T-Mobile myTouch 3G storming retail stores today for $199.99 on contract

You knew good and well this day was coming, but if you’re sick and tired of lusting after your proactive neighbor’s myTouch 3G, today’s your lucky day. The highly customizable HTC handset will be widely available starting this morning in T-Mobile USA retail outlets, partner locations and online, and if you’re really looking to celebrate, you can dart over to San Francisco at noon as 100 skydivers take a leap of faith in order to generate buzz, relieve some stress and put food on the table. Speaking of cheddar, you best bring $199.99 if you plan on snagging one on a two-year agreement, and you’ll do everyone there a favor if you’ve already settled on black, merlot or white beforehand.

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T-Mobile myTouch 3G storming retail stores today for $199.99 on contract originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC support site reveals Hero for Sprint, Snap for Alltel

We’ve been asked not to reveal the URLs, but we can assure you we’ve seen this official support screen pictured above with our own two eyes, which means that the HTC Hero is all but confirmed in a juicy CDMA blend for Sprint. How (or if) that’ll affect the availability of the US 3G version unlocked or on any carrier is unclear, but given Hesse’s huffy language regarding Pre exclusivity, we wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got this one locked down for a while as well. We’ve seen a similar support page for an Alltel-branded Snap, so if you’re still tied up in one of the carrier’s legacy divested markets and you’ve been pining after the Snap (and Ozone) on Sprint and Verizon, fear not — your own version is on the way. We’ll admit, if you had asked us a few months back what American carrier would get HTC’s highest-end Android phone to date, Sprint wouldn’t have been our first guess — but hey, good for them. If you can’t win the coverage battle against the Big Red juggernaut, may as well try to win the exclusive hardware battle, right?

[Thanks, Adam]

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HTC support site reveals Hero for Sprint, Snap for Alltel originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Hero and Click coming to China under Dopod brand

HTC has been on a global Android-pimping mission with its Hero device, and it looks like Chinese subsidiary Dopod gets the honor of announcing three new handsets for the Middle Kingdom. Unlike others, the Hero retains its WiFi capabilities by playing nice with China’s custom WLAN security protocol and is expected in late August on China Unicom for 5,600 Yuan ($820) along with the few-frills Click for 3,400 Yuan ($500). The carrier has opted to strip Google Maps from the Hero (though it’s still downloadable), and to soften the blow it will likely offer a snazzy red version of the phone. China Mobile will have to settle for an as-yet unspecified TD-SCDMA handset and the already announced Magic, both of which will likely be sporting the OMS flavor of Android. We’re not sure we’d classify the Hero’s price tag as reasonable — but really, can you put a dollar figure on being the first big-name Android release in the world’s largest wireless market?

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HTC Hero and Click coming to China under Dopod brand originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Snapdragon and Tegra smartbook rumors swirl before likely year end push

DigiTimes is reporting — in its usual sourceless, rumorific way — that a slew of Taiwanese manufacturers are set to deliver smartbooks based on the Snapdragon and Tegra chipsets by the fourth quarter of this year. Acer is leading the charge with an Android-sporting device, adding to its push of the Google mobile OS, while Mobinnova has confirmed US and European orders for its 8.9-inch élan, shipments of which might top half a million units in 2009. In the meantime, Inventec is expected to launch a 10-inch Tegra smartbook entitled Rainbow, which is probably set for a prompt rebadge. On the other hand, citing what it sees as weak demand, ASUS is holding back and won’t launch anything until November at the earliest. While none of these rumors are massively surprising, and given the source could be downright erroneous, they do hint at a wild, industry-wide synergy of smartbook rollout for the holiday period. And we all love synergy.

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Snapdragon and Tegra smartbook rumors swirl before likely year end push originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC sees revenue falling due to “delays in product launches”

HTC’s been on somewhat of a hot streak here lately, but word on the street has it that the aforesaid outfit may not be able to ship all of its forthcoming handsets on time. A new Wall Street Journal report on falling revenue in the HTC camp notes that an undisclosed amount of delays, a larger-than-anticipated drop in contract orders and lower-than-expected sales in China could lead to drooping income in the short term, and some analysts are pointing out that the company’s average selling price per phone is sliding due to looming Android competition from the likes of Motorola and Sony Ericsson. Aside from the Touch Pro2 that’ll probably never, ever land on Sprint, HTC has about a gazillion other rumored handsets on the horizon, but it’s hard to know for sure which “product launches” are expected to be stalled. So, is HTC secretly retooling a smattering of its handsets in order to stay one step ahead of SE and Moto? Or are old fashioned supply chain inefficiencies to blame?

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HTC sees revenue falling due to “delays in product launches” originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Sholes Android phone for Verizon appears in the flesh

Hm, maybe Motorola should have stuck with the render a while longer, cause this first shot of the Verizon-bound Sholes Android smartphone is looking mighty rough. Of course, it is just a blurrycam leak, and there’s a chance we’re not seeing this set’s true beauty, but honestly, we’re not sure even the most loving press photographer can make that red D-pad attractive. We’ll find out soon enough, if things go as planned.

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Motorola Sholes Android phone for Verizon appears in the flesh originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola posts $26m Q2 profit, promises cheap Android thrills, does a little dance

See that image there on the right? Yeah, it’s a pretty drastic departure from the Sad Moto[TM] face that had become all too common when talking about the company’s financials. Just a quarter after posting a dreadful $291 million loss, the outfit responsible for creating the RAZR and then doing nothing for half a decade is finally showing a profit once more. The Q2 numbers show an “unexpected” $26 million profit on sales of $5.5 billion, $1.8 billion of which came from the handset division. Of course, that very division managed to lose $253 million and see its global market share slip to 5.5 percent, but with a big bang from Android reportedly just months away, CEO Sanjay Jha ain’t taking time to frown.

Just hours after the Verizon-branded Sholes smartphone surfaced, Mr. Jha was quoted as saying that two Android devices would be “in stores for the holiday season,” with launches occurring on “two major carriers in North America and multiple carriers outside the US.” He also noted that plans were in place to ship “several additional Android-based devices in the first quarter of 2010,” but details beyond that were vague. So, is this the beginning of a new, happier Moto? Our aged copy of Photoshop certainly hopes so.

Read – Motorola’s Q2 results
Read – Jha on future Android devices

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Motorola posts $26m Q2 profit, promises cheap Android thrills, does a little dance originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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China Mobile’s 7-inch Android slate gets rendered

We’ve nothing much to go on outside of a few good renders and a smattering of machine translated paragraphs, but it sure sounds as if China Mobile is entertaining the idea of bringing a 7-inch Android-based tablet to its airwaves. As the story goes, said slate would boast China’s homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G connectivity, support for video calling, a full-fledged web browser and an OPhone operating system — which is essentially a customized version of Android for the Chinese market. Sadly, no further information was given, leaving us to wonder what kind of innards are scheduled for implant and what kind of price tag / release date we’re looking at. Oh, and those “call” and “end call” buttons are pretty darn evident, leading us to believe that China Mobile might actually expect you to use this as your primary mobile. Can you say… Sidetalkin‘?

[Via Pocketables]

Continue reading China Mobile’s 7-inch Android slate gets rendered

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China Mobile’s 7-inch Android slate gets rendered originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iriver reportedly working up Android-based K2 media player

Take it for nothing more than it is (a lovely, delicious and completely unsubstantiated rumor), but word on the Australian streets is that iriver may have an Android-based portable media player on the horizon. According to local distributor C.R. Kennedy’s iriver product manager, Danny Bejanoff, the outfit is looking to take on Apple’s iPod touch directly, with a 3.5-inch touchscreen, WiFi, built-in web browser, accelerometer, Bluetooth, a digital TV tuner and Google’s Android OS running the show. Sadly, it seems as if this pipe dream has yet to receive the proper final approvals, but we’re here to beg the brilliant designers at iriver to invest whatever it takes to make this so-called K2 a reality. Oh, and just in case that wasn’t enough for you, Mr. Bejanoff also noted that the firm was working up a new e-reader and internet tablet, both of which should be out for testing in short order.

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iriver reportedly working up Android-based K2 media player originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Hero coming October 11th to Sprint?

Let’s go through the steps together, shall we? A “senior member” forum poster on the xda-developers forums has posted the above pic as proof that the HTC Hero is coming to the US on October 11th — a claim he’s been making as far back as April, but this is the first time he’s brought a picture with him. The poster says he works for a wireless developer firm, and while this picture can easily be faked, we don’t think it’s necessarily that much of a stretch. Let’s look at some of the other phones listed. There’s “Samsung Q (Android),” which could provide a missing link between the InstinctQ and the company’s mysterious Android phone that was supposed to be out on Sprint and T-Mobile by now. BlackBerry Aries is the CDMA version the Curve 8520, and traditionally RIM’s CDMA devices wind up on both Sprint and Verizon. The LG LX610 / Lotus 2 is a new one to us, but Lotus seems to have been well-received for Sprint. So to pull all that data together, if this list is the real deal, we’d say it came from Now Network company. This is the sort of phone Dan Hesse would be glad to have waited for, isn’t it?

Read – HTC Hero (Android) Release Date: 10/11/2009
Read – Initial release date claim

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HTC Hero coming October 11th to Sprint? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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