Mountain View Cellphones

7/24/2010 by mountainviewcellphones.com

Android continues to gain market share in the smartphone space. According to the Google Blog, Android is having about 160,000 activations per day. Apple Iphone sales from their quarterly report were 8.4 million.

8.4 million / 91 days in quarter = 92,308 Iphones per day.

From these two standpoints, it’s clear that the Android is outpacing IPhone 1.7:1. This is very consistent with the information in the comscore reports about market share.

This pace is only going to increase towards the favor of Android with the launch of Droid X, 4G Epic, and other Android versions on all carriers globally (Samsung and LG versions in particular).

Comscore states we have about 49.1 million smartphone users in the USA, 24.4% Apple or 11.98 million. Android had 13% or 6.3 million. Android was gaining market share at a global rate of 67,692 per day. If this was all in the USA, this gap would be closed in about 84 days, or about 3 months. However because we are comparing global figures versus US market shares, we will make a range estimate for the Android overtaking market share and the largest smartphone platform.

The minimum is 3 months (as above). We will assume that 50% of this market share gain is attributable to the USA given the large success of Android here. That would put the date of parity market share in December of 2010.

So starting January 2011, we should have parity of market share for IPhone and Android, each garnering about 25% of the market (assuming Blackberry continues to hold its share).

It’s fun how this timing is planned with the IPhone launch on other carriers rumored in 2011.

4/18/2009 by www.mountainviewcellphones.com

Opera is a common name among people who have an interest in improving their browser experience.  Opera now ships standard on windows mobile phones and will hopefully be standard on many other phones as well.  For example, the Samsung Instinct can now adopt Opera in newer updates.

Opera is great for several reasons:

1.  A full HTML experience browser with zoom in/out capabilities for a small screen.

2.  Easy access to bookmarks and management of the booksmarks.

3.  Integration of web pages with regular phone functions like dialing a number from a web search

4.  Integration of your desktop Opera experience with your phone to sync many data points

Opera provides a better browser experience overall than standard shipped web browsers on many phones.  Opera on a Blackberry far surpasses the Blackberry browser.  The best part is that it’s free for the users to use and download.

Opera can be downloaded at mini.opera.com.  Get it and your use of the web on the phone will jump dramatically.

3/19/2009 by www.moutainviewcellphones.com

It’s now very feasible and inexpensive to use your mobile phone to process credit card transactions.  This only works with Nextel, Blackberry, and Windows mobile devices, but it’s a very elegant and fast solution. 

You only require software that cost $100 for the phone and a merchant account to process credit cards.  We have great partners who can give goods rates for processing if anyone is interested.

All you need to do is activate the application, put in the credit card number, process, and you get an authorization and capture in 3 seconds.  It’s very fast. 

To improve the system, you can buy an additional portable bluetooth printer and swipe for $150.  This provides the ability to get a full swipe rate for the card (generally about 0.25% better) and print a receipt for customer right on the spot. 

This is great technology we can help your organization with.  

Lastly, with Sprint Blackberries, you pay about $20/month less than ATT and Verizon and you get GPS navigation for free.   Now, you can get where you are going and you can transact at the lowest rates.  Any questions, feel free to inquire with us.      

2/2/2009 by www.mountainviewcellphones.com

We are expanding our service and repair business to start repairing more models of Smartphones.  We are first starting with a simple Blackberry Trackball repair for $35.00 and in less than 30 minutes (parts and labor).  www.phonemechanics.com

 We look forward to helping your business or personal needs.  Either mail or drop by your phone and we will repair your trackball issues quickly and efficiently. 

 We are working on getting a more formal site up and running that will be a large jump in service and convenience for customers nationwide for repairing their phones.  We will keep the world up to date on our progress and improvements to our service. 

2/2/2009  by www.mountainviewcellphones.com

Sprint’s fortunes have the opportunity to change dramatically this year.  Unfortunately, consumers are very conservative this year, so that alone may derail the come back.  However, there are four big things that are going for the company.

 1.  WiMax roll-out…this is critical to hitting Verizon and ATT where it hurts (local data service to homes) and growing volume dramatically for mobile data users.  This is a truly unique product Sprint and Clearwire have and they need to get the roll-out going as fast as possible.

2.  Palm PRE…just in time for the 1st generation Apple upgrade with ATT, so customers have a better choice versus the IPhone.  If the PRE lives up to the blogosphere hype, then this can start subscriber growth again for Sprint.  So, these first generation IPHONE users have for the most part, gotten a poor web experience and maybe looking for a better web experience.  They won’t find it with ATT 3G IPHONE as the data network speeds and capacity are still way below Sprint and Verizon.  I haven’t found a single IPHONE user who has loved the speed of the Internet on their devices (outside of WiFi).  The PRE has the opportunity to be the ONE phone you need for both business and personal uses.  I will even trade in my Blackberry 8830 for this upgrade.         

3.  A consistent message…come to Sprint for saving money and use your phone for all that it can do.  The hokey CEO messages are finally getting thru to people.  We are having more people from ATT and Verizon come into our stores and wanting to save money and seeing what Sprint has to offer.  This combined with the economic environment will continue to favor the rate structure advantage Sprint has. 

 4.  Independent consumer tests and gizmodo data speed tests have confirmed Sprint is improving and is the most dependable and fastest data network around.  This will take time to show up in the sale results, but people are beginning to take a look at Sprint again.

Sprint literally has a 2 year window now to really turn things around and get better execution going forward for sales and retention.  These few dramatically differentiated and unique products Sprint can offer this year will be able to leap frog the competition and give consumers more for less. 

10/27/2008  By www.mountainviewcellphones.com

Sprint has a great new line up of phones releasing into the Christmas season.  Here is everything new now and going into the near future.

1.  Samsung Rant  (EVDO Rev 0 version of the popular LG Rumor Phone).  Better and slightly bigger in all respects, yet has the same price point of $49.99.  Comes in Red and blue.

2.  LG Lotus.  A great compact flip phone with a QWERTY keyboard.  Purple and Black colos.

3.   HTC Diamond and HTC Touch Pro.  The Touch Pro is a smoking product.  Windows 6.1, virtual keyboard and real keyboard, expandable memory, 3.2 MP camera, AWESOME screen resolution.  It will sell well for those who want the top of the line unit.

4.  Sprint Air RAVE.  Discussed previously, but allows your own cell phone tower at any location with a high speed Internet connection.

5.  Samsung 220 and 320.  New basic phone line up.  The 320 is FREE phone with mail in rebate.  Buy 5 get 5 Free!!! as marketing would say

6.   Samsung Highnote.  This is THE music phone.  It’s much better than the UpStage it replaces and comes with a high quality compact speaker that can fill a room with your beats.  You can bring the party with you anywhere now.  I’m certain some amateur film student will be using this as background music to save time and money during the shoot.

7.  Sanyo Eclipse refresh with One Touch.  Illumination phone…pretty cool looking…otherwise a great multimedia phone that easy to find in your purse.

8.  New Nextel Blackberry.  Curve with a PTT button.  It will be a good device.

This is the best handset line-up Sprint has ever had.  The turnaround is actually producing some very real results now.

By: www.mountainviewcellphones.com  5/22/08, updated 2/2/2009.

One of the common failure points of the new Blackberries are the track balls.  If too much pressured is applied to them, they will break.  There is an interesting system of sensors and rollers that keep the mouse moving (up, down, left, right) and when pressing the button, executes a command.  If pressed to hard the ball will actually break the sensor under it and it will cease to operate.  Barring this extreme damage, sticky or balls that roll only in one or two directions are generally caused by the rollers getting dirty and not rolling anymore.

I don’t know what people put on their thumbs or get on their thumbs and then transfer to their Blackberries, but we see this problem many times in our service center.  For certain, how you fix this problem is to clean the rollers and the track ball. 

Our fix is to disassemble the device carefully, clean the rollers with some rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs, and then waiting for the alcohol to dry before reassembly.  This has worked many times and has been a great solution for a simple problem.  The newer Blackberries have several different parts to disassemble so be patient not to break the pieces.  Just ensure you get the screws out with torque screw drivers before prying the plastic apart with guitar picks or another plastic tool.

You can also pop the trackball out from the keyboard but be careful.  The plastic prongs that hold the chrome bezel in place are fragile and if broken will render the trackball assembly useless. 

Of course, you can always bring your Blackberry to our service center and we can do this for you.  The charge is only $15.00 for the cleaning and you can leave it with us and go get lunch and then come back and get the phone when you are done.  If there is damage to the trackball assembly, we can sell you a track ball for $15.99 or we can repair the whole thing for $35.00 (parts and labor).  We can do this for most Blackberries (Curve, Pearl, World Edition, 8800s, 8100s, 8300s).

Source: www.mountainviewcellphones.com  4/23/2008

Many Blackberry customers don’t know how good their phone really is.  I hear many complaints about how they can’t use their Blackberry to dial someone’s name in a directory phone tree.  It’s a problem solved long ago by Blackberry but customers who are new to Blackberry haven’t figured it out yet. 

It’s simple.  Just type the letters of the person’s name.  You might need to press the ALT to type the letters but this works in almost every IVR/Dial response system.  This solution is just to easy that Blackberry doesn’t advertise or write about it. 

 So, don’t be afraid of using your Blackberry when you need to dial a persons name into the phone.  Just spell the name out and the Blackberry is smart enough to convert this into the proper 1 to 9 numbers for the system you are working with on the other end. 

We have a great JVM error fix for the Nextel Blackberry 7100i and the Nextel Blackberry 7520.  The first step to fix it is the wipe the handheld using your desktop manager and re-install the Blackberry radio software.  Read the rest of this entry »

Although the Internet is a great way to purchase products and have them delivered to your doorstep, it does still lack major advantageous of buying from a competent and understanding store location.

Here are a few reasons why you want to buy in our store.

1. Competent and professional staff. Read the rest of this entry »