Hasta La Gadget!

The spotlight this week may be pointed at the iPhone 3GS—and with good reason—but it’s not the only flavor of smartphone ice cream. Here’s a quick path to more info about all smartphones (and no dumb ones!)

• The four big carriers, the four best smartphone platforms, the best information you’re going to get on the subject anywhere: Smartphone Buyer’s Guide: The Best of the Best

• Got a few smartphones already in mind? We probably reviewed them:
Palm Pre (WebOS)
iPhone 3GS
BlackBerry Bold
BlackBerry Storm
T-Mobile G1 (Android)
T-Mobile myTouch 3G (Android)
Samsung Omnia (WinMo)
Note: There’s no Nokia Symbian smartphone on this list because at the moment in the US, there’s no handset we feel confident to recommend.

• Since surfing the web is one of the biggest reasons to choose a smartphone—and one of the biggest differentiators between smartphones—it’s worth it to glance over the Mobile Browser Battlemodo, and its little sister, the Windows Mobile Browser Battlemodo.

• If you’ve already whittled it down to Palm Pre vs. iPhone 3GS, check out our roundup of reviews and news stories for each: Pre vs. 3GS: How To Make the Right Decision. Or you could just skip to this sweet flowchart.

• OK, OK, so you’re set on that durned iPhone, but which one? The $99 3G? Or $199 step-up 3GS? $100 is a lot to think about (even if it amounts to less than two months of actual service): 3GS vs 3G Feature Chart Comparison

This one’s for all of you Meizu fanboys out there: To tide you over while you wait for the M8 3G launch in March 2010 (with a possible M8 3G S planned for Smarch 2043 or thereabouts) the company’s announced that the handset will be getting a UI refresh with its firmware 1.0 release come August. Keep in mind that the above image only shows the flowchart that the kids at the eico design lab are using to concoct all their fantastic new transitions and animations, and not the interface itself. And if that isn’t enough to keep you entertained this fine morning, it looks like Meizu has put together a team “with the sole purpose of investigating the Android platform.” Whether or not this “investigation” will amount to anything remains to be seen, and it doesn’t look like the company has any serious intentions for this device beyond the domestic Chinese market, but who knows? Maybe there is a Meizu handset with the open source OS in your (distant) future. Stranger things have happened.

[Thanks, nice2know_u]

Read – Meizu M8 interface getting completely redone
Read – Meizu Android squad hard at work

Filed under: Cellphones

Meizu M8 gets new UI, possibly Android? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Call it an announcement of an announcement, if you will — not quite as detailed as we’d like, but it’s one small morsel of information on the long road to the US’ second Android handset. Perhaps in response to the Wall Street Journal‘s suggestion that T-Mobile would be releasing details on its next Android phone next week, a company spokesperson has said just that: “Next week, T-Mobile will share more details about its next Android-powered phone, the follow-on device to the T-Mobile G1 with Google.” No mention is made of what that phone will be, but the odds-on favorite has to be the myTouch 3G, seeing how it’s already launched in the form of the Google Ion — it just needs a T-Mobile logo, some packaging, maybe a gently tweaked firmware, and it’s ready to rock.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

T-Mobile confirms next Android phone will be announced next week originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The race to release new Android handsets has been a slow crawl, indeed. The deluge of new phone utilizing Google’s open-source operating system has yet to surface in any way, beyond the multitude of promises from a number of phone and netbook manufacturers. T-Mobile, however, is reportedly working on its own follow up to the first–and still only–Android handset in the States, the G1.

According to The Wall Street Journal, more details about the handset–set to be called the myTouch 3G–will surface next week. Like its predecessor, the new phone will be designed by hardware manufacturer, HTC. The myTouch 3G will reportedly look a lot like the HTC Magic–with a touchscreen and no physical keyboard and a smaller body than the iPhone.

The phone’s software will also feature some update, including a voice-activated search function. More details next week–probably.

Layar combines GPS, camera, and compass to identify your surroundings and overlay information on screen, in real time. It is available for Android now and it will be available for iPhone soon, but exclusively for the 3GS.

The reason is that Layar needs a compass to work, as Maarten Lens-FitzGerald—from developer SPRXmobile—tells us:

We are definitely going for the new iPhone 3GS because of the compass! We’re aiming for release after summer, but we depend on Apple accepting it.

I’m sure they won’t have any problems. I can’t imagine anyone saying no to such cool application— especially not when it makes use of the new magnetometer in the iPhone 3GS. Maarten also tells us that they are planning to make it available for any smartphone with GPS and a compass, which probably will mean the Palm Pre at one point.

But that doesn’t matter if you are an Android user: You can download and play with it right now, although it seems that this release is limited to the Netherlands. Once more information layers are released worldwide, Layar will be extremely useful in many scenarios. The most obvious one will be to find your way in unknown places, but it will also be great for real estate and tourism guides. [Layar]