Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE Network

One of the big announcements at this year’s recent Consumer Electronic Show (CES) was the expansion of Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE Wireless Network. Ten new devices will run on this network, and Honolulu, Lahaina, Kahului and Wailuku are included on the list of 140 expanding markets. Four categories of products are featured with the LTE network expansion (available by mid-2011): Tablets, Smartphones, Mifi/Mobile Hotspot and Notebooks.

As you may remember from my column last week, CES was all about the tablets. The Motorola XOOM tablet was one of the biggest stars there, and it happens to be one of the featured tablets that Verizon Wireless will have on its new 4G LTE network. The 4G LTE-enabled Samsung Galaxy Tab is the other. The XOOM has a 10.1-inch widescreen HD display and runs the Android Honeycomb operating system. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has a 7-inch display, rear-facing 5-megapixel camera/front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera, runs the Android 2.2 operating system, and Adobe Flash 10.1 is built-in.

Here we go again, more smartphones. The LTE lineup includes HTC Thunderbolt (exclusive to Verizon Wireless), LG Revolution, DROID Bionic 4G and the Samsung 4G LTE Smartphone. Too many details to mention them all, but the highlight is the Thunderbolt. It features HTC Sense 2.0, Skype mobile with video, a 4.3-inch display and an HD 8-megapixel camera. Most of the other phones mentioned include HD support, Android 2.2 with Flash and rear/front-facing cameras.

The LTE mobile wireless access points are the Novatel MiFi 4510L and the Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot. Both are dual-mode (3G/4G) and can support up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices at a time. The Novatel MiFi is a little more compact and can fit in the palm of your hand or easily into your small purse.

Lastly, the LTE-featured notebooks include the Compaq CQ10-688nr and the HP Pavilion dm1-3010nr. The 688nr has a 10.1-inch anti-glare widescreen LED display with an Intel Atom N455 processor with battery life of up to 8.5 hours. The dm1-3010nr is a little bigger with an 11.6-inch screen and a battery life of 10.75 hours.

Verizon Wireless claims the launch of this 4G LTE network has provided users with speeds up to 10 times faster than the 3G network. I haven’t been able to try it myself yet, but the claimed speeds are five to 12 megabits per second for the downlink and two to five Mbps on the uplink. For more information, visit verizonwireless.com.

Mac App Store

Instead of a mobile app of the week, I must make mention of Apple’s long overdue Mac App Store. Something that should have opened for business a long time ago, the Mac App Store started off a couple weeks ago with more than 1,000 apps and more than 1 million downloads on day one.

The experience of the iTunes App Store you know and love for your iPhone/iPod/iPad is now possible directly from your Mac. To install the Mac App Store function to your computer, you’ll need to have Snow Leopard on your Mac, then download a free software update (OS X v10.6.6). This update will automatically add it to your dock.

When you download an app from the Mac App Store, it automatically adds it to your Applications folder, and you run it as you would a regular program.

If you’re on OS X Snow Leopard, this is a must-have!