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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It’s not just the iPhone 4 that’s going the way of CDMA. Verizon CFO Francis Shammo has told Bloomberg that the iPad will also be getting similar treatment. Although light on details like price (which we can guess) or release date (which we have no idea, really), Shammo did explicitly say a version that connects directly to Verizon’s network is in the pipeline. We assume he meant the current iPad, which the carrier currently sells as WiFi-only with a MiFi bundle, but hey, anything’s possible.

CDMA iPad coming to Verizon, too, says CFO originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whether you’re already on Verizon or looking in from the outside, the iPhone 4 just became one of that network’s flagship devices. So, we want to know how you feel, will it pull you into Big Red’s gravitational sphere or are you impervious to its magnetic charms? Let us know in the poll below!

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Are you getting the Verizon iPhone 4? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Would you look at that, Verizon’s iPhone 4 has four notches punctuating its external antenna array — one more than you may find on AT&T’s version, with the top notch migrating to the side. Before you all jump on conspiracy theories about fixes and such, Tim Cook has just confirmed on stage that changes had to be made to work on the CDMA network, meaning that for users this is pretty much an aesthetic alteration. Otherwise, you’re looking at an almost identical device to what AT&T users have been enjoying since June of last year — savvy nerds will just be able to tell the CDMA version apart at one glance.

Verizon’s iPhone 4 has a CDMA-specific antenna, no other changes made originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We said we’d bring you an Verizon LTE speed test on the Acer Iconia Tab A500, but we can give you better than that — here’s a test of latency in cross-platform online multiplayer gaming and a FiOS app that streams live television. Hosting a game of Dungeon Defenders on an Alienware M11x laptop (also connected to LTE), Verizon joined the party with an Acer Iconia Tab, and a pair of the slates were able to go head-to-head in a peer-to-peer Asphalt 5 race over LTE as well. What’s more, the carrier showed us an experimental version of its FiOS DVR Manager app, which streamed live television to the Iconia over LTE — similar to what we saw on the iPad. Unlike the games, it was choppy and took some time to cache, but we’ll have to see what it’s like when (or if) it’s finalized. Of course, if you had just clicked the play button on the above video instead of reading these words, you’d already know all that.

Eyes-on: Verizon LTE gaming and live TV on the Acer Iconia Tab (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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