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Verizon Now Sells Subsidized Netbook With Cell Service

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:12:03 +0000

As laptops have shrunk in size and price, and cellphones have expanded in size and capability, the two are increasingly overlapping in function. Now, their pricing and sales models are blurring, too.

For a while, some wireless carriers in Europe and in Asia have been selling tiny laptops, called netbooks, equipped with built-in cellular modems, at low, subsidized prices, just as they do with mobile phones. And, just as with a subsidized phone or a plug-in laptop data card, there’s a catch: To get the low upfront price, the customer must agree to a contract and pay a monthly data fee.

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Starting May 17, Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, will try the same thing on these shores, selling a netbook model made by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) at $200, after a $50 mail-in rebate — less than half its usual price of $520. To get this price, the customer must sign a two-year contract and pay either $40 or $60 a month, depending on the amount of data to be consumed.

I’ve been testing this netbook, the H-P Mini 1151NR, a version of H-P’s Mini 1000 series with a cellular modem built-in. This model sports a 10.1-inch screen, and yet is very compact and easy to tote. It weighs just 2.45 pounds, is about an inch thick, and is only about 10 inches long and 6.5 inches deep. It has an Intel (INTC) Atom processor, common in netbooks; runs Windows XP; and includes one gigabyte of memory, a built-in Webcam and an 80-gigabyte hard disk. Like most netbooks, it includes Wi-Fi, but lacks a DVD drive.

My verdict: This netbook is an adequate light-duty computer, and $200 is a low price for a PC with a hard disk running Windows XP. But Verizon’s charge for Internet service is high if you intend to rely on that service as your main online connection, because the data levels covered by the carrier’s plans aren’t unlimited, and cost extra after you exceed a certain amount. It makes much more sense if you travel a lot, stay within the data limits each month, and want to avoid hotel and airport Wi-Fi fees.

But the Verizon (VZ) service is slower than many Wi-Fi connections, and it can be obtained for almost any laptop by buying a plug-in card that carries the same monthly fees. In my tests, at a typical Marriott (MAR) hotel, the Verizon cellular service achieved download speeds of around 1.6 megabits per second, while the Wi-Fi modem in the same PC got over five mbps.

The H-P Mini 1151NR

Also, even for a netbook, the computer itself is underequipped. Its 80-gigabyte hard disk is cramped by today’s netbook standards, and it has only a small three-cell battery that doesn’t last long. In my tough battery test, where I left the cellular Internet connection on, disabled all power-saving features, and played music continuously, the H-P Mini 1151NR lasted a pathetic one hour and 55 minutes. That suggests that, in normal use, you might get around 2.5 hours of use.

A bigger six-cell battery is available for $130 from Verizon, but that’s a huge price premium on a $200 PC, plus it makes the netbook 75% thicker and 30% heavier. Verizon doesn’t offer a larger internal hard disk.

By comparison, you can buy an Acer One Windows XP netbook with the same size screen as the Verizon netbook, and twice the hard disk and battery capacity, for $340. The Acer lacks the built-in cellular modem, but you can buy that from Verizon in plug-in form for $30, with the same monthly fees. Total upfront price: $370, versus $330 for the Verizon model with the bigger battery.

You could also pay much less at a RadioShack (RSH) store, which is selling a subsidized netbook with a built-in cellular modem and required contract (with AT&T) (T) at $60 a month. This model, also an Acer running XP, has a smaller 8.9-inch screen, but most other specs are similar to those on the Verizon model. Yet there’s one enormous difference: It costs only $50, plus a $36 activation fee.

In my tests, the Verizon/H-P netbook handled all common tasks well, if not at blazing speeds. It lacks Microsoft Office, but includes the lesser Microsoft Works productivity suite. I was able to download and run common third-party programs like Firefox and iTunes. The built-in Verizon software for managing the cellular and Wi-Fi connections worked very well, and can be upgraded to a new version with added features.

The hardware has some notable downsides. The keyboard feels too flexible, and some symbols on the function keys are hard to read. The mouse buttons are awkwardly arrayed on the sides of the touch pad, not below it. And the speaker, while loud, is tinny. Also, the machine has a bunch of craplets, mostly links to H-P Web sites or to companies like eBay (EBAY) and Pandora.

Still, if you travel a lot and like using a cellular modem, the machine’s $200 price is compelling, so long as you can handle the wimpy battery and small hard disk.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Samsung's Instinct Doesn't Ring True as an iPhone Clone

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:01:00 +0000

The parade of iPhone lookalikes continues. Soon after Apple (AAPL) announced the first iPhone a year ago, factories in Asia, at the behest of U.S. phone carriers, were asked to respond to the sleek, touch-screen device. Some already have reached America; more are coming.

The latest to arrive is the Samsung Instinct, to be introduced by Sprint (S) on June 20. I’ve been testing the Instinct, and while it isn’t a bad phone and has some features the Apple product lacks, it’s no match for the iPhone. The manufacturers haven’t replicated the iPhone’s greatest strength: beautiful, powerful, breakthrough software.

Samsung Instinct

Also, the timing of the Instinct is unfortunate. It was designed to go up against the first iPhone. Sprint even has a Web site (nowisgood.com) comparing the two devices. But the Instinct will go on sale only three weeks before Apple and AT&T (T) start selling the new 3G iPhone, the second-generation model announced earlier this week. This second iPhone model corrects some of the first model’s main weaknesses, wiping out some advantages Sprint hoped the Instinct would have.

Before getting into the details of the Instinct, a few words about the new iPhone, its main competition. I don’t do full reviews of products until I have tested them extensively, but my first impressions of the 3G iPhone are largely positive.

The price of the new iPhone’s base model, which comes with 8 gigabytes of memory, is $199, a 50% price cut from the comparable first-generation model. Yet, it now works on AT&T’s fastest data network, promising anywhere from two to five times the speed of its predecessor. It also has GPS for tracking your location, and fully supports over-the-air synchronization of email, contacts and calendars — through Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange in corporations or via a similar new consumer service from Apple called MobileMe. And you’ll be able to download directly to the phone a whole universe of third-party programs, from productivity software to games.

On the downside, the new iPhone’s camera remains very basic and still can’t capture video. For people who prefer physical keyboards, the iPhone will still fall short. It continues to include only a virtual onscreen keyboard. And the iPhone remains locked to a single carrier in the U.S., AT&T, which will charge $10 more per month for unlimited data consumption on the device.

The iPhone, along with some competitors like the BlackBerry, are really hand-held computers that happen to make voice calls. And they’re getting more powerful and innovative. So far, competitors like the Instinct, while trying to look like iPhones, are still mainly voice devices with so-so computing features tacked on.

For instance, while the Instinct is a touch-screen device, it lacks the iPhone’s “multi-touch” system, which includes features that recognize multiple fingers and gestures, and allows actions like shrinking a photo by “pinching” it. The touch system on the Instinct is more like that on an ancient ATM than a cutting-edge gadget, even though it has a gimmicky feedback mechanism that gives you a tiny vibration-jolt when you press an icon.

Physically, the Instinct looks a lot like the iPhone — a dark slab without a physical keyboard or many buttons dominated by a large screen. It’s a bit longer and thicker than the iPhone, but a tad narrower and lighter. Its screen is smaller than the iPhone’s and has lower resolution.

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The Instinct has the same $199 price tag as the new iPhone, after a rebate and with a two-year contract. Service plans are likely to start at around $70, in line with the minimum monthly fee AT&T will charge on the new iPhone. But it comes with just one-quarter of the memory the base iPhone includes.

Like the 3G iPhone, the Instinct runs on a fast cellular network that promises speeds similar to what people get with slow home DSL service. In my tests, it seemed to deliver this promised speed. It also has GPS and navigation. But, unlike the iPhone, the Instinct lacks Wi-Fi wireless networking, which can often be faster than the cellphone networks or available where there is no speedy cellphone coverage.

The Instinct has a removable battery, something the iPhone lacks. And Sprint claims 5.7 hours of talk time on one charge, more than the five hours that Apple claims for its 3G model. Sprint’s new baby has a few other features that even the latest iPhone omits, such as a built-in service for viewing TV shows and a voice-command system.

But I found its email system and Web browser to be less sophisticated than the iPhone’s or the BlackBerry’s. I also thought the phone’s onscreen keyboard was harder to use than Apple’s. It would flip unpredictably from landscape to portrait mode. The Instinct does allow handwriting recognition as an alternative, something the iPhone doesn’t.

If you’re a devoted Sprint customer, or want to avoid AT&T, the Instinct is an OK choice. But it’s no iPhone.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.