Archive for May 27th, 2010

Pandora gets reviewed

We mentioned this little device one before, a long time ago, but it seems some folks are managing to get their hands on it. I know I’m excited by it as a little games machine that can do what you really want from emulators. Packing a full qwerty keyboard on a DS sized device with a touchscreen and a capable D-pad affair sounds like it will cover all manner of platforms. But then again it’s not just about the games.

A summary from a review reads quite nicely:

Overall: Although let down a little by the build quality issues, as a gaming handheld and computer: it’s great. Technically speaking, it’s a nicely spec’d machine and I can’t wait to see what it can do when the software catches up. Well done, OP team!

Full review here

Check out a quick video after the break:

Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus get pricing on O2

Palm, Inc. today announced that the Palm® Pre™ Plus and Palm Pixi™ Plus phones will be available in the UK on O2 from 28 May. They will be available from free in all O2 stores and online at www.o2.co.uk.

“We are excited to bring Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to the market for O2 customers,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “With the choice of these two new Palm webOS phones, customers across the UK can stay connected, so they never miss a thing.”
With a slider keyboard, a large touchscreen and a high-performance processor, Pre Plus is Palm’s full-featured Palm webOS™ phone. It’s designed for people who want an easy-to-use phone with advanced features to help manage the different aspects of their lives, both personal and professional. The keyboard makes for quick and easy typing, while the unique gesture area provides a sleek look and intuitive navigation. Customers also get 16GB(1) of storage (~15GB user available) for applications and media. Pre Plus comes with the Palm Touchstone™ Back Cover, so it’s compatible out of the box with the revolutionary inductive Touchstone Charging Dock (sold separately).

Video Telephony for Android

Fringe have put out their update Android client that, front facing camera permitting, manages to do video calling. Wonder just how long the networks will tolerate this but grab it while you can from the Android Market if you have an appropriate camera.

Acer Stream announced

Acer has announced the Stream, an Android 2.1 smartphone with a new 3D user interface. The interface provides information on the lock screen so that you don’t have to unlock the device, much like we have saw years ago on the Palm Treo Pro (and were pretty impressed by). Acer says the Stream is a high-end multimedia smartphone that’s optimized for watching movies and browsing the web. It comes equipped with a 3.7-inch touchscreen display, HSDPA 7.2Mbps 3G connectivity, 512MB of RAM, a 8GB microSD card, and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Certainly something to keep an eye out for since Acer’s price tag is usually £100 less than the competing HTC or Samsung device. Check the video and press release after the break:

T-Mobile to push Android full force

T-Mobile wants to be the network of choice for Android smartphones, T-Mobile head of postpaid devices Richard Hynes told delegates at the Fonehouse conference. The operator is launching four new Android handsets in the next quarter – including the HTC Wildfire – as part of its plan to grab share of the Android market this year.
Hynes said: ‘Our key strategic imperative first and foremost is to be the network of choice for Android.’
He said T-Mobile would leverage the legacy of the G1 to build its Android share. Launched in October 2008, the G1 was T-Mobile’s most successful launch, making over 110,000 connections.
‘T-Mobile is the operator with the highest base of Android customers, with 23% of market share. We want to build on that legacy,’ Hynes told delegates.
The operator is looking to create ‘a family’ of Android devices this year, said Hynes, adding that it has ‘high hopes’ that the HTC Wildfire will perform at least as well as the HTC Desire, which he said had outperformed all expectations.

On the back of the announcement yesterday regarding Orange pushing £100 Android devices it looks like Everything, Everywhere, the future mega-network of Orange and T-Mobile,  should be somewhat Android focused.

Hands on with the Dell Streak

JKKmobile.com has had some hands on time with the Dell Streak. At 24mins there is a lot of coverage from what we had learned over the last few days. The build quality seems high, which isn’t really a surprise as Dell usually has a good record for this. There’s plenty of bits and bobs on the device to play with whilst not being particularly oversized. Compared to the Archos 5, which has the same sized screen it’s pretty big. Android looks beautifully smooth here and the interface is a little different to the typical we have seen and seems nice. Check the video after the break.

Orange bringing some affordable Androids

Orange is targeting the mid range of the market with own-brand Android smartphones at £100 price points. They will launch one device from Huawei in June and one device from ZTE in August, across the Europe.  More devices will follow later in 2010, with up to four launching in the UK.

Orange is aiming for 50% of its mobile portfolio to be Smartphones by 2013, with ‘affordable’ smartphones driving that growth. Currently Smartphones make up 15% of the Orange portfolio.

This announcement will be interesting to see unravel as the Orange is positioning itself to be the premium side of the T-Mobile/ Orange merger. Also getting Android into the hands of the masses will see something of an Android explosion if successful.

HTC Vision coming soon

HTC is to launch the HTC Vision – a new smartphone said to be identical to the HTC Desire but with a Qwerty keyboard.

Leaked information from the company’s internal website revealed plans for the new phone. The Android powered handset comes with a Qwerty keyboard and closely resembles the popular HTC Desire.
It is unclear, as yet, whether the phone will run on Android 2.1 or 2.2.

HTC will be working hard to get stock numbers right for the new phone. Massive demand for the HTC Desire after its launch earlier this year saw operators and retailers rapidly running out of the Android-powered device.

Last month HTC chief executive Jon French told Mobile that HTC would increase production of the HTC Desire in Q3 to meet demand.

The leak closely follows news that the HTC Wildfire will be available to T-mobile customers from the 14th of June.

The Wildfire comes with Android 2.1, as well as the HTC Sense social networking skin, a 5 megapixel camera, 3.2-inch touchscreen, Wi-Fi and GPS.