News

HTC & O2 press conference at MWC

HTC and O2 are holding a press conference at MWC at midday today. James will be in the room tweeting the news and I’ll be covering from here in the UK. I would imagine that there will be some official press releases to go along with whatever is announced.

What do we think? HTC Legend and Desire on O2 maybe or something totally different? Stay tuned and we’ll find out shortly after 12 noon.

EDIT: They announced the HTC Smart. You can see the full story now on site.

Posted by: Matt

Orange announce they will have HTC Desire

Well that was quick, only announced a few hours ago by HTC, Orange have now stated that they will have the HTC Desire available from April 2010! Really looking forward to this handset!

• Orange to retail the HTC Desire free on selected consumer pay monthly and business price plans from April
• The HTC Desire will feature Qualcommm’s superfast Snapdragon 1GHz processor and Google’s Android 2.1 Operating System  
• An Orange Signature device, The HTC Desire is the first of several Android handsets to be unveiled by Orange in 2010

Orange’s full press release follows:

HTC announces the HTC Desire

This is the third and final handset announced by HTC at MWC today and one that maybe slightly more of a surprise than the other two already mentioned. True, you may recognise the form of the HTC Desire, previously codenamed the HTC Bravo, looking an awful lot like the excellent Nexus One (see our Nexus review), and for good reason, they are essentially the same device.

The HTC Desire has a few hardware differences that you can see, an optical trackpad in place of the trackball and an additional set of hardware buttons at the bottom. The other change you may not immediately notice is the lack of dual-microphone noise cancelling. HTC say that the reason for this change is cost, wanting to make the handset as accessible as possible.

So specs for the Desire read much the same as the Nexus. Still Andoid 2.1 but HTC include their latest Sense UI and their own updated web browser. The browser features Flash Lite 4 (pre installed) and the excellent text re-flow system that we first saw on the HTC Touch Diamond where text is re-rendered in the browser to fit the screen area when you zoom. All HTC Android devices will have Multitouch from now on too.

HTC has also added some of their own features elsewhere in the OS. Tabs in email for unread messages for example and a calendar with agenda view are just a few examples.

Of the new handsets announced I certainly think this is the one for me! 🙂

Video and photos should be along soon but for now the official press release follows.

HTC announces the HTC Legend

I know this is another device that has been rumoured and leaked over the past few days but once again HTC quash the rumours by making the HTC Legend official in their press conference this morning at MWC.

The Legend looks like an updated version of the HTC Hero, complete with angled chin at the bottom. The Hero will stay for now though.

The Legend is the first HTC device to have ‘Hidden Power’, a new philosophy that we’ll hear a lot more about over the coming months. The idea here is beauty through function. The all aluminium body is machined from a single block of metal, the frame and the body thus become one and the same. This in itself leads to a reduction in size and weight and adds to the beauty of the handset.

The handset, like other Android handsets from HTC, will have their own Sense user interface but this has been updated for the HTC Legend. We now see some additional new and cool features such as 7 desktop panels or screens and a pinch to zoom ‘helicopter view’ that allows you to see a live preview of each of those screens.

New apps include the fantastic looking ‘Friend Stream’ which brings together Twitter, Facebook, Flickr etc. in to one place with both an integrated timeline of activity or just the one individuals activity. James and I were both impressed when we saw this last week! 🙂

We should have more video and photos for you later but the official press release follows.

HTC announces the HTC HD mini

Well I guess that the rumours that have circulated for the past few days may have spoilt the surprise slightly but today HTC made things official by announcing the new HTC HD Mini. As suspected this is indeed the device we knew as the HTC Photon on the leaked roadmap. This is also the only Windows Mobile device that HTC have announced, the other two being Android.

I got some hands on time with the HD Mini last week and it is a very neat looking device. It has a 3.2" HVGA capacitive display and is roughly the same size as the original HTC Touch Diamond. Personally I think I have been spoilt lately and although the Diamond was my favourite device for a long time, I now feel that I need a device with a larger screen, 3.7" seems to suit me!

We should have some more photos and video for you later on but for now you can find the press release below.

HTC announces 3 new handsets

HTC’s press conference has just started at MWC in Barcelona and I can tell you that they are to announce three new handsets, two Android 2.1 handsets and a Windows Mobile 6.5.3 handset.

They are the HTC Legend, the HTC Desire and the HTC HD Mini.

We’ll cover each device in it’s own post that will shortly follow this one but in summary:

The HTC Legend looks like an updated version of the HTC Hero and has an all aluminium construction. Android 2.1 powered also has the latest version of HTC’s Sense UI. It will have a 3.2″ HVGA display, 600Mhz CPU, optical trackpad and 5 megapixel camera and flash. This device also introduces the concept of ‘Hidden Power’ which we’ll talk about in detail in a later post.

The HTC Desire is the device that we previously knew as the HTC Bravo (which at the same time pretty much proves that the HTC Bravo on Orange images were fake!) In essence the Desire will be virtually the same in terms of hardware specification as the Nexus One. The key changes being the optical trackpad, a few physical buttons and no active noise cancellation. As with the Legend HTC have included their latest version of Sense UI and have also added their own browser complete with Flash Lite 4.0

The HTC HD Mini, codenamed HTC Photo, will be the only Windows Mobile device HTC are going to announce at MWC and will be WinMo 6.5.3. A 3.2″ HVGA capacitive touchscreen that supports multitouch. Like the Legend it’ll have the same 600MHz 7227 CPU and the Windows Mobile version of Sense UI. I was pretty close with my predictions of the HD Mini last week! 🙂

James and I got a chance to play with these handset last week and I can tell you they are pretty cool, I really like what HTC have done with Sense and I cant wait to get my hands on these for a proper review!

Check out the individual device posts that follow for each one in greater detail. We should have some official press releases later too.

Posted by: Matt

New version of the Acer Liquid features Android 2.1

We reviewed the Acer Liquid last year and thought it was an impressive handset, the first Android device to have a WVGA screen and a very respectable price tag. At the time Android 1.6 was no big deal but it’s strange how quickly 1.6 (and 1.5) versions of the OS seem to have dated with 2.0 and 2.1 devices starting to become more common place.

Acer have today announced that they are updating the Acer Liquid and will release a new version, the ‘Liquid e’ soon. This new version will have the latest Android release 21 Eclair but essentially looks like much the same device.

Acer have a full press release for use (below) which goes the long way round saying ‘Same hardware, just a new OS’. I’ve asked Acer whether or not they will provide updates for existing customers but no reply as yet. Fingers crossed they will though!

Live from the Microsoft press conference at MWC

Microsoft are just about to start their press conference this afternoon at MWC. We’re pretty sure that we’re going to get to see some previews of WM7 but who knows if there may be more!

I’ll be updating this blog post as the conference goes on so refresh frequently for updates!

Full press release and my comments follow:

Mobile World Congress

As I am sure you are all aware Mobile World Congress is now underway in Barcelona, Spain.

Here at tracyandmatt we don’t want to miss out on the action so I am now leaving for the airport to fly over and cover the the news from the event.

In particular I am looking forward to tomorrows HTC press conference and later in the day I have a meeting with Microsoft to discuss today’s announcements.

Of course I will be attending all the manufactures stands at the show and taking photos and video, but if there is anything in particular you would like to see please comment on the forum and I will do my best.

Adios amigos!

Posted by: James

Samsung i8520 Halo looks a bit of alright

It looks like someone from the Samsung camp may have let news of the Samsung Halo slip!

Although not officially announced yet we believe it will be, later on today, and as far as I can see it may well steal the limelight away  from The Wave that was revealed yesterday.

The word on the street is that the Halo has a projector built in to it. Yes, built in!

As well as this cool feature it will run Android 2.1 with Bada over the top, have a 3.7 WVGA Super AMOLED display, 8 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, 720p / 30fps video encoding / decoding, DivX and Xvid playback support, Bluetooth 2.1, standard 3.5mm headphone jack, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, A-GPS, 16GB of internal storage, microSD expansion and stereo speakers.

Doesn’t sound too shabby does it?

As soon as we have the confirmed details we will let you know, and hopefully some video to go with it!

Posted by: James