have expected this with the release of the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 that regular consumers would start to enter the BlackBerry realm. Eventually I think RIM will figure it out, until then, pray that this doesn’t happen on New Years Eve.

(Update) We’ve gotten sporadic reports today that BlackBerry service — possibly just BIS — has been down for at least a period today, which would amazingly mark the fourth time a serious outage has occurred in RIM’s fortress in just the past several weeks. That’s bad for any device, but it’s particularly tragic for a platform that has staked its reputation on reliability. What’s everyone seeing out there right now? RIM, when will you learn?

Source: Engadget Mobile

With the holiday season approaching fast, we at Smartphone Nation thought it would only be right to make a holiday gift guide to help you choose the perfect the gift. There have been many great phone launches this year; however, a few stuck out as superior. We have though of all major carriers when writing this review, so make sure to take carriers into consideration when making your choice.

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The new BlackBerry Bold 9700 is now available for AT&T customers. If you don’t remember what the BlackBerry 9700 specs really are, heres a little recap:

• Trackpad navigation
• Bright, hi-resolution screen
• Full QWERTY keyboard
• 3G technology
• Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® enabled
• 256MB flash memory
• 3.2 MP digital camera with
  video camera

Prices are as followed for the device:

• No contract – $449.99
• 2 Year Contract -$299.99 reduced w/MIR to $199.99

If you want to purchase the BlackBerry on a contract, you must purchase a data plan add-on with a minimum cost of $30.

AT&T BlackBerry Bold 9700

AT&T proves once again that it has fantastic international options with the introduction of its latest plans, Nation with Canada and FamilyTalk with Canada. Canada is one of AT&T’s most popular international calling destinations so the company has decided to introduce a plan that would allow customers to call there for less. Customers on these plans will have no long distance charges on wireless calls between US and Canada. Nation with Canada plans start at $59.99 a month, while FamilyTalk with Canada plans start at $89.99 a month.

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The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is one of the most anticipated phones of 2009. GSM phone users are sick of the Bold and want a new 3G BlackBerry. Well today RIM began by making the phone official with its own website. Within an hour carrier followed with press releases alerting the world that the phone is going to be available on their carrier. AT&T is going to be carrying it “in the coming weeks” and will be charging $199.99 after a mail-in rebate. T-Mobile will be releasing it “in time for the holiday season”. Rogers will be releasing the phone “in the coming weeks” and will be charging $299.99 with qualifying plans. Bell only says that the phone will be released in November.

iPhone customer have long wondered why AT&T would not allow VoIP calls to be made over the 3G network. In the past, these calls needed to be made over a Wi-Fi connection. This was a reason why many people jailbroke their iPhones to allow them to use VoIP apps over 3G. However, today AT&T began allowing these calls to be made over 3G. Gone are the days of looking for a Wi-Fi connection to make a Skype call! It only makes sense for them to do this because many other devices can use VoIP applications on the 3G network. Check out the full press release below.

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