SmartPhones

Look out, HTC! There's another new Droid in town - that is, another new smartphone running on the Google Android OS besides the highly-hyped HTC Droid Eris - and it's coming from LG. It's the LG EVE, the aptly titled debut of LG's promised line of Android smartphones to look forward to.

Interesting on the name: EVE. Recent advertisements for the Droid have already stigmatized it before even hitting the stands as a "masculine" smartphone. So here comes a more feminine alternative, rolled out the same day, and running on the same shiny new mobile operating system from the geniuses over at Google.

So while the HTC Droid is targeted at guys who are into their gadgets (big on music, video, games, and apps), the LG EVE is targeted at social media addicts, with a killer aggregator for the Twitter, Facebook and Bebo set. A prediction on that: both smartphones will be competing viciously for the YouTube set.

The LG is a touchscreen smartphone and a keyboard smartphone with a 3" touchscreen with stupendous 480 x 320 pixel resolution and a built-in accelerometer and it has a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Take your pick. The camera on the LG EVE, at 5 megapixels, could take over as the only digital camera you need too. And expandable up to 16 GB means you can hold plenty of photos - and home videos too! Yes, the EVE has video recording capabilities.

The price on the LG EVE makes for an interesting spread, as unlocked it costs around $400, but you can get it for about 70%, making it $49.95, with contract.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, Droid, EVE, Google, HTC, LG

Thanks to Amazon.com (of course), consumers can now get their own HTC T-Mobile G1 smartphone, the premier Google phone running on its Android OS, for under $100. Ordinarily selling for $180, Amazon.com is offering the same device for almost half that price--$98.

The catch? It isn't even really a big catch, to be honest. To get the deal, you just have to sign up for a new contract with T-Mobile. So the only people "negatively" affected would be existing T-Mobile customers who won't be eligible for the deal.

Even the monarch of price-slashers--WalMart--can't beat this deal, offering the same device for $150.

And in related news, a software update wil be available soon for the G1 that enables it with the one feature most commonly complained about it lacking--an onscreen keyboard. It seems only natural a touchscreen smartphone would have such a feature, and thankfully, the Android developers didn't take too long to catch on (especially after a 3rd party app maker already beat them to the punch with free app aKeyUI).

Surely this great deal on the G1 must have something to do with the next generation, the G2 (aka the HTC Magic) already coming to market.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Amazon, G1, G2, HTC, HTC Magic, onscreen keyboard, T-Mobile, touchscreen, WalMart

Targeting mobile professional users, AT&T rolled out the HTC Fuze, essentially the HTC Touch Pro with a few slight differences:

• Radio – both support basic EDGE connectivity, but for 3G:
o HTC Touch Pro uses HSDPA/WCDMA
o HTC Fuze uses UMTS/HSDPA

This simple difference means that, unlike TouchPro users, Fuze users can connect from nearly anywhere on the planet.

Also unlike the Touch Pro, the HTC Fuze lacks a TV out socket.

Just like the HTC Touch Pro, however, the HTC Fuze does include:

• slide-out QWERTY keyboard
• 3.2 megapixel digital camera
• GPS
• WiFi
• Streaming XM satelite radio

The HTC Fuze hits stores on December 1 but eager buyers can purcahse the device by telephone as early as November 24. Regardless of the purcahse date or method, the device will cost:

• $500 with NO contract
• $350 with a 2-year AT&T contract (the device is also supported by Sprint)
• $300 with a mail-in rebate

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: AT&T, HTC, HTC Fuze, HTC Touch Pro

Motorola sure is busy. Fresh off announcing the latest in the Motorola Q series, the MOTO Q11, a pared-down, budget smartphone, both in features and price, the same company has now anounced that it is working on its own Google Phone.

Following fast on the heels of HTC, the first company to release a smartphone running on the new Google mobile OS, Google Android, with its HTC G1, Motorola is looking to market more on Google's mastery of the web with the heavy integration of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace into the device.

The Motorola Google phone will be similar to the HTC G1 in a number of ways, not least of which is that they'll both have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a touch screen both. The Motorola Google phone, however, will reportedly cost just $150, $30 cheaper than the HTC G1.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, Facebook, Google, Google Android, HTC, HTC G-1, HTC G1, Motorla Google Phone, Motorola, MySpace

Adding to a long list that includes the HTC Touch Dual, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Cruise, and HTC Touch Pro, today top smartphone maker HTC unveiled 3 new handsets:

• HTC Touch HD: Hands-down HTC's best multimedia phone yet. Sporting a 3.8" VGA screen with a 800 x 480 pixel resolution and featuring a 5 megapixel digital camera, this unit boasts startling picture clarity and color saturation, an eye-candy treat for video and photo enthusiasts, an integrated RSS-feed reader for staying up to speed on all the latest news and blogs, and an FM Transmitter for staying tuned to your favorite audio broadcasts.
• HTC Touch 3G: In short, a faster HTC Touch. Bringing 3G network speeds to the already versatile HTC Touch, sure to be a real pleaser with the conveinece-addicted hustle-and-bustle crowd.
• HTC Touch Viva: A "budget" entry in the HTC product lineup, with the Viva, HTC offers the same essential elements as the original HTC Touch only without HSDPA support and a lower-res 2-megapixel camera

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: 3G, HTC, HTC Touch, HTC Touch 3G, HTC Touch Cruise, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Dual, HTC Touch HD, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Touch Viva

In this face of broad-sweeping success with their HTC Touch Pro and HTC Touch Diamond series handsets, the smartphone maker has announced that they are still on course to release their first (and possibly the first) Google Android OS powered device by the fourth quarter of this year.

Expected to be called the HTC Dream, the new smartphone from HTC flies in the face of recent rumors about possible delays in the launching of any Google Android powered smartphone.

Promised to bear both a large touchscreen and a complete, slide-out or swivel-out QWERTY keyboard, the HTC Dream will be about 5” long and 3” wide with controls for online navigation placed on the handset itself, beneath the touchscreen.

The HTC Dream is readying to face its biggest competition, at least initially, from Samsung, which seems poised to put out the 2nd Google Android smartphone to be scheduled for release (with Motorola not far behind).

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Google, Google Android, HTC, HTC Dream, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, Motorola, QWERTY, Samsung, touchscreen