Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Sprint Bets Big in Vegas

by

Today was a big day for Sprint at Las Vegas trade show CTIA Wireless 2008. CEO Dan Hesse announced several new devices.  The most significant of these reveals is the Samsung Instinct.

If it looks familiar, it should.  Sprint and Samsung started working on it shortly after the iPhone’s release so I think they may have had a little inspiration for the design.  The Instinct sports a few sweet features you won’t find with its competitor such as GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn driving directions as well as room for expansion with an SDHC Card (handy if you want to load up some movies and music perhaps). With the EV-DO Rev., average download speeds range from 600 kbps to 1.4 mbps.  Not bad. 

It’s too early to tell if this is the iPhone killer, but we certainly won’t forget about this baby after today. Sprint will make sure that everyone knows about Instinct as it is planning to spend $100 million on Instinct promotion this year. June looks to be the projected general release when consumers may sign up and pay around $70 per month.  To compliment this new hardware, Sprint also offers the Simply Everything plan for $99 per month.  Again, Not bad.

I wonder if it will run Adobe Flash?

 

Another notable from Sprint is the Sierra Wireless Compass(TM) 597. It’s a compact USB Modem that plus into your laptop for broadband network access. Sprint press release says its about the size of a pack of gum.  I wonder what it tastes like?  Watermelon?

 

Last but not least, buried behind the Instinct hype, one must not overlook the announcement of the Blackberry Curve 8330. Yes, its finally available for Sprint...well, it will be this month anyway.