Saturday, March 2, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought news of a new direction for Muve Music, the arrival of a budget smartphone at Sprint and a whole lotta LTE expansion. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of February 25th, 2013.
MUVE MUSIC TO SPIN-OFF FROM LEAP WIRELESS
The rumors were true. Just yesterday, Sprint welcomed the Force 4G LTE into its budget smartphone lineup, which sells for $50 on-contract after rebate. The ZTE-manufactured device includes a 4-inch WVGA display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor (Snapdragon MSM8960), a 5-megapixel rear / 1-megapixel front-facing camera, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of expandable storage and a 1,730mAh battery. The phone ships with Ice Cream Sandwich and includes support for both Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. [Sprint Newsroom]
T-MOBILE HAILS LTE IN LAS VEGAS AND KANSAS CITY
As part of T-Mobile's quarterly financial report, the company also casually let it slip that its work to get LTE on its feet in Las Vegas and Kansas City is now complete. It's unclear whether the network is active, however, and the announcement is largely academic, given that T-Mobile has yet to release any LTE phones (or in the case of the Galaxy Note II and Lumia 810, release the necessary update). That said, owners of the unlocked iPhone 5 (A1428) and Nexus 4 (pre-Android 4.2.2) should test the waters for signs of life. We'd love to hear from you. [T-Mobile]
HUAWEI ASCEND PLUS OUTED FOR TRACFONE
What's Carlos Slim have up his sleeve? Well, if evleaks has anything to say in the matter, it's the Huawei Ascend Plus, which has been tipped for arrival at Tracfone. Details on this one are slim -- pardon the pun -- but it's been suggested the device will include a 4-inch display, a 1GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera, 4GB of expandable storage and Ice Cream Sandwich. [@evleaks (Twitter)]
