We know the FCC's already gotten a gander at this thing, but the general public... well, that's another story altogether. Daily Mobile has a bunch of shots of what it claims to be Sammy's upcoming S5620 Monte, a silly name from a company that certainly hasn't shied away from funny branding in the past (one quick look at the Corby or Rant should be able to verify that for you). Anyhow, we're told to expect a TouchWiz-powered feature phone here with a 3-inch display, HSDPA, and a 3.5mm headphone jack which you can clearly see in some of the pictures. A quick look at the FCC filing also reveals WiFi, though the lack of WCDMA testing indicates that we won't have 850 or 1900MHz 3G support -- in other words, North Americans are out of luck as usual. If we had to guess, this one might get the covers pulled off at MWC next month.

Samsung S5620 'Monte' possibly leaked, looks better than it sounds originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that Blyk's free-service-for-ads model has officially bitten the dust, we're starting to see new ideas come out of the woodwork from the Dutch company that might (or might not) stand a better chance of striking a survivable balance of value and profitability. Orange UK has announced that it'll be launching Orange Shots as of February 1, a program for advertisers that lets them target subscribers of its Monkey prepaid service in very specific ways. Sound familiar? Yeah, that was pretty much what Blyk had been doing all along -- difference being that they're no longer trading access to that targeted group for free minutes and texts. As far as we can tell, Orange is simply offering its subscribers the hope of getting special offers from advertisers, meaning its margins are probably going to be a lot higher here than Blyk's ever were before -- assuming Monkey customers agree to sign up, of course. For now, it's purely opt-in; let's hope it stays that way.

Blyk-powered 'Orange Shots' service coming next month to Monkey customers originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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American carriers have had Wireless Priority Service in place for several years now, giving government officials and first responders improved access to potentially overloaded networks in the event of an emergency or high-density gathering -- but historically, that service has been restricted to American soil. With the Winter Olympics coming right up in Vancouver, AT&T figured it'd have quite a few G-Men strolling north of the border, so it has worked with Rogers this month to roll out priority access for devices roaming in Canada that are already authorized for the service. In a nutshell, that means VIPs strolling around the luge circuit will be able to get through (and stay through) if the crush of humanity gets too much for the poor, overworked cells to handle. And no, you can't sign up for it, so don't even ask.

Dropped calls, begone: AT&T expands feds' Wireless Priority Service to Canada originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A certain UK bank operates a delightfully dorky advertising campaign whose slogan is "we give you extra." Well, in the case of mobile software communities, that's exactly the case. From jailbroken iPhones to PS One-emulating HD2s to multitouch-enabled browsing on the Nexus One, the one group of people we know we can truly rely on are other geeks. So let's salute those heroes once more, in recognition of the VisualBoyAdvance -- a webOS-based emulator for Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games. The former two categories are said to play smooth as you like, whereas the Advance stuff suffers from slight slowdown at present. We've only seen it playing on a Pre, but there should be no reason why your Pixi wouldn't be allowed in on this party. A quick video demo awaits after the break, and the source link has all the installation details you'll need.

Continue reading VisualBoyAdvance turns your Palm Pre into a Game Boy emulator

VisualBoyAdvance turns your Palm Pre into a Game Boy emulator originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you live your life one oil rig, one Siberian gas field, or one Antarctic base at a time, odds are you're precisely the target demographic for Inmarsat's new handset being rolled out later this year. Oddly, despite the company's decades-long history of providing satellite phone service, the IsatPhone Pro is apparently the first model "purpose-built for its network" with awesome features like Bluetooth, text messaging, email support, and GPS capability that can be injected into outgoing text messages (you know, for when you finally strike oil somewhere in the Mariana Trench). Anyhow, the company has announced that the first calls have now been successfully made using the handset on the way to retail availability this June -- but if you have to ask for a price (either for the phone or a per-minute rate), odds are it's not for you.

Inmarsat's new phone trialed en route to June launch, definitely won't be mistaken for a RAZR originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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