We knew good and well China Mobile was all geared up to launch its homegrown 3G standard in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Shenzhen (among other locales), and though China's government hasn't issued 3G licenses yet, TD-SCDMA has finally made its soft launch. In order to garner interest in the service, said carrier has also opened up "experience shops" in the aforementioned cities "to allow the public to experiment with TD-SCDMA handsets and gain confidence with TD-SCDMA's capabilities." During the initial launch, some 60,000 dual-mode TD-SCDMA / GSM handsets and 15,000 data cards will be on sale in these outlets, with most of the units being in the "mid- to high-end range" and costing between $286 and $572 (those are subsidized prices). Here is where we suppose China Mobile holds its breath and hopes for things to take off.

[Via mocoNews]

As the usual jollifications at CTIA roll on, ZTE has announced a new duo of ho hum handsets for the US market. Hot on the heels of the C88 comes the affordable C78 candybar and C79 flip phone. As for the former, you can expect a VGA camera, MMS / internet browsing capabilities and built-in Bluetooth, while the latter packs a 1.3-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, a 2-inch display and a microSD expansion slot. Both units operate on the AWS frequency bands in addition to the PCS and Cellular bands, but unfortunately, mum's the word on carrier / pricing information.

That handset for MetroPCS that ZTE was promising is finally here -- and while it's not a FasTap phone or anything nifty like that, it's a surprisingly decent midrange piece that should find its way into a fair number of pockets. The Chinese manufacturer is clearly trying to make inroads into North America, and it had previously said that its MetroPCS device would be custom designed for the US market; a good, close look at the C88 has us agreeing that they probably weren't lying. The phone is a clamshell -- just the form factor us Americans can't get enough of -- and includes a camera, speakerphone, decently sized primary display, Bluetooth, and on-device web content. It's available now for $139.

Odds are we're never going to see this phone again, which is just fine with us; it's got nothing but GPRS and a VGA cam, after all, and we'd typically save this kind of hardware for FCC Fridays. What struck us as we did our standard vetting of the phone's FCC documents, though, was the silkscreened label on back. We can't remember the last time a phone so proudly displayed that it's packing "0.3 Mega Pixels" underhood, and there's a reason for that. Thanks, but no thanks, ZTE A137 Plus.

Handsets from China's ZTE are nothing new to Canada; in fact, the ZTE-sourced D90 clamshell offered by Telus is a FasTap phone, of all things. We've yet to see any ZTE kit officially released in the US, though, and MetroPCS is about to get things started. The manufacturer has announced that regional carrier MetroPCS will begin offering ZTE equipment designed specifically for the US market starting next month (which we suspect won't be as cool as the WiMax ones being prepared for Sprint) without giving any details about the actual handsets or their specifications. Given nifty MetroPCS devices like the Samsung r410, we think they'd better step up -- another FasTap model, perhaps?

[Via Phone Scoop and RCR]

Digit Wireless' quirky Fastap text entry system doesn't have the biggest following in the world, but every once in a while, some random manufacturer will release a Fastap-equipped handset on some random carrier. Case in point: China's ZTE -- of all companies -- has hooked up with Telus up in Canada to release the rather nice looking D90 flip this week. Specs ain't shabby, either, with EV-DO, stereo Bluetooth, integrated GPS, multimedia support, and a 1.3 megapixel cam. Get it now for $80 CDN (about $76) on a 3-year contract.

Here's a bizarre one. ZTE's latest mobile not only sports a sleek, black enclosure and 3G connectivity, but also includes a "dual level, multilingual Fastap keypad based on Digit Wireless' Fastap Keypad Global Language Platform." As you'd expect, both English-speaking individuals and those proficient in Romanized Ukrainian and Russian should have no trouble entering text messages, as the keypad clearly sports both Cyrillic and Latin-based letters. Although the minutiae of this here device has yet to be unveiled, we do know that it'll be distributed by PEOPLEnet -- the first national provider of 3G communications in Ukraine -- and while nothing was written in stone, ZTE also suggested that the Evolution could be used by "international operators for authoritative certificates and assurances to overseas markets." Click on through for a more detailed shot of the bilingual mobile.

[Via Slashphone]

Ever since Sprint promised to blanket 100 million people with WiMAX by the end of 2008, we've been wondering just who exactly those people would be. Well, in addition to a few other specifics, Sprint is finally coming clean about nineteen of those markets. The promised cities are as follows: Motorola is prepping service for Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Minneapolis; Samsung will develop Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Washington D.C.; and Nokia will work on Austin, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Seattle. There'll be more location info to come, but that should get us started nicely. Sprint is still promising the limited initial launch by the end of 2007, and that 100 million target for the 2008, but also has an April '08 goal for launching a "number" of markets. Today Sprint is also announcing that Samsung, ZTE and ZyXEL will be building WiMAX modems of the PC card, ExpressCard, USB and built-in varieties, and Sprint is also launching a new "WiMAX Device and Chipset Ecosystem" program for getting as many manufacturers on board as possible. Sprint says they'll be showing off Mobile WiMAX at its CTIA booth this week, so we'll be sure and peep what they've got.

If there are two things we can't get enough of in this world, it's mobile TV and OLED displays behind mirrored acrylic covers; put the two features together, and you've got yourself a little slice of heaven. On that note we present ZTE's new F908, a clamshell out of China that seems to do both with poise. In this case, the mobile TV tech in question is DVB-H backed up by a pivoting display that should make viewing a more pleasurable experience, while a 3.6Mbps HSDPA radio keeps data flowing at a nice clip; of course, we don't expect to see the F908 around these parts any time soon, but if you happen to be on the other side of the world, keep an eye out for 'er.

[Via Engadget Chinese]