Author Archive: Gareth

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.

Unusually high suicide rate linked to iPad

Tomorrow will see a lot of major news papers will be reporting on the working conditions surrounding the latest must have device, Apple’s iPad. With the pressure on to deliver a huge amount of devices to satisfy demand the Telegraph added the following earlier today:

In the lobby of Foxconn’s headquarters in Hong Kong, a group of around two dozen protestors laid mannequins to rest and conducted funeral rites. "We are staging the protest because of the high death rate [at Foxconn], with an abnormal number of workers committing suicide in the past five months," said Debby Chan, a spokesman for the Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour group.

The latest death comes just a day after Foxconn admitted that it had paid "insufficient attention" to the well-being of its workers and promised to hire over 2,000 therapists to offer counselling to its factory workers.

It’s a harsh reality for the larger corporations to realise the profit they expect, and at what cost? We will keep a close eye on the investigation.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini pre-order

The little phone that we think will be quite big is about to hit the market it appears after being pushed back time and time again. Mobiles.co.uk are taking pre-orders for the heavily modified but attractive Android handset on both Orange and Vodafone. The Pro version is available only to register interest in for the time being.

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models ship

Apple has begun sending out shipment notifications and shipment tracking numbers to UK customers who’ve pre-ordered iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models.

[Source]

Introducing Android 2.2 Froyo

Google have put out a video showing off the attractive features of Android 2.2. Covering speed, browser, market and API updates, there is much to get excited about. The Push notification is quite excited and Apps on SD card is oh-so welcome. The oft rumours wifi hotspot is confirmed making this exciting feature of the Evo 4G common place amongst those device that will receive the 2.2 update, eventually. Auto updating will be a pleasure. Overall it’s a nice update with plenty of added extras. Check out the video after the break:

HTC Wildfire coming to Virgin Media

On our last podcast James mentioned he had a little go the HTC Wildfire, a new Android 2.1 handset that’s similar to the HTC Desire but a little smaller and less impressive. The phone has been unveiled by HTC just the other day and it looks like there are already carriers lined up to get it. Such a carrier is Virgin Media in the UK although we don’t have any actual pricing details and precise arrival dates yet.
The HTC Wildfire will come with a 3.2-inch QVGA touchscreen display, a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 3.5mm headphone jack, 512MB ROM, 384MB RAM, GPS and aGPS, up to 32GB of storage space and 3G support.
The phone isn’t that impressive when compared to the HTC Droid Incredible or the HTC EVO 4G but it’s definitely going to be a great Android phone for those of you not willing to spend a lot of money on a brand new handset. What Android phone would you buy if the HTC Wildfire is not for you?