Back in February this year, Verizon introduced budget friendly 3G prepaid plans which included the $60/month plan with 500MB of data and 2GB of data for $70/month. Both the plans include unlimited talk and texts. Now Big Red has quietly extended the amount of data allotted for each plan.

From now on, customers using BlackBerry, Android or iOS 3G smartphones will be able to enjoy 2GB of data with the $60 plan, while the $70 plan is coming with 4GB of mobile data. These new offers are available at the moment to existing customers. These won’t be available to new customers until June 6^th. And just in case you don’t know, these plans are just for 3G. There are no hints about the inclusion of LTE. And there are others around offering better plans, though everything will depend on the coverage that you get.

Are you currently using one of these plans? If yes, are you satisfied with the increase of data? Verizon’s 3G plans are expected to become cheaper while also offering more data in the future as more customers start using LTE.

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Many of the customers who were trying to get their hands on the T-Mobile Lumia 521 via HSN and Walmart were disappointed. The device is still out of stock. But maybe you are destined to play with the newly announced Nokia Lumia 925 which is headed to Big Magenta sometime in the near future.

Similar to the Verizon-exclusive 928 and the 920, the Lumia 925 features a 4.5-inch display (1280×768 resolution), a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, an 8.7MP cam, and 4G LTE. It also has 1 GB of RAM and a 2,000 mAh battery. All these might appear as ancient, but are more than enough to smoothly run Windows which is lighter than Android.

The Lumia 925 will be available in black, gray and white, and is coming with a “metal design”. Its edges are surrounded by a silver-colored frame that will work as an antenna, and on the back there’s a polycarbonate cover. And the 925 is also thinner at 129 x 70.6 x 8.5 mm and lighter at 139 grams when compared to the 920 which measures in at 130.3 x 70.8 x 10.7 and weighs 185 grams.

Although lighter and thinner, the device is coming with only 16 GB of non-expandable storage, unlike the 920 and the 928 which ship with larger storage. And to enjoy wireless charging with the 925, you will have to buy back covers which are sold separately.

So are you going for one of the best budget handsets out there, the Lumia 521, or the higher end 925 which is expected to cost upwards of $600? Or how about the 920? Or the 928?

Check out the video below which shows Nokia’s Kristina Bjorknas explaining a few things about the 925.

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SoftBank has been in talks with Sprint to acquire the US carrier with an offer of $20.1 billion. That deal would close on July 1, but it won’t happen if Sprint accepts Dish’s counter offer of $25.5 billion. And now we have a war of words between the two bidders.

Both SoftBank and Dish have created their own websites regarding the merger, while the Japanese carrier funded a study to question the claimed benefits of a Dish acquisition of Sprint.

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen earlier said, “Sprint shareholders will benefit from a higher price with more cash while also creating the opportunity to participate more meaningfully in a combined Dish/Sprint with a significantly enhanced strategic position and substantial synergies that are not attainable through the pending SoftBank proposal“.

But these benefits are “unsubstantiated and unrealistic“, according to the SoftBank-funded study. Industry expert Scott C. Chandler writes, “Dish’s $37 billion estimate of the NPV (net present value) of total synergies created in the proposed Dish/Sprint merger is unusually high and there are multiple reasons to believe that Dish’s projections are neither achievable nor credible“. He is also pointing to the fact that Dish and Sprint are “two dissimilar companies” operating in “different sectors“, which would make the claimed synergies hard to achieve.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who is to meet with Sprint’s major shareholders this week, earlier said that his company’s experience with TD-LTE would help improve Sprint’s LTE efforts in the US. He has also referred to Dish’s bid as “incomplete and illusory“.

Ergen slammed back: “We are an American company and the modernization of Sprint’s network will have to be done from the US. You have to climb the towers here, and you’ll have to have U.S. employees who speak English. Operations command control will be in America. That’s good for jobs“.

Regarding SoftBank’s study, Dish says, “The study was paid for by SoftBank and lacks the credibility that comes from third-party objectivity. We remain confident Sprint shareholders are going to accept the offer from the company that brings the most to the table, including the best price and strategic plan going forward. Dish is offering more money, greater synergies, and we’re bringing over $10 billion of spectrum“.

Meanwhile, regarding another bid, we reported earlier about Verizon’s plans to buy out Vodafone with a $100 billion bid to take full control over Big Red. But it appears like that bid could reach up to $130 billion.

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The post SoftBank’s War Of Words With Dish Over Sprint Merger appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The in-store release of the much awaited Samsung Galaxy S4 has been delayed by both Sprint and T-Mobile. AT&T appears to be capitalizing on this and have made an announcement via their Twitter account that the AT&T S4 smartphones will arrive in-store on the earlier announced date with no delay.

The handset will be in-stock on April 27^th. This of course is not a surprise since the AT&T Galaxy S4s are already in the hands of those who pre-ordered the device. It will be interesting to see how the carrier performs this quarter with this early availability advantage.

As for the other carriers, Sprint has moved in-store availability of their S4 from April 27th to an undetermined date. While T-Mobile’s S4, which was originally planned to be made available on May 1^st, will only be available in “select stores” starting May 8 and in “all stores” on May 15, according to the carrier’s Twitter announcement.

But the Verizon version will arrive only on May 30^th. They might be focussed on another device at the moment.

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The post AT&T Will Not Delay Galaxy S4 Release Unlike Others appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Talks about Verizon having plans to buy out Vodafone’s 45 percent share of Verizon Wireless are not new, but it might happen sometime in the near future, at least according to Reuters. Verizon is said to be preparing a $100 billion cash and stock bid to take full control of the biggest US wireless carrier.

Apparently, Verizon, which owns 55 percent of Big Red, has hired bank and legal advisers to prepare the bid and the matter is expected to be discussed by Verizon’s board in the coming week before their annual shareholder meeting. They are hoping to end up in a friendly deal, but if Vodafone is not interested in an agreement, Verizon could take a bid public.

As for the $100 billion, Verizon is planning to raise $50 billion in bank financing and come up with the rest with its own shares.

So far there hasn’t been any confirmation from Verizon, and Vodafone has declined to comment. But that big amount probably won’t be enough for buying out Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, which is the most profitable part of Verizon. And Verizon saw almost $2 billion in profit in Q1 2013.

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The post Verizon Preparing $100B Bid For Vodafone’s Verizon Wireless Share appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Rumors are already there about an upcoming Nexus 5 from Google, but it appears like there’s more in store for the existing Nexus 4 handset. According to SIDHTech, Google has plans to announce an updated version of its Nexus 4 smartphone at Google I/O next month.

The search giant will introduce the Nexus 4 with 32GB of storage and LTE support, things that customers have wanted in the Nexus 4 after it was released last year. And apparently the device is coming with compatibility for CDMA, so could be launched on Sprint and Verizon in the US.

The Nexus 4 coming in May instead of the Nexus 5 won’t be a surprise since the latter was only launched in November. It would be too soon if a successor arrives in the coming month. Also this wouldn’t be the first time that Google comes out with an updated version of a Nexus product. You might remember the Nexus 7 update that came out last October. But Nexus 5 is expected to come out this year itself, most probably in November.

And Google is also expected to unveil Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie at the May conference.

Are you interested in a 32GB Nexus 4? Let us know in the comments below.

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Rumors and leaks about the Nokia Lumia 928 for Verizon have been flying around for a while now. Now we might finally have leaked images showing us exactly what the 928 looks like.

The leaked press shots, which come to us courtesy of @evleaks on Twitter, allow us to take a peek at both the black and white versions of the 928. This probably is what’s heading to the Big Red as this Twitter account holder has a reasonably solid track record of leaking press shots of unannounced devices (though even he gets things wrong from time to time).

Looking at the images, the 928 features a PureView camera with Carl Zeiss optics and both a xenon and LED flash. It also appears to have an upgraded speaker and is compatible with 4G LTE.

The device is expected to be a bit lighter and thinner than the 920, but it still looks quite bulky. As for the specs of the device, most likely it’s coming with a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 1GB RAM and 32GB storage. That might appear to be primitive by modern standards, but Windows Phone 8 is lighter than Android and does not need the best available specs to run smoothly.

We have heard reports that the 928 will be announced on April 25^th. We will let you know as soon as we get more info, so stay tuned to Mobilemag.

Are you looking forward to getting the Verizon Lumia 928?

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The long awaited Galaxy S4 was introduced a month ago by Samsung, but people are still playing the waiting game as there hasn’t been any confirmation regarding the release date of the device on any carrier. The good news is that we won’t have to wait too long, at least if we are to believe the leaked document from Staples that you see above.

The leak suggests that the S4 will be available from AT&T on April 26, T-Mobile on May 1, and Verizon on May 30. Of course those launch dates are “tentative”. There is no mention about the S4 model on the Now Network and no pricing details for the handsets sold at Staples. As for T-Mobile? The ‘uncarrier‘ earlier confirmed that they will make the Galaxy S4 available on May 1^st.

AT&T recently announced pre-order starting date of April 16 for the S4, and they will be offering both the 32GB and the 16GB models for $249.99 and $199.99 respectively, with a two-year contract. T-Mobile is expected to offer the device for $99.99 down with 24 monthly payments of $20.

Meanwhile, another leak says that Walmart will start taking pre-orders for S4 on April 16th. No hints on which carriers are involved, but Walmart currently offers the S3 on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

In short, the wait for the next big thing is almost over. Are you anxiously awaiting the Galaxy S4? If not, what handset holds your fancy instead?

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The post Samsung Galaxy S4 US Release Date Update appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

While more and more consumers are making the switch to smartphones, not everyone needs a smartphone – especially for those that keep separate business and personal cellphones. With that in mind, Verizon has now introduced a brand new prepaid cellular plan for basic phones that costs just $35 a month.

The new $35 plan joins the company’s existing $50 unlimited plan, this time offering 500 minutes of talk alongside unlimited text and mobile web. Twhile this might not be for everyone, it’s not a bad deal for feature phone users that don’t do tons of talking or again are just look for a secondary cellular phone line.

If we were being honest though, there are probably other much more affordable prepaid plans out there both for feature phones and smartphones such as Straight Talk’s $45 for unlimited talk, text and web for any phone not just feature devices.

Of course with Verizon you do get one of (if not THE) strongest cellular networks in the United States. What do you think, is Verizon’s coverage worth paying $35 a month or are you better off elsewhere if you plan on going the prepaid route?

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UK customers are lucky that the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S4 is available for pre-order from Vodafone, EE and O2, and the luckiest 2000 of them will get to play with a free 7 inch Galaxy Tab 2 also, as we reported earlier. For those of you anxious folks in the US, AT&T has announced that the S4 will be available for pre-order starting April 16 priced at $249.99 with a two-year contract.

The carrier hasn’t announced which model they are offering (maybe the 32GB S4), and no hints on exactly when the device will be shipped. If it’s the 16GB model, the announced price is $50 higher than what the iPhone 5 is currently available for. Head to the AT&T website for signing up to be notified when the S4 will be available.

As for other US carriers, T-Mobile will start offering the S4 on May 1^st (no contract of course), and it is also expected to be available from Verizon, Sprint, as well as MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular and Cricket.

Just to remind you, the S4 is coming with a 5-inch 1920×1080 Super AMOLED screen, a 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor in the US (1.8GHz Exnyos 5 Octa everywhere else), Android 4.2.2. Jelly Bean, and an amazing 13-megapixel shooter.

Do you have plans to order the S4?

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