CES 2012
The grand-daddy of consumer electronics shows takes place the week of January 9th. A lot of cell phone news is expected, from LG, Samsung, Nokia, AT&T, Sprint, and more. We'll be reporting all week from Las Vegas, with liveblogs, hands-on reports, and other news . Our CES page collects all of our CES news in one place.
Motorola Plans for Fewer Phones This Year
Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha today indicated that the company hopes to make fewer phones during 2012 in order to conserve marketing resources. In an interview with The Verge, Jha also said that Motorola needs to be able to differentiate the Motorola experience when compared to the competition. "Verizon and AT&T don't want seven stock ICS devices on their shelves. The vast majority of the changes we make to the OS are to meet the requirements that carriers have." In short, Motorola will continue to offer its own user experience on Android devices, but there will be fewer of them this year.
Lenovo Hopes to Crack U.S. Smartphone Market
Lenovo today indicated that it wants to sell smartphones in the U.S., according to an interview with Reuters. David Schmoock, Lenovo's North American chief, said, "I will spend time over the next couple of years building out the relationship with the mobile providers — AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, etc. You have to build out that network first, then that allows you to put products on the shelf." Schmook doesn't see Lenovo hitting U.S. retail stores imminently, but he is working to make it happen. Lenovo recently announced a new Android-based smartphone called LePhone 2 that will be sold in its home market of China.
Nokia Looking to Offer Each Network Its Own WP7 Flagship
Nokia want to sell an exclusive Windows Phone device with each of the major U.S. network operators, said Nokia's U.S. chief Chris Weber in an interview with Fierce Wireless. "The most important thing we can do in the U.S. market is bring exclusive devices and opportunities to each of the carriers. Doing that exclusivity and giving them something unique allows us to get great carrier support. I think it's critical for us to be successful in the U.S. That's the way you get great carrier support." Weber did not indicate that Nokia has concrete plans to offer such devices beyond those already for sale with AT&T and T-Mobile USA. Nokia hopes to win over first-time smartphone buyers, too, with inexpensive WP7 smartphones to get them hooked on the WP7 experience and the Nokia brand. Nokia plans to market its U.S. devices heavily in the coming months.
T-Mobile: We're Going It Alone, and We're OK With That
T-Mobile USA CEO Philip Humm today said that there are no new acquisition deals on the table and that the company is prepared to move forward without merging or being acquired by a competitor. Speaking to AllThingsD, Humm said, "There is no second AT&T deal around. Now it's really a question about restarting the business. We will give you more details probably by the end of the quarter. We are right now finalizing our plans." T-Mobile USA recently lost its bid to sell itself to AT&T. T-Mobile USA gained valuable spectrum and a roaming deal with AT&T has part of the break-up, but the company still needs to raise capital. Parent company Deutsche Telekom scored $3 billion in cash from AT&T, but it's not clear if it will reinvest that money in developing T-Mobile USA further.
Nokia Makes the Lumia 900 for AT&T Official
Nokia today announced the Lumia 900 Windows Phone device for AT&T at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Lumia 900's stand-out feature is its support for AT&T's LTE 4G network. Other features of the Lumia 900 include a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display, 1830 mAh battery, 1.4GHz processor, front-facing camera for video chats, and Carl Zeiss optics for the 8-megapixel main camera, and 512MB of RAM. The Lumia 900s design is based on the N9 and the Lumia 800, and is carved from solid polycarbonate. It will be an exclusive device for AT&T. Pricing and availability were not revealed.
