Italy -- Engadget Mobile

Vodafone puts BlackBerry Storm2 up for 26 October preorder

by Thomas Ricker posted Oct 15th 2009 @ 4:34AM

And it's out. The BlackBerry Storm2 just made its first official carrier appearance with Vodafone. The promising followup to the much maligned BlackBerry Storm will be free on pay-monthly contracts from £35 on up. Specs include a 3.25-inch 360 x 480 pixel capacitive SurePress (new and improved) touchscreen display, 802.11b/g WiFi and 2100MHz UMTS/HSPA data, 256MB of flash memory (double that of the original Storm), 2GB of onboard memory with microSDHC expansion, 3.5-mm standard headset jack, 3.2 megapixel camera with video recording, built-in GPS, Bluetooth 2.1, and 1400mAh battery giving about 6 hours of 3G talk. BlackBerry OS 5 too, of course, when it lands on October 15th in the UK, Ireland, Germany, The Netherlands, and Spain -- France, Italy, and South Africa in time for Christmas.

Update: Now on official RIM page too with a detailed comparison against the original Storm.

Gallery: Vodafone and RIM introduce the BlackBerry Storm2 Smartphone

[Thanks, James]

Read -- Press Release
Read -- Pre-order

Nokia N900 now giving Germany and Italy a way to pre-order

by Ross Miller posted Aug 28th 2009 @ 5:09PM

Now that Nokia's Maemo-powered N900 is looking mighty nice and official, the company's Germany and Italian arms have no problem going ahead and taking your hard-earned Euros in exchange for a pre-order. Both sites are actually listing it for €599 (US $860), or €99 more than what we heard yesterday. A pretty huge discrepancy, to be sure, but it's not unlike Nokia to have a flagship phone fluctuate in price. That October release date is a ways off, but if you're absolutely convinced this must be in your pocket by Halloween, you know where to go.

[Via Slashgear]

Read - Nokia Germany
Read - Nokia Italy

Italy's TIM nabbing HTC Magic

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 25th 2009 @ 10:42PM

In Europe, HTC's Android devices are fragmented among the big players, which means TIM could end up being the first carrier anywhere to offer both the Dream and the Magic now that they've popped a product page on their official site for the keyboardless device at a stiff €449 (about $595). There's no launch date listed, but Tecnophone says that the phone's are already in TIM's possession -- and they might be looking at a May 4 launch to line up with Vodafone. Unable to decide which version you're going to buy, TIM subscribers? Yeah, it's a pretty awesome problem to have.

[Via Tecnophone]

HTC Dream comes to Italy's TIM for ?429 on prepaid

by Chris Ziegler posted Mar 21st 2009 @ 3:07PM

HTC's first Android device is pretty much all over the place now -- either as the G1 or the Dream -- and TIM is the latest to go live with it over in Italy. Like most European carriers, TIM is happy to get you a Dream for as little as €0, but where it gets interesting is with the prepaid option: for €429 (about $583), you can just have the darn thing outright and pay as you go. T-Mobile USA: there's a lesson to be learned here. Maybe.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Nokia's Comes With Music goes on European tour, Asia next, Americas deemed too boring

by Tim Stevens posted Jan 21st 2009 @ 8:17AM

It was just yesterday that Reuters predicted Nokia's Comes With Music service was headed for something of a pilgrimage through the wilds of Europe, and now we have the official confirmation of this "pan European" expansion. The company has secured partnerships with music licensing and publishing big-wigs in Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, Finland, and Norway, and is indicating that Singapore and Australia are next on its to-do list. Alas there was no mention of other nations getting any sort of attention, meaning Nokia handsets in the New World are unlikely to come with anything but guilt for the forseeable future.

Italian HTC Touch HD gets unboxed, looks highly desirable

by Darren Murph posted Nov 8th 2008 @ 1:02PM

Not that you don't already have an awesome idea of what HTC's luscious Touch HD looks like from all the hands-on love it's been receiving overseas, but how's about an official unboxing in Italy to really put the cherry on top? Go on, Europeans -- enjoy your Touch HD. It's not like we want one in our part of the world anyway. In fact, don't even bother checking out the read link, there's nothing worth being completely envious of in there, anyway.

[Via Coolsmartphone]

Samsung's C6620 looks fun, means business with WinMo 6.1

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 29th 2008 @ 10:13AM

Along with the change in naming convention comes a change in industrial design, and the C6620 -- one of the first smartphones to make use of Samsung's annoying new one-letter, four-digit scheme -- definitely looks a bit different than your average WinMo piece out of Seoul. Italian carrier TIM appears to be the first in the world to offer it, featuring triband GSM along with HSDPA, Bluetooth (we should certainly hope so), and a 2-megapixel camera -- not earth-shattering by any stretch, but we're digging the two-tone thing they've got going on here. It's selling for €199 (about $254), which we think makes this (or something very close to it) a perfect spiritual successor to the original BlackJack, yeah?

[Via Unwired View and mobileblog.it]

Nokia Italy lists N85 as in stock, legions of OLED fanatics cautiously optimistic

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 6th 2008 @ 10:56AM

N85s were originally promised for delivery as early as September, but that didn't pan out; in fact, you can't really get an N85 through any non-nefarious channels at the moment. Or at least you couldn't, but Nokia Italy claims to now have Copper N85s in stock and available for immediate delivery for a cool €549 (about $749). If the product page turns out to be accurate and Italians start taking delivery of their lovely OLED-equipped dual sliders in the next couple days, it'll make Nokia's Italian outpost the first in the world to be delivering the goods.

[Via All About Symbian]

BlackBerry Pearl 8220 launches on TIM in Italy

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 5th 2008 @ 6:54AM

T-Mobile USA's busy with... ahem, another launch at the moment, but Italians on TIM now have access to RIM's first and only clamshell (TIM, RIM? Coincidence?). The Pearl 8220 is ready for shipment to the Mediterranean villa of your choosing for 269 (about $372), though TIM's only offering black at the moment -- so maybe T-Mobile's taking so long because they have to prepare some specially formulated dyes for that red version. Or something.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Gemalto embeds DVD-compliant optical disc into WIND SIM card

by Darren Murph posted Sep 15th 2008 @ 7:47AM

Movies on flash drives aren't looking like the next big thing, but Gemalto reckons its approach to getting DVD content on smaller surfaces is different enough to get noticed. In an admittedly bizarre release, the digital security firm has announced a new Smart Video Card for Italian carrier WIND, which "embeds a DVD-compliant optical disc into the card body of a regular SIM card." The card can store practically any digital content (including video, software or URLs) and can reportedly be played back on any DVD drive. So what, we buy a new SIM card each time we're looking for a new batch of miniaturized content? Fabulous!

[Via FashionFunky, thanks Bob]

Samsung's i900 Omnia launching next week in Italy

by Darren Murph posted Jul 16th 2008 @ 11:50PM

If you've had your eye on Samsung's forthcoming Omnia, you've known good and well it was coming to Europe sometime this month. Thankfully, Sammy has removed the mystery by announcing that Italy will get first dibs when it launches in said country on July 22nd. We aren't told who will be second, third or last, but most major European locales should have it before September dawns. Obviously, prices will vary depending on operator and contract terms, but the 8GB edition (along with an Xbox 360 Arcade, as part of some random promotion) will reportedly be €499 ($789) without subsidy. Glean from that what you will.

[Via phoneArena]

3 Italia, Ericsson blaze with 5.8Mbps HSPA uploads

by Chris Ziegler posted Jul 16th 2008 @ 2:58PM

We hate to make you feel like a loser with your 1-point-whatever Mbps upstream data card there, but over in Italy, Ericsson and 3 are doing everything they can to put that card out of business. It appears that through nothing more than a series of software and infrastructure tweaks, the companies have managed to establish uplink data connections at a whopping 5.8Mbps. Oh, and get this -- it's not some fancy, futuristic trial, either, this was all done using 3's existing commercial network. Good news for Italians, and ultimately, good news for anyone that's not looking forward to waiting for LTE to take over.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Unsubsidized iPhone 3G priced at ?499/?569 in Europe

by Thomas Ricker posted Jun 12th 2008 @ 1:30AM

This morning we're getting a first look at unsubsidized prices for the iPhone 3G in Europe. Vodafone Italy have set an out-of-contract price for the iPhone 3G at 499/€569 ($773/$881) for the 8GB/16GB models, respectively. Subscription rates have not yet been announced. While steep, those prices are actually smartphone-reasonable in Italy (and around Europe) where an HTC Touch Cruise with its WiFi, tri-band HSDPA data, GPS, and touchscreen sells for €549. Capisce?

[Thanks, Andrea]

Vodafone Station brings FMC service to Italy

by Darren Murph posted Jun 2nd 2008 @ 10:15AM

Truth be told, Fixed Mobile Convergence still isn't talked about much (comparatively speaking) 'round these parts. Yeah, we've seen a few FMC routers scattered about, but Vodafone's taking a stand by rolling out its Station in Italy. The box, which was developed in cooperation with Huawei, is an integrated switch / router with ADSL2+, WiFi, UMTS / HSPA (via a removable USB key) and four Ethernet ports. Essentially, it's designed to combine voice with fixed and mobile broadband services, and it enables users to make calls on their handset through a fixed line connection when they're kicking back at home. We're also hearing that the device will eventually make its way to other Vodafone markets, but there's been no word yet on future rollout dates.

[Via GigaOM]

TIM says it's bringing the iPhone to Italy, too

by Chris Ziegler posted May 7th 2008 @ 2:59PM

Breaking with the longstanding tradition of granting exclusivity to the carrier in each country that can withstand Apple's vice-like iPhone profit sharing pressure, Italy's Telecom Italia has issued a super-brief statement simply letting the world know that "it has signed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Italy later this year." No details, no launch date, no word on whether it'll be 3G (our money says yes) -- but either way, this means Italian customers will have the option of not one, but two carriers from which to get their Apple fix since Vodafone will be hauling in the device as well. A little competition never hurt anyone, right?