Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. 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 we could find during 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!
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Every single company would do well to release a flagship device of their own – it is not only a matter of technological achievement, but one of pride as well. After all, what is the point of tooting your trumpet if you do not have a flagship that is capable of duking it out with the best of the rest out there? HTC knows that they have a winner with the HTC One on their hands in the recent past, where it has picked up mainly rave reviews from the masses as well as the press, but still, the HTC One was unable to help HTC deliver a stellar quarter when it comes to earnings. Having said that, this has not stopped HTC from moving in the right direction, and they have just announced the HTC One mini, keeping in vein with the “mini me” theme that smartphone manufacturers, Samsung especially, just love to play with these days.
The HTC One mini is said to be HTC’s ultimate 4.3” smartphone, after all, it does come with HTC BlinkFeed, HTC Zoe and HTC BoomSound, all features that are available on their HTC One flagship, too. The HTC One mini would continue in the same iconic design flow of the HTC One, where you will find that the 4.3” display is easy on the eyes, while a powerful dual-core 1.4 GHz processor helps run proceedings from underneath the hood. Not only that, it will also be powered by the most recent version of the Android operating system, where it will be accompanied by HTC Sense.
Coming in Glacial Silver and Stealth Black colors, the HTC One mini boasts of a striking aluminum unibody in a slim profile, looking premium regardless of which angle you’re starting it down from. Not only that, there is also HTC BoomSound, which is HTC’s dual frontal stereo speakers that deliver less distortion and finer detail, and headphone lovers will love the Beats Audio integration that delivers immersive audio to the next level. It remains to be seen just how much the HTC One mini will sell for, but it is tipped to arrive in select markets from August onwards, before a global rollout in September.
We’ve reached out to all of the usual suspects, and only one of them hasn’t stuck a thumb up and winked when we’ve asked if it’ll be carrying HTC’s “diminutive” new smartphone. O2, EE, Vodafone, Phones4U and Carphone Warehouse have all confirmed that they’ll carry the One mini, while ThreeUK has yet to get back to us. There’s no solid information on how much the device will cost on a monthly or one-off basis, but Carphone Warehouse is already accepting sim-free pre-orders for a very plausible £380. That same retailer is also saying that the phone is due to arrive on August 9th, but we’ll take that assertion with a pinch of environmentally-friendly salt.
I know that all of the major media outlets, us included, have already gotten hold of the HTC One mini, where you read our hands-on review here to get a better idea of what you are getting into if you […]
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
It wouldn’t surprise us to hear MoDaCo’s newly minted HTC One ROM triggered some reactions that could’ve easily been turned into animated GIFs. And if you were one of the many folks excited at the thought of seamlessly Switching between vanilla Android and Sense 5, then you’ll be happy to know creator Paul O’Brien has begun taking applicants looking to put the ROM through its paces. MoDaCo.Switch is said to be “nearly ready for beta testing,” and thus we’d recommend filling out the form at the source link below pretty soon — O’Brien says he’ll “be picking a number of people of varying abilities and devices.”
Sprint just recently announced that it will be offering the HTC 8XT on July 19th, but it turns out it’s not the only option for those interested the phone. Upstart Ting has just announced that it is now taking pre-orders for the device, making it the first Windows Phone device available on the MVNO. Not many surprises beyond that, as you might expect — the device is available off-contract per usual (running $373), and the phone itself is the same as you’ll find on Sprint, including a 4.3-inch WVGA display, 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 CPU, 8 megapixel camera and HTC’s trademark “BoomSound.” Those looking for a different take on Windows Phone can also look for an unspecified Samsung ATIV device to be available on Ting sometime soon.
HTC’s new One mini may not be due to hit shelves until next month, but that hasn’t stopped retailers from officially pricing up the 4.3-inch smartphone already. Though HTC would only say that it expects the carrier-subsidized One mini to be “two price points” lower than the HTC One, the SIM-free One mini will apparently be £379.99 ($579) unlocked and with tax in the UK.
That’s according to retailer MobileFun, which tells SlashGear that the price is official and not just a place-holder as can often be the case.
HTC One mini hands-on:
In contrast, the same retailer has the original HTC One on sale for £519.99 ($792) including UK tax, a £140 ($213) difference. It also puts the One mini in-between the off-contract price for the Nokia Lumia 720 and Lumia 820 Windows Phones, and £10 less than the SIM-free Galaxy S4 mini.
According to the retailer, the One mini will be in stock in the space of a month, which fits with HTC’s August launch expectations.
Still to be confirmed are carrier prices, though EE, Vodafone, and Phones4u have all said they’ll be offering the One mini in the UK. North American launch details aren’t known, though HTC did tell us that there would indeed be a release, and we’ve previously heard chatter of AT&T 4G support in the Android smartphone.
As we found in our hands-on with the One mini, the new phone sticks relatively closely to the pattern laid out by the original One. The unibody aluminum casing – available in silver and black – is still present, along with the UltraPixel camera, BoomSound front-mounted speakers, and Beats Audio tuning.
However, there are some noticeable differences, though to what extent the mid-range target audience will miss them in daily use is uncertain.
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