The video is from Vietnamese site, Tinhte.com, (no freaky extra finger this time), so is likely an engineering sample. That'd also explain the sluggish response it seems to have. [YouTube via SlashGear]

Yeah, it's a blurry pic and it vaguely looks like the Tour (as expected), but then again we did expect the Essex to be just that: an upgraded Tour.

What we're more interested in is all the rumors floating around about the Dakota. Aside from the info about the touchscreen and "liquid lens," Electronista says that "little else is known about the Dakota other than that it would have the now-standard trackpad and work on GSM (and likely HSPA) networks." So, CDMA carriers get a little upgrade while GSM carriers might get a new toy? Typical. [Electronista]

The problem, of course, is that monthly fees will most likely be part of the deal—monthly fees that many GPS users are probably not willing to pay. Still, the nuvi 1690 appears to be on its way, for better or worse—although pricing and a release date have yet to be announced. [Electronista]

The recently released CATS.i measures just 45mm x 35mm x 12mm, and makers say it can be used to track cars, pets and even people. Given that they also claim this is the "most covert" tracking device of its type and is "almost undetectable when being worn", I'm not sure I want to know who their normal customers are.

The device uses a built-in GSM sim chip to report back its GPS data, either constantly or at set intervals, which can then be tracked online. It is battery powered but can also be hardwired to vehicles, or even solar power—though the makers don't specify how. Quad band GSM, GSP and RF ensures you should be able to monitor the people you are stalking—sorry, tracking—wherever they go. [Cats.i]

Roger also confirms that there's a special line for iPhone converts: "Of course, the line wraps around uranus." Oh, that Roger. [All Things Digital Coverage]

Friedham Hillebrand was a communications researcher who was working with a group on developing a standard for cellphones to send and receive text messages. So he sat down on his typewriter and banged out a bunch of random sentences and questions, counted up the number of characters it took, and decided 160 was the magic number. I'm actually somewhat curious as to how an old German dude would've come up with messages that short in the days before ROFLcopters swarmed in the sky.

Anyways, as chairman of GSM's nonvoice services committee he came up with the idea of backdooring the messages in the radio channels phone already used to figure out reception stength—which initially limited them to 128 characters, not the 160 Hillebrand had decided was perfect. After some serious tweaking, they raised the limit 160 characters. Then he forced every carrier to support SMS, or die in a fiery fire of doomy doom. Friedham Hillebrand, modern-day hero. [LA Times via HardOCP]

The Rong Zun 758 Razor is a GSM phone that features a detachable bottom plate covering a working shaver along with dual SIM card slots, a 2.6-inch touchscreen, 3-megapixel camera, MP3/MP4 player, FM radio, GPRS, Bluetooth connectivity and a microSD slot. It also features an endorsement by David Beckham (whether he knows it or not).

Not bad for only $115—if you are willing to spend money on a shady Chinese product and spend the day picking out small beard and/or pube hairs from your mouth. [i-Pmart via 2dayBlog]

For all the miraculous things we're able to do with phones now—tell 600 Twitter followers unpleasantly intimate details of our lives, for instance—it's amazing what's still missing: Universally excellent reception. Without enough bars, your phone becomes a shiny, useless brick. We've already explained how cell towers basically work. Now, we're gonna talk about how the invisible fairies who carry your voice and data between the cell site and your Moto RAZR actually do their jobs.

Okay, there are no fairies. Everything is actually carried on radio waves—ultra high frequency (UHF, as in the Weird Al movie) radio waves, to be precise. UHF refers to any frequencies between 300MHz and 3GHz, so Wi-Fi, your mom's cordless phone, your lame Bluetooth headset and other stuff all run on the broad UHF band. The thing about radio waves is that they're pretty easy to screw with, and UHF is no exception, despite the fact it has "ultra" in the name. Maybe if we had like, Chuck Norris Frequency, things would be different.

The Interference
You're walking around with a glorified walkie talkie. It's emitting radio waves, and trying to catch others that come from a tower. So a huge reason that you sometimes get a signal weaker than bodega coffee is stuff getting in the way. And the farther away from the cell tower your are, the more likely it is that stuff is gonna get in your way, even if the radio waves are strong enough to reach you.

Since the frequencies for cell service essentially travel in a straight line, you're screwed if you roll behind a big hill or building. Big obstacles are obviously trouble, but little obstacles cause huge problems too. Different materials have different effects on the radio waves, since they are subject to things like reflection and absorption. A building with lots of reflective metal on the outside is gonna have a crummy signal inside. Conductive materials have a tendency to absorb and weaken, (or "attenuate") the signal. (This is why you can't forge a phone completely out of aluminum.) Plants, while friendly to the earth, are not friendly to cell signals since they absorb the signal.

The Frequency
It also depends on what frequency you're rolling on. Today, Verizon and AT&T use 850 and 1900MHz. T-Mobile uses the 1700, 1900 and 2100MHz bands, mostly 1900. Nextel's iDEN network uses 900MHz, while Sprint's main network runs on 1900MHz with roaming on 800MHz. The Sprint/Clearwire WiMax network is higher up, at 2500MHz, aka 2.5Ghz.

The reason the 700MHz is such hot property for AT&T and Verizon's upcoming high-speed 4G LTE deployment is that lower-frequency signals travel farther and allegedly penetrate some materials better using the same power as a signal on a higher frequency. This is why LTE is suitable for rural broadband deployments.

(Significantly higher frequencies actually do penetrate certain things better at close range and with more power, so this whole discussion can quickly turn into a headache factory if you let it.)

AT&T is currently shifting a lot of their 3G to 850MHz for better penetration after everyone with an iPhone cried about their crappy reception. So being on a lower frequency potentially poses a better chance to have a more solid signal.

Needless to say, the more noisy a particular frequency, the more trouble calls can encounter as well, so carriers have to manage their bandwidth like freeway designers, to avoid the congestion that also contributes to dropped calls.

The Handoff
Handoffs (aka handovers) are another reason your order for a pizza with extra cheese might turn into one for extra grease, especially if you're flying down the highway at 60mph and your phone is wirelessly bouncing from cell tower to cell tower. All kinds of wonky things, like ping-ponging between the two towers, can happen that'll result in a dropped call, especially if it's between two stations that aren't in line of sight.

The Backhaul
Okay, you say, but I have full bars goddammit. Explain that. Well, for one, full bars doesn't necessarily mean anything. There's no industry yardstick that translates the bars into actual information, but they all basically represent averages of signal strength over small chunks of time. But just because the signal strength is good, that doesn't mean the call's going through.

For starters, there are only a finite number of calls a cell tower can handle, which varies depending on the demands of the phone or wireless modem. As calls come in, they are juggled by the tower, then routed through a wired connection (or occasionally a powerful wireless connection) to the greater telecom infrastructure. This is called backhaul, and it can be a bottleneck.

Assuming you're all good, with a fantastic signal and a lock on the tower, but still, your Yelp reviews aren't flowing like they should. Don't forget, at some point, like any dial-up or cable modem, your cell data requests have to compete with everything else on the internet. Even calls are so digitalized these days, their "packets" of data can be interrupted by unknown internetty forces.

The final lesson there? The fatter the hard pipe, the more data it can handle—fiber is the best, obviously, but most towers still use an array of T1 lines. And that bottleneck, as Om pointed out last year, could be mobile broadband's biggest roadblock. Assuming you get past all those other roadblocks.

Still something you still wanna know? Send any questions about cellphones, hotlines, or Jason Chen's pants to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Though AT&T seems to be talking excitedly about its own LTE network—a technology that derives from the GSM networks that AT&T and T-Mobile run, and not the CDMA networks of Sprint and Verizon—Verizon really will be first, and at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Verizon CTO Dick Lynch made a point of letting the world know it. Most of the chatter was stuff we'd published before, but the coolest part of the released statement, about the current and upcoming trials, was new:

Utilizing their existing spectrum, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone have been field testing 4G LTE networks in Minneapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and Northern New Jersey in the United States, as well as in Budapest, Düsseldorf, and Madrid in Europe, with a variety of network infrastructure providers. These field trials have demonstrated download rates of 50 to 60 Mbps peak speeds, though actual average download results will not be determined until the commercial launch of the new Verizon Wireless LTE network. Utilizing its recently acquired 700 MHz spectrum, Verizon Wireless will expand trials this summer, and Lynch said the company will commercially launch its LTE network in 2010. Once the initial rollout is complete, plans are in place for aggressive deployment throughout Verizon Wireless' entire network, including areas not currently covered by the existing Verizon Wireless footprint.

WiMax is already here, and Sprint has proven to be adept at rolling out next-generation data services, but still, I can't help but think that between Verizon and AT&T, LTE will definitely be the 4G technology of choice in America. [More Mobile World Congress 2009 Coverage]

LTWHO??? CDMWHAT?? Drowning in mobile-terminology alphabet soup? Have a quick look at our Giz Explains entry on the various mobile technologies.

Apparently it's just part of an initiative by the GSMA to push products that are "always-connected mobile broadband devices" which are "a compelling alternative to Wi-Fi," and it'll see pre-installed broadband in upcoming laptops in 91 countries, along with a bunch of previously unconnected devices from "cameras and MP3 players to refrigerators, cars and set-top boxes."

Now I get it... Oh hang on, no I don't: why would I connect my fridge or set-top box up over a mobile broadband connection? I'd just use my fast, reliable, always-on wireless home network. Hmmm. [Pocket-Lint]

[Art Lebedev via Pocket-Lint and Unstrung]

• 7.2 mbps HSDPA/UMTS (2100/1900/850 MHz)
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• 1GB of memory, 192MB RAM
• 1400 mAhr battery. Standby time: 528 hours
• MicroUSB port
• MicroSD and MicroSDHC expandable up to 8GB
• 3.2 megapixel camera, flash, 2.5x digital zoom, auto focus, and image stabilization
• Video capture. Normal mode (480×320) and MMS mode (176×144)
• Assisted GPS - Enhanced version of GPS that performs at a faster speed

[BlackBerry News]