Phones

HTC Smart on O2 to get everyone into smartphones

HTC’s second Press conference of Mobile World Congress 2010 showed off the new HTC Smart and now there has been a nice deal created with O2 to get this phone into the hands of the people who do not have the means to get a Smartphone. With new tariffs that they haven;t quite put together this largely pay as you go phone will have a focus on data more so than just the typical minutes and texts most pay as you go deals feature.

HTC went to great lengths to outline that this isn’t simply a low end feature phone but a fully loaded smartphone that has access to the Brew application store. This will allow users without a credit card to have a simple application store experience.

Google gives away FREE Nexus One at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona

How established mobile industry wants to fight iPhone revolution? With apps! Yes, the main battleground of smartphone wars is moving to apps and the main players are iPhone (of course) and Android…

Nokia X6 16GB official, available 24th Feb

Nokia made official the X6 16GB via its blog today, availability should start on the 24th February and excludes Come With Music.

Today sees the Nokia X6 get its very own baby brother in the form of a new 16GB model. Unlike its 32GB sibling, the 16GB version doesn’t Come with Music but its sizable on board storage still boasts enough space for 5,500 tracks. Outside that substantial storage sits a lush 3.2-inch widescreen capacitive touchscreen and four new finishes: all black, all white, white with pink highlights and white with yellow highlights. 

Typical specifications from a high end Nokia smartphone are all there: 3G, GPS, WiFi, 5 megapixel camera, and TV out, but what’s nice is that the X6 will come bundled with Spore by EA, and Asphalt4 and DJ Mix Tour, both by Gameloft.

Price should range around the £300 mark and will no doubt be free on contract.

New BBC iPlayer, news and sport apps coming

The Beeb is coming to your blower — the BBC has announced three mobile phone apps, to be launched this year. Like Sky, the BBC will offer separate news and sport apps. It will also serve up a dedicated iPlayer app.

The apps will be available on assorted mobile platforms: iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian and Palm’s webOS were all mentioned. More apps will follow the initial three, perhaps offering access to niche BBC content such as its education services, or Bargain Hunt. We reckon big-name brands such as  EastEnders or Doctor Who could even have their own apps.

It’s not yet clear whether these will be paid apps or whether the BBC’s licence fee-funded nature will make them free, or what the international licensing issues will be for overseas users.

Eric Huggers, Auntie’s director of future media and technology, delivered the news in a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress. He shared the stage with Spotify boss Daniel Ek, although there was no comparable announcement from the music-streaming service.

The apps serve up BBC content with thumbnails that are scrolled sideways, rather than the vertical scrolling favoured by most iPhone apps — as in our mockup image above. The first BBC app will be the news, arriving in the iPhone App Store in April. Further apps and versions for other phones won’t be far behind.

Via

HTC Desire specification

The HTC Desire, as you probably know, was announced yesterday by HTC at MWC in Barcelona and seems to have gone down a storm. It’s one of the most popular posts here on tracyandmatt over the past 24 hours.

Unsurprisingly many are asking how the HTC Desire differs from the Google Nexus One. In essence they are virtually the same device in terms of hardware, just a few things to distinguish them. The Desire has an optical trackpad and a couple of hardware buttons where the Nexus just has a hardware trackball. The Desire also has an FM Radio and is ‘missing’ the dual noise-cancelling microphones that the Nexus has.

Where the difference will be more obvious is in the user interface. Although both handsets run Android 2.1 the Desire has HTC’s new version of the excellent Sense UI and a number of HTC-specific applications and enhancements.

Obviously we hope to get our hands on one pretty soon but until then thought you might like to see the full specification listed below.

HTC Legend specification

I was in a bit of a hurry to post the HTC Legend information yesterday so didn’t get a chance to include the full specification. I spent a little time this morning going through the HTC site putting the spec together in list form which you shall find below.

So far the HTC Legend seems to have been quite well received so I expect it to be a rather popular handset when it goes on sale next month.

I haven’t seen any carrier announcements regarding the HTC Legend as yet (have I missed any?) so looks like it’s just SIM-free sales at the moment here in the UK.

HTC Legend, Desire and HD mini – availability and pricing

Although these devices were only announced earlier today Devicewire.com dropped me a line a little while ago to let me know that the HTC Legend, HTC Desire and HTC HD mini are already live on their site and can be pre ordered from today. They have also just updated the pricing and availability which you’ll find listed for you below. Obviously we hope to get our hands on review models sooner than this but we’ll let you know when we do!

New from Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericcson have pulled out a few devices from their back pockets. Lets take a look at them:

Toshiba K01 and TG02

Finally a phone with a slide out Qwerty keyboard that does not contain the word Pro in the title. Appearing beside the TG02 The K01 has the same 4.1” Capacitive screen and runs Windows Mobile 6.5.3, however more importantly the K01 has a OLED screen and the difference in the screen clarity is notable. They also had the TG01 on display and it was nice to see the linage of Toshiba’s recent models altogether.  Couple of pictures after the break:

HTC shows 3 new phones

Shown off by HTC at an invite only press conference HTC announced three new phones that will hit stores in April. The HTC Legend and HTC Desire both running Android and HTC HD Mini running Windows Mobile. CEO Peter Chou mentioned they are currently working closely with Microsoft creating some Windows Phone Series 7 … um phones. However lets have a look at what they unveiled. I will be posting a video from the conference on my return to Blighty.