Hasta La Gadget!

Look, if you buy a carrier-branded Android handset, you should know good and well that you may never see the first Android update. It ain’t easy to hear, but as mama always said, the truth ain’t always painless. That said, there’s still some research you should do before picking a phone and carrier, and ComputerWorld has seemingly done just that for you. The methodology is all explained down in the source link, but the long and short of it is this: in the last half of 2010, Verizon upgraded 33 percent of its sub-2.2 phones to Froyo, while Sprint updated just 28.6 percent of its stable and T-Mobile blessed only 12.5 percent of its phones with the new digs. AT&T bashers should take note, as Ma Bell didn’t update a single one of its nine Android phones during the June-December 2010 time period. Yeah, ouch. Over on the handset side, we’ve got HTC gifting half of its devices with Froyo, while Motorola comes in second with 15.4 percent and Samsung third with 11.1 percent. No matter how you slice it, it’s a depressing study to look at, and it probably makes your decision to skip over a Nexus One seem all the more idiotic in retrospect. But hey, at least there’s the Nexus S to console you… if you’re willing to sign up with T-Mob, that is.

Study: Verizon Wireless and HTC most eager to provide Android 2.2 updates originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A picture of Samsung's first generation Vibrant, released during the Summer of 2010

Pictures of what look to be leaked press promotional materials of a new Samsung Android-based smartphone have been circulating the web this morning. If they’re the real deal, it could mean that last year’s Samsung Vibrant will soon have a 4G brother.

The mystery device highlighted in the leaked materials is aptly named the Samsung Vibrant 4G, according to pictures acquired by mobile blog TmoNews. From the looks of it, the hardware specs line up with the first-generation, 3G Vibrant (shown above): 1GHz processor, 4-inch super AMOLED screen, 16GB SD card storage (upgradable to 32GB), all the bells and whistles of the non-4G predecessor.

To keep it from being a complete rehash of last year’s model with 4G tacked on to the end, the new Vibrant does seem to have a few new upgrades. First, there’s the addition of a front-facing camera (pixel resolution not yet specified), a feature that seems to be about par for the course in the coming generation of smartphones we saw at CES last week. While it’s playing catch-up with the iPhone 4, we think it’ll soon be a standard for higher-end smartphones in the industry.

Another perk: The new Vibrant will supposedly run an upgraded version of Android, version 2.2 ‘Froyo,’ rather than the 2.1 ‘Eclair’ of last year’s model. (Though it’s still no version 2.3 ‘Gingerbread,’ the most recent release.)

What T-Mobile really seems to be hyping, according to TmoNews’ photos, is the phone’s claimed increase in speed. The Vibram 4G would run on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network, which T-Mobile spokesperson Erica Gordon says is capable of “theoretical peak download speeds of up to 21 Mbps.” Depending on the city you live in, what you’ll probably get is something closer to what independent test groups have found, somewhere in the area of 4 to 5.5 Mbps down and 1 to 2Mbps up.

T-Mobile offered no comment to specific questions about the rumored device, and Samsung followed suit.

If the phone does indeed exist, T-Mobile and Samsung are most likely betting it will do as well as its predecessors in the Galaxy S series of smartphones. We’ll continue to report on news of the Vibrant 4G as it breaks.

See Also:

• Samsung Vibrant Looks Like an iPhone, Has Battery Life to Match
• First Look: Samsung Vibrant Rips Off iPhone 3G Design
• Samung
• First Look
• T-Mobile, Garmin Announce New Android Phone

Photo: Samsung Vibrant (Stefan Armijo/Wired.com)

Samsung did say it’s ready to supply all US carriers with 4G phones, not just Verizon, and we may already be looking at one of those devices before us. Billed as a T-Mobile exclusive, the Vibrant 4G looks to be a gentle refresh of the current Vibrant handset, with the notable upgrades being the inclusion of 21Mbps-capable HSPA+ connectivity — to speed your mobile broadband up into T-Mobile’s definition of 4G speeds — and a front-facing camera paired to Qik video chat software. The onboard version of Android is 2.2 and internal specs seem to generally match the earlier-released namesake. Speaking of the original Vibrant, these leaked docs also show it’s sold over one million units in its time in the US and is the nation’s best-selling Galaxy S variant. Great, now can someone please leak it to Samsung that Android 2.3 is already out?

[Thanks, Brian]

Samsung Vibrant 4G appears in leaked docs, touts 21Mbps HSPA+, front-facing camera originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Traditionally, CES isn’t a huge mobile event — the biggest phone news has historically been saved for MWC in February and CTIA in March — but that changed in a huge way this week. Looks like 2011 is shaping up to be the year of 4G, and both carriers and manufacturers alike wasted no time jumping on the hype bandwagon with a variety of announcements that promise to make the next few months exciting… and really, really fast. AT&T kicked things off early in the show, but it was just the beginning of a relentless torrent of mobile news that lasted for days and ultimately left us with a pile of devices and network upgrades that should take us at least through the middle of the year. Read on for the recap!

Continue reading 4G at CES 2011: AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile make big moves

4G at CES 2011: AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile make big moves originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Considering the size of the label here relative to the size of the device itself, this certainly seems like a tablet (rather than a phone) that hit the FCC’s filing system this week from LG — and when you add in the fact that it’s got certification on T-Mobile’s AWS 3G band, that pretty much seals the deal. Not a lot to see here yet, but the fact that the G-Slate’s got its certification squared away might indicate that it won’t be far behind the Dell Streak 7 that’s launching in the next few weeks. Frankly, we’re a little jealous that the FCC test lab people got to spend time with Honeycomb — any chance Engadget can be an FCC-approved test lab? What’s the process there?

[Thanks, Evan]

LG G-Slate makes its FCC debut? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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