Europeans have beenable to preorder the HTC Flyer for months, and now curious Yanks are about to get their chance, too. The tablet will be available for preorder on April 24th (that’s this Sunday) for $499 with Best Buy as the exclusive seller. Though our friends across the pond have been able to snag 3G versions, the one about to come stateside just has WiFi. The Flyer, as you’ll remember, is the phone maker’s first tablet, and has a 7-inch (1024 x 600) display, aluminum body, 1.5GHz Qualcomm chip, and a version of the company’s Sense UI that was tweaked with slates in mind. Alas, It’ll ship with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), but HTC is promising an eventual upgrade to 3.0 (Honeycomb) and all of the bigger-screen goodies that come with it.
If the Droid Charge has you thinking that Verizon LTE phones have to cost an arm, a leg, and an extra $100, you’ll want to take a look at this. Amazon Wireless is chopping the Thunderbolt, Verizon’s original 4G bad boy, down to the extremely palatable price of $130 on contract, valid for new Verizon subscribers who buy the phone between now and midnight Pacific Time on Monday. The 4.3-inch, Android 2.2 smartphone from HTC impressed us greatly with the 4G speeds it was able to pull down in our review, and while those might not remain quite so spectacular once that network starts loading up more customers, a price like the present one makes it an excellent proposition in the short term. The source link is where you’ll find it.
We already knew the dual-core Sensation 4G will be showing up in the states “beginning this summer,” though HTC and T-Mobile have been mum on an actual date — or so we thought. If you look up said phone on Google, you should see a cheeky Adwords ad mentioning a “6/8” date in the link. But wait, there’s more: TmoNews also spotted the same date stamped on the Sensation 4G product shot from last week, which we’ve embedded after the break for your convenience. Of course, anything could change between now and June, but this preliminary date is certainly a good sign for all HTC Gingerbread anticipators — or, you know, you could just get the leaked ROM right now.
What’s this, a rollout hitting as planned? Believe it or not, the leaked memo we spotted a few days back has now proven true, with Microsoft’s long-awaited NoDo update (complete with copy-and-paste) being pushed out today for select LG Quantum and Samsung Focus users. The update itself has been looping around for some time, but this marks the first launch of it on AT&T’s airwaves. We’ve confirmed with the carrier that the folks in Redmond are indeed pushing it out as we speak, but there’s no word yet on how long it’ll take for everyone to get served. Let us know how the new build’s treating you in comments below… should you be lucky enough to get it, that is.
[Thanks, Sean]
Update: Microsoft also confirms this rollout, and says that the update is currently being tested on the HTC Surround. Thanks, Jeff G.!
Update 2: In case the upload speed is restricted on your updated Focus, wpcentral has published an easy how-to on reactivating HSUPA. Thanks, zblack!
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today’s movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com.
It looks like Tess Mercer’s got more than one hero in her life, but only one of them is running Windows Phone 7. In this week’s episode of Smallville, Lois Lane places a call to Tess Mercer, who appears to be packing a white HTC Hero. Oddly enough, though, it’s not rocking Eclair. That’s right, this Hero’s a Microsoft man — which has us wondering: what OS is Superman running?
So you got all excited after seeing HTC’s latest UI on the Sensation, but were dismayed to discover your hoary handset wouldn’t be getting the same Sense 3.0 love? As usual, the folks at xda-developers have just the tonic for what ails you… as long as you own a Desire HD. Yup, a clever fellow by the name of capychimp took the Sensation’s ROM and ported it to yesteryear’s HTC European flagship phone. The port isn’t perfect — those who dive in will lose camera support and the images need some resizing to properly fit on the HD’s 800 x 480 display — but brave souls who hit the source link for the download still get all those mellifluous movements that Sense 3.0 provides. See all the smooth scrolling in action after the break.
Update: XDA-developers have also given the HTC HD2 a quick Sense 3.0 hug, along with Android 2.3.3 in a similarly incomplete custom ROM.
We got to feeling a bit curious about how exactly HTC’s latest Android superphone, the Sensation 4G, stacks up against its fellow dual-core competition, so we did what every geek does in such situations, we compiled a chart. Included in this list are the finest and brightest Android handsets from each of the major manufacturers that have gone dual-core so far: the Galaxy S II, the Atrix 4G, the Optimus 2X / G2X, and HTC’s own EVO 3D. As it turns out, there are quite a few commonalities among these phones (besides the benchmark-crushing performance). They all boast screens of either 4 or 4.3 inches in size, the minimum amount of RAM among them is 512MB, the smallest battery is 1500mAh, and yes, they all have front-facing video cameras. Basically, it’s the future of smartphones, reduced to a stat sheet. As such, it must also come with the warning that specs aren’t everything, and user experience will most often depend on the software available on each device and on the preferences of the human holding it. With that proviso fully digested, join us after the break for the data.
Unfortunate news for anyone who saw HTC’s Sense 3.0 UI and started dreaming about seeing it on their Desire HD, Incredible S or any other handset that doesn’t ship with it preloaded. HTC has said that because of the hardware requirements of the fancier new Android skin, only the dual-core Sensation 4G and EVO 3D smartphones and the 1.5GHz Flyer tablet will be benefiting from it for now. The company’s expected to introduce more tablets in the summer and its inevitable march forward with smartphones will continue, but Sense 3.0 — and those delectable multifunctional lock screens — will remain the exclusive privilege of its highest-end devices.
Update: Those older devices may be missing the boat, but they will at least get a set of floaties. HTC left a message on Twitter that the company is “working to incorporate other aspects” of Sense 3.0 that will come to older devices. Hopefully this includes that flash new weather app.
We already had a pretty strong inkling that HTC’s poorly hidden Droid Incredible 2 would be a world phone, and now we’re even more certain (if that’s even possible), thanks to this sign / billboard / flyer sent in by an anonymous tipster. What’s interesting is how the handset’s dual CDMA and GSM connectivity appears to be Verizon’s biggest selling point, taking top billing over the front-facing camera and larger screen, which doesn’t even get a nod. No word on when this open secret will launch on Big Red, but we say it’s about time.
HTC revealed its latest high-end Android smartphone offering, the Sensation 4G, on Tuesday. Along with the phone, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer is also debuting its new mobile media rental-and-purchase service, HTC Watch.
The Sensation will debut in Europe in mid-May alongside HTC’s tablet offering, the Flyer, and in Britain, Germany and other European markets in June. HTC Watch will be available on both devices, and will launch with over 500 titles. Users have the option to either rent or buy movies on Watch, but purchased videos can be viewed on up to five different HTC devices.
The Sensation and Flyer will arrive on American shores later — in the summer. The Sensation 4G will be exclusive to T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network. (Whether you consider HSPA+ to be 4G or not, however, is another issue.)
The new media service, HTC Watch, highlights the media-hub qualities of the Sensation’s hardware. The phone will sport a massive 4.3-inch LCD screen, and the 8-megapixel back-facing camera is capable of recording HD video at 1080p resolution. For quick editing of your footage, the phone will also include the Video Trimmer tool which allows for clip cropping straight from the handset.
The Sensation will also launch with a new version of HTC Sense, the company’s custom interface for Android.
HTC recently launched another high-end Android smartphone on Verizon’s 4G LTE network to much acclaim: the Thunderbolt. The phone has been reportedly selling well since its debut, and is said to be outselling the iPhone 4 in a number of Verizon stores.
HTC wouldn’t provide pricing details on the new video service, or the Sensation, when we asked. The company says it will make that info available closer to the phone’s release date.
The Sensation is HTC’s second announced device to feature a dual-core processor, the 1.2-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon. The company’s upcoming Evo 3D also sports a 1.2-GHz Snapdragon, though it has yet to launch.
Rival device manufacturers have also debuted dual-core smartphones this year. The Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X were announced in January — carried on AT&T and T-Mobile, respectively.
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