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HTC Sensation review
A hotly anticipated smartphone with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a "Super" 4.3-inch screen, and a manufacturer-skinned version of Android 2.3 -- we must be talking about the Samsung Galaxy S II, right? Not on this occasion, squire. Today we're taking a gander at HTC's Sensation, a handset that's just begun shipping in Europe under a short-term Vodafone exclusive and which should be making its way to T-Mobile in the USA early next month. By beating its stablemate the EVO 3D and Moto's Droid X2 to the market, the Sensation becomes the world's first 4.3-inch smartphone with qHD resolution, while also serving as the debut phone for HTC's Watch movie streaming service and Sense 3.0 UI customizations. That leaves us with an abundance of newness to review, so what are we waiting for? %Gallery-124367%
HTC Merge makes an official landing at US Cellular May 31 for $250
If we could bet on phone launches the same way we put money down on horse races or slot machines, we'd lose our shirts on the HTC Merge. Like a ghost, this elusive Android smartphone has an innate ability to pop up from out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. Over the last few months we've seen this repeated multiple times on both Verizon's and US Cellular's ends -- until yesterday, that is, when the latter finally ended its part of the charade by announcing a launch date. Taking on Facebook, the regional carrier officially committed the Merge to a May 31st launch, selling for $250 with contract before $100 rebate. Oddly, the date won't matter much since store reps have the go-ahead to sell it as soon as it's in stock (according to the screenshot below), and the Facebook post reveals that shipments should begin arriving as early as today. If you've been wanting a Merge and are up to the task, we invite you -- nay, we challenge you -- to go to your local store this morning and see if your rep got the memo. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
HTC Sensation 4G hitting mid-June for $200?
Oh, the sweet smells of summer: surf, sunscreen, barbecue, Gingerbread. We've known all along that HTC's Android 2.3-packing smartphone was set for release at the "beginning of the summer," and thanks to some loud-mouthed Google AdWords, we've seen June 8th floated as a possibility. Those who understandably doubt the word of search-based text advertisements, take heart: it's shaping up to be a big weekend for Sensation 4G leaks. First TmoNews got its hands on a Target placard pricing the snappy dual-core Snapdragon handset at $199.99, for what appears to be a June 12th release, and then the site snagged a shot of internal T-Mobile documentation that confirms the earlier June 8th date. Why the discrepancy? Well, it certainly wouldn't be unheard of for the carrier to give itself a head start, and surely Target wouldn't mind timing its own release up with its Sunday circulars. In both cases, it looks like the phone'll be spending a fair amount of time beneath beach umbrellas.
HTC Wildfire S earns top marks with FCC, supports AT&T compatible 3G
HTC's newly announced Wildfire S -- or model number PG76110 -- just finished pinballing its way through the FCC's labs, coming out the other side with 1900 / 850MHz dual-band HSPA. As a quick refresher, this phone was launched at MWC this year and features a 3.2-inch display, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, Bluetooth 3.0, and runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Considering how many handsets are still shipping with Froyo, we expect this combination of Google's newest OS, HTC's Sense UI V3.0, plus an affordable price point to make the Wildfire S a popular device when it finally hits these shores. Of course, before you get all giddy, we'd like to remind you that while the Wildfire S does support the right 3G bands for AT&T, there's no guarantee it'll end up there.
HTC Merge launching on US Cellular on April 29th? (updated)
While we wait for the HTC Merge to maybe (or quite possibly) launch on Verizon, the phone's rolling out fast and furious on smaller carriers. Alltel's already selling it, Cellular South said it plans to, and now it seems US Cellular is gearing up to launch it on Friday. If you take a gander at that screen grab an anonymous tipster sent in, it's clear the carrier is putting the finishing touches on its plan to unveil the device in its retail stores. Just to refresh your memories, the Merge is a world phone with a slide-out keyboard, 3.8-inch touchscreen, and 5 megapixel autofocus camera running Android 2.2 with HTC's Sense UI layered on top. Still no word on whether US Cellular will match its competitors' sweet $125 price or bundle Amazon's App Store, but we're optimistic on both counts. Update: A US Cellular rep wrote in to clarify that the carrier will launch the Merge "later this spring," not this Friday. So there you have it!
HTC Sensation procures online real estate, launches sign-up page
The G2X may be getting all the attention as the current flagship for T-Mobile, but HTC is bound and determined to make sure it doesn't stay that way for long. Curious souls may be happy to learn that a sign-up page has been set up for the HTC Sensation to update fans on news and announcements. This is a good sign that nary a precious moment of time is being wasted; after all, we've got a full six weeks before the heavily-rumored June 8 launch, and there's an abundance of opportunities for the two companies to get the word out like crazy between now and then. Who can blame them for taking advantage of one of the summer's hottest devices? Interested folks should head to the source link below to sign up.
HTC Desire gets unsanctioned build of Android 2.3.3 courtesy of 911Sniper
When we last checked in with HTC's Desire, an upgrade from Android 2.2 to 2.3 had been announced for release in late May or June. While Gingerbread hasn't officially rolled out for this Nexus One kin, the crew at 911Sniper recently leaked the Desire's upcoming European / Asian ROM, complete with Android 2.3.3 and Sense 2.1. Many daring enthusiasts have already taken the plunge, reporting mixed results with flashing their device. it's worth noting, however, that when installed properly, user reports are quite positive. As always, please know what you're doing before you dive down this rabbit hole -- we hope to see you on the other side. [Thanks, Omar]
HTC Sensation ROM leaked, Sense 3.0 beckons enthusiasts
We've enjoyed getting to know HTC's Sensation over the past few months, remembering its name change fondly, and most recently getting some hands-on time with this dual-core beaut. Now intrepid developers, it's your turn -- 911Sniper has outed the ROM for this Sense 3.0 phone, and if like us, you were miffed that HTC's latest skin won't support older devices, we wholeheartedly advise that you put on your developer hats and dig into this one.
HTC Sense 3.0 will only support Sensation, EVO 3D, Flyer and newer devices; older hardware left behind
Unfortunate news for anyone who saw HTC's Sense 3.0 UI and started dreaming about seeing it on their Desire HD, Incredible S or any other handset that doesn't ship with it preloaded. HTC has said that because of the hardware requirements of the fancier new Android skin, only the dual-core Sensation and EVO 3D smartphones and the 1.5GHz Flyer tablet will be benefiting from it for now. The company's expected to introduce more tablets in the summer and its inevitable march forward with smartphones will continue, but Sense 3.0 -- and those delectable multifunctional lock screens -- will remain the exclusive privilege of its highest-end devices. Update: Those older devices may be missing the boat, but they will at least get a set of floaties. HTC left a message on Twitter that the company is "working to incorporate other aspects" of Sense 3.0 that will come to older devices. Hopefully this includes that flash new weather app.
HTC Sensation first video hands-on!
You saw the specs confirmed a little earlier today and you even got to glimpse HTC's new Sensation in the flesh. Now it's time to watch this 4.3-inch Android device strut its stuff on video. We've gotten our mitts on the Euro model and you can check out all the delicious visuals after the break. As we mentioned in our preview of this handset, the new lock screen is perhaps the biggest (it's certainly the most immediately apparent) change in the Sense UI that comes with the Sensation. HTC describes now describes it as "smart," because it can both serve you with live information, like weather and those all-important stock prices, and also lets you unlock straight into an app by dragging its link into an unlocking circle. Frankly, we used the functionality so much that we almost forgot how to unlock the phone "normally." It's something the Inq Cloud Touch and other lower-end Android devices have previously exhibited, and a feature we really, truly appreciate. Performance was, as you'd expect from a 1.2GHz dual-core machine, snappy all around, though we still caught some slight lag and insufficient frame rates when the Sensation was dealing with some of those yummy new 3D animations. The higher resolution (960 x 540) screen is a definite upgrade over the 800 x 480 standard that Android devices have been coalescing around and the 4.3-inch size seems like a perfect fit for it. Both the camera app and video playback in the HTC Watch app showed great speed and responsiveness to our input. Those are the things that will really harness the processing power of the Sensation. Physically, the Sensation somehow manages to feel more compact than its predecessor atop the European jumbo phone throne, the Desire HD. The two phones both have 4.3-inch screens, but the 16:9 screen ratio of the Sensation makes it narrower, while HTC's ingenuity has managed to make the new device marginally thinner too. All in all, a definite upgrade in ergonomics. Aluminum construction is present here as well, however the entire aluminum chunk -- which spans the middle portion of the back, separating two plastic parts (each of which has its own color, giving you a tri-color rear) -- is in the removable cover. This is unlike most of HTC's aluminum "unibody" phones, which make the aluminum piece part of the phone's framework. Hey, at least you get much easier access to what's under the back cover. Delve into the gallery below for more! %Gallery-120963%
HTC Flyer hits UK pre-order status at £600, comes with 3G and 32GB of storage
The one Android tablet that isn't riding NVIDIA's Tegra 2 dual-core chip and Google's Honeycomb iteration (but might still be worth buying) has this weekend become available to pre-order in the UK. The Carphone Warehouse is listing a £600 ($983) fee for owning the HTC Flyer, which is more or less a match for the €669 price Amazon.de is offering to German slate lovers. In exchange for a dozen rose-tinted notes with the Queen's face on them, you'll get a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 display, encased in an aluminum unibody case and powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm chip. HTC's Sense UI has undergone some tablet-friendly tweaks and there is of course that Scribe stylus to flex your artistic muscles with. 3G connectivity and 32GB of storage flesh out the Flyer's hardware offering, while the underlying Android Gingerbread OS is promised to get a Honeycomb-flavored update, most likely some time this summer.
HTC Desire S review
This time last year, HTC had two Android smartphones for the mainstream: the 3.7-inch Desire, outfitted with the latest and greatest, and the 3.2-inch Legend, which was humbler in specs but offered the novelty of an aluminum unibody construction. After seeing that strategy pay off handsomely, the company's come back in 2011 with a similar proposition. The 4-inch Incredible S is now the higher-end device, while the 3.7-inch Desire S is the smaller, aluminum-shelled handset. What's curious this time, however, is that the Desire S has exactly the same 1GHz Snapdragon inside it, the same graphics, same WVGA resolution, and the same 768MB of RAM as the Incredible S. Throw in the fact it comes with Gingerbread preloaded and a few new tweaks to the Sense UI and you've got to wonder if this might not be the more, um, desirable of HTC's new Android duo. Only one way to find out, right? Full review after the break. %Gallery-120779%%Gallery-120778%
HTC Incredible S hits Bell for $99
Dear Canada, today's your lucky day! The HTC Incredible S we just reviewed is now available from Bell for $100 on contract (that's for three years, folks) or $500 unsubsidized, complete with its magical and revolutionary auto-rotating buttons. Not only can you be proud to be Canadian, but you can be the first in North America to enjoy this, well... incredible GSM handset -- at least until Verizon's CDMA cousin, the Incredible 2, joins the party. As a reminder, the Incredible S packs a 4-inch WVGA Super LCD display, the latest 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 768MB RAM, 14.4Mbps HSPA+ support, a front-facing camera, and an 8 megapixel autofocus main camera with dual-LED flash and 720p video capture, all topped with a dash of Froyo. An 8GB microSD card is included, and the Gingerbread update is on its way. So go ahead and hit the source link if you dare. [Thanks, Spencer]
More HTC Pyramid pics leak, now with less blurrycam and extra specs
It looks like the steady stream of leaked HTC Pyramid pictures shows no signs of slowing down. While we've recently seen shots of the back and the front of the device, we're now getting the full monty, courtesy of xda-developers. Thankfully, Mr. Blurrycam toned things down this time around: there's a spread of the phone with its battery cover removed, and screenshots detailing additional specs. The HTC Pyramid is expected to land on T-Mobile at some point with a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 768MB or RAM, a 4.3-inch qHD (960x540) display, font-facing camera, 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, HSPA+, and Android 2.3.2 (Gingerbread) with Sense 3.0. Hit the source link for more photos. [Thanks, egypt and Andrew]
Sprint makes EVO View 4G tablet official: 1.5GHz, WiMAX, 7-inch screen, and a stylus to boot
Sprint has stopped playing coy about one of the worst-leaked devices in recent memory and has at long last made it official. The EVO View 4G is a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 Android tablet with a 1.5GHz processor, 5 megapixel rear- and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, a WiMAX radio, and HTC's loving application of Sense for a UI. If all this sounds familiar, it'll be because we're really talking about HTC's Flyer tablet, introduced at last month's MWC, and just like it, the EVO View will also feature the HTC Scribe capacitive stylus. The Evo View 4G will ship with 32GB of storage "this summer." You'll now find the full press release and spec sheet (including a healthy gigabyte of RAM and a 4000mAh battery) after the break, and some preliminary shots below. Full hands-on to come! %Gallery-119505%
HTC EVO 3D and EVO View 4G tablet spotted -- on Sprint's website, where else?
Oh, you know all about them, that much is true, but have you yet seen the HTC EVO 3D and EVO View 4G tablet? No, we hadn't either, until this very moment when another premature information upload on Sprint's website revealed their appearance. Two pre-registration pages exist for the as-yet unannounced products, one for the 1.2GHz dual-core EVO 3D smartphone and one for the 1.5GHz single-core EVO View 4G tablet. Both run Android and are unquestionably set to feature as Sprint's flagship devices in their respective categories. Beyond confirming that the EVO looks like an EVO and noting that the EVO View seems to have a black case rather than the silvery one that the HTC Flyer (the product it's based on) comes with, there's little new here -- you'll have to wait till Sprint finally makes all this hardware official over at CTIA to learn more.
HTC Incredible S, Desire HD, Desire Z and original Desire will all be eating Gingerbread by the end of June
When it launched the Incredible S at MWC a couple of weeks ago, HTC promised the new 4-inch device would be quick to get a Gingerbread update and now it's giving us a definitive schedule for it by saying that Android 2.3 will be distributed to its new flagship phone by the end of Q2 2011. We're not sure four months of sitting by the window waiting for the OTA update to float in necessarily matches up to our definition of "quick," but there are much better news for owners of HTC's older devices. The Desire HD and Desire Z -- both released in September 2010 -- will also be leaping away from Froyo and up to Gingerbread and will be joined by the original Desire, which was announced way back at last year's MWC. That handset was essentially HTC's own-brand Nexus One, so we already knew it was capable of running Gingerbread, but it's still rare to see a device go through two significant Android updates (the Desire began life with Android 2.1). All these old Desires are placed on the same update schedule as the Incredible S, whereas the newly announced Desire S and Wildfire S will ship with Gingerbread preloaded. [Thanks, Johannes]
HTC Merge official, coming to 'multiple' US carriers this spring
Boy, we've had so many leaked materials relating to the HTC Merge that we kind of assumed the handset was official by now. Never mind, HTC is taking care of that little oversight now, admittedly much later than we expected the phone to show up, by announcing that the Merge will arrive on multiple US carriers in the spring. It brings Android 2.2, skinned with HTC's Sense UI, a 3.8-in touchscreen plus that slide-out keyboard, and a 5 megaixel autofocus camera with 720p video recording. Not bad, now let's see how those carriers decide to price this mid-range contender.
HTC launches 1.5GHz, 7-inch Flyer into the tablet wars (update: hands-on video!)
Boy oh boy, HTC is entering the tablet arena with quite a bang. The company has just taken the wraps off its brand new 7-inch Flyer Android tablet, which touts a 1.5GHz single-core CPU, 1GB of RAM plus 32GB of flash storage, an aluminum unibody construction, 1024 x 600 resolution, a tablet-optimized version of Sense, and... what's this, a pressure-sensitive stylus! The HTC Scribe trademark we saw floating around in legal waters turned out not to be the branding for a tablet, it's actually the name HTC gives to the technology enabling what it calls a "groundbreaking pen experience." Other details include a 5 megapixel camera on the back paired with a 1.3 megapixel imager up front, a 4000mAh battery rated to last for four hours of continuous video playback, and memory expandability via a microSD card. The Flyer will ship in Q2 2011 with Android Gingerbread 2.4 on board. HTC says it'll be indistinguishable from 2.3 as far as the end user is concerned, though we all know it won't be quite as good as the 3.0 stuff. We're told not to worry, however, since the new version of Sense being introduced with the Flyer will be the focal point of the company's software offering. As far as HTC is concerned, Sense matters more than the underlying platform, and the reason Honeycomb isn't the shipping OS here was explicitly stated as HTC not having enough time with the latest Google code to customize it to the full requirements of Sense. Guess that settles that. There are a couple more software enhancements, both marking the introduction of the fruits of HTC's recent deals: OnLive cloud gaming will be coming with the Flyer in the form of an app you open up to access the web-connected bored-relieving service, while that Saffron Digital acquisition has turned into an HTC Watch app for movie streaming and downloading. We spent a bit of quality time with a Flyer unit recently, although we weren't allowed to turn it on, and our early impressions are rather mixed. On the one hand, we do appreciate the ruggedness and durability that's afforded by the one-piece aluminum shell, but on the other, the Flyer is quite the chunky beast in your hands. We'd imagine strapping in such an extra-speedy processor is the main culprit for its extra girth, though the Flyer is, ironically enough, not terribly light either. We found it heavier and generally a lot less polished from a design perspective than Samsung's Galaxy Tab. Anyhow, HTC should have functional units for us immediately following its MWC presser this morning, and we'll be delving in deeper with this super-specced device. Hang tight! Update: Pictures of the Flyer can now be explored below and we have video awaiting your audience just past the break. Update 2: HTC has tweeted that the Flyer will be updated to Honeycomb in Q2. %Gallery-116694%
HTC Salsa and Chacha bring the dedicated Facebook button to Android (update: eyes-on)
Yes folks, the leaks were for real, HTC really is bringing out a pair of new handsets adorned with a dedicated, delicately illustrated Facebook key front and (almost) center. HTC is very careful not to call its Salsa -- a 3.4-inch, 480 x 320 touchscreen device -- and portrait QWERTY-sporting ChaCha "Facebook phones," however Mark Z's highly successful social network is indeed the focus around which both are built. The OS is Android 2.4 underneath, however the Sense customizations have taken on an extra few tweaks and functions to accommodate a Facebook-centric lifestyle. That royal blue button is context-aware, with a pulsating light surrounding it any time there's an opportunity to share whatever you're doing with the phone through Facebook. A good example of that is you can long-press the F key to automatically check in with the social mothership. In terms of specs, you're looking at a lot of common components between these two. There's a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 -- which didn't seem to struggle unduly with basic functions during our quick play around with the Salsa -- 512MB of both RAM and ROM, a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, and a VGA front-facing cam. The resolution on the ChaCha is 480 x 320 as well, which should provide decent pixel density on that 2.6-inch screen. Both are expected to launch globally before the end of Q2 2011, at pricing points above the newly announced Wildfire S, but below the similarly fresh Desire S and Incredible S handsets. Hands-on photography by Sean Cooper. %Gallery-116715% %Gallery-116718%