Do You Get Charged for using AIM Mobile?

With the Aim help forums down, we tackle a question thats been asked on other help sites. We’ll tackle the American carriers and see how much it would cost to use AIM. Let’s take a look into some definitions first.

What’s the difference?

SMS Text: SMS messages are quite commonly known as texts. If your AIM Mobile application uses text messages, you will get charged one text for signing on, one for retrieving your buddy list, and one for updating your buddy list.

Additionally you will be charged for sending an IM and charged for receiving an IM. If you take this route it should take you at least 4 text messages to sign on and off. If your a heavy AIM user, you might want to consider asking for unlimited texting plan.

Data: Data messages are sent over your mobile phone’s data stream. This is commonly known as 3G, Edge, or Wi-Fi. 3G and Edge is provided by your cellphone carrier. More likely than not if you use 3G or Edge, you probably have an unlimited data plan, but you should still check with your carrier to make sure.

If you use Wi-Fi, it’s for the most part free if you have your own coverage at home. However in public facilities companies may charge Wi-Fi access, luckily they require a password before you connect, meaning that you won’t get charged until you supply credit card info.

In Plain English Please?

Texting: You will get charged per text, unless you have unlimited text messages.

Data: You will get charged per kilobyte or megabyte, unless you have unlimited data plan.

Sending Text Messages from the Computer?

If your on the computer, AIM allows you to send text messages to cellphones for free. The person who sends text messages on the computer will not be charged. 

The person who recieves the text message will get charged. Before texting anyone, please make sure to ask them before hand if they have a texting plan.

Any differences between phones?

• What about the Blackberry?
  • Blackberry for the most part uses a data plan. However T-Mobile’s built in application will use text messages. You can however download different IM applications for blackberry. Read here for more info.

• What about Windows Mobile?
  • Windows mobile phones use data. AOL has provided a beta for AIM for Windows Mobile.

• What about the iPhone?
  • The iPhone uses data through Edge, 3G, or Wi-Fi. The iPhone has an unlimited data plan so feel free to use AIM anytime.

• What about my Cellphone?
  • The regular run of the mill cell phone will most likely use texting. However there are some crafty ways around this. You can sign onto Aim without using any text messages.

Verizon vs T-Mobile: Choosing a Carrier from the Tech standpoint.

We’re back with newer more updated information for each carrier. Since this article was last updated, we have seen the introduction of the iPhone. The iPhone has set a new standard on what a cell phone should be. The iPhone will be used as a measurement of quality between teh two carriers. The closer the capabilities are to that of the iPhone, the better the score will be.

Glossary

WAP: This will be the internet for low budget phones. T-Mobile calls this Tzones, while Verizon calls it Verizon Mobile Web. WAP is very limited but you will be able to surf web pages.

JAVA: This refers only to T-Mobile’s gaming capabilities.

BREW: This refers only to Verizon’s gaming capabilities.

Texting Plans

The most hottest features on the market is texting and data. Thanks to the iPhone, full HTML browsing is a must. But if your under a strict budget, you’ll just have to deal with what you get.

T-Mobile Text Plans

• 400 Text Messages for $5.00/Month
• 1000 Text Messages for $10/Month
• Unlimited Text Messages for $15.00/Month

Verizon Text Plans

• 250 Texts for $5.00/Month
• 500 Texts + Unlimited IN Text for $10.00/Month
• 1500 Texts + Unlimited IN Text for $15/Month
• 5000 Texts + Unlimited IN Text for $20/Month

OR

• Unlimited Text + 450 Minutes Free N/Wk For $60/Month

Verizon Wireless has two types of unlimited plans. The Basic voice plan has the option to choose Unlimited IN text. Unlimited IN Texting only applies to messaging other Verizon wireless customers for free, this does not apply to AIM/YAHOO/MSN text messaging. If you have the Select voice plan, all your text messages will be unlimited meaning AIM/YAHOO/MSN is included.

Data Plans

T-Mobile Wireless data plans

• Blackberry Unlimited Add On $20/Month
• T-Mobile Internet Plan $20/Month

Verizon Wireless bundles data together with your voice plan.

• Blackberry for $80/Month
• Smartphone for $80/Month

T-Mobile Phones

Low Budget T-Mobile cell phones are very limited in capability. You won’t be doing much gaming and web surfing since your your hindered by your phone’s memory allocation. Each phone has a different amount of internal memory set for those applications. As such, do not expect too much out of the device as it will be crash under heavy acticity. The bare minimum for techies will now be the Motorola Razr. You should avoid all FREE phones and stick with $19.99 or above. We recommend Nokia 6133, Motorola W490, Samsung T729, Samsung SGH-T339. These phones were selected for their gaming, wap, and music capability.

High budget T-Mobile smart phones are just barely on par with Verizon. The network speeds are slower than Verizon’s 3G service for low budget phones. We recommend T-Mobile Blackberry Pearl & Blackberry Curve. For windows mobile we recommend T-Mobile Shadow and T-Mobile Wing. These phones are capable of running full HTML browsers and can use wi-fi to access the internet.

Verizon Phones

Verizon has been playing catchup with the iPhone ever since it came out. Don’t be fooled by Verizon’s new touchscreen capabilities on their cellphones. They are nowhere near iPhone, and are quite limited to touch and flick.

Verizon replaces the original operating system installed on the phone. This creates a unified approach to most of their cellphones. You can think of it as installing Windows on different computers. They all can run the same applications no matter how cheap or how expensive. Of course if you buy more higher end phones you may get touch capabilities, bigger screens, and TV. But essentially, my 29.99 phone can run the same applications as your 149.99 phone.

Since we are techies here, when selecting a low end phone please avoid the following: Samsung SCH-u340, Verizon Wireless CDM 8905, and Verizon Wireless Coupe. These phones do not have Verizon’s operating system installed, and are pretty much similar to the way T-mobile phones function. Samsung Juke is now the new base phone. This is a huge upgrade from all the T-Mobile phones you get for free. The Juke however does not support downloading music wirelessly. However there are many other phones that can. You can purchase these songs from your phone and download them straight to it. You can also play music on a non-music themed phone, however sound quality may not be good, for example Motorola W755 has substandard music quality based on C|Net’s review.

For Low End Phones we recommend Samsung Juke (No V-Cast Video), LG Chocolate, Motorola Moto W755, and LG VX8350.

For High End phones we recommend LG Chocolate 3, LG Dare, Samsung Gleam, Blackberry Pearl, any Windows Mobile phone.

Gaming

Verizon runs games in BREW. BREW is a great but locked down format. Unfortunately for you, games are much much more expensive than T-mobile’s but you won’t need certain phones to run certain games. BREW is capable of running stunning 3D games. They run very fast with no noticeable slowdown at all.

T-Mobile runs games in JAVA. Java has one plus side over Brew in that you can actually transfer the file from the computer to the phone through USB. Java is really tied down to how much memory your phone can handle. So older phones may not be able to handle more demanding games. Slowdowns can occur quite easily.

Can The Sims 3 Help EA Get its Groove Back?

Old Article Below
Click For Newer Details for The Sims 3

Electronic Arts has been known for its struggle on garnering trust to its gamers. Economically EA’s potential for profit is huge with their Sports line, Maxis, Boxing, Action, and Mobile gaming department. They continuously flaunt their in-game advertisements and its economic success.

Still this all takes a toll on a consumers by the recent drop in stock shares and quarterly earnings reports. The Sims 3 has many potential spots to solidify game play and do well with gamers. But we worry if EA’s marketing strategy will get the best of it.

A New Gaming Approach

The Sims 3 has an ambitious goal ahead of it. One of the major changes is that it now focuses on ONE household. Your person is placed into a world where everyone’s lives evolves with or without you. It sort of follows the lines of a MMORPG. Everyone existing in the game has their own schedule, love life, and personality. This doesn’t seem to worry fans too much since this concept was used during the Life Stories product line.

The Art Style

The most critical component for potential consumers at this stage is the graphics. The graphics look marginally better than they appeared in The Sims 2. A more realistic approach was expected, unfortunately the only areas so far that seems to be visually improved are the outdoors.

This screenshot depicts of a more detailed and realistic look of how a neighborhood is like. Now that the world is seamless, the gameplay allows you to leave your house and walk to another in real time. You will be able to move around the world with as much freedom as the console games. Hopefully as you move around, there should not be anymore loading splash screens that break up the action, but I do expect a loading screen before you enter another building.

Interior design still has that barren Sims 1-like look, every object is placed on a grid. The only new feature with object placement is diagonal rotation. This is not enough to make this game stand out from its predecessor. [Editor's Note] They have now revealed 360 degree rotation. This will now place the game way above Sims 2. Path finding need’s to be able to adapt to these rotations though.

This is the only screenshot so far has the most radiant lighting effect. The sun shines through the windows and the couch gives off its glossy glow, if only every screenshot presented this rise in quality…

User Feedback

Here are some various user comments from different message boards:

What I was most looking forward to in Sims 3 was a major overhaul in the department–a more realistic looking game–after all, it is a life simulation, but apparently that’s not going to happen. This looks like more of same to me, with incremental improvements.

Actually I looked at some of the graphics and they are dramatically improved hardware wise. The problem is that everything is unquestionably UGLY

Lindsay Pearson Interview Response:

However the screenshots give a somewhat distorted image, because when you see the Sims 3 live at work, you immediately notice the high detail in the world and its characters.

We shall see how this will turn out, there isn’t much uproar for this game as Simcity Societies. So far EA, your on a positive note here.

The Sims 3 will be released in US on June 2nd, 2009

The Sims 3 will be released in UK on June 5th, 2009

The Sims 3 will be released in AU on June 4th, 2009

Learn More About the Sims 3

Myspace Now on your Cellphone for Free!

Myspace has just launched a mobile wap version of their site which you can use at http://mobile.myspace.com from your cellphone. You can look up new friend requests, send messages, and read their profile.

This works on any cellphone carrier in the U.S as long as you have a mobile web browser also known as WAP. For now, photos are not showing up for some reason, maybe its a bit too early?

How to get the Old Yahoo Mobile News Back!

So Yahoo updated their Mobile News portal two weeks ago and quite frankly, it sucks. The old news portal used to have a wealth of information and multiple sub categories putting all your news together. Now they have updated it forcing you to login and add your own RSS Feeds. This would be great, but most RSS feeds don’t display the whole content, forcing you to "click here for more". Sadly you can’t even click within the RSS feed, making it practically useless.

Old Yahoo Mobile News Portal 

–Go to URL:

http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?dp=rssnews

Now your done and you can enjoy the whole news from your cell phone!

Use AIM and MSN on your Cellphone without Paying for Text Messages

Verizon users read up! We finally have a site that allows us the freedom to use AIM, MSN, Gtalk, and Skype. It works perfectly on LGVX8300, just don’t try to edit your groups or you’ll get that insufficient memory crap. 

How to Get AIM on your Cellphone for Free

Nimbuzz uses the WAP protocol so no text messages are needed and there is no need to download any applications. Now AT&T, Cingular,  and T-Mobile users don’t really need to worry about this because they have applications already but if your still curious, here’s a list of how to access AIM, MSN, etc on your cellphone depending on your carrier.

Verizon Users

Verizon users need to have  both America’s Choice Basic + VCast Vpack. If you have America’s Choice Select, or America’s Choice Premium, there is no need to read on. Select and Premium plans have unlimited Text Messages and you can use AIM from Get It NoW! for Free.

1. Open Verizon Wireless Mobile Web

2. Press Menu

3. Press Go to URL

4. Type Url: web.nimbuzz.com

5. Register and Login

6. Click Settings

7. Click Communities

8. Choose your Community and enter Login Information!

T-Mobile Users

T-mobile Users, can either use AIM from their cellphone’s desktop or use T-Mobile branded AIM through T-zones. If you have unlimited text messages you do not need to use Tzones Aim as it is much slower and painful to use. If you have unlimited T-Zones you can also MSN Method

For AIM

1. Press Tzones

2. Type AIM in Search Box

3. Press AIM and Sign In!

For MSN

1. Go to http://www.nimbuzz.com/en/getstarted/mobile/

2. Enter your Cellphone

3. Send Link to Download Java App

AT&T iPhone Users

Its odd how iPhone users get the least crippled software on their phones. iPhone users have a variety of choices to use but the most popular one right now is TinyBuddy, it works only for iPhone.

1. Click Safari

2. Type URL: http://x.aim.com/ty/

3.  Sign in!

The Alternatives

Ebuddy and E-Messenger are the only major alternatives for Wap aim.

T-Mobile Blocks Opera Mini again?

For about 2 months, Opera Mini worked fine with no connection problems whatsoever. Now it seems 2 days ago after a OTA message, everything went all wonky. During my tests, I can connect with Opera Mini, however a "Connection Closed by Remote Server" error message pops up making the app useless. Others were unable to connect at all receiving a "failed connection test." Is this some evil plan to charge extra for data over java applets, or some bug in the system? Only time will tell.

Update — Feb 22, 2007

A blog post gives a little rundown on T-mobile US and how they block applications on their phones. Oddly enough, the UK service does not block Java Applets from accessing the internet. T-mobile blocks the Web Sessions area from all Motorola phones thus blocking anyone from editing them unless you have PKtools and a data cable. Some of her comments are critical against her but the main point is, if the T Mobile UK’s  "t-zones" allows access to Opera Mini, then so should the US service. Why are we getting cut out of a deal we pay for? Well I smell another useless online petition.

How to Download Games on your Cellphone without a Data Cable

You may not have a Nintendo DS or a Playstation Portable, but that doesn’t mean you are forced to play those cruddy games on your cell. All you need is a WAP browser, a data plan, and your set to go. Make sure to read the extra notes at the bottom of the post.

read more

Review: Best Websites on your Cell

AOL, Google, and Windows Live, have been the biggest players in providing websites for your cell. In the world of WAP, there is limited amount of space and bandwith. Its essential to create sites that are easy to use with quick load times.  We’ll divulge into each one of these as well as others suggested by you.

read more

T-Mobile finally allows Opera Mini, Gmail, and Google Maps

Finally, for years T-mobile has blocked Java Midlet Applications from accessing the internet. Because of this, forums would get flooded with "WHY MY TMOB RAZR WUNT WORK WIT OPERA HALP!!!" The only way to fix this is to modify your phone. You would have to shell out some cash just to buy a data cable to connect to your PC. Then you’d have to unlock the phone and change some settings to allow access. Well from December 18 this is no more. No more waiting for the slow internal WAP browser to scroll down one page of text. Now you are able to access any of your favorite Java Apps with no data connection erros. While testing the different applications, I have found that Opera Mini and Gmail seems to work the best. Google Maps on the otherhand is pretty slow and your actually better off using the WAP version. While your having fun with your new apps, you can probably disregard the upcoming post about a review of the popular WAP sites.