Common Paradox Tech Blog

If you want to use a dedicated 3G dongle for your laptop, hardware choices are always limited. Here are AT&Ts two new offerings, the LG Velocity and Option Turbo. And no, you’re not the only one who thought “American Gladiators.”

LG Velocity

Free with a two-year contract, the Velocity is a no-frills card, with HSPA 7.2 support, MicroSD slot for thumb drive capability and a swiveling head that should allow you to—well, if you’ve actually used one of these 3G sticks, you know that they can be unwieldy. So it helps.

Option Turbo

Despite its plastic design, the Turbo is AT&T’s new premium 3G stick. It, too, supports MicroSD, but it also adds aGPS and will set you back $30 with two-year contract.

Both new dongles will be available starting March 7th.

DALLAS, March 1, 2010 – AT&T* today announced two new 3G LaptopConnect devices: the AT&T USBConnect Turbo from LG and AT&T USBConnect Velocity from Option. Both will be available in AT&T retail stores, business channels and online beginning March 7. The Turbo and Velocity enable customers to stay connected on their laptop while on the go with the nation’s fastest 3G network.

The Velocity, is the first GPS-enabled LaptopConnect device from AT&T. The built-in aGPS functionality opens the door to location-based applications making it easier than ever for customers to get to their desired destination. Option offers a free software application, the Option GPS Control Panel, that leverages location-enabled sites like Yahoo! Maps and Bing for directions and local points of interest. Option GPS Control Panel will be available for download on the Option support web page beginning March 7. Additionally, through TeleNav Track LITE™ and Xora GPS Locator from AT&T, enterprise customers can add tracking and location awareness thus improving response time by easily locating the closest worker to a service call.

The Turbo is AT&T’s first LaptopConnect device from LG and features a compact, lightweight design. Turbo’s HSPA 7.2 capability offers a high speed Internet connection that allows users to meet their professional and personal computing needs away from their office or home computer. The ergonomic design and unique USB connector makes Turbo compatible with a wide variety of laptop configurations.

Both devices feature an integrated microSD card slot making them portable storage devices that allow users to carry the data and files they need at their fingertips. LaptopConnect devices allow customers to get more done on-the-go as well as keep up to date with their professional network from anywhere AT&T provides data coverage.

“Velocity and Turbo both offer a first for AT&T: our first GPS enabled LaptopConnect device and our first LaptopConnect device from LG,” said Michael Woodward, vice president, Mobile Phone Portfolio, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “In addition to being compatible with our latest HSPA technology, the two devices let AT&T customers get more done while on the go. From traveling professionals to students, AT&T offers a LaptopConnect solution for everyone.”

Pricing and Availability
Beginning March 7, both the Turbo and Velocity will be available online and in AT&T stores nationwide. AT&T USBConnect Turbo will be available for free after mail-in rebate and a new two-year DataConnect contract of at least $35 a month (pay $99.99 and after mail-in rebate receive $100 AT&T Promotion Card. Two-year agreement and DataConnect plan required).

AT&T USBConnect Velocity will be available for $29.99 after mail-in rebate and a new two-year DataConnect contract of at least $35 a month (pay $129.99 and after mail-in rebate receive $100 AT&T Promotion Card. Two-year agreement and DataConnect plan required).

Aaron Woodman, the director of consumer experiences for Microsoft’s mobile division, was a guest on today’s Engadget Show, and he had a nice surprise for everyone: a prototype of LG’s Windows Phone 7 Series phone.

There’s not a whole lot in the way of details—it’s a slider that’s a bit thicker than the iPhone, it has a 5MP camera, and sports six hardware buttons—but it’s still exciting to see the new operating system on a branded device for the first time.

Woodman wouldn’t confirm nor deny if Windows Phone 7 Series would support Mac OS, only mentioning that it was a topic the team was currently discussing. Hey, at least the notion hasn’t been shut down out of hand, so we’ll take this as a no news is good news type of thing for now.

Head over to Engadget for more pictures and a quick video clip of the LG phone in the round. [Engadget]

Jumping on the CULV bandwagon, LG is gearing up to release its XNote Ultralight notebook, and it’s one of the sexiest we’ve ever seen.

LG’s 11.6-inch ultraportable runs on a CULV battery but gives buyers the option of bumping the processor up to a Core 2 Duo chip. Other specs include 2GB of RAM, 320GB or 500GB hard drive, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and other odds and ends. It also ships with Windows 7.

There are a couple of downers, however. First is the approximate $1,000 price tag, at least in Korea. And secondly, it’s only available overseas, with no word yet on when, or even if, LG plans to bring this one Stateside.

Image Credit: LG

We all know Windows Phone 7 is due at the end of the year, but according to the Chinese version of Engadget, LG is preparing for a launch date as early as September, as late as November. It’s still a wide gap, but certainly a lot more hopeful than “early 2011.” [Engadget Chinese via Engadget]

We’ve seen more exciting leaked roadmaps, but it’s rather comical that LG’s leak came about by accidentally sharing a Google Document. A 3D TV, 3D Blu-ray player and TV webcam for 720p Skype chat are all due to launch soon.

That 3D TV is actually just a different version of the LH9500 series, named the LX9500, and will be available mid-May. After learning that, it’ll certainly make the TVs announced at CES that are due in March – April a lot less attractive. The BD580 3D Blu-ray player will be on sale in the middle of April, just a few weeks earlier in May the webcam peripheral allowing for 720p Skype chatting on your TV will become available too.

Meanwhile, the LEX8 and LEX9 LED-backlit TVs that measure just 0.27-inches in depth will be on sale in June, with models ranging from 47 – 72-inches. [CNET via Electronista via CrunchGear]

Boy has it been a tough year or so for those who took the plunge into HDTV territory back when bulky rear-projection units were all the rage. Since then, skinnier, brighter units have emerged, many of which cost less than their chunky counterparts.

The latest thin-framed HDTV to emerge comes from LG, who just announced a line of plasma sets measuring a scant 25mm thick (for those who shake an angry fist at the metric system, we’ll save you the Google conversion – 25mm breaks down to just less than an inch thick).

That’s right, LG chose to go plasma for its ‘Skinny Frame’ line, as the company has dubbed them. LG says the new HDTVs come capable of a 600Hz refresh rate with 1080p support. They also come with three HDMI ports and a single USB port.

LG’s releasing these first in its home market of Korea. The 50-inch model will run about $1,500, while the 60-inch unit checks in at about $3,325.

Image Credit: LG via Engadget

Announced at MWC was yet another partnership between the world’s cellular carriers that will end up resulting in, well, very little. Networks around the world have banded together to create the Wholesale Applications Community, which in essence will be a global cross-platform app effort. And here’s why it’s going to fail: manufacturers, particularly the ones that are invested in an operating system (such as Apple, Palm, and Nokia), will have no interest in participating. Especially those that have created an app store, Apple in particular.

The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) will end as a failure, at best withering away as a token gesture to interoperability. There are a million political reasons why it won’t work, but the biggest hurdles to overcome are the technical ones: programming languages and APIs. While we can see feature phone manufacturers rallying around the WAC, nobody buys a T9 flip phone to run apps. They lack the hardware to properly execute – that’s why they’re feature phones.

App developers too aren’t interested in feature phones, because the meager hardware will limit what they can do. Not to mention the varying screen sizes, processors, radios, keypads, and everything else. App developers are interested in smartphones, and that’s where the WAC starts to fall apart.

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That slick-looking Mini GD880 phone from LG that was introduced last week has been handed some more details for its profile card at MWC. It’ll be the first phone to support LG’s new 3-Way Sync service, Air Sync.

It’s a fancy way of saying it continually syncs over the air using that very-2010 term “cloud computing”, backing up browsing habits, photos, videos, calendars and contact details. Information is exchanged from the phone to the user’s computer, with the last 100 websites visited on the PC being transferred to the GD880, embarrassing search results and all.

It’ll be available in the UK in April, with international release details expected later. For the full story on the specs, head on over here.

The world’s largest production OLED TV is headed Stateside later this year, said LG reps at the ISE-2010 LG Electronics show this week. LG is aiming for mid-2010, with an expected stratospheric $2,500 price tag.

Presumably, given what LG has said on the subject, the 15-inch EL9500 would be a precursor to the 19- and 20-inch OLEDs they alluded to on February 1.

In any event, these gorgeous, petite TVs are on track for later this year, with a 40-inch unaffordable-for-the-common-man version arriving in 2012. [OLED-Info]

This LG Mini GD880 is so good-looking it makes my brain hurt at the injustice of it (presumably) running LG’s S-Class OS, and not Android. Still, there’s some nice spec to back up this slim 16:9 phone.

Just like the Chocolate phone before it, the display has a 16:9 aspect ratio, in this case at 3.2-inches. LG hasn’t released many details about the internals just yet, but we do know it has a 5.0-megapixel camera with face detection, Wi-Fi, and HSDPA 7.2Mbps connectivity.

The lack of buttons, metal finishings and square corners make it look like it’ll be part of their more “premium” range of handsets, so expect to pay a pretty penny if you want it PAYG, otherwise it’ll most likely go for the usual month contract fees when it goes on sale in March in Europe—with worldwide availability expected shortly. I’m going to harass LG for confirmation of the OS, but with Mobile World Congress starting this weekend, I’m sure we’ll find out a whole load more then. [LG]

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