WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

T-Mobile and Samsung announced their new  QWERTY messaging phones Samsung Gravity 3 and Samsung Gravity T -- and the Samsung :) (Smiley).

The Samsung :), Gravity 3 and Gravity T offer messaging capabilities and web access.  They also have a new social networking feature called T-Mobile Social Buzz, which integrates popular social networking sites into one application. Social Buzz continues running in the background and alerts when there is an update.

The Samsung :)  has rounded-edge design, a slide-up vertical QWERTY keyboard and a dedicated shortcut for quick access to messaging applications, including text, picture, video and instant messaging, as well as Exchange and personal e-mail capability. The :) offers an easy-to-use interface, a built-in camera and camcorder, a music player and support for expandable memory.

Samsung Gravity 3 and Samsung Gravity T come with slide-out QWERTY keyboards and a complete messaging suite, including Exchange and personal e-mail capability, calendar and contacts. The Gravity 3 has an external T9 keyboard and a slide-out, full QWERTY keyboard, while the Gravity T features a customizable 2.8-inch touch screen that provides a premium touch and messaging experience at an affordable price. Both Gravity phones include a 2-megapixel camera and camcorder, built-in music player, HTML browser and support for up to 16 GB of expandable memory.

Prices for the Smiley, Gravity 3, and Gravity T are $19.99, $49.99, and $74.99 respectively

More and more families are finding that text messaging is one of the best ways to communicate. In a March 2010 internal survey, close to 70 percent of T-Mobile customers indicated that they had used text messaging to stay connected at least once within the prior 7 days. Over the past three years, the average number of text messages T-Mobile customers have sent and received per quarter has nearly tripled from 262 messages in Q1 2007 to 752 messages in Q3 20092. In 2009, 250 billion text and picture messages were sent by T-Mobile postpaid subscribers, a 51 percent growth over the 165 billion messages sent over the T-Mobile network in 2008. The new lineup of Samsung messaging phones help to answer the call for affordable, easy-to-use phones as text messaging communication increases among families.