Maxis plans to bring the BlackBerry Pearl 9105

Some news for the Blackberry fans out there. Maxis mentioned via its official Twitter account that it has plans to bring the BlackBerry Pearl 9105.

There’s two version of the candybar Pearl, the 9100 sporting a SureType QWERTY keypad while the 9105 uses a more traditional mobile phone keypad layout.

In terms of specs there’s no difference between the two except for the earlier mentioned keypad layout. Both versions of the Pearl will have 256MB of internal storage with support for MicroSD storage expansion up to 32GB. 3.2MP camera with flash is standard along with digital zoom, autofocus and video recording. Like the Bold, the Pearl will also feature an optical trackpad. Connectivity wise, the Pearl is RIM’s first ever device to support WiFi n standard along with b and g. It runs on UMTS/HSDPA 3G networks as well as EDGE/GPRS/GSM. GPS and Bluetooth 2.1 is also standard.


As usual, with this kind of things, there’s no details on pricing, plans and launch date but we keep you updated on the latest developments. Stay tuned.

In the meantime checkout the BlackBerry Pearl promo video after the jump.

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More iPhone 4 predictions for Maxis and DiGi

Ok so the official word is out, DiGi and Maxis have opened registration of interest for the iPhone 4 but little else has been revealed.

We don’t know the pricing, we don’t know the plans and we don’t know when will the iPhone 4 be available in stores.

But we know the industry enough to be able to put out some predictions that’s pretty accurate. Earlier we predicted that pre-order, or more accurately, registration of interest (ROI), will happen after 19 July and it did.

Now that the ROIs are out, we can with some degree of accuracy predict when the in-store dates for the iPhone 4 will be. It will be roughly two weeks from today. If you count the exact days that puts the iPhone 4 launch on 3 August. But we’re going to go slightly conservative on our prediction put the iPhone 4 launch sometime within the week starting 2 August.

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BREAKING: Maxis launches iPhone 4 promo site

Things just got really exciting really quick! As predicted Maxis opened registration of interest around the time we expected they would.

In less than 2 hours after DiGi broke the word that they are now taking registration of interests for the iPhone 4, Maxis followed suit by opening it’s iPhone 4 registration of interest page.

This is all good but the thing is, there’s no indication of pricing Also, registration of interest doesn’t mean you’re locked down with a particular telco. So you’re very free to change telcos depending on whichever makes the iPhone available here first.

Or if you can wait, it’s best to see what both telcos have to offer to get the best deal.

Head on to Maxis’s site here.

Our complete coverage of the iPhone 4:
BREAKING: DiGi opens pre-order for iPhone 4
iPhone 4 with Maxis: Pre-orders when?
Maxis COO says iPhone 4 could be here in August, iPad 3G in the works
Countries getting the iPhone 4 and when
RUMOUR: DiGi to offer iPhone 4 in second half 2010
OFFICIAL: Maxis will launch the iPhone 4
UPDATE: Apple introduces iPhone 4. Could be in Malaysia as early as August

Maxis announces price slash for iPhone 3GS

So Maxis has announced it on twitter, the so called big announcement for today. It is not the iPhone 4 but it is actually a price slash on iPhone 3GS for its iPhone Special Mid Year Sale where you can get between RM200-RM600 discount over its original pricing.

This applies across the iValue 1,2,3 & 4 plans and iData 3 over 24 months. iPhone 3GS prices are unchanged for iData 1, 2 and Prepaid plans. Surprisingly only the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3GS are on promotion and there’s no change for the iPhone 3G 8GB.

Compared to DiGi’s previous price slash which merely lowers the monthly subscription fee, Maxis slashed the actual price of the iPhones. This mid-year promotion is valid until 31st July 2010 which raised some questions. What happens after 31st July? It would be weird if iPhone prices are increased back to normal but it could mean something bigger. We may be wrong but could it be the iPhone 4 be announced by then together with the iPhone 3GS 8GB? We will find out more later.

More details on the iPhone 3GS plans by Maxis here.

Maxis announcement: A tie-up with Sony Ericsson?

(UPDATE 1923hrs 12072010) The word’s out, at the very least, the something “exciting” from Maxis has nothing to do with a tie-up with Sony Ericsson. But Sony Ericsson who tweeted this morning that they have something exciting to announce have yet to say anything. A new device launch could still be in the pipeline. Though, we’re wondering why is it taking Sony Ericsson so long.

Earlier, Maxis mentioned on Twitter that they will be making an “exciting” announcement today. With just that one tweet, the social media space went to work speculating on whether Maxis will officially announce the pre-order date for the iPhone 4.

We thought that a pre-order announcement from Maxis would be a bit too premature right now. Rather, a more ideal date would be sometime around 19 July – assuming that the iPhone 4 launch itself will be within the second week of August.

Turns out, Sony Ericsson via Twitter, has put out a tweet that is very similar to the one Maxis made.

As far as we know, Maxis is the only telco that’s currently offering Sony Ericsson phones with contract bundles. Namely the Xperia X10.

Could this big announcement that Maxis is making have to do with a new Sony Ericsson phone launch?

Possibly.

If it is indeed true, we’re looking at a possible X10 Mini or X10 Pro launch.

But then again, we could be completely wrong.

Maxis announcing something exciting soon

(UPDATE 1929hrs 12072010) Maxis made the announcement and sorry guys, it’s not what you think. Still no word on when the iPhone 4 will be here.

Maxis via tweeter today indicated that the telco will be announcing something exciting today.

Naturally, many of you, including us, are wondering if this impending announcement will have anything to do with the iPhone 4 coming to Malaysia soon.

We don’t know. It could be an announcement about the iPhone 4 or it could very well not be. So we’ll have wait for the official word from Maxis.

We predicted that iPhone 4 pre-orders will be open on Maxis sometime around 19 July, could this tweet mean that they are opening the pre-orders earlier? Let’s wait and see.

But if the recent DiGi revision in its own iPhone packages and the recent spate of announcements from Maxis upper management is anything to go by, this announcement could be the one many are waiting for.

Watch this space.

iPhone 4 with Maxis: Pre-orders when?

We’ve pretty much correctly predicted when the iPhone 4 will be coming to Malaysia. Now we’ll look into our crystal ball to see roughly when Maxis will open pre-orders for the device.

In our earlier post we mentioned that the most likely date for a Malaysian iPhone 4 launch is August. We highlighted a few reasons why we think August will be the month, one of the main point is Maxis would want to do get the launch over and done with before Ramadhan kicks in – which will be roughly around the second week of August.

Ok, assuming the launch will be before Ramadhan (roughly around the first week of August), we can work backwards and roughly have a feel of when the pre-orders for the iPhone 4 will open. And judging by Maxis’ previous trends with pre-orders, you’re looking at probably a two-week buffer before the launch date.

This will give the PR and Marketing people in Maxis enough time to create buzz and run some PR stunts and God forbid, run another top 10 review program. Pre-order for the iPhone 4 won’t start more than two weeks before its launch as from our own experience starting pre-orders more than two weeks ahead of the actual launch date of any device will be challenging. PR and Marketing will have a difficult time maintaining the excitement.

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Maxis COO says iPhone 4 could be here in August, iPad 3G in the works

Maxis COO, Jean Pascal van Overbeke broke the news that Maxis could be offering the iPhone 4 in Malaysia as early as August. However he didn’t reveal any pricing but mentions that the data plans would not be expensive.

This is what we have predicted earlier this month and we believe the pricing shouldn’t be too far off from Maxis offering for the iPhone 3GS.

Several days back, we also received confirmation that Maxis will be offering the 8GB version of the iPhone 3GS.

These signals that Maxis is preparing for imminent launch and we simply can’t wait for them to start accepting pre-orders soon. We also just hope that Apple would step up its supplies amidst strong demands.

In the same report, the COO also mentions that Maxis could be offering the iPad 3G but now it seems that decision depends on Apple right now.

[ Source ]

Maxis tests LTE in Malaysia

Last Friday, Maxis became the first operator in Malaysia to successfully test an LTE network.

In the test, Maxis working together with Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei, managed to achieve download speeds of between 60 to 104Mbps.

In a press release announcing the successful completion of the test, Maxis mentioned that it will continue with LTE testing in Bandar Utama and Damansara “to rigorously assess the quality of LTE performance” with its existing HSPA network. In the same release Maxis said that its network is ready for LTE integration.

Does this mean we will be seeing LTE deployments in Malaysia soon?

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Maxis’s Samsung Galaxy S pricing unveiled

Looks like Maxis is now the country’s most prolific telco at the moment.

Just a month back it launched and had exclusive selling rights for the HTC Desire. Just recently, the people running it’s official Twitter account have just confirmed with us that Maxis will be bringing in the 8GB iPhone 3GS and today, ahead of the official launch, Maxis has revealed the subsidized pricing for the Samsung Galaxy S.

We mentioned earlier that it will be close to what Maxis is offering for the HTC Desire and we we’re not far off. With a 12 month contract on any Value Plus plan with an added on data plan, the Galaxy S can be yours for RM1,699.

It’s a pretty good deal considering the specs you’re getting. It’s hard to imagine that just a couple of years back you’d be paying upward of RM3,000 for a comparable WinMo smartphone.

Technology is definitely getting cheaper.

We’ll be at the Samsung galaxy S launch today to try out the phone for the first time and give you the details. We’re a man down today, so there won’t be live blog coverage for this event.

In the meantime, check out this pretty nifty Swype app.