Hasta La Gadget!

It’s borderline crazy to think that we posed this very question about the original Droid Incredible in June of 2010, yet here we are again. Same question, different day, and (mostly) different phone. Verizon Wireless has been pumping out Android devices like it’s its job — and really, it sort of is — and HTC’s DI2 is certainly one of the more polarizing options. Loaded with Sense and plenty of VZW “extras,” we’re anxious to see if the things that bothered us also bothered you. Is the screen size adequate? Are you still better off with Sense than without? Would you change the form factor or software in any way for the inevitable third iteration? Holler in comments below — we’re all ears.

How would you change HTC’s Droid Incredible 2? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It appears that Verizon’s showing no signs of slowing its LTE expansion efforts, as 26 markets lit up last week and at least another 21 are ready to debut on October 20th. The most recent switching of the flip, which took place on September 15th, rose the grand total of cities blanketed by LTE to 143, covering more than 160 million people; the upcoming effort to expand will increase it to 164 cities. The carrier’s goal by the end of the year is 175, which means it’ll be just 11 cities away from achieving its 2011 objective with two months to spare. Notable highlights include: Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico; Buffalo and Niagara, New York; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Stockton and Modesto, California. Los Angeles and San Diego will also be getting more coverage. Check the list after the break to see if your city will be the fortunate recipient of some 4G love, as well as the press release to take a look at the entire list of available cities.

Continue reading Verizon continues nationwide LTE expansion tour, edges closer to year-end goal

Verizon continues nationwide LTE expansion tour, edges closer to year-end goal originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, well. Looks like those leaked press shots (and hands-on photos and video walk-through) were on the money. HTC just officially announced the Rhyme — that womanly handset otherwise known as the Bliss. As it happens, HTC isn’t explicitly marketing this as a lady phone, though it bears all the markers of a device pandering toward those of us with XX chromosomes. Which is to say, it’s petite and purple with middling specs. What you’re looking at is a handset with a 3.7-inch WVGA display, a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm CPU, 768MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage space, a non-removable battery, microSD expansion slot, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS radios and dual 5MP / VGA cameras. The phone runs Android 2.3 with “next-generation” Sense (that would be version 3.5) layered on top.

And, as rumored, you can pair it with an optional “Charm Indicator,” a bubble that glows purple when the phone is ringing so that you’ll never again miss a call because your phone is buried beneath nail files and fifty tubes of lipstick. Other accessories include a wireless dashboard speaker for the car, a dock and a workout armband. As that tell-tale FCC report revealed, the purple version you see up there will land on Verizon as a 3G device, with a silver version arriving in Asia and Europe next month. HTC has yet to confirm pricing or availability. If leaks are to be believed, though, those of you with small hands and deep murses should be able to pre-order yours any day now.

Update: We’re told that it’ll sell for the typical $199 on a two-year contract (which includes all accessories), with pre-orders starting on the the 22nd and availability pegged for September 29th. A bit steep given the specifications, but hey — you’ll pay a premium for style, right? Right?

Update 2: As for global aspirations, we heard from an HTC representative that it’ll soon be available on an unspecified amount of European carriers, where it’ll be hawked as the “Hourglass,” tinged in a “sand-like color.” All other specifications and accessories will remain the same, though.

Update 3: Check out our hands-on (with video!) right here.

Continue reading HTC Rhyme official: 3G, 3.7-inch display, single-core CPU, headed to Verizon for $199 on contract

HTC Rhyme official: 3G, 3.7-inch display, single-core CPU, headed to Verizon for $199 on contract originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here’s some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of September 12, 2011:

• Vodacom South Africa has joined the data throttling club, though this carrier is taking a slightly different spin: BlackBerry users consuming more than 100MB of data each month will find their download speeds downgraded to GPRS or EDGE. The company claims this will only affect less than five percent of its BlackBerry customers. [via N4BB]
• Bada fans: the Samsung Wave 578 is featured on Orange’s site as “coming soon.” [via The Inquirer]
• Motorola announced the availability of the Fire and Fire XT in India this week. [via Motorola]
• The Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray is now being sold at Vodafone UK. [via Vodafone]
• Parrot announced the most recent addition to its lineup of Bluetooth products, called the Minikit+, a refresh of its popular hands-free speakerphone. The new model offers simultaneous pairing and voice commands. [via Parrot]
• Research in Motion is hoping to put the NFC functionality in OS 7 to good use, as it announced that the BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9330 as well as the Curve 9350 / 9360 will support HID’s iCLASS digital keys, which means corporate folks will able to use their smartphone as an access card. [via PhoneScoop]
• While digging through the Droid Bionic’s webtop app, the names of two unknown Motorola phones were discovered: the Edison and the Common. Little is known about the Common, but a recent FCC filing mentioned the Edison and is speculated to be the follow-up to the Atrix, albeit sans LTE as originally hoped. [via Droid-Life]
• The manager of the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, Matt Bencke, wrote a post pleading developers to submit their Mango-compatible apps as soon as possible, as the new update is coming to existing phones soon and it’s obviously very important to have Windows Phone 7.5 run as smooth as possible. [via WMPowerUser]
• A leaked Radio Shack roadmap indicates the HTC Vigor should be available in stores by October 20th, and the QWERTY-packing Samsung Stratosphere will be up for online ordering as early as October 6th. As this is a third-party retailer, we can’t say with surety that these dates reflect the carrier’s official release. [via Droid-Life]

Mobile Miscellany: week of September 12, 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We can’t say we weren’t warned, since Verizon updated its data policy way back in February, but it’s still a punch in the gut to hear its “network optimization” plan went into effect yesterday. A new policy page pointed out by Droid-Life explains how the policy will affect only the “top 5 percent of data users with 3G devices on unlimited data plans” (LTE and tiered data users are in the clear) by managing their speeds when connected to towers it has deemed are congested. Those conditions, termed network intelligence by Big Red, are what it feels separates this scheme from mere data throttling since it will only affect a few users (those consuming 2GB or more of data per month) at certain times and places, but it’s hard to see it any other way. If you’re one of those affected, expect a message on your bill or My Verizon account, although you may go into and out of the affected group depending on your usage. Hit the source link below for all the details — anyone else think it’s not a coincidence this policy popped up just before the iPhone 4 came to Verizon and is being implemented only weeks before the next iThing is expected to arrive?

Verizon starts ‘optimizing’ (read: throttling) network for the most data hungry users originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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