Speculation: Sprint says WiMax handset coming this summer... C40? 69
Fri, 19 Feb 2010 7:55 pm EST 
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]
69 Comments
I'm betting that Sprint will be releasing different handsets around the same time that take advantage of 4g service. So the Supersonic and C40 may just be two of them. I don't think one necessarily cancels out the other.
I'm not sure that I really care about WiMAX on a cell phone, certainly not one with a relatively small screen like the Pre. WiMAX would mean much more on a netbook or the iPad.
I use my phone for web browsing quite a bit and I can't complain about download speeds. I rarely use my WiFi network at home because the pages don't render much faster and the small speed boost isn't worth the extra battery drain.
4G for a cell phone strikes me as more of a marketing gimmick than a really useful feature. The only real benefit is that it is a work around for EVDO's inability to offer phone calls and web access at the same time.
Actually WiFi has less battery drain.
That's only true if EVDO has poor signal. Searching for a better signal uses more juice than a constant WiFi connection.
Actually... the point is that wifi being in the device *is* a battery drain. If it's on, doing the same thing that the EVDO radio would've done in the same amount of time.... you're wasting power. Even if it's off, it's using power!!
Take the Sprint Pixi, for example. How much better is its battery life?? Prolly twice as good. 1.5x more battery life is at least a conservative estimate.
I'm curious what the Verizon Pixi's battery life is like. This is something nobody seems to mention. Anybody compared the VZ & Sprint Pixi's side-by-side??
I find YouTube and Google Maps to be painfully slow over 3G.
Anyway, if Palm had a monopoly on 4G, even for a few months, this would only mean incredible success.
The only problem with this plan is Sprint. All 7 Sprint subscribers (myself included) would be pioneers in the 4G revolution. But that doesn't make a huge difference for the webOS platform.
Palm should strive to be first to 4G on EVERY carrier. That would show 'em...
I doubt it...but it makes great business sense, the first 4G phone, people would jump ship on that beauty just for the 4G alone. Nevermind webOS, 4G sells itself sells.
Great business sense... Hmm... Let's see...
Paying $15 for a brand spankin' wimax chip in EVERY phone, whereas only 4% of the people being marketed to could actually take advantage of it. Let's say they sold 10 million of these C40s in a year. They'd have to pay $150 million extra than just keeping the EVDO radio in there, which is doing a fine job as it is. Then how many people _wouldn't_ be upgrading to the C50 the next year since they've *already* got 4G!?!?
This used to be Palm's model after acquiring Handspring. Their next hardware decisions were always predictable. When I returned to this forum, I kept stating that 4G would not be in this phone because of the rate of WiMax diffusion and the history of Palm's incremental upgrades (similar to Apple)...
HOWEVER... I think this could be different. This is a different Palm. But the thing that REALLY makes me think it could happen is because of the deal between Walmart and Sprint (or Clearwire, whoever!). If every Walmart has WiMax, well then.... the network would be waiting on Palm at that point.
And that's not a point that Palm should be at. Having everybody waiting on THEM!
A fresh new network is gonna have alotta coverage issues at first so this is not something that Im all hyped about yet.
Does anyone know if Sprint & Walmart came into an agreement that places WiMax 4G cells on top of all Walmart locations?!? If so then 4G would pretty much cover more area than 3G covers. I don't know if the C40 or Supersonic will be the 1st 4G phone...but as long as Palm and webOS can bring about something BIG come summer then I'm on board =)
c = castle = pre
4 = 4g
0 = first device
as long as I have the ability to turn off the 4g radio to conserve battery when needed, I won't mind
Yep, this is going to be the new webOS phone.
I was at the local Sprint store in DC and the store rep mentioned that WiMax 4G is coming to the DC area this year.
We're gettin' ready to hear something BIIIG real soon here. Whether it's the Palm C40 or HTC SS who knows. Firsts of any new technology (4G) will have bugs IMO. But if it has a bigger screen, faster processor, better battery and so on... I'm on it! BTW I hope it's a Palm device!
that idea of placing wimax towers on every walmart is a great idea, why not also banks? With those long lines on paydays would help pass the time.
Hahaha one step at a time my friend =) Making a deal with Walmart is easy because it deals with one entity that speaks for all locations. Since there are a crap load of different banks, there are different sets of people and deals and other blah blah that needs to happen...so it's just too much to deal. With the Walmart deal: talk to one group of Waltons (lol) & you basically covered the entire globe! Sprint needs this.
People still cash pay checks?
c = castle = pre
4 = 4g
0 = first device
as long as I have the ability to turn off the 4g radio to conserve battery when needed, I won't mind
That would be awesome! But it would have a lot of bugs. Even if they come out with the c40 as a 4g phone, I'm on a two year contract with the pre.
WiMax came to Austin in November. This would be awesome!
Well HTC's Phone in the roadmap actually says WiMAX, so the question is, will the Palm C40 be Wimax also?
edit: don't know why it repost when I just refresh with no new comment
Don't feel bad, that happens all the time on a refresh. The form data gets reposted. I now close and re-open my browser after every post. Annoying, but it's faster than correcting duplicate posts.
Use FireFox?
I use only Firefox and have had a duplicate only once, and that was during a 504 Gateway Error (server/network hardware error).
Unless the C40 shows it's face at least in leaks I'll be driving 300miles if needed to buy the Supersonic. I may not keep it but I'll be blowing an upgrade and cash on it.
The specs are too awesome not to be drooled over, And I'm not even in a WiMAX area DOH!
I'm in Las Vegas. We have WiMax 4g. Bring on the C40. Add OLED and that will save some battery.
good thing I live in seattle. Love sprint so bring on the wimax. Would love it to be a webos device, but if the htc ss is the android hd2 with wimax that would probably be my new main phone and the pre a wifi at home device. Hoping palm does pull out a portrait slider droid come refresh time. What I've been wanting since I got my pre.
All I know is a HTC device is def going to be WiMax. The phone on the leaked Sprint Line-up: HTC A9292 WiMax, just may be the Supersonic.
I would love for the Palm C40 to be WiMax but it better have better specs than the current Pre.
I will probably be getting a Super Sonic soon :D
If the "Palm Pre 2" is the first phone to have 4G you can pretty much expect it to overthrow the iPhone and any other phone out there. I'd buy the stock while it's still cheap guys, this might be the next "Apple".
I personally think HTC will be the first.
Dan Hesse however said Sprint will be bringing out "dozens of devices" with 4G. As far as the first device, I think it's a HTC device.
Is this not the same story I sent in earlier? :P
I love webos but i don't want this 4G phone to be a Palm phone. Why?, they will mess it up with a 3.2 screen, a 3MP camara with no auto focus, slow processor, etc., I rather this phone be the HTC HD2 Android edition
early adopter of clearwire (cdma) and clear (wimax) ... you WANT wimax.
i get 10.02mpbs down & 500kpbs up
yes, major [wireless] bandwidth rocks
Wow, 10mbps? That is officially faster than my cable service.
This must happen.
All I know is that by September I will be getting a 4G phone! Regardless if it's webOS or not. This is obvious though. I think Palm damn right knows they need a 4G webOS phone soon because every Pr?/Pixi owner will drop their device in a heartbeat for an upgraded 4G phone.
Do I want? YES. If you can turn off the 4G radio or set 3G only. Some areas I visit have 4G, and that'd be freakin' awesome. But when I'm not there, it'd be nice to just have the huge battery the 4G will likely need!
Do I think the C40 is 4G? Nope.
we have had 4G here in Chicago for a few months. I've played with the laptops hooked up to it. It's fast! When I asked a Sprint rep out here about the Pre and 4G issues without batting an eye he told me that there will be a new 4G Palm Pre offered this summer. Told me to hang tight. Said Sprint did not want to release the phones as of yet until there is more nationwide coverage so the only things 4G out here available is the hook up for laptops. He's the tech guy here at a CORPORATE Sprint store and we talk tech all the time and share new tweaks we've done to phones.
All I know is that by September I will be getting a 4G phone! Regardless if it's webOS or not. This is obvious though. I think Palm damn right knows they need a 4G webOS phone soon because every Pr?/Pixi owner will drop their device in a heartbeat for an upgraded 4G phone.
Does anyone know where Wimax currently is?
greater Philly area has Clear (wimax) www.clear.com. Their website has coverage maps
3G is plenty fast for me, I'm not giving up webOS just for 4G, I am sitting pat with my pre untill Palm updates the platform. Really happy with my pre, best phone that I have ever owned, so I see no problem with waiting if the 1st 4G phone is not a Palm.
A few caveats about Wimax, it's not network wide, it's in limited cities and really only the high-population/commercial areas. The days of seamless 4G coverage and suburban service away from metro areas are still a long way off.
Big battery hit.
Higher data fees.
Still subject to usual internet latency concerns.
Current webos devices probably will limit speed, so next device needs to be much more robust in many aspects.
Still can't wait to see what they offer between HTC and Palm. Glad I'm with Sprint.
I might switch to the HTC suppersonic or other new handset
if the Palm not releasing the docs editting and the video,
or doing good update, BUT AM NOT LEAVING Sprint,but am
for I`ll leave Palm.
Key point. Capabilities of phones have become, and will continue to become more generic. Phones are more notable for what they lack, than what they have. Even multitasking, Flash and GPU use won't set phones apart a year form now.
Whatever I put my hands on next, one thing is sure, it will be on Sprint. They have aggressive value plays and solid service and as I've become more dependent and demanding about wireless the last few years, they have not failed me the way ATT did when all I wanted and needed was the phone to ring when called. Great job Sprint, keep your chin up, rewards will come.
-Video recording/editing coming in 1.4 (which should hit before February is over... hopefully)
-"Docs Editing" is not dependent on Palm but on Dataviz... And delivering a WebOS Docs to Go will be dependent on their priorities, not Palm's...
Am wondering if sprint releasing the 4G handset this summer,
so VZW and AT&T what are they going to release?
From the Sprint Website:
Clearwire 4G Markets in 2009
4G service is coming to several markets around the country, and services will be offered by different service providers, including Clearwire and Sprint in each market. By the end of 2009, 4G service is expected to be available in more than 25 markets covering over 30 million people in places such as: Atlanta and Milledgeville, GA; Baltimore; Boise; Chicago; Las Vegas;
Philadelphia; Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro, NC; Honolulu and Maui, HI; Seattle and Bellingham, Wash; Portland and Salem, Ore; and Dallas/Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Austin, Abilene, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Killeen/Temple, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, Waco and Wichita Falls, Texas.
Cheers
i dont think you will have to leave palm, i agree i think c40 is gonna be the new palm phone, what ever it will be called, makes a lot of sense seeing as how verison just got a brand spanking new phone, and as for the bugs, if it is a new palm Phone there shouldnt be to many, as long as you can turn off the 4g.
A wimax handset would have one major advantage over any other handset using any other technology, including LTE: the ability to receive a signal while within large buildings where normal cell phone coverage dies. While the current 2GHz implementation will see limited (but what should be appreciable) improvement in this way, Clear has licenses for 3GHz and 5GHz already which will, in future implementations, not only make dropped calls a thing of the past, but will afford incredibly high bandwidth, far beyond what LTE's theoretical maximum can achieve in the 700MHz bandwidth bottleneck that Verizon has chosen.
I find it noteworthy that Sprint is talking about 4G handsets the day after Beceem rolled out its Wimax/LTE hybrid radio on a chip small enough for use in handhelds. I didn't try to see specs on that chip, but if its power consumption is low enough...=)
Good stuff, but LTE does not use the 700 MHz spectrum. That spectrum is reserved for whitespace.
From a quick Google, I came up with this: "LTE offers scalable bandwidths, from 1.4MHz up to 20MHz".
The FCC auctioned off the 700MHz bands in 2008(?) and Verizon bought them all up.
http://www.dailywireless.org/2009/02/18/verizon-lte-in-25-to-30-markets-...
Also, here is a good article which explains why Verizon's current 700MHz band (spectrum) implementation is flawed, and why higher frequencies are better.
http://blogs.broughturner.com/2010/02/broadband-wireless-the-future-is-5...
Keep in mind the difference between spectrum (fq band) and bandwidth. 20MHz bandwidth at 700MHz seems good, but 200MHz bandwidth at 3GHz is much, much better.
The short story is that Wimax will be cheaper (both in implementation and in end user cost) and offer better coverage. The long story is that, in the end, it really won't matter because the technologies are very similar, and it will be easier for manufacturers to build devices that work on both technologies than to build one or the other or both separately.
Thanks, once again, to Russ McGuire for the cool link.
the c40 imho will be released until fall. Palm is going to ATT in May with the pre plus and probably the pixi plus. They can't cannibalize
A theory:
Palm agrees to give Sprint 6mo exclusive on Pre, in return for getting to have the first Sprint WiMax device (and hence one of the earliest 4g devices around)? It certainly would make the "really dumb" initial exclusivity arrangement seem less dumb on Palm's part.
A pipe dream, I suppose, but anything seems possible in smartphones these days.
I think it was kind of obvious that sprint would have 4g phones soon... but I think that this is probably one of them.
I agree, whats awesome is the Supersonic is coming out right when us premiere members who bought the pre in june are able to get the full discount. of course if the pre is slated to come out with a bigger screen ala supersonic nexus or droid then i'll stick around.
Interestingly enough there is some evidence to corroborate this "speculation." As far back as March 2007 (before the pre announcement) an article appeared on engadget about palm working on an "ultrathin Palm WIMAX device."
knowing how long some of these things take to design (ipad apparently took more than 10 years) this might be plausible
check it out: www.engadget.com/2007/03/06/palm-to-serve-up-ultra-thin-wimax-smartphone...
An ultrathin Wimax device sounds a lot more like a Foleo than a phone. Palm had just released their first EVDO phone, so I doubt they were ready to compact down 4G radios at a point in time 4G modems were not even ready. And considering the girth of Treo 800 and 850, there still were not even approaching "ultra thin" even at 3G some two years later.
That was 9 months after the foleo announcement. And, devices take years to develop so I think it's plausible.
I'll be a little more excited about 4g once Sprint manages to actually build out their 3g network a bit more.
I live in a small city and commute to a smaller town. (neither is rural, but we're not the exurbs of a big city). At work I'm almost always 1xRTT, and very often EVDO drops out near my house. They should support what they've supposedly got before growing out a new networking technology.
A 4G Palm device with mobile hotspot capability would be an awesome step forward and a real market differentiator for Palm. I would love to see them first to the market with a 4G handset! Go Palm!
Hello Everyone everybody's comments are great but this is what is truly going to happen Dan Hesse said a couple of Devices and if you dont like one there will be more who wouldnt want to get in on the new Wimax it sells itself and its the first 4g service and we all know who loves being first Steve Jobs and who is his competition HTC&Google, and Palm no one wants to be left behind.
So with that said we will see a 4g Iphone, 4g Palm Device and The 4g Supersonic.
Sorry for the duplicate post.
Does anybody here on Sprint & Verizon ever travel abroad? Your Pre or Pixi is a useless brick overseas. We need a WebOS world phone (think Blackberry Tour) that I can take to Europe, the Middle East, etc. and pop in a local SIM card. That is the pressing issue, not WiMax.
Now if Palm makes a CDMA/GSM world phone and drops in a WiMax/LTE radio, fine and dandy. But for next couple of years, that 4G radio will be unused and unusable in most geographic locations in the world.
Of course we do! But, rather than paying severely expensive international roaming charges, we prefer to rent or buy a local phone with a prepaid plan wherever we go, and turn it in before we head home. It is almost always less expensive to travel that way.
If they go to a 4" screen with higher total resolution, which I think they need to in order to stay on par with the competition, there will be plenty of room for a larger battery.
I would be happy to have a slightly larger device if that meant more content fit on the screen.
That's really good!Sprint offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users so this will going to be big hit of this year.
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