NPD: RIM Unseats Apple in The NPD Group's Latest Smartphone Ranking

PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, May 4, 2009 – According to The NPD Group, a leader in wireless industry market research, an aggressive “buy-one-get-one” promotion by Verizon Wireless helped RIM’s BlackBerry Curve move past Apple’s iPhone to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter (Q1) of 2009. RIM’s consumer smartphone market share increased 15 percent to nearly 50 percent of the smartphone market in Q1 2009 versus the prior quarter, as Apple’s and Palm’s share both declined 10 percent each.

Based on U.S. consumer sales of smartphone handsets in NPD’s “Smartphone Market Update” report, the first-quarter 2009 ranking of the top-five best-selling smartphones is as follows:

RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models)
Apple iPhone 3G (all models)
RIM BlackBerry Storm
RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip)
T-Mobile G1

“Verizon Wireless’s aggressive marketing of the BlackBerry Storm and its buy-one-get-one BlackBerry promotion to its large customer base contributed to RIM capturing three of the top five positions,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at The NPD Group. “The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers.”

Smartphones, which represented just 17 percent of handset sales volume in Q1 2008, now make up 23 percent of sales. “Even in this challenging economy, consumers are migrating toward Web-capable handsets and their supporting data plans to access more information and entertainment on the go.” Rubin said.

Methodology: The NPD Group compiles and analyzes mobile device sales data based on more than 150,000 completed online consumer research surveys each month. Surveys are based on a nationally balanced and demographically representative sample, and results are projected to represent the entire population of U.S. consumers. Note: Sales figures do not include corporate/enterprise mobile phone sales.

[Source] - NPD: RIM Unseats Apple in The NPD Group's Latest Smartphone Ranking

Pre to be sold at Best Buy mobile on June 7th

Engadget writes: If this latest bit of Pre intel scored by Boy Genius Report is to be believed, it looks like you might be able to pick up one of 4,500 of Palm's latest and greatest as early as June 7. According to a tip from a supposed Best Buy insider, the venerable retailer could be gearing up to launch the hotly anticipated handset in just over a month's time, though it's not clear whether this'll coincide with Sprint's full-scale launch or come before or after. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, they've got some possible numbers on what this beauty will run you: $199.99 for new customers with a 2-year plan, $299.99 for upgrades, and a cool $999.99 contract-free -- though in our experience, Best Buy Mobile frequently has its pricing wrong ahead of launch, so these are definitely subject to change.

[Source] - Engadget: Best Buy Mobile to get some Pre stock on June 7th?

Phone Arena reviews the Samsung Omnia HD i8910

Phone Arena got their lucky hands on the new Samsung Omnia HD i8910. This phone features a thin body with a 3.7 inch AMOLED screen, 8 megapixel screen, call/end/main menu buttons in the front, 3.5 mm headphone jack, and volume rockers. The mobile OS running this machine is Symbian, the same OS thats in the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. The interface was modified to match Samsung's UI style. From the video review of the Omnia, I can say it is better than you would expect. The snappy-ness of some processes seemed alright, or not that great. The screen is responsive but not as responsive as you would see in the G1 or iPhone. There is a full landscape QUERTY keyboard and a normal keypad text input in portrait mode.

Despite this, its other features make up for it. It features a music player with a coverflow style menu (in landscape mode), and...

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HD video. The people at Phone Scoop said that they did not experience any lag or stuttering or anything of that nature during their video playback.

There is also an 8 megapixel camera onboard which allows very high res' pictures. In terms of quality, its better than what you would expect from a phone. Pictures can be blurry in all light and can seem dark, but its still good.


It can also shoot...

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HD video. It shoots good quality 1280 x 720 HD video. From what I've heard, its not perfect but its good for a phone. I cant tell you first hand about the quality because Phone Arena's HD quality test video is not supported on my computer. They used the video straight from the phone. They did not convert the video into a more user friendly codec, probably because they did not want the quality to get messed up.

The web browser is great. It has flash built in and it has the ability to watch on-site youtube videos right on the browser. The only flaw it has is the fact that its not snappy. You might have to swipe a few times to get the screen to where you want it to be. This can be very frustrating and annoying. You may notice this problem in other processes of this phone.

Overall, this phone is great. It may not be an iPhone or an Android phone, but it seems to be a very good competitor with its numerous features. The only thing I can see getting in the way of this phone is the price. You can expect this phone to be around $400 to $700 unlocked, seeing how the Nokia Xpressmusic 5800 was around $400 and the HTC phones and the Xperia X1 phones were around $700. No official word on pricing or official carriers.

Full Review Here:

[Source] - Phone Arena: Samsung OMNIA HD i8910 Review

You can now follow us on Twitter!

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DiTechite Podcast Episode 3 (May 1, 2009)

Dark and Bol explain torrents and also talk about external storage (External HDD's and Flash Drives), and Geektool. Plus, some App Store apps and some info on Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the iTunes Podcast feed. If you cannot listen to it on iTunes, feel free to download it from the link below, or listen to it on the sidebar on the site.



Intro Song: Lovers In Japan (Osaka Sun Remix) - Coldplay

Signout Song: Sugar (ft. Wynter) - Flo Rida

[Download]-Direct Link

[iTunes Music Store] - iTunes Podcast channel

Resources:

[Link] - Archive.org

[Link] - Geektool: The Good and Bad (Dark's desktop pic)

BlackBerry 8520 "Gemini" surfaces...not that great

Crackberry.com just got their hands on the Gemini. From what they told Engadget, there is an optical track ball, dedicated media player buttons, and a rubberized body. What's surprising is that there is no 3G on it. Now a says, it should be a standard. The screen from the picture seems like the typical Blackberry screen that you see in the Bold or Curve.

I'm not to excited about this phone. Lack of 3G= :(

New MAG Trailer

Well folks, looks like Sony has released their teaser trailer for the much anticipated 256 multilplayer online game MAG. This game looks fast paced COD (Call of Duty) style first person shooter, with mobility (planes, tanks, and turrets). Questions on the MAG servers raise a huge controversy. The main problem is the PS3 servers are not able to handel this many players. But what some poeple don't know is that MAG has dedicated servers and are working with very limited lag and errors, MAG servers have been tested since May with all 256 players. Still, my guess is that within the first week, there will be a patch to increase the stability of the servers. Take a look at the video below...