Results tagged “phones”

How convenient! China Unicom customers can now have a payment card attached to their cellphone SIM cards, allowing them to swipe their mobile phones to pay for subway and bus fares. The transport bills will be tacked directly onto phone bills, and will receive the same discounts that regular transport cards currently get. All you have to do to get this fuction is go to a Shanghai Unicom outlet and ask for it to be added on. Unicom says these cards will soon be able to pay for shopping as well. Other carriers said they were developing similar systems. Japan and South Korea have had a system like this in place for a while now, and we're glad it's catching on in Shanghai too! Source: Shanghai Daily

According to Yahoo, the iPhone is now one step closer to its official Chinese launch. Apple has finally applied for a Chinese network access license for the phone, and last week submitted it to the Telecommunication Technology Labs for testing.

Here we have it: the most ostentatious religious-themed cellphone in China!

While China lags behind the rest of the world in launching it's 3G service, ChinaTechNews.com have reported from an inside source that China Mobile is already gearing up for a 4G service to be ready by World Expo in 2010.

We've been burned so many times before, so we're taking this with a grain of salt - but China Tech News reports that China Unicom has reached an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone 3G to China by May 2009. If the rumor's correct, then it means that China Unicom will be launching the iPhone the same time it starts up its WCDMA 3G network nation-wide. Apple had allegedly been talking to China Mobile as well, but talks stalled over the tech company's iTunes app business.

Surprise, surprise! Talks between China Mobile and Apple over bringing the iPhone to China (legally) have stalled yet again - this time over the iTunes apps store. Allegedly, China Mobile is itching to operate the application store itself in a typical ploy to retain as much control as possible. Also, unlike their Western counterparts, Chinese phone users don't typically have credit cards, preferring to pay for things by depositing money into their mobile phone accounts. Add that to already ongoing issues like figuring out which of the three 3G networks the iPhone plays the nicest with, and it's probably safe to say we won't be seeing any Made-for-China goodness soon.

A man in a Guangzhou Lenovo store died after the cellphone in his chest pocket exploded. The explosion severed a major artery in his neck and caused massive blood loss, almost immediately killing him. Though the make and model of the mobile phone are still under investigation, a member of the staff said the man had just changed his cellphone battery to a new one. This is the 9th recorded cellphone explosion in China since 2002, so maybe it's best to make sure your cellphone's in a bag or something, rather than on your physical person. Hexun

As it turns out, China's 3G licenses will be issued to China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom by Spring Festival. Guangdong Mobile (a China Mobile subsidiary) is already releasing a new set of 3G numbers all starting with "188" beginning this Thursday. In addition GPRS fees will be cut by as much as 2/3 in most cities. According to Pacific Epoch, Shanghai Mobile users can "now pay RMB 5 per month for 30MB, rather than the RMB 5, 10 MB package originally available, while RMB 20 per month gets 150MB, also three times more than before".

A nameless source in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has leaked the news that the three restructured mobile telecommunications carriers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, will be issued licenses on the same day after a meeting with the State Council today.

If you have a US iPhone 3G and have been tempted by repeated reminders in iTunes to upgrade to the 2.2 version of the iPhone firmware, you may soon be able to give in to the temptation without fear of relocking your device to AT&T. The iPhone Dev Team has announced that they will be launching a software hack to unlock your 3G iPhone on New Year's Eve. This will allow you to upgrade your firmware and keep it unlocked for use in China or anywhere else with a GSM network for that matter.

2009 is shaping up to be a very interesting year for China's mobile market. All that excitement over Google's Android phone is finally making its way to China. On the right you see a sleek new gadget codenamed "OPhone" that is making its rounds on gadget forums lately. Said to be a joint effort between Lenovo and China Mobile, this is the first in a series of phones that will be "based on China Mobile's OMS (Open Mobile System) which is essentially Android + TD SCDMA (China's home-grown 3G standard)." ITProPortal says the phone is expected to debut sometime in February or March.

Steven Lin of Youku Buzz informs us:

It’s rumored that the Meizu M8 will be on the shelf later this month with a 3.3 inch 720×480 touch screen (much higher than iPhone’s 480×320) and compatibility with most mainstream multimedia formats you can find online (who needs Apple’s iTunes Store any more?). And my friend from Engadget China told me, the price would be RMB 2300 (USD 335).

Rumours have already started circulating that China Mobile will be the carrier to introduce the HTC G1 Android phone to China. Launched last Tuesday by T-Mobile in the States, this phone is the first device to run on the Google develop platform Android.

From Beijing-based techie Frank Yu: "iPhones for sale in Beijing. 1st Gen 8 gig iPhone USD 735. 2nd Gen 8 gig 3G iPhone USD 1,176. The Older iPhones rose almost 42% since 3G." [Source]

From Gizmodo:

Meizu will finally release the iPhone-wannabe M8 in August, according to a cryptic message board post by CEO Jack Wong. The first version will have 128MB RAM and an unspecified amount of storage, and a second version should ship in October with 256MB RAM and 8GB on-board flash. The funniest part? The M8 will cost around $320, or $120 more than the AT&T subsidized 8GB iPhone 3G here in the US of A. Luckily for them (and us) this probably won't see its way outside of China.

"'As soon as we get it from Hong Kong and bring it over and unlock it.' ... Asked about claims that the new iPhones could not be hacked, he replied: 'The Chinese are very quick at unlocking iPhones. They used to say that the PSP couldn't be hacked as well, but we hacked it,' referring to Sony's PlayStation Portable game console." We believe the price they quote for an iPhone — 3,000 kuai — is for the earlier model. Story says new iPhones are going for upwards of US$860 in Thailand and US$600 in Hong Kong, where users must sign a two-year contract. [Source: IHT]