Hasta La Gadget!

Ever since the WinMo-powered HTC HD2 started to drip, drip onto our pages in the form of leaked images and details, we’ve been asking ourselves one question: where’s the Android version? And while we’ve heard whispers of a supposed Snapdragon-based Dragon device running Android ever since early October, we’re left to rely on Motorola’s Droid / Milestone to fulfill our Android 2.0 dreams this holiday season. And if DigiTimes is correct, that picture likely won’t change until early 2010. Taiwanese DigiTimes‘ sources have its Taiwan-based neighbor launching its Passion handset running Android 2.0 (or even 2.1 by then) on a 1GHz Snapdragon chipset with 3.5-inch multitouch OLED display sometime in early 2010 (not 2009 as previously tipped) as HTC continues to tweak the device’s software. And if previous rumors are true then this CDMA variant of Dragon will be making its debut on Verizon at that time. DigiTimes‘ sources also claim that HTC will announce a QWERTY-toting Android device, possibly named Espresso, at the huge Mobile World Congress event in February. Of course, all this is rumor for now so hold tight as HTC’s roadmap unfolds.

HTC Passion runs Android on 3.5-inch OLED and Snapdragon in Verizon’s early 2010? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The folks at Android and Me have what is purportedly the product roadmap for HTC going into the new year. The eight phones are divided into four product categories: Design/Lifestyle, Performance, Productivity and Social. Let’s dive in, shall we?

In design/Lifestyle there’s the Legend and the Salsa, due out in March and June 2010, respectively.

Then there’s the Performance line, populated by the Bravo and its 3.7-in. OLED capacitive touchscreen.

The Social scene is comprised of the Tide and the Buzz, due out in April and May 2010.

I think they’re social because they come with Twitter and Facebook onboard, which is what passes for being social with a cell phone these days. I kid. The Buzz is the first image up top.

Lastly, in the Productivity category there’s the Photon, Trophy and Tera, each due out in April and May (no date for the Tera, however). All three phones are Windows Mobile 6.5.

In the spirit of giving and respect for a scoop, hit up Android and Me for the full specs for each phone detailed here. [Android and Me]

Camangi WebStation nabs pre-order status originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC has pulled no punches about the fact that it intends to bring Heros up to Android 2.0 (or is that 2.1?) spec at some point, though neither Sprint nor Verizon had quickly followed on to assure customers that there’d be upgrades ready and waiting for their versions (sure, technically, the Droid Eris is a different internal HTC codename than the Heros of the world, but they’re basically brothers from the same mother). Well, good news: Verizon has just announced that it’ll be bringing the phone to a “newer” build of Android with integrated Google Maps Navigation for release in the first quarter of 2010. Since Google’s nav app works on 1.6 now, that really doesn’t give us much of a clue which version the Droid Eris can expect to see — but seeing how we have leaked Hero firmwares running on 2.1 at this point, that’d seem like a probable target. With the Droid taking a baby step to 2.0.1 in the next few weeks, it seems at least possible that the shadow-dwelling Eris could end out ahead in the never-ending Android version game — crazy how the world works, isn’t it?

Verizon commits to ‘newer’ Android for Droid Eris with Google Maps Navigation in Q1 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re looking for the fast, fun, and easy way to “enhance the user experience” on your Droid this holiday season, look no further than the Android 2.0.1 update that Verizon just slipped us some info on. We don’t have an exact drop date at this point, but we’re told that Droid owners can expect an over-the-air package in the “coming weeks” — and most notably, changes will include improved camera autofocus and better voice reception. Since these particular fixes are presumably device-specific, it’s interesting that this is being done in lockstep with an official Android trunk release — but all Google’s saying is that the underlying platform contains “several bug fixes and behavior changes, such as application resource selection based on API level and changes to the value of some Bluetooth-related constants.” Good stuff.

Update: Google’s got a changelog posted — check it out. Nothing that’s going to blow your mind.

Android 2.0.1 SDK materializes, Droid getting it in ‘coming weeks’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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