AndroidGingerbread
Latest
White Galaxy S II gets not-so-festive October launch in Canada
Smartphone obsessives in Canada will be getting their hands on some snowy Galaxy S II goodness sooner rather than later. Yes, Samsung's dual-core bestseller has been leaked with an October 7th launch date on Bell, with prices matching the dark original: CAD$599.95 off-contract or CAD$149.95 for three years. And we know all phones look better in white, right?
HTC Holiday spotted sunning itself on Australian shores
Australian carrier Telstra has revealed this 4.5-inch colossus from HTC, and the above picture from CNET shows it's likely to arrive under its Holiday moniker. This is the first LTE smartphone announced for Australia, while something similarly tall, dark and Android recently arrived in Korea as the HTC Raider 4G. CNET reports specs that tally with that other model: the big screen is qHD and the power comes from a dual-core 1.5GHz CPU coupled with 1GB of RAM. Like the Raider, the Holiday appears to be running Sense 3.0, not the refreshed 3.5 iteration that debuted on the Rhyme, and it looks primed to be one of the first handsets to launch on AT&T's brand new 4G network. So, expect to hear more from Ma Bell on this "titanic" rival soon.
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S available now on Vodafone UK
Can't wait for your high-speed Xperia Arc upgrade? Well, you'll be glad to hear that Vodafone's Xperia Arc S page has now gone live, and we've confirmed with the UK phone network that the curvy smartphone will also be available in-store from tomorrow. Signing up for a two year plan at £31 per month nets you the gradient blue version for free. Aside from a new super-charged 1.4GHz processor and a "3D sweep panorama" mode, other specs are all-but identical to the original. Certainly not a deal-breaker, with an Exmor-equipped 8.1 megapixel shooter and that 4.2-inch Reality Display both squeezed into its very pocketable profile. So, please form a orderly queue at your nearest Vodafone store if that sounds like your thing -- or you could just click on the link below.
Softbank takes Dell Streak Pro 101DL by the hand, plans January 2012 coming out party (video)
Dell Streak Pro 101DL. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Clumsy naming aside, this power-laden handset's just been officially outed by Japanese carrier Softbank, where'll it bow sometime next January. So, what sort of mobile media tour de force can you look forward to early next year? Try a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED Plus display vividly showcasing a skinned version of the now ubiquitous Android 2.3, all running atop a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8260 processor. There's also the usual array of WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and dual cameras on board (1.3 megapixel front-facing / 8 megapixel rear), with planned support for Dell's SyncUp cloud storage in the works. Of course, the phone delivers up to 14Mbps down via the network's WCDMA 2100MHz frequency, but you globe-trotting folk can always take advantage of the included quad-band GSM / WCDMA radios. As with all things pre-released, certain specs can still change before the ringing in of our new year. Let's just keep our toes crossed that one of those potential alterations is a frozen mobile OS dessert. Get a gander of the coming soon gadget in the videos after the break. [Thanks, Babak]
Huawei Honor gets video run-through, manages to hold the mobile court's attention
Sure, it may not grab headlines like a new iPhone or Google phone but that's not to say we're utterly uninterested in seeing a bit more of Huawei's forthcoming top-drawer handset. Now confirmed to play friendly with US radio frequencies, the single-core 1.4GHz Honor has been given a full video run-through. Techblog posits a December launch and a €300 ($400) price-tag -- not exactly the bargain basement prices we've come to expect from Huawei, but with a 4-inch touchscreen, DLNA abilities, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a substantial 1900mAh battery, it looks like you'll get what you pay for. Catch the video after the break to judge for yourself.
KDDI launches latest line of skinny big-screened smartphones for Japan
In addition to the already announced Fujitsu-Toshiba Arrows Z, HTC Evo 3D and Motorola Photon, Japanese carrier KDDI has now also confirmed a trio of new handsets. There's plenty of similarities; they're all Android, all waterproof and are each packing an eight megapixel camera. Kyocera's Digno is a slimline offering available in three different colors, and puts some of Kyocera's US offerings to shame looks-wise. Sharp's AQUOS IS13SH has an IPS-rivalling ASV display, whilst the NEC's Medias BR IS11 will arrive in a choice of pink, white and blue. Sadly, there's still no sign of that mythical iPhone from KDDI. Check out the links below for all the full-fat details.
Hands-on with HTC's Amaze 4G for T-Mobile (video)
So how does HTC's Amaze 4G stack up to its European counterpart, the Sensation XE? Pretty well actually. The 4.3-inch qHD smartphone also features Qualcomm's 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon CPU, but bumps the RAM from 768MB to 1GB. It's also HTC's first NFC toting device and joins T-Mobile's Galaxy S II as the other 42Mbps HSPA+ -capable handset on Magenta's network. More noteworthy is its trick eight megapixel shooter, which features the same backside-illuminated sensor, f2.2 wide-angle optics and 1080p video recording capability as the myTouch 4G Slide. Similarly, the Amaze 4G hangs on to quite a bit of that phone's camera software, including a new composite mode that automagically creates one stellar image out of five less than fabulous snapshots. We also liked the addition of two physical camera buttons, one for stills and the other for video. First impressions of the Sense-laden, Gingerbread smartphone? It's very much like a Sensation on steroids, with a definite T-Mobile flavor. Take a look at our gallery and hit the break for our hands-on video from Mobilize 2011. Myriam Joire contributed to this report. %Gallery-134939%
T-Mobile reveals HTC Amaze 4G, flaunts better camera and faster HSPA+
Europe may be enjoying the Sensation XE, but today at Mobilize, T-Mobile's announced that it's getting the exclusive on HTC's Amaze 4G ($259.99 on a two-year contract), while also confirming the hardware whispers we've heard. With its 4.3-inch qHD screen and 1.5GHz dual-core CPU, it's one of the first smartphones able to connect to T-Mobile's upgraded 4G (HSPA+ 42Mbps) network and is the first HTC phone featuring an NFC chip -- something we didn't gather from those early spy-shots, but the manufacturer promised a while ago. Pushing its photography credentials, the Amaze 4G's eight megapixel shooter can record 1080p video, with a dedicated camera button (and even a direct-to-camcorder button) to make the most of the handset's promised "zero shutter lag." Its also got that backlit sensor found in its sibling, the myTouch 4G Slide, so we're expecting admirable low-light performance, too. On the software side, it's running Android 2.3.4, coated in the inevitable Sense veneer and supporting the likes of HTC Watch and T-Mobile TV. Will it be enough to steal the network's king of Android crown away from the Galaxy S II when it ships October 12th? You tell us, as you check the PR after the break. Keep up with our Mobilize 2011 coverage here! %Gallery-134900%
ZTE Skate launches worldwide, attempts to stick landing in the US
The ZTE Skate -- spiritual successor to the Blade and current flagship -- is pushing on with its global roll-out and it looks like it may reach the US. Now on sale in Hong Kong, Brazil and Spain, the Skate is rolling down the French Alps and into France and the UK, where the Orange-branded Monte Carlo (a Skate in phone network clothing) is already available. With a different ZTE device set to arrive on Cricket soon, the electronics giant also intends to bring this 4.3-inch phone to the US in the near future, though there's nothing concrete on dates and prices just yet. According to ZTE's executive VP He Shiyou, the company is set to launch "a total of 30 smartphone models" by the end of the year. We fear the company may run out of flat-shaped names before the end of November. Head on over to our Chinese site for some hands-on shots.
Sprint's Motorola Admiral quietly displayed on YouTube as America watches dancing cats
It may not have quite as many views as Admiral Ackbar, but a chieftan of Sprint's CDMA-based Direct Connect service was officially outed by the carrier via YouTube earlier. Our device in question, the Motorola Admiral, has now been given a speedy lookover despite the fact that the company hasn't even seen fit to acknowledge its existence otherwise. 'Course, we don't imagine this was accidental in the slightest -- the video of the rugged Android device has been up for several hours without getting pulled -- but it's still a curious way to introduce one of the first phones featuring a brand new service. Regardless, we now have the clearest shots of the portrait QWERTY smartphone that we've seen yet; the two-and-a-half minute teaser didn't list off a lot of specs, but it did confirm the handset's 3.1-inch display and five megapixel camera with LED flash. That should count for something, right? Still, it likely won't be long before we get a real announcement with the full rundown, so just keep yourself entertained by watching the "related videos" section in the meantime. Check out the vid after the break.
Cricket takes a great leap forward, expands footprint with a little help from retail friends
After inking a wholesale spectrum agreement with Sprint last year, Leap's going for broke and rolling its "value-driven" Cricket service out nationwide on September 25th. The expansion includes a sprinkling of Walmart stores, Dollar General and even cable-shopping channel HSN, but the majority of its new reach will come from a partnership with Best Buy. In addition to offering monthly plans for dumb and smartphones alike, the operator's also serving up specific Muve Music service packages to play nice with three upcoming handsets. Along with the Samsung Vitality and ZTE Chorus (both to be available before the holidays), Cricket's introducing its first ZTE smartphone -- the Score. Don't go looking for high-end specs here, as the 3.5-inch Android device runs Gingerbread atop a 600MHz processor and includes a 3.2 megapixel camera. Feature phone users will also get a couple of new options to choose, with the Huawei Pillar and Samsung Chrono offered on the provider's PAYGo service. If you're in the mood to dig through PR spiel, skip past the break for a trio of pressers.
Samsung SHV-E120L comes out of the development dark, is the Xtina to LG's Britney
Brothers from another mobile mother, or just a case of copycat syndrome? We'll let you be the judge, but from the looks of this latest leak, Samsung's SHV-E120L could be sharing some of the LG LU6200's special spec sauce. Outed over on Cetizen and iNews24, the full breakdown of the device's innards point to a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 HD display, 2 megapixel front-facing / 8 megapixel rear camera, 1GB RAM, 16GB of onboard storage, WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC. We've seen conflicting reports as to the exact version of Gingerbread that'll ship on the phone, with Android 2.3.5 in the running. As for the handset's radios, its purported MDM9600 Gobi chipset indicates tri-mode LTE, HSPA and CDMA compatibility. Sammy's super-sized smartphone could hit South Korea later this month, or in early October -- if the passable English in that Google translation can be believed.
HTC Rhyme clicks its heels, calls O2 its exclusive UK home
Listen up, all you single ladies, err, people with style -- HTC's charm-dongled handset's about to dash across the pond. Launching as an exclusive on UK carrier O2, the 3.7-inch device'll saunter its way into handbags throughout the British isles on October 17th, bringing with it that recently unveiled slew of accessories -- headphones, dock, charm and leather pouch. If you were hoping for some mobile color options to match that endless wardrobe, you're going to be sorely disappointed -- the operator's only offering this phone in its debut shade of plum. It's not the worst hue to be stuck with, but you'll still have to coordinate accordingly -- a no-brainer for this target demo. Right, stylistas?
Motorola Atrix 2 peeks out (again) from the wild, destined for AT&T's faux-G?
Now that the tidal wave of Bionic hype has crashed upon Verizon's shore, it's time to focus our anticipation on Moto's other beast phone -- the Atrix 2. Leaked shots of the AT&T-branded update came to light this past July, giving us a glimpse of its Blur-ified UI and some tentative specs. Well, we still don't have any official confirmation that these new images over on BGR are the real sequel, but the details are lining up with what we know. Purportedly, this handset refresh will not be a member of AT&T's new LTE brigade, although that could very well change. Expect a dual-core setup, 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video capture and Gingerbread 2.3.5 baked-in. Rumor has it the orange-colored carrier intends to ship this before year's end, but will it be enough to sway you from this?
HTC Explorer, formerly HTC Pico, is back in black
Anyone turned off by the HTC Pico's blueish guise may be happy to see the phone's dark and serious makeover in these press shots. Now going under the name of the HTC Explorer, the render also gives us our first look at the new HTC Sense Zero skin. Alongside a refreshed bar at the bottom, linking you to the app list and phone, it looks to be a visually lighter skin, hopefully allowing the Explorer's rumoured 600MHz processor to juggle both HTC's home-made interface and Gingerbread with ease. The petite Explorer lacks the 850 / 1900 WCDMA bands necessary for a US launch, so we doubt we'll see it at HTC's big event later today in New York, though we are expecting to get our hands on at least some of those codenamed phones currently doing the spy shot rounds.
LG Marquee steps out in leaked press shot, coming this October? (updated: it's official)
It looks like the LG Marquee's gearing up for its coming out party. We first caught wind of the Optimus Black clone when it surfaced in blurrycam form at a Radio Shack briefing, running what appeared to be vanilla Android, and branded for the Now Network. Well, thanks to a leaked press shot over on PocketNow, we can clearly see that the device is, indeed, sporting a lightly-skinned version of the pure Gingerbread experience, with Sprint ID replacing the browser in the phone's launcher. Cosmetically, you'll also notice the new grey-colored chassis has a striped band sweeping down the battery cover, although the camera placement remains similar to its European cousin. Aside from that, the only other notable difference is in the design and arrangement of the capacitive buttons. The specs seem to fall line with its elder LG stablemate, as the handset packs a single-core 1GHz processor, 2 megapixel front-facing / 5 megapixel rear cameras and 4-inch NOVA display. The only question that remains is whether you're willing to forgo impending beastliness for elegance this October when it's rumored to launch. Update: Sprint's made it official. The LG Marquee'll be available for pre-order online on September 20th, and will go on sale October 2nd for $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year contract.
Refresh Roundup: week of September 5, 2011
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging to get updated. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery from the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy! Official Android updates Verizon was spitting out new refreshes left and right this week, as we saw Gingerbread begin to roll out as OTA downloads on the Motorola Droid 3, HTC Droid Incredible, and -- get this -- even the Motorola Droid 2 R2-D2 edition. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Interestingly enough, Android 2.3 for the Droid 2 Global was already getting pushed out, but was pulled just a couple days later after a Microsoft Exchange encryption issue was discovered. We've been told the updates will resume "soon." [via Droid-Life] Finally, Verizon also pushed out one other software upgrade -- this time on its 4510L LTE MiFi. (Thanks, Matt) HTC continues to expand its bootloader unlock tool to more phones, region by region. This week the company enabled support for the EVO 3D in Canada and Europe. [via Phandroid] Unofficial Android updates / custom ROMs / misc hackery The Motorola Droid 3 and Droid X both now have access to an SBF -- System Boot File -- to act as a safeguard for anyone who manages to brick their phones. [via Droid-Life (1) and (2)] Recently we heard about the Honeycomb ROM for the HTC Flyer getting leaked by MoDaCo, but no screenshots were available at the time. This week, however, someone successfully grabbed a few images to share with the world (shown in the above image). The ROM appears to run on Android 3.2 with HTC Sense 1.1 for tablets as the featured UI. [via AndroidBugle -- thanks, Dennis] Let's talk a little more about leaked Sense ROMs. We've already seen Sense 3.5 working on the Desire HD, and now we have another device to add to the list: the EVO 4G. [via XDA] The first kernel for unlocked bootloaders on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is now waiting for your download, so head over to the link for instructions. [via XDA] If you've been waiting and hoping for CyanogenMod 7 on your HTC Sensation or EVO 3D so you can shed the Sense UI, that time may be very close at hand. According to a member of the CyanogenMod team, an early alpha build for both devices may be available by the end of this weekend, so keep an eye out. [via Phandroid] Other platforms Two new unofficial ROMs -- one for Windows Phone Mango and another for NoDo --are now available for the Samsung Omnia 7. The Mango ROM improves the device's radio, camera drivers and motion sensors, in addition to a few other enhancements. [via WPCentral] Refreshes already covered this week Vizio rolls out Tablet software update, promises performance boosts aplenty
Sharp Aquos SH8298U 3D smartphone goes under the knife, comes out in China
Same phone, different market -- that's pretty much what we're looking at above with Sharp's "new" 3D Aquos SH8298U. We first got our hands-on this device's twinner -- the Aquos SH-12C -- back at Computex, with that model sporting the Japan-only 1seg receiver, FeliCa (NFC) and 800MHz / 2100MHz bands. This time out, the OEM's made some subtle changes to its China entry, reducing the handset's storage from 8GB to 2GB, and packing it with GSM / WCDMA / HSPA radios. The rest of the spec list remains exactly the same, leaving this skinned Android 2.3 phone with a 4.2-inch qHD stereoscopic 3D display, dual 8 megapixel cameras, 512MB RAM and a 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon processor. If translated pressers are your idea of fun, go ahead and check out the source.
LG Marquee caught on candid camera, is this Sprint's Optimus Black?
Is this a case of smartphone identity crisis, or just a repurposed chassis? Whatever the case may be, LG's got a Marquee handset ready to shore up Sprint's future line-up. The leaked shot comes courtesy of a now private video spotted by Android Central, and was taken at a Dallas-based Radio Shack Business Summit. It's evident from the one Mr. Blurrycam screen cap on display that the phone's currently running a vanilla build of Gingerbread, and sports a minimalistic design that's reminiscent of the Optimus Black. We can't be certain the two are indeed twins, however that leaked roadmap did indicate a stateside October bow for the Optimus Black -- this could simply be a rebrand for the Now Network.
Synrgic preps its T100 handset for the beast phone race
Synrgic may not be a brand name that resonates with mobile-obsessed statesiders, but that's no reason to shrug off the nascent electronics maker's efforts. Known primarily for its tablet PCs in China, the company is purportedly gearing up for a launch of its first ever smartphone -- the T100. According to a leaked shot over on Chinitech, the handset'll pack a spec list that runs neck and neck with the heavy hitting phones we've seen flood the global marketplace. Sporting a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 display, the device runs an undisclosed version of Gingerbread on a dual-core 1.2GHz Tegra 2 processor, packs 1GB RAM, up to 32GB of internal storage (due to an omitted microSD card slot), and 1.3 megapixel front-facing / 5 megapixel rear camera set-up capable of 720p video capture. There's also an HDMI and USB port, ample 1500mAh battery, WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G GSM / WCDMA frequencies on board. If the gossip is to be believed, this phone'll touch down on retailers' shelves sometime in October or November -- perhaps in time for an Ice Cream Sandwich. Update: Synrgic reached out to us to say these specs were based on an early version of the phone and are no longer accurate. The company said the phone will be officially unveiled very soon and the updated deets will be a "nice surprise." Considering it's already impressive internals, we're extremely excited to see what the Chinese manufacturer has up its sleeve.
