Engadget has made a comparison of the iPhone 4 against what they call the smartphone elite – representatives of respective Mobile OS – HTC Evo 4G for Android, Nokia N8 for Symbian, Palm Pre Plus for WebOS and HTC HD2 for Windows Mobile.
Based on the hardware categories chosen, the N8 stacks up surprisingly well (and nice of engadget to recognize N8 amongst the “elite”).
The HTC Wildfire is a lower-spec version of the popular HTC Desire. The lower price, which is yet to be confirmed, is likely to appeal to younger users – according to HTC.
The HTC Wildfire has a 3.2-inch touchscreen, and a 5Mp camera with auto-focus and LED flash. It recognises microSD memory cards, has an FM radio and supports GPS.
The Android operating system, designed by Google, is overlaid with the HTC Sense interface, which gives the Wildfire the typical HTC look – including the seven homescreen options similar to those found on the HTC Legend and the HTC Desire.
One of the features of the Sense interface is the aggregation of the social network updates from the contacts saved in your phonebook in the ‘Friend Stream’ application. This application allows you to see all the recent activity of your contacts through their Twitter, Flickr and Facebook updates.
Another feature of Sense on the Wildfire is the ‘Favourite People’ widget. This works as a phonebook of your ‘favourite’ contacts and brings together all their details and your most recent text or email communication.
A new feature to the Wildfire is the app-sharing tool, which allows you to recommend apps downloaded from the Google Android Market to your friends by text, by email, or through a social network channel. There are currently around 50,000 apps on the Android Market.
HTC Wildfire is expected to hit the shelves across Europe and Asia in Q3 this year. It will be available in four different colors for 300 euro.
Today HTC filed a complaint against Apple with the United States International Trade Commission. According to HTC, Apple has infringed five HTC patents and its law department insists on halting the importation and sales of the iPhone, iPod and iPad in the USA.
As usual halting the sales on a top product(s) is a standard request in these cases. It’s interesting that HTC hasn’t filed a lawsuit on that matter yet, it’s just that complaint to the Trade Commission.
According to Gizmodo the five related patents are:
As you may have heard, Apple is already suing HTC on patent matters. HTC have responded they are ready to meet in court. No matter who wins this, it won’t be easy and surely it will take a while.
HTC is known to keep its devices always up to date. HD2 is not an exception, quite the contrary — as a flagship Windows Mobile smartphone it gets updated more often than any other WinMo device from HTC’s portfolio. That said, we’ve spotted two hotfixes for the company’s all-touchscreen handset.
The first patch adds support for Arabic language. Apparently, it was not that easy to implement, hence HTC is thanking everyone for waiting this long.
The other update prevents JavaScript messages from automatically opening when the message notification pops up. In other words, once this hotfix is installed, it will prevent your phone from opening unwanted and unwelcome applications that are sent to you.
To grab these hotfixes, hop over to these two pages on HTC’s website and follow instructions provided on the screen.
And as you know, the HTC HD2 comes with a large 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen, HSPA and WiFi connectivity, 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, GPS, microSD memory card slot and so on.
Sprint and HTC just announced the EVO 4G, a beast of a device that we had seen glimpses of under the monicker Supersonic. The overall package is extremely impressive: 4.3″ display, 8 megapixel primary camera with a secondary 1.3 megapixel video conferencing camera, 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor, Android 2.1 with HTC Sense, HDMI-out, GPS, and Wi-Fi. Hooah. Both HTC and Sprint are quick to point out the EVO 4G’s pinch-to-zoom capabilities and kickstand, even with such an impressive stat line to boast about. This is quite the beast of a smartphone, and our boys in Vegas will no doubt get us some hands-on video and pictures of the EVO 4G just to illustrate its full capabilities. The press release mentions Adobe Flash support, which would be nice to see in action.
To date, Sprint’s only real WiMAX products have been in the mobile broadband sphere, like the Overdrive. They flirted with smartphones with the Samsung Mondi, but the EVO 4G presents a truly concerted push of WiMAX to consumers. While the EVO 4G will likely be both Sprint and HTC’s biggest news of CTIA, they also had announcements regarding expanded WiMAX coverage and a new online store, respectively. On top of the areas already planned, the WiMAX expansion will be coming to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City and St. Louis this year, and should open up the potential market for the EVO 4G considerably when it’s released this summer (not the end of the year). HTC has already had some time to dabble with 4G handsets in Russia – one can only hope that the experience has provided them with a few valuable lessons before launching their first WiMAX handset in the U.S.
For a closer look at the EVO 4G and to sign up for availability notifications, head over to Sprint.
[via Sprint]
GSMA announced the winners of the Global Mobile Awards 2010. HTC Hero was crowned device of the year, while the technology breakthrough award goes to Orange for the HD voice technology.
Yesterday on a special ceremony at the MWC 2010 GSMA announced the winners of the Global Mobile Awards 2010. The best mobile handset this year is HTC Hero, which beat the other four nominees in this category – Samsung Star, Nokia N97 mini, BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Samsung Omnia HD.
The Orange’s mobile HD voice technology won the prize in the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough category overtaking the Snapdragon CPU and the new Opera Mini browser, which were the other hopefuls in the category.
The Last City is the new mobile game of the year, so if you haven’t tried it yet, maybe it’s time to check it out. The other nominees in this category were The Sims 3, Farm Frenzy, Hero of Sparta and Speedhero.
Elsewhere, CBS were triumphant in the Best Mobile Service category (TV.COM). The Best Mobile Connected Device (non-handsets) went to the MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot from Novatel Wireless. The Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service is RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5.0. The Mobile Industry Personality of the Year is Mr. Steve Jobs. The latter was a media vote.
You can find the full list of the Global Mobile Awards 2010 winners here.
[via GSM Arena]
HTC introduced three new touchscreen phones at MWC today, two of them running Android and one running Windows Mobile. The devices are called HTC Desire, HTC Legend and HTC HD Mini.
HTC HD Mini
Like the name implies, the Mini is smaller than your usual touchscreen slab, measuring 103.8 x 57.7 x 11.7 mm and weighing 110 grams. It’s not a dainty, little handset, though, sporting a decidedly manly design, including four large screws on the back panel.
Core hardware is a 600Mhz processor, 384MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM. Features include a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen (HVGA resolution), a 5.0 megapixel camera module, aGPS, stereo Bluetooth, microSDHC expansion, Wi-Fi and HSDPA connectivity. Like its bigger brother, the HD2, it can also be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot. It runs Sense UI over Windows Mobile 6.5.3.
The HTC HD Mini is expected to hit stores in April. No pricing, though.
HTC Legend
A remake of the HTC Hero, the Legend differs only with a unibody aluminum construction and a few minor hardware upgrades. Most of the handset, from the internals down to the trademark chin, are the same. Details include a 3.2-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen (HVGA), a 5.0 megapixel camera module, aGPS, microSD expansion, a 600 MHz processor, 384 MB of RAM and 512 MB of ROM. It supports both 3G and Wi-Fi.
The big news here is the revamped Sense UI, which now brings multitouch and a new homescreen feature called Leap. A Motoblur-like service called FriendStream is also integrated for tighter social network capabilities. Like the HD Mini, the HTC Legend is slated for an April release.
HTC Desire
Essentially a Nexus One without the Google branding, the HTC Desire trades in the trackball for an optical pad and throws in Sense UI over Android. Like the Nexus One, it’s running on a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 576MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM. Notable details include a 3.7″ AMOLED capacitive touchscreen (WVGA resolution), a 5.0 megapixel camera module (with HD video recording), aGPS, HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Adobe Flash 10.1 support.
It’s coming in March, with no pricing details disclosed.
[via GSM Arena]
Today GSMA announced the nominees for the Global Mobile Awards 2010 that will be finalized at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2010 this February. The nominees bring nothing surprising – starting with the best mobile game and closing with the best handset of the passed year.
The first interesting category (from where we stand) is dedicated to the mobile entertainment. The “Best Mobile Game” award will go to either The Sims 3, Farm Frenzy, Hero of Sparta, The Last City or Speedhero.
Next up is the Best Mobile Handset category where a total of six phones we’ll be jostling for the top position. The nominees include BlackBerry Bold 9700, Samsung S5230 Star, HTC Hero, Samsung I8910 Omnia HD and Nokia N97 Mini.
Then it’s turn for the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough category where two of the most notable nominees are the Snapdragon CPU by Qualcomm and Opera Mini web browser. The battle between the nominees here will be tougher as they are hardly directly comparable and each of those deserve a pat on the back.
You can see the full list of nominees (including all the other categories we failed to mention) here. February isn’t that far, so we’ll have to wait just a bit more and see the real winners.
HTC has created a capacitive stylus that works with devices such as its HD2. Most smartphones out there rely solely on fingers, a stylus could be good addition to some phones.
This stylus was made specifically to interact with capacitive screens, and permits for more natural gestures that would be possible on a resistive display. This stylus not only offers finer control on your HD2 touchscreen but also the ability to use the HD2 with gloves and mittens on.
The HD2-dedicated stylus has started to appear in various inventories and you will be able to buy one in the U.K. for around $28.
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