I'm with you on this one. Nextel is going to have this out before AT&T does at this rate. I've been fighting my workplace's attempts to give me an 8300-series phone to replace my 7520 (after which I have to wait at least 18 months before getting a new phone), but even my technical arguments about testing the new OS version aren't working so well anymore.

The human eye can discern about seven million colors, give or take. A mere 65,000 does have artifacts that are easily visible where the original graphic was rendered at a much higher color depth.

The Sprint logo in the upper right corner is covering what would be the video conferencing camera on the reference device.

:: sigh ::

That was intended as a reply to badqat below. :: sigh ::

No, it ensures they will *become* customers. There are several points in play here.

First of all, it shows flexibility on the part of the vendor. This is important to a large entity. When a vendor is inflexible, they are perceived as being problematic, and are less likely to be selected or renewed.

Remember also that it is not an inexpensive consideration to move to another provider. The customer does not get these phones for free. A Blackberry may cost $300 each with accessories, and 8000 of those get very, very expensive -- that's $2.4 million. The selection of those phones means that they're limited in who they can transition to, if anyone.

In addition, transitions themselves are never fast affairs. Changing providers and keeping the same phones is usually a nightmare. Transitions usually take place over time -- sometimes years -- as old phones are replaced with new ones. My workplace used Nextel for many years, but has fragmented since with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon contracts showing up. This started happening more than two years ago, and we're still not sure of the final direction.

The FCC will not shut down the Nextel frequency sets that are covered by the agreement for two reasons:

1. They can (and will) assess fines on Sprint for not shutting them down, which Sprint will likely just pay after some legal saber-rattling.

2. There are a LOT of public safety agencies (police, fire, rescue, etc) that still rely on the PTT functionality Nextel provides. Shutting them down could result in lawsuits over risks to public safety.

Because the larger subscribers have a lot more weight. If you choose to go to another provider, that's $960 they lose for the year (figuring $80 average bill). If a business or government subscriber that has, say, 8000 phones (using a local example) chooses to go to another provider, not only is that nearly $8 million lost, but the other provider may be able to use it in a sales pitch.

Virtually nothing. Minimo was scrapped, and the new project is essentially a ground-up rewrite.

Too bad they couldn't squeeze a higher-resolution display into it.

1999 called. They want their doubtful rhetoric back.

TiVo is doing just fine. It's facing a slow climb to profitability, but so did Amazon. Both addressed new markets, both were the best at it, and both took a long time to move from giant cash shredders to financially independent entities (TiVo isn't quite there yet, but probably will be in a couple of years).