Hasta La Gadget!

IDC’s latest figures offer some predictable reading. More phones are being sold than ever before; 406 million units were sold in Q2, against 401.8 million in the same period last year — with a 42 percent increase in smartphone sales. The winners? Perennial court antagonists, Samsung and Apple, with the duo doubling their combined market share over the last two years. Samsung maintains its lead, reaching over 50 million phones sold — and a new quarterly sales record — while Apple saw a quarter-over-quarter decline, as buyers presumably wait for Cupertino’s latest iteration, or go elsewhere. Nokia, meanwhile, had another “transitional” quarter, with sales of both Symbian and MeeGo devices shrinking, although its Windows Phones proved stronger. According to IDC‘s figures, Nokia and Microsoft’s team-up handset sales have doubled since last quarter. HTC misses out on a top three spot, but its fortunes appear to have improved over the last two quarters, with the IDC pointing the finger at a more streamlined product range from the Taiwan manufacturer. ZTE continues to nip at its heels, reaching the top five thanks to strong entry-level smartphone sales in China, while continuing to inch onto US shores. If you’re looking for a full breakdown of all phones sold, dumb and otherwise, read up at the source below.

Filed under: Cellphones

IDC: Samsung and Apple ship almost half of all smartphones, but Korean manufacturer maintains lead originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 03:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Despite the sweltering heat waves, our spirits are high at Engadget, and for good reason: it’s time for our summer edition of the smartphone buyer’s guide. Here, you’ll find our top recommendations for the best smartphones across several US carriers, along with the best QWERTY and budget alternatives. In many ways, it’s now easier than ever to find a world-class smartphone, but unless you’ve developed a strong brand preference, choosing one is likely more difficult than ever before. It’s no secret that the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III have firmly cemented themselves as the premier smartphones of the day, but if you’re torn between the two, we’ll reveal our preference in this latest installment.

Summertime also brought a bit of a shock, as Microsoft revealed that Windows Phone 8 apps won’t be compatible with the current generation of Windows Phone hardware. For this reason, we’ve excluded all Windows Phone handsets from consideration in the latest buyer’s guide. While the future of Microsoft’s mobile platform looks incredibly bright, a purchase now would guarantee obsolescence in the short-term. Instead, all prospective Windows Phone purchasers must wait for the next generation of handsets to become available — you’ll regret it otherwise.

Naturally, there is no shortage of rumors surrounding the next Apple iPhone, and given the handset’s current lack of LTE connectivity, the iPhone 4S is certainly showing its age. While cautious purchasers may choose to bide their time, the iPhone remains top-notch in many other respects, and its arrival at a number of prepaid carriers brought a breath of fresh air to an otherwise stagnant environment.

If you’re curious to see how it all unfolded — and we know you are — join us after the break, where we round up the very best smartphones of the season.

Continue reading Engadget’s smartphone buyer’s guide: summer 2012 edition

Filed under: Cellphones

Engadget’s smartphone buyer’s guide: summer 2012 edition originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With Android 4.1 Jelly Bean currently enjoying the spotlight, we would not be surprised if many Android users have shifted their focus from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich ROMs to Jelly Bean ones instead. That being said, it seems that one particular tablet has recently received some Honeycomb love. Yes, the Android operating system originally designed for tablets has finally made its way onto the US Cellular version of the HTC Flyer. Yup, so if you own a US Cellular HTC Flyer tablet, you can pop on over to HTC’s website to download the update appropriate for your device. This is after the Honeycomb update was issued to the Flyer back in December of 2011, a good seven months ago. Either way despite Honeycomb being old and with the update being rather late to the game, it’s still better than being forgotten and we’re sure US Cellular customers will no doubt appreciate the update. We guess for the critics out there, this would appear to be a good example of Android fragmentation and also the follies of having carriers dictate when updates are allowed to be pushed out.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: HTC Flyer receives Honeycomb update, Sprint’s HTC EVO View 4G could receive Honeycomb update by end of the year,

A Facebook phone did sound like a good idea when it was first mooted, but Facebook does not seem to be in the best of spirits at this point in time. HTC’s ChaCha and Salsa were once touted to be the Facebook phones when they were first announced some time ago, but those never really took off. Well, an anonymous source did mention to Bloomberg that there is a spanking new Facebook branded handset that is in the pipeline, and it will be developed by HTC. The thing is, there are whispers that sometime in the middle of 2013, the Facebook smartphone will finally debut – which is very far away from the original Q3 release this year.

Well, there has been no official announcement of the Facebook phone that was announced by either the social network giant or HTC, so we are working on presumption at this point in time. Should it run, it will most probably be a heavily modified version of the Android operating system. There are also whispers that this particular handset will be powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: HTC and Facebook rumored to be working on another Facebook smartphone, HTC Status page launched on Facebook,

Early last week, a screenshot of an internal T-Mobile document revealed the existence of a device perplexingly called the “HTC Era 42,” which promptly caused some T-Mobile fans to drool uncontrollably.

Some speculated that it would be the latest in T-Mobile’s G-series of Android devices and would sport a physical keyboard because of HTC’s track record with the carrier, but now TmoNews is calling it slightly differently. Instead of a brand new, keyboard-toting handset, editor David Beren has managed to confirm “with a small level of certainty” that the device is actually a tweaked version of the HTC One X called the One X+.

Exactly what that plus refers to is still a mystery, but that hasn’t stopped the rumor mill from doing its usual thing. In this case, the cause for that additional + may be the inclusion of NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3, a detail anonymous sources passed on to AndroidAndMe earlier this year. What’s more, the rumor also alleged that the device in question would run a stock version of Ice Cream Sandwich instead of HTC’s Sense-ified take on the OS — something that should please all those avid Android tweakers surfing T-Mobile’s spectrum.

That T-Mobile’s version of the device would get the Tegra treatment doesn’t seem like much of stretch either, considering the issues that manufacturers have had getting quad-core chipsets to play nicely with LTE radios. That issue seems to be clearing up (take a look at Samsung’s quad-core LTE Galaxy S III), but T-Mobile won’t have to worry about that network technicality until next year anyway.

There are still more questions than answers at this point, but we may not have much longer to wait. The leaked screenshot pegs the Era 42 with a September 26 release date, and if there’s actually something to it, HTC will probably come knocking with invitations soon.