Matt
More than 20 years in the IT industry. Blogging with a passion and thirst for new technology since 2005.
If you are already over-excited about the HTC Hero, and who can blame you, then you might want to consider pre-ordering the handset from devicewire.com
Pre-ordering is the only way you can ensure that you’ll be one of the first to receive the handset as initial supplies are expected to be somewhat limited. The price of the SIM-free handset will be £399.99 which is strangely cheaper than the HTC Magic that we unboxed earlier!
Head on over to Devicewire.com to find out more and to place your order today!
HTC Hero is the first phone to embody HTC Sense™ – an intuitive, seamless experience built upon three fundamental principles – make it mine, stay close, and discover the unexpected.
HTC Hero’s design sets the phone apart not just in how distinct it looks, but how great it feels. Make it your Hero with personalisation that let you create a phone that uniquely fits your life. Feel closer than ever to those that matter with a communication experience based on people – rather than technology. And discover unexpected, yet intuitive, touches that make everything you do on your phone effortless and delightful.
With HTC Hero, personalization reaches a level never before possible. Rather than burying important content under layers of menus, the HTC Hero lets you put it at glance view, with a selection of widgets that can be placed right on the home screen. The widgets themselves can be personalized with a variety of designs and sizes that best match your personality.
Posted by: Matt
[ Post Tags: HTC launch event, HTC, HTC Hero, Android, tracyandmatt.co.uk ]
The HTC Magic is the second handset from HTC to be powered by the Android OS following fairly closely behind the hugely popular G1. The HTC Magic can be purchased SIM-free for around £500 but on-contract it’s a Vodafone exclusive. £500 seems a little steep to me when you consider that you can get the HTC Touch Pro2 for a similar amount of money and that has a QWERTY keyboard, larger screen etc.
The Vodafone HTC Magic
HTC and Android devices have been in the news a lot lately with the launch of the new HTC Hero last week so it’ll be interesting to review the HTC Magic now just in time to compare it to the new Hero when that goes on sale in a few weeks time.
The HTC Magic is an Android™-powered mobile designed to turn heads with its chic design, and command attention with its advanced list of capabilities. Ready to always keep you in the know… it provides the Google suite of services like Mail, Search and Maps geared up for use in the palm of your hand. Further enhanced with video capture and support for tunes via Bluetooth wireless headsets, the HTC Magic is a true entertainment and media powerhouse.
You and your friends dancing the night away, or laughing ‘til it hurts … these are the moments you want captured forever. With HTC Magic’s video recording capability, you now can. But that’s not all, sharing your video is now trouble-free. Send the video by email, MMS or even publish your new masterpiece directly to YouTube™ right from your phone.
HTC Magic specification:
- Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7201a™, 528 MHz
- Operating System: Android
- Memory: – ROM: 512 MB – RAM: 192 MB
- Dimensions: 113 x 55 x 13.65 mm ( 4.45 x 2.17 x 0.54 inches)
- Weight: 118.5 grams ( 4.18 ounces) with battery
- Display: 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution
- Network: – HSDPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz, up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds – Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- Device Control: Trackball with Enter button
- GPS: Internal GPS antenna
- Connectivity: – Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate – Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g – HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
- Camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
- Audio supported formats: AAC, AAC+, AMR-NB, MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC-LC, MIDI, OGG
- Video supported formats: MP4, 3GP
- Battery: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
- Capacity: 1340 mAh
- Talk time: – Up to 450 minutes
- Standby time: – Up to 420 hours
- Expansion Slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
- AC Adapter: Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 47/63 Hz
- DC output: 5V and 1A
- Special Features: – G-sensor – Digital Compass
Posted by: Matt
Incase you missed it, there are just a few more days left before our Nokia E75 competition closes, follow the link below and get your skates on for a chance to win!
Win the new Nokia E75!
Win the new Nokia E75 smartphone and you’ll be able to manage your business and personal life. Type quickly with the side-slide design, check email on the fly and browse the internet in your free time.
The Nokia E75 has a 2.4 inch, 320×240 screen and Quad-band GSM/GPRS and HSDPA/WCDMA connectivity to keep you in touch. The slide out finger-friendly QWERTY keyboard makes this phone ideal for heavy emails use.
All you have to do to have a chance of winning this great prize is answer one simple question. The closing date for entries is midnight on Tuesday 30th June 2009.
If you can’t wait to find out if you’ve won to get your hands on a Nokia E75 click here.
Entry is very easy, just head over to the competition page on the eXpansys site, fill in your details and answer the competition question.
Good luck!
Posted by: Matt
[ Post Tags: competition, expansys, Nokia E75, tracyandmatt.co.uk ]
If you’ve got a newer HTC mobile and you’re bored with the Teeter game but looking for another title to show off the Accelerometer then take a look at Ball Rush Aqua from Herocraft.
Ball Rush Aqua is a brick-busting Arkanoid style game that’s been around for a little while but Herocraft have just released this latest update which no includes ‘motion control’ that employs the G-Sensor built in to many newer handsets as a method of controlling the action.
Modern technology brought to a legendary classic: Ball Rush Aqua is an enthralling Arcanoid style game that realizes the eternal ideas of the original, yet brings the whole experience bang up to date!
You can now travel through the underwater world! This game excels in its diversity — from the form and features of the bat through to the large variety of tasks involved: you don’t need to destroy all of the blocks, just open a way to the upper part of a screen to pass the level, and then to pass the next ones until you reach the top where you can really have fun and smash everything in sight! Over a hundred original locations are included alongside two levels of difficulty and a huge number of bonuses, which make the game even more captivating and attractive to play! Throw in 13 types of blocks which all have different margins of safety and you are ready to tackle the rewarding and absorbing experience that is Ball Rush Aqua. Some blocks restore after being crushed and some are almost indestructible. But don’t worry, your arsenal is ready for these trials because you can use fire and ice balls, missiles and bombs, which will hall help you to make your way to freedom!
Game features:
- Outstanding graphics
- Dynamic backgrounds
- 185 unique levels
- 13 bonus types and 13 types of blocks
- Record table
- Background stereo tracks
- High-quality sound effects
- Boss-levels
New features in version 1.4:
- Accelerometer support
- New levels
- Improved touch control
- Minor bug fixes
I remind to all of the customers who have bought Ball Rush Aqua before – just visit our site and get this update for free!
The detailed information about the games, including screenshots, trailers and links for demo version are available on the HeroCraft PDA site – http://smart.herocraft.com/ball-rush-aqua.
Posted by: Matt
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eXpansys Friday Deals: Selected deals between 11am and 4pm, 26th June 2009 |
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Posted by: Matt
[ Post Tags: expansys, deals, special offers, tracyandmatt.co.uk ]
Well it’s taken a little while to process and upload but this is the video I recorded of the HTC Hero launch event yesterday. I apologise for the people sitting in front of me, I did my best to film around them but I’m sure you’ll enjoy the content all the same.
It’s a rather long video, over 30 minutes, so you might want to make yourself comfortable and grab a cup of tea before pressing the play button.
I only managed to play with the HTC Hero briefly yesterday but I have to say that I was pretty impressed. I like how deep the new HTC Sense UI goes in to Android and the screen is impressively responsive. The case is made from Teflon which gives it a nice smooth feel and helps to resist dirt and scratches. There’s also a special coating on the screen that’s designed to resist fingerprints so that, in the words of the Chief Innovation Officer, Horace Luke, you spend less time polishing your phone and more time using it!
One thing we also noticed while at the event is that they had a number of demo handsets plugged in to large screens so that you could see the device being demo’d on the large screen. The demo devices had a cable plugged in to the ExtUSB connector on the bottom and the UI was displayed in real time on the large screen. This leads me to believe that the HTC Hero may in fact be TV-out capable. Although not mentioned in the spec it might mean that the device is theoretically capable? Thoughts anyone?
Posted by: Matt
I took a series of photos at the HTC Hero press event yesterday and here are some of the better ones for you to have a look at. Don’t forget you can click the images for a larger view.
HTC Hero homescreen showing the HTC Sense UI and Twitter client on the right
HTC Hero video recording modes
The user interface output on the big-screen
The HTC Hero shown along with the HTC Touch Diamond2 (rumour has is that the HERO and the Diamond2 are the same on the inside)
Posted by: Matt
At HTC’s Hero press event yesterday we were told that Orange and T-Mobile would be carrying the HTC Hero and that they expected them to launch sometime in July. Orange haven’t wasted any time and in the press release below you’ll notice that they say they Hero will be available early in July! 🙂
We hope to get hold of one soon to do a full review.
Orange today announced it will be launching the much anticipated HTC Hero, the first Android device to be ranged by Orange in the UK. Available from early July across all Orange retail channels, the HTC Hero will be available for free on select price plans and will be exclusive to Orange in ‘Graphite’ colour.
Offering a rich, intuitive browsing touch interface and premium design, the 3G+ enabled Hero features Google’s Android operating system, the world’s first ‘open-source’ operating system for mobile devices. Android allows users unrestricted access to thousands of amazing tools and applications which can be downloaded straight to the handset – helping enhance the device’s capabilities.
Created for those wanting an optimised mobile customer experience, with easy access to Google’s most popular services, the Hero also provides users with a choice of seven specially designed unique user interface options. The handset also comes with an integrated five mega-pixel, auto-focus camera featuring camcorder capability, a gravity sensor, AGPS and 512 MB of memory with space for a 16Gb MicroSD card. What’s more, the 3.2 inch HVGA display features anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge resistance and a longer lasting, clearer display.
Orange is offering the HTC Hero for free to customers who take out a £39.15 per month, 24 month contract. The package includes 1200 any network call minutes, unlimited texts, as well as inclusive anytime internet browsing so users can make the most out of their mobile experience.
Francois Mahieu, Director of Devices, Orange UK said, “We’re really pleased to be launching our first Android handset in conjunction with HTC. The first of several Android devices you can expect from us this year, we believe the Hero is a great all round device which will allow consumers to get to grips with all the things they love about the internet, whilst on the move. We expect it to be extremely popular when it hits shelves this summer.”
The HTC Hero is exclusive to Orange in ‘Graphite’ and will be available from Orange shops and www.orange.co.uk/shop in early July.
Posted by: Matt
As I’m sure you are aware by now, today saw the official launch of the new HTC Hero Android phone. Paul and I managed to snatch one of these new handsets briefly at the launch event and we’ve recorded this little video for you to enjoy.
Obviously we’ll be doing our best to get our hands on the full retail version as soon as they are available and we’ll have an unboxing video and review for you.
We’ll also be back shortly with the full press announcement video just as soon as it’s finished processing and uploaded!
Posted by: Matt
Well we’re here at the HTC Hero launch event just waiting for the presentation to start. Just been told that we will be allowed to film the presentation after all so we’ll have that up online as soon as we can over the event.
We also have a selection of photos and Hero related content provided to us on a USB key so we’ll be posting that live just as soon as the embargo is lifted.
We know that we’ll have a chance to get hands on with some devices later on today so Paul and I should be able to video a little tour.
We also know that we’ll be looking at the anticipated HTC ‘ROSIE’ UI which is to be called HTC Sense.
Does this new UI look familiar to any of you? 🙂
I’m busy recording the event! 🙂
Nice Facebook integration!
Hero to have multitouch and text-zoom to have reflow.
Fingerprint resistant screen finish as well as Teflon coated body.
HTC have collaborated with Adobe to deliver a better Flash experience.
Hero to be on T-Mobile and Orange from July.
Now time to get our hands on the HTC HERO!
Posted by: Matt
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