Ever since it was revealed that the P102UEU had gone through the wireless certification battery of the FCC, PreCentral’s forum members and the fine folks at WebOS Internals have been digging through the documents to find more details about the phone. Here’s what’s been uncovered:

• The processor is clocked at 1GHz. Rod Whitby of WebOS Internals speculates that the processor may be the TI OMAP 3630 (1GHz, single core), which is software- and footprint-compatible (uses the same pins) with the TI OMAP 3430 in the current Pre. Additionally, Texas Instruments claims that the OMAP 3630 provides twice the performance as the older 3430, while sipping half the juice. Battery life gains, anyone?
• The phone comes with a 1150 mAh battery, exactly the same as the Pre and the Pixi.
• It is a slider device (as indicated by the SAR ratings for “open” and “closed”).
• There appears to have been some internal antenna juggling: on the current Pre design all the antennas are hidden behind the battery cover (they’re the yellow-orange strips around the edge of the inside). The documentation notes a difference in distance between the GSM antenna and the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi antenna when the phone is open and closed. Specifically, it’s a movement of 3.5 cm, which is almost exactly how far the current Pre opens.
• The phone is not only Touchstone compatible (no surprise), but is uses the same back currently available for the Pre and Pre Plus. This means that the phone will have a very similar, if not identical form factor, though we have heard unsubstantiated rumblings that there may be difference on the face of the device.
• Palm has requested 180 days of confidentiality from the submission to the FCC testing on September 8, 2010. Covered by the confidentiality granted: external, internal, and testing photos and the user manual. Shucks. One hundred eighty days gives Palm confidentiality until March 7, 2011, though we would expect to see this device on shelves and in hands sooner rather than later.
• As this is FCC testing, the P102UEU is certified to not boil your brains.

With all this we can all but assume that this is going to be called the Palm Pre 2, in fact we’d be willing to bet money on it if we weren’t squirreling it away in anticipation of off-contract purchasing.

UPDATE: As many have pointed out, the FCC label reads 08F-ROAY. The original Pre was the 08F-CASC, as in the "Castle," so it stands to reason that this may be the Roadrunner device we saw pop up in August.

Source: FCC; Via: PreCentral Forums, WebOS Internals on Twitter

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Have you ever logged on to a Wi-Fi network, only to realize that you don’t want your phone to auto-connect to that network again? Here’s how to remove a Wi-Fi network from your device.

1. You must have Wi-Fi turned on and be connected to the Network you want to forget.
2. Open up the “Wi-Fi” setting page for that specific network. To do this, either:
   1. Swipe down on the top-right of the screen to open the “Connections Menu”, Select "Wi-Fi", then tap on the name of the already-connected network, or
   2. Open the “Wi-Fi” app (), and then tap on the name of the already-connected network
3. This will open up the setting pages for that specific network. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and press the “Forget Network” button

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It’s the curse of the modern smartphone: a zillion chips and sensors and a bright powerful screen and umpteen radios all sucking power from battery tech that hasn’t seen drastic improvement in the last decade. And it’s also one of the biggest Achilles’ heels of the Palm Pre and Pre Plus. It’s been a while since we last visited this area, with the Pre and Pixi having now launched onto several new networks across the world, it’s high time we revisit the land of electricity. After the break, we break it down…

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If you were asked to list the premiere games on the iPhone, it’s likely that N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance would be on that list. The otherwordly first person shooter, often described as the Halo of the iPhone, is now available for Palm Pre and Pre Plus owners. With thirteen levels, five environments, six weapons and more, N.O.V.A. brings near console-quality gameplay to mobile platforms. And not only can you engage in the single-player campaign mode, you can also hook up over Wi-Fi and take on up to three of your friends in an all-out death match. Don’t have friends nearby? No worries, because you can log into Gameloft Live and take on anybody anywhere at any time.

N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance is available now from the Palm App Catalog for $6.99.

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There’s no getting around it, we love O2 Germany, and we don’t even live anywhere near Germany. Our love for O2 Germany comes mainly in form of their advertising, which has been worlds better than what we’ve seen on the North American continent, and tends to peak out early. Let’s not forget Palm fans in Germany, we love you too, especially when you take pictures of these peaking-out-early ads. In this case, it’s a rather large O2 Germany poster, with the Palm Pixi, QWERTZ keyboard and all, standing front-and-center before devices like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, the Motorola Milestone (known as the Droid stateside), and devices from Nokia and LG.

Looking at the ad, there’s no indication whether or not this is a Pixi Plus or the Wi-Fi-less Pixi as seen on Sprint (there’s no Wi-Fi icon in the top bar, but this is stock imagery here). The folks at German phone reseller 7mobile.de may have the answer and then some. They have a listing for a Palm Pixi, complete with UMTS data and Wi-Fi. Then again, they also say it will support video calls and T9 predictive texting. Either way, we would be stunned if the Pixi Plus was not the device that made it oversees, as that’s the device that AT&T is getting (albeit with different radio bands). 7mobile.de also claims an amusing "hours" of standby time and "minutes" of talk time.

At this point we have little doubt that the removal of Wi-Fi from the Pixi was Sprint’s idea, and not something that Palm wanted to do. While releasing the Plus on every other network is little consolation to Sprint Pixi owners, it’s still better than nothing. And it is worth noting that when and if the Pixi hits O2, it’ll be the first time it’s been available outside the United States, some six months after the Pre first hit European shores.

Thanks to gizmo21 and Jens for the tips!

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It’s been rumored and rumbled for some time now, but we finally have official word from on high. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, in the news conference following their mostly positive quarterly and fiscal year report, China Telecom Chairman and CEO Wang Xiaochu announced that his network will be picking up BlackBerry devices in May and the Palm Pre in July.

Presumably at this point they will be Pre Plus phones (no word on the Pixi headed to China), but what restrictions China’s government will place on the phones remains to be seen. China Telecom is the country’s third largest provider, and the largest CDMA in China. Looking back at the iPhone launch, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Wi-Fi disabled on or missing from the Pre when it reaches China’s shores. Adding devices from Palm and Research in Motion is part of China Telecom’s strategy to compete with China Unicom, which recently launched the iPhone in China. The smartphone launches are also behind a drive to make China Unicom’s mobile division profitable, currently the business is sustained by landline phone and broadband communications.

China Telecom has been reported to be in talks with Palm since August of 2009, so it’s nice to finally get some official word on the Chinese launch of webOS.

Thanks to mikeh20 for the tip!

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We’ve been working on this one for several days now, but it seems that every time we’ve got it ready, a new bug crops up and we have to do some revising. Enough is enough, we say, it’s time to put this out there. We’ve already covered the confusing, inconvenient, and frustrating Daylight Savings Time bug that many webOS users have run into; now is the time to look at what other new problems have afflicted Pre and Pixi phones across the world. There surprisingly, and somewhat disappointingly, a lot of stuff to point out. While not everybody is experiencing any or all of the issues listed after the break, we’ve heard from enough of you (and seen some of these problems ourselves) that we know there are some distinct issues out there. It’s a wordy list, as we are wont to do, so if you’re interested in finding out if you’re not alone in your glitchy nature, head past the break for the scoop.

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According to Forbes, Sprint’s first WiMax handset – the first 4G handset from any US carrier – is expected to be available in the first half of 2010. While most logically expect that the phone will be the Android-powered HTC Supersonic (fitting name for a 4G phone), we have to wonder – could it be the C40?

Well, maybe. Frankly, we have no clue. In fact, the lack of info about the C40 has been driving us batty. But a summer launch would coincide with the Pre having been out for a year on Sprint – just in time for a full refresh. At the very least our no-evidence-except-for-intuition expectation is that Palm will release something that will amount to the Pre 2 on Sprint in the summer (or at least that what those of us on Sprint are hoping for), and there’s no reason that the C40 couldn’t be this device.

But why would we want a WiMax phone? For one, the interwebs would be ridiculously fast. Like mind-blowing fast for a phone. In theory, it could be faster than most Wi-Fi connections (Wi-Fi download speeds are limited by the slower ISP they’re hooked up to). With all that bandwidth – again, this is just speculation here – there’s no reason that a WiMax phone on Sprint couldn’t do voice and data at the same time – just run the voice over VOIP (technically EVDO already supports this). But a WiMax radio would only further amplify one of the biggest hurdles Palm is trying to overcome with just EVDO and HSDPA: battery life. Unless they’ve got a ridiculously efficient WiMax radio, a Palm phone with a stock 1150 mAh battery would last, oh, an hour. Maybe.

All that said, chances are that you don’t have WiMax service where you live, at least not yet. Sprint currently has WiMax coverage in a handful of cities across the United States, but in partnership with their quasi-subsidiary Clearwire are rapidly expanding coverage. Sprint expects to add New York City and San Francisco to their WiMax roadmap soon, a move that is sure to tempt many a frustrated iPhone user in those AT&T bottleneck metropolises. Additionally, despite the acceptance of LTE by carriers worldwide, global WiMax deployments are accelerating. eWeek notes that by the end of 2010 combined global WiMax coverage in 147 countries is expected to surpass 800 million people, and one billion a year later. Currently WiMax deployments cover around 620 million.

[via: Engadget, Android Central]

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In what comes as little surprise by now, at CES Palm has officially announced the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus smartphones. The two devices are marginal upgrades over their predecessors, with the Pre Plus having double the memory of the original Pre (16 GB vs. 8 GB) and losing the center button, while the Pixi Plus gains Wi-Fi over its Sprint counterpart and coming in multiple colors.

Both devices are exclusive to Verizon and will be launching on January 25th, pricing unknown at this time. They will come with a new app called Mobile Hotspot, otherwise known as  mobile Wi-Fi hotspot tethering. The Wi-Fi hotspot functionality can support up to five connected devices at a time. At this time, it doesn’t appear that the Mobile Hotspot app will be making its way to webOS devices on other networks.

Pricing for the Pre Plus, Pixi Plus, and service on Verizon was not announced.

UPDATE: Press release after the break.

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Over what the Palm Pre has right now, this sucker’s got a front-facing camera in addition to the one with flash on the back, dual SIM card slots, Java functions, a full QWERT keyboard, FM radio with recording, analog TV, eBook support, handwriting input, and a 3800 mAh battery.

And that’s just the stuff we’ve heard of before, it also comes with revolutionary technology like a gravity inducer, something amazing called “Magic Voice,” a TransFlash card slot supporting up to 8 GB, handshaking function (to avoid H1N1 transmission, we presume), a ‘spotwatch,’ and four common games. That last bit has our minds thoroughly blown: we always put four common games at the top of our must-have list. Strangely, Touchstone support seems to be missing, as is webOS; it must be some sort of marketing mix-up (like a Sprint Pixi with Wi-Fi)

We know, you’re sincerely hoping that this is what Jon Rubinstein is going to pull out of his pocket on stage come Thursday. Want one now? The Cool K07 can be yours for a cool $128, with bulk pricing available if you want to buy one for all your cool friends too.

[via: Engadget]

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