News

HTC launches first 3.5G Touch

HTC today announced the European launch of the HTC Touch Dual™, a new and more powerful member of the Touch™ family that integrates 3.5G wireless connectivity with a sleek and innovative sliding keypad design.

HTC Touch Dual

The HTC Touch Dual™ follows HTC’s heritage of bringing a new level of simplicity to the powerful and feature rich device experience that today’s mobile users demand. Taking a design cue from the stylish HTC Touch™, the HTC Touch Dual™ adds high speed 3G/HSDPA connectivity and a slide out keypad into a thin and narrow device designed for easy typing.

The HTC Touch Dual™ is the second device to feature HTC’s TouchFLO™, the same gesture-recognition technology as that in the HTC Touch™, but now with new functionality including the ability to view photo slideshows using on-screen controls and to zoom and rotate images with only one hand. TouchFLO™ also allows enhanced finger touch scrolling and browsing of web pages, documents, messages and contact lists.

“The HTC Touch Dual expands the HTC Touch product family and integrates 3.5G connectivity and a sliding keyboard into a slim and stylish design. This combination provides customers with the most uncompromising and intuitive touch experience available on a phone,” said Peter Chou, chief executive officer of HTC. “The HTC Touch has not only changed the way people interact with their phone but it has redefined what touch means on a consumer device. HTC is committed to bringing advanced levels of technology to consumers with continuous innovation. The HTC Touch Dual is the next step forward.”

The HTC Touch Dual™ with Windows Mobile software offers a rich and familiar experience that will enable users to stay connected and access the people, information and entertainment – most important to them – all from a single, personalised device.

Separately, HTC today also announced an additional colour variant and a free, full-screen virtual keypad download for the original HTC Touch™. From October the HTC Touch™ will be available in stylish Arctic Silver in addition to the black version launched in June. The virtual keypad will be available via download from the HTC website at www.htceurope.com.

Availability

The HTC Touch Dual™ will be available to customers across Europe later this month. The HTC Touch Dual™ will launch with either a 12 or 20-key keypad across Europe, depending on country and operator choice.

The first pan-European operator partner to launch the HTC Touch Dual™ will be Orange, which will launch it in the UK, France, Romania and Poland as part of its Signature Series, and in Switzerland as a non-Signature device.

Key features

* Size: 107 x 55 x 15.8 mm
* Weight: 120 g
* Connectivity: WCDMA/HSDPA: 2100 MHz/GSM/EDGE: 900/1800/1900 MHz
* Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6 Professional
* Display: 2.6-inch QVGA flat touch screen
* Camera: 2 megapixel plus front facing camera for video calling
* Internal memory: 256 MB flash, 128 MB RAM
* Removable memory: microSDTM slot
* Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
* Interface: HTC ExtUSBTM (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 Full-Speed)
* Battery: 1100 mAh
* Talk time: WCDMA: up to 240 minutes*, GSM: up to 360 minutes*
* Standby time: WCDMA: up to 250 hours*, GSM: up to 150 hours*
* Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM7200, 400 MHz

Posted by: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, Sprint, HTC Touch Dual, HTC Elf, HTC P3450]

HTC press conference – on our way!

Just a reminder, as if you’ll need it, that today’s the day of the HTC press conference during which they are set to announce the Q4 device line up. We’ll be attending and will give you the full details as soon as we can. Stay tuned!

Posted by: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, HTC]

HTC’s Q4 devices leaked?

As we mentioned yesterday, HTC are all set to announce their Q4 devices to the world at their press conference on 1st October but it looks like a number of the devices have been ‘leaked’ already.

HTC Touch Slide & S730

According to a new site called ‘Superior Gadgets News’ the HTC Touch Slide and the HTC S730 will be two of the three devices to be featured at the press conference. It is my belief that the HTC Shift will be the third device to be featured.

I also have a suspicion that the Superior Gadgets site has been set up by or on behalf of HTC.

Posted by: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, HTC, Touch_Slide, S730]

HTC to announce Q4 devices on 1st October

Once again we have been invited to HTC’s latest press conference, this time being held in London on the 1st October.

HTC October Press Conference

Just as with their June press conference, HTC are being quite tight-lipped about things, however other sources suggest that the HTC Touch Slide (Nike), HTC Shift and the HTC S730(wings) will feature at the event.

In any case, be sure to drop in on Monday to see what we have discovered!

Posted by: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, HTC]

Orange opens new Flagship Store

Orange today unveiled its new flagship store. The new store in Cardiff’s city centre has an innovative design to help deliver an outstanding customer experience and showcase Orange’s range of converged products and services.

The new flagship store is clean and stylish with an open floor space, modernised displays and clear and easy to read signage. A new black exterior will ensure instant brand recognition and will drive consumer curiosity for what’s inside the store. New Chip&PIN epay machines enable customers to top up their mobile phones quickly and easily and will help to make the shopping experience more enjoyable.

Orange has also invested in a number of new staff for the flagship store and is committed to making Cardiff a centre of excellence for Sales Advisor training.

Sian Doyle, Head of Retail, Orange, said: “We’re excited to be launching our new flagship store in Cardiff. The new store has been designed to offer a converged retail experience and really demonstrates that Orange is not just a mobile phone shop, but a true ‘communications provider’. The staff in our new flagship stores will provide Orange customers with the most up-to-date technology and the highest standard of technical insight and customer service.”

Posted By: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, Orange]

Orange launches new mobile and broadband advice site

Orange today launched a new online resource to help tackle the misuse of technology, including advice for children and parents on dealing with cyber bullying and email fraud.

Over recent years mobile phones and broadband have made life much easier, especially for families and people on the go. But there is concern about the misuse of these technologies, such as the new and growing problem of cyber bullying.

The new section on Orange’s website responds to issues like these and brings together all the advice the company has previously offered on the responsible use of communication technologies as well as information on diverse subjects such as SPAM, unwanted e-mails and texts, and how to reduce the risk of mobile street theft.

Topics including social networking sites and ‘phishing’ have been introduced to take account of the greater complexity and capability of mobile phones and their growing uses.

Each section on Orange’s website at http://www.orange.co.uk/communicate/safety/ describes an issue, offers clear and practical advice and also provides links to other authoritative sources of information.

Trish Church, Community & Abuse Operations Manager, said, “Technology provides great opportunities and offers real value but the sad fact is some will find ways of misusing it. Orange’s new online resource provides advice on ways to stay safe and offers useful and practical information to everyone, especially families. The website will help parents understand how their children are using technology and help them to ensure they are using it safely. It also provides top tips to children about the things they shouldn’t do on the internet.”

Orange’s website is designed to be used entering familiar search terms but can be navigated conventionally or via a ‘tag cloud’ that also shows, via the prominence given to the various headings, which areas are currently most heavily used.

Posted By: Mark

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, Orange]

JD 168 Apple Pie spotted

The new JD 168 Apple Pie phone has been spotted Mark over at phonesreview.co.uk has some great pictures and even a video.

JD 168 Apple Pie

Like Mark, we have no idea why it’s called an apple pie, but I suspect that it maybe that the manufacturer is just trying to incorporate the apple name?

JD 168 Apple Pie specification:
• Triband GSM 900/ 1800/ 1900MHZ or GSM 850/ 1800/ 1900MHz
• up to 10,000 entries (phonebook)

• Mirror finish with stunning invisible display screen

• 128MB Internal Memory plus T-Flash External Memory Card Slot

• MP3 Player which supports MIDI, MP3, WMA & AAC formats

• Bluetooth & USB 2.0

• GPRS

• WAP

• SMS & MMS messaging

• MP4 Video Player

• Voice & Video Recorder

• 1.3MP Camera – 1280×1024 resolution

• 2 Li-ion batteries included

• FM Radio

• Up to 200 hours Standby Time

• Up to 3 hours Talk time

• Photo Slide Show

• File Manager

• Calculator & Stopwatch

• Games

• Stereo Headphones

• 97×40×14.5mm

• 84 grams

Posted by: Matt

[Source]

[Post tag(s): iPhone, Apple, JD 168 Apple Pie, Amazon, Tracy & Matt]

Samsung to release touchscreen version of the i600?

A new video popped up on YouTube the other day showing a new Samsung windows mobile device that looks very similar to the SGH-i600 but has a roller/trackball and is also touchscreen.

Could this be the new Windows Mobile 6 professional touchscreen version of the i600 that we’ve heard so much about?

Check out the YouTube video and decide for yourself.

Posted by: Matt

[Post tags: smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, Samsung SGH-i600, Samsung, Windows Mobile blog]

Apple announce UK iPhone

While Apple were busy offering the US the iPod Touch, here in the UK we are still waiting for the iPhone – In a recent press conference, Jobs & co gave people in the UK good news and bad about their version of the coveted handset, which is set to launch, exclusively to carrier O2, on 9th November. It was a pretty short event in all – but most of the big questions were touched upon (if not, in some frustrating cases, answered). So we know that come 9th November UK customers will be able to buy an 8GB iPhone, identical to the US model, for £269 with an 18-month contract.

Visual Voicemail has been freshly fettled for O2, while the biggest disappointment is the lack of a 3G upgrade which Jobs claimed was due to the required chips being particularly power-hungry. To salve the pain, Apple and O2 have negotiated free WiFi use from popular hotspot company The Cloud, who have 7,500 access points ready and waiting to rescue you from the drag of EDGE data, which so far O2 only has 30% coverage of anyway.

Posted by: Matt

[Post tag(s): iPhone, Apple, iphone, Amazon, Tracy & Matt]

HTC to provide ‘Over The Air’ ROM updates?

“Smith Micro Software, Inc. announced today a global licensing agreement with HTC (High Tech Computer) to preload and distribute the Insignia Mobile Device Management client on the next generation of HTC smartphones for consumers and business users worldwide…The Insignia Mobile Device Management client supports file updates, compressed image updates and multiple sequential updates all in one package and is backed by a broad range of integrity checks to ensure the process is secure and 100 % fault tolerant, even during power outages.”

Nice to see HTC doing something about this – although properly speaking, this really ought to be Microsoft’s responsibility. Which immediately brings up the question – what’s so wrong with the MS solution built into WM6, that HTC feels it necessary to shell out licensing fees for a 3rd party service? There may be a jurisdictional aspect to this, in that HTC is seeking to provide an avenue for device specific fixes that aren’t part of the general OS, but WM really ought to have the flexibility to do both. Hopefully, that’s something we might see with WM7, though considering HTC’s move when WM7 is nearly round the corner makes me none too confident that will happen. In any case, it looks like ROM upgrades won’t be as painful as they were in the past, and closer to the model used by most ‘dumb’ phones today.

Posted by: Max

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, HTC, OTA, ROM Updates]