Phone Junkie

It will no longer cost you more to cancel a Nexus One contract than it does to buy a Nexus One. But Google's still imposing a $150 "equipment recovery fee" on top of T-Mobile's $200 ETF.

The change comes on the heels of an FCC inquiry into out-of-control termination fees. Up until now, Nexus One owners were expected to pay $350 in the event of canceling or downgrading their T-Mobile contracts within 120 days. With the new Terms of Sale, however:

"You agree to pay Google an equipment subsidy recovery fee (the "Equipment Recovery Fee") in the event you cancel or downgrade your wireless plan within 120 days of activation of wireless service. If you activate a new line of service with T-Mobile, your Equipment Recovery Fee will be $150 USD if you cancel or downgrade your service plan within 120 days of activation."

Obviously, Google doesn't want folks selling phones under contract for profit, and they claim not to make any money off of equipment recovery. But while $150 extra is better than $350 extra, it's still a huge fine to impose on someone for changing their mind. [Google Terms of Sale via WSJ]

HTC's had some faulty plumbing lately: first pics of the Incredible leak over the weekend, and now we've got our first look at the HTC Legend in the wild—complete with an ooo-shiny aluminum back.

The design—particularly the aluminum casing and optical sensor trackpad—jives with what we'd heard recently, as does the apparent HTC Sense interface.

It's a different look for HTC, but I'd say not an unwelcome one. It's especially comforting to know we're not looking at a slew of brown-backed *cough* Incredible *cough* handsets. If the rest of the rumored specs—inclduing a 5.0-megapixel with LED flash, a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, and 512MB of internal memory—pan out, this looks like a nice step up from the Hero. Hopefully we'll find out for sure at the Mobile World Congress next week. [Engadget]

You hear the 9.7-inch iPad has a screen resolution of 1024x768, and you think to yourself, that's not so bad! And it's not. But when you later hear that a new 4-inch smartphone will feature a resolution of 1280x1024, well...

...it's just tough to be floored by anything less.

(Those of you noting the discrepancy between the spec resolution and the general wideness of the screen: you're right to do so.)

The Qisda (you also know them as BenQ) QCM-330, expected to debut at the upcoming CeBIT tradeshow this March before being available through Vodafone, features a 4-inch, 1280x1024 screen that could be sharper than life itself, along with HSDPA and Wi-Fi. When compared to the Droid (480 x 854) and the HD2 (480 X 800), it's pretty amazing. But yes, again, that 1280x1024 is square, and this phone is long, so it's kind of confusing.

We don't know much else, other than that it will most likely run Android given the Home key (which makes the prospect of importing a phone for its hardware alone so much more appealing). But if you're one of those people who doesn't like to use the same phone as other people, the QCM-330 might be a decent handset to watch. [Unwired View via SlashGear]

As we become more aware of the various viscera inside our gadgets, otherwise unremarkable gadgets seem suddenly... strange. Take the LG Arena Max LU9400: It's almost definitely a feature phone, but it's got the spec sheet of a Nexus One.

The Arena Max is a 3.5-inch screen handset with all the iron you'd expect, including a Wi-Fi, GPS and a five-megapixel camera, and a little you wouldn't, like a 1GHz Snapdragon processor—the same brain you'd find in the Nexus One, the HTC Touch HD2, and the Sony Xperia X10. In other words, it's a monster.

But if it's anything like its predecessor—and these early shots seem to indicate that it is—it'll be treated to (burdened by?) an in-house OS and UI, most probably LG's flashy-but-limited S-Class experiment. If you're the kind of person who doesn't fret over your phone's spec sheet this probably won't matter; if you are, you'd probably just buy a real smartphone anyway.

Anyway! The Arena Max is expected to launch in Korea soon, with a wide—including stateside—release following right after. [All About Phones via Slashgear]

Seen here is the first SUPER AMOLED PHOOOONNNNEEE from Samsung, which is so SUPER you must wear a protective suit to touch it, lest you become SUPER too.

We knew their integrated AMOLEDs were on the way soon, and while the first device (which supposedly has a 3.3-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen) hasn't been named/specced-out, at least we know it'll have more sharp corners than the Motorola Droid. Crazy boasts are already being thrown around, suggesting the AMOLEDs will be five times brighter than the average phone, and will perform 20 per cent better when used outside—which is definitely an important issue, for anyone who struggles using their phone in direct sunlight. [Korea Times via OLED-display]

Seen here is the first SUPER AMOLED PHOOOONNNNEEE from Samsung, which is so SUPER you must wear a protective suit to touch it, lest you become SUPER too.

We knew their integrated AMOLEDs were on the way soon, and while the first device (which supposedly has a 3.3-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen) hasn't been named/specced-out, at least we know it'll have more sharp corners than the Motorola Droid. Crazy boasts are already being thrown around, suggesting the AMOLEDs will be five times brighter than the average phone, and will perform 20 per cent better when used outside—which is definitely an important issue, for anyone who struggles using their phone in direct sunlight. [Korea Times via OLED-display]

UPDATE: Yes, they're just panels, not the actual phone. I need new glasses, I accidentally slept on them (and damaged them) the other night. Long story.