News

BlackBerry Torch 9800 now available from Clove

The only way you would have missed RIM’s new flagship device is if you’ve been living under a technological rock, but luckily for you, you can see our unboxing of the BlackBerry Torch here. If you have seen it before and are considering buying one, pop over to our friends at Clove.co.uk where they have now got the 9800 in stock. While it was at pre-order, it demanded a pretty hefty £522.88 inc VAT, but now you can grab one sim-free for £481.75, right on time (if not slightly early!) for the predicted late September release.

Click here to place your order.

Posted by: Vince

Motorola Milestone XT720 finally gets a speed boost

Following the mix up and confusion of the XT720’s processor speed it eventually came out that it was in fact clocked at 550MHz, despite the initial release saying it was 720MHz. Now Moto have come clean with an update that will boost the speed to 720MHz and also bring DLNA support. Yes it’s perhaps not quite as tasty as a dose of Froyo but nevertheless this is good news for the XT720 owners out there.

Here’s the official line from Motorola:

T-Mobile Desire Getting Froyo, Finally!

After over a month since the unlocked Desire gets Froyo, HTC Desire owners on T-Mobile are getting some Froyo goodness starting today.

T-Mobile’s support forum said this:

Three launch new Pay As You Go add-ons

The Three network have announced their new top-up reward scheme for Pay As You Go customers. Now, topping up £10 to £25 would net you 3000 texts, as well as 100 to 300 minutes, and 500MB to 1GB internet allowance. You can also buy Add-ons for specific options such as 3000 texts for a fiver. Bear in mind that these are Add-ons which you’d need to convert after you’ve bought the top-up, either by calling 444 or through the My3 site. Topping up any amount would also net you free Skype, WLM, Twitter and 150MB of internet. These last for 90 days, but the Add-ons would expire after 30, but I think it still represents excellent value!

Post by: Vince

New HTC Sense Announced with HTCsense.com

Along side the brand new Desires, unveiled the latest version of HTC Sense with a lot of cool features. And according to HTC, Sense is not a UI or an overlay, but rather something else, maybe magical? Running on Android 2.2, the new Sense brings features such as cache data for maps, a digital compass and it cuts down launch time to just 10 seconds! It also brings HTCsense.com. Lauching next month, HTCsense.com is similar to MobileMe for the iPhone, as it enables users of  owners to backup of texts and contacts, locate their lost phone on a map and even remote wipe the Device straight from the website 
See a full list of the new features below:

Seesmic for Windows Phone 7

Not long to go now until we get an official Windows Phone 7 release date and in the meantime it’s great that we are slowly getting to see more and more of what we can expect once the platform is made public.

The below video is a prime example. Seesmics Twitter client is pretty huge on the Android and BlackBerry platforms and the developers have been working on a version for WP7.

As you will see it looks pretty sweet and totally different to on the existing OS’s.

Check out the video after the break.

HTC’s Take on WP7, And Oh My, it is Beautiful!

If this turns out to be real, I think HTC have got themselves an instant hit. As blog MobilityDigest have managed to grab hold of and post a video of what appears to be a running version of HTC’s implementation of Windows Phone 7. Codenamed, the HTC Portal, it is supposed similar to HTC Sense that is running on it’s Android phones, but not as customised. WP7 still has all the tiles that we are used to, but now we have some new gorgeous eye candy with HTC’s take on it. Such as the versions of the notes app, stocks app and the weather app. One thing I’m kinda confused about though, is the flower petal app. Not really sure why it is there, and pretty pointless in my opinion.

Microsoft has always said from when they announced WP7, that they were going to have tight control over the hardware and software. And ever since HTC was announced as a hardware partner, they’ve tried to customise WP7 heavily. But as you can clearly see, Microsoft has obviously stamped down on that, and limited HTC to the HTC Portal. Even though it may not be as customised as it is on Android, it is certainly prettier.

Anyway, check out the videos below and please excuse me, I need to go change my trousers.

phonesdirect.com News

phonesdirect.com Ltd are pleased to announce the immediate launch of their brand new website, phonesdirect.com.

Established at the start of 2010 and based in Fareham, Hampshire, phonesdirect.com has been born out of recognition for a growing need in the marketplace for a specialised and affordable smartphone provider.

Danny Key, Business Development Manager of phonesdirect.com said

HTC Announces Desire HD and Desire Z

The rumours were true! The successors to the Desire are here in the form of the Desire HD and the Desire Z. Announced earlier today in London, these phones are HTC’s latest and greatest phones to date. The Desire HD is the european version of the very successful EVO 4G on the Sprint network in the US, and the Desire Z is the HTC Sense version of the G2 on T-Mobile USA. And both come with the latest version of Android and HTC Sense, with HTCsense.com, that enables backups of texts and call logs, remote wipe and the ability to locate your phone.

Read on for details of the phones…

HTC event coverage

Had a lot of tweets from many of you regarding today’s HTC event. James and I recorded a LOT of video for you today and I’ll be editing and uploading that for as soon as I can. We’ve just left the event and are heading over to the after-show party. I’ll be home late this evening but will upload video as soon as I can.

In the mean time, have a look at some of the photos we took below. Don’t forget, you can also replay the Live Blog any time too!