AT&T Offering 50% Off Smartphones Purchased Online Until June 30th

AT&T is offering 50% its devices when purchased online with a two-year contract, from now until June 30th. The deal comes attached to another offer, which is an in-store trade-in program which applies a $100 discount when a customer trades in a device no more than 3 years old. Android Centralpointed to the fine print in the offer, which is as follows:

“Online orders only. Receive 50% off instantly on smartphones between $.99 and $199.99 only. New 2-yr wireless agreement with voice (min $39.99/mo) and data (min $20/mo) plans or Mobile Share plan (min $85/mo) req’d. Trade-in not req’d for instant discount but can trade-in eligible devices online to receive AT&T Promotion Card.”

So there you have it, any smartphone with a new two-year contract purchased online will receive a 50% discount. So if you’ve been waiting to grab one of the year’s hottest smartphones such as the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S 4 or iPhone 5 on AT&T’s network, now is a great time to purchase one. Hurry though, the offer expires on June 30th.

Virgin Mobile To Offer The iPhone 5 Starting on June 28th

Virgin Mobile is about to add the iPhone 5 to its arsenal of 4G LTE capable smartphones, starting next Friday June 28th. Virgin Mobile will be offering the 16GB iPhone 5 for a price of $549.99.

Virgin will offer the 16GB iPhone 5 in either white or black colors, and will be sold at Virgin Mobile dealers and Radio Shack. The 32GB and 64GB versions of the iPhone will only be available for purchase from Virgin Mobile’s website. The 32GB version will cost $649.99, and the 64GB version will be priced at $749.99.

Virgin Mobile, which operates as an MVNO over Sprint’s network joins T-Mobile in offering the iPhone 5 on a pre-paid plan. Virgin offers affordable pre-paid Beyond Talk Plans, which start at $35 a month and top out at $55 a month. All of the Beyond Talk Plans include unlimited text messaging and 4G data, with the $35 a month plan including 300 minutes of talk time, the $45 a month plan coming with 1200 minutes of talk time and the $55 a month plan offering unlimited talk time.

The Verge Mobile Show 051 - June 18th 2013

Summer is nearly upon us. The kids are getting out of school, the ice cream man is making his rounds, and the air conditioners are being cranked at full blast. But just because vacation season is underway for most people, it doesn't mean that anyone is taking a break in our little mobile universe. We're a week out from Apple's big announcement of iOS 7, and the debate surrounding it is still going strong. Nokia recently teased us with an upcoming device announcement — could it be the long-awaited Windows Phone 'EOS' device with a real PureView camera? And Huawei just took the wraps off of its latest flagship handset. We'll be tackling all this and more in this week's episode of The Verge Mobile Show, so tune in
!

Google’s Sundar Pichai Announces HTC One Google Edition, Available June 26 For $599

Google will make another mobile phone available with stock Android soon. Sundar Pichai, SVP of Android, Chrome, and Apps, announced at the D11 Conference that the company will sell the HTC One Google Edition for $599 on the Google Play store, beginning June 26.

Google has previously announced the availability of the Samsung Galaxy S4 with stock Android through the Play Store, which will retail for $649. That device was announced during I/O, with availability also set for June 26.

“We’re developing a user experience that scales across the world[...],” Pichai said, explaining why the Google Edition devices are now a priority for the company. “We’re making Android the operating system that is consistent across all of these devices.”

“The challenge is related to what is great about Android [...] The scale and scope of Android is pretty breathtaking,” Pichai explained further. “From a Google perspective, we care about how users use Android and the user experience.”

HTC has already offered a similar device through its own online retail store, the HTC One Developer Edition. The Developer Edition is a $649.99 device that has 64GB of onboard storage, plus an unlocked bootloader. The new Google Play version of the One will differ in that it will also offer stock Android, and updates that arrive in time with those issued for Nexus devices and the Play version of the Galaxy S4. The Developer Edition also ships with Jelly Bean 4.1, but the HTC One Google Edition will ship with Jelly Bean 4.2.2. Also, the Google version will carry 32GB of internal storage instead of the 64 from the dev model. The Google HTC One works with GSM cellular networks.

HTC says it will continue to offer the Developer Edition direct from its own website, but the $599 Google Edition, with its GSM network support and initial U.S.-only availability, is probably the better buy for developers looking to not only try out the hardware but also stay up-to-date on the very latest from Google’s OS.

The HTC One has already been well-received by critics, and offering it with a stock Android experience is sure to be a hit with a specific audience. It’s also impressive that it will cost $50 less than the competition from Samsung. But now that Google is clearly interested in expanding the so-called “Nexus Experience” beyond its own line of co-branded devices like the Nexus 4 from manufacturer LG, it’ll be interesting to see what role those “blessed” handsets will have in the future, or whether “Nexus” becomes more of a designation than a specific device line.

Nvidia lowers Shield price to $299 ahead of June 27th release date

Since its unveiling at CES 2013, Nvidia's Shield portable console has undergone quite a few revisions. When the company put its Tegra 4-powered Android device in gamers' hands at PAX East in March, it found enough dissatisfaction with its ergonomics to perform a significant physical redesign. Since then, Shield demo units have toured the globe, from Computex in Taipei to E3 in LA, and now Nvidia's addressing the other major concern expressed by those who've tried it: the price.

Shield pre-orders began at $349 roughly a month ago, but Nvidia's slashing that cost to $299 and officially confirming June 27th as the release date for its clamshell console. Anyone who's already put in a pre-order will be charged the lower price, and pre-orders are open at Newegg, Game Stop, and Nvidia's own Shield page for the new amount. Back at Computex earlier this month, we got to spend some time with the first production unit to roll off the Shield assembly line, which you can explore in the gallery below. It's actually a direct match for the production prototype that Nvidia demonstrated in mid-May, so for more impressions on its handling and operation, check out our hands-on preview.

NVIDIA SHIELD FIRST PRODUCTION UNIT (HANDS-ON)

VIEW FULL GALLERY

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Sony says it will fix unusable PlayStation 3 software with a June 27th patch

A couple of days ago, many PlayStation 3 owners found that the latest version of Sony's firmware locked up their systems, causing the PS3 to hang indefinitely at startup. Sony quickly took version 4.45 of the software offline, saying it would work to resolve the problem. Now, PlayStation Europe has said that a fix is coming on June 27th, hopefully across all regions — though it hasn't been posted on the main PlayStation Twitter account
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AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 Available on June 21st For $199

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is slated for a June 21st launch on AT&T, and the company is offering a bundle deal for those customers looking to save a few bucks on the new tablet.

AT&T will offer the Galaxy Note 8.0 for $399.99 with a two-year contract, and is offering customers the device for $199.99 when bundled with a Samsung Galaxy S 4,Galaxy S 4 Active or a Galaxy Note II and a qualifying plan.

The AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 will have LTE connectivity, an 8-inch display with a  1280 x 800 p resolution, a 1.6 GHz quad-core Exynos 4 processor, 2 GB of RAM, a 4,600 mAh battery and 16GB of memory. The Note 8.0 also features a microSD slot, the S-Pen and Samsung features such as Multi-Window, Air View and Samsung SAFE.

Torchlight Free on Good Old Games – Grab It Before June 20!

Good Old Games has a major sale going on some classic titles. To sweeten the pot, the site’s also giving away a download ofTorchlight for free!

The title says it all: to celebrate the beginning of our phenomenal 2013 #noDRM Summer Sale, we’re giving away the hack-and-slash masterpiece Torchlight for absolutely free to all of our users, for both Windows and Mac. You have exactly 48 hours to grab your copy of that incredibly fun and addicting action-RPG, complete with a level editor and a sensational MP3 soundtrack. No strings attached, and–of course–absolutely #NoDRM!

All you need to do, is to visit the Torchlight product page and put it in your cart. You’ll pay exactly $0.00 for it, as long as you complete your purchase before Thursday, June 20, at 12:59PM GMT.

The “Summer of No DRM” is happening until July 5th, with daily deals. So, after you nab your free copy of Torchlight, you might consider grabbing both Alan Wake AND Alan Wake’s American Nightmare for just $4.48 (sale ends tomorrow morning). There will be new daily deals throughout the sale.

The sale ends July 5 and the Torchlight giveaway ends on Thursday, June 20 at 8:59 a.m. ET. Check out all the deals and be sure to grab your free Torchlight download.