SmartPhones

All iPhone bashing aside, the HTC TouchPro2 is still one of the hottest smartphones on the market today. Two months ago, when it first came out, this slide-out keyboard, touchscreen smartphone was flying off the shelves so fast it had gone out of stock after even at Verizon's own online store. Then, when they refilled inventories, the device voted Hot for the Holidays at the last CTIA convention, only remained in stock for one day. A little less than one month ago, the TouchPro2 was sold out again.

But now, as of November 9, nearly two months after the TouchPro2's release, supplies have finally been restocked once more. How long will it last in stock, though?

Probably not long, even in the face of the Droid. The HTC TouchPro2 is a world phone, for one, and the Droid is not. Add to that a tilting touchscreen and one of the best keyboards for texting and you have a device that looks way more like a champ than a contender.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Droid, HTC, iphone, TouchPro2, verizon, Windows Mobile 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

The Director of the Microsoft Mobile Team Unit for the Greater China region announced the other day that 15 smartphone developers will be releasing over 30 new smartphones by the end of this year that will be running on the upcoming and long-await Windows Mobile OS upgrade - Windows Mobile 6.5.

Among those 15 develops that have Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone launches on the near horizon are: Acer, HP, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, or Toshiba. Among the wireless service carriers that are on-board to carry many of these devices are the big 3 - Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, among the first of these 30 new Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphones to come out will be several from HTC, including the HTC Touch 2 and HTC Tilt 2 (said to be the WinMo equivalent of the TouchPro 2), as well as the Sony Ericsson Xperia2. Following shortly on their heels will be 3 from LG and a WinMo revamped line of Samsung Omnia devices.

What is there to look forward to in the new WinMo update? Home screen widgets, Internet Explorer 6.5, Flash Lite support for IE 6.5, and My Phone, an online file synchronization service.

The official Windows Mobile 6.5 launch date is October 6. People who already have smartphones running Windows Mobile 6.1 will be able to update their OS to WinMo 6.5 at that time with a software patch. And WinMo 6.5 will also be available for sale at the Windows Marketplace app store.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: HTC, Microsoft, Omnia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Tilt 2, Touch 2, TouchPro 2, Windows Marketplace, Windows Mobile, WinMo 6.5, Xperia X2

Microsoft has just revealed that the latest version of Windows Mobile is slated for release on October 6, and HTC has just revealed that the first smartphone device to be released running WinMo 6.5, will be the HTC Touch 2. Shortly thereafter, Sony Ericsson will release its first ever WinMo phone, using this new Windows Mobile 6.5, the Xperia X2. And sometime before the twelve days of Christmas are out, LG will have 3 WinMo 6.5 smartphones out (among its 13 new devices promised by New Year's), 2 of those devices sure to be the LG GW550 and the LG GM750.

The new Windows Mobile 6.5 will include a new and improved Internet Explorer Mobile web browser that includes Flash support (something even the iPhone can't yet claim). WinMo 6.5 also features the Microsoft My Phone back-up service, immensely popular in Beta and finally taken out of Beta for full release for the first time. And WinMo 6.5 it will include the long-awaited Windows Marketplace for Moble app store.

But more than anything, this is an OS improvement, as Microsoft attempts to regain some serious ground lost to rivals RIM, Google, and Apple. For a more feature-filled upgrade, stay tuned for WinMo 7.0. It's biggest and best improvement - perhaps - no more need for the stylus. Windows Mobile 6.5 is "finger friendly" they say.

Meanwhile, a quote released by one of Motorola's senior engineers (ironic because Motorola has all but proposed to Google Android) suggests that WinMo 7.0 is already in manufacturer's hand in Beta. ,Supposedly according to LinkedIn leaks, Windows Mobile 7.0 will include a Microsoft Mobile version of Internet Explorer 7.0 or even 8.0, as well as a digital compass, an accelerometer, Nickname Cache, and Windows Live ID, among others.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Christmas, GM750, GW550, HTC, LG, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson, Touch2, Windows Mobile, WinMo 6.5, WinMo 7.0, Xperia 2

Verizon is having a "fire sale" on its smartphones, slashing prices by as much as $100 and dropping prices on some of its devices to unbelievably lows in an obvious effort to push out old stocks before new holiday inventories come in (such as the HTC TouchPro 2 and the Blackberry Storm 2). This in an obvious effort to compete with AT&T's recently slashed prices on the iPhone and iPhone 3G.

Included in the bargains are several $99 deals (with 2-year contracts, of course) on smartphones like the HTC Touch Diamond, the Blackberry Storm, and the Samsung Omnia. The biggest price drop (also to $99.99) is for the HTC TouchPro which came down from a staggering $419.

The Blackberry Curve (recently revealed as the top selling smartphone of 2009 Q2) is getting a price cut down to an incredible $49.99.

Even the newer Verizon smartphone handsets are getting discounts (though not as heavy ones, of course) like the Blackberry Tour which will sell for $149, and the Samsung Saga, both carried by Verizon Wireless, are not discounted in this sale.

According to Boy Genius Report (which broke the story) the TouchPro2 should be out soon, while the Storm2 will probably not see the light of day until sometime in November. That gives smartphone users plenty of time to devour the good bargains available now.

Clearly whether they're doing it to compete with the iPhone's slash in prices (and particularly the $99 iPhone 3G 8 GB model) or in an effort to clear out TouchPro and Storm handsets to make way for their successors, one thing is for sure: Verizon Wireless is now deeply entrenched in the smartphone price wars.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: AT&T, Blackberry, Curve, HTC, iphone, iphone 3g, Omnia, Saga, Samsung, Storm, Storm 2, Touch Diamond, TouchPro, TouchPro 2, verizon

HTC is finally getting rid of Windows Mobile in place of the new and improved Google Android mobile platform, Android 1.5 Cupcake, with its HTC Lancaster, billed as "The Consumer Social Messaging Device".

The Lancaster is not HTC's first Android smartphone, but it is its first to be carried by AT&T. To boot, the HTC Lancaster is AT&T's first Android device. It's got most of the usual features you would expect from a modern smartphone, plus a slide-out keyboard and HTC's own unique social messaging interface.

Other big releases coming out from HTC any day now include the HTC Warhawk (aka the Touch Diamond2) and the HTC Fortress (aka the Touch Pro2). And other big upcoming releases from AT&T include the Palm Eos (the WebOS-enabled successor to the Palm Centro), the touchscreen Samsung Infinity, and two from Motorola: the feature-filled Sawgrass with built-in blogging interface, and the Heron, as it turns out another premiere Android smartphone from AT&T.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, Android 1.5 Cupcake, AT&T, blogging, Cupcake, Google, HTC, HTC Fortress, HTC Lancaster, HTC Touch Diamond2, HTC Touch Pro2, HTC Warhawk, Motorola, Motorola Heron, Motorola Sawgrass, Palm, Palm Centro, Palm Eos, social messaging, WebOS, Windows Mobile

At Barcelona's recent Mobile World Congress, Verizon has just announced the upcoming release of the second generation of its version of the HTC Touch Diamond, to be better known as the HTC Touch Diamond 2.

The HTC Touch Diamond 2 now has a 3.2" widescreen VGA display screen with 480×800 pixel resolution and a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus. The new device will also be sporting the latest version of the HTC TouchFLO 3D interface, customized for ultimate compatibility with the Windows Mobile 6.1 OS (not to mention large and clumsy fingers and thumbs).

The HTC Touch Diamond2 will be released sometime in the second quarter of this year (that's sometime between now and the end of June). The new Verizon version of the HTC Touch Diamond will cost around $299, about $50 more than the Sprint version cost when it was originally released last September 2008, and about $100 more than the Sprint HTC Touch Diamond2 costs today.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Barcelona, HTC, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Dimaond 2, Mobile World Congress, Sprint, TouchFLO, verizon, VGA, Windows Mobile 6.1

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

Last week was the 2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress, and here's the lowdown on its high points:

HTC Magic: The second Google Android powered smartphone from HTC and the first from Vodafone, the Magic is smaller than the inaugural Google Phone, the HTC T-Mobile G1 and will first be distributed into hands overseas (U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain). Downsides? It doesn't have a physical keyboard, nor does the touchscreen keyboard operate in landscape mode.

Also unveiled from HTC, the HTC Touch Diamond2, HTC Touch Pro2, and the T-Mobile G2.

Acer M900: The business set will like this latest Windows Mobile smartphone, with its large 3.8" touchscreen, vast messaging capabilities, and--get this!--fingerprint scanner for cutting-edge security.

LG Arena: It was only a matter of time before we saw a 3D interface, and here it is, looking like the onscreen Rubiks Cube of menus.

Nokia E55: With its own take-off of the BlackBerry Sure-Type keypad.

A common thread for a lot of the devices unveiled this year is the built-in 5-megapixel camera--though the ones in the new Nokia N86 and Samsung Omnia HD sport 8 megapixels, and the Sony Ericsson Idou, with its enhanced touchscreen, has 12.1 and a sliding lens cover. So there!

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Acer, Acer M900, Android, Blackberry, Google Android, Google Phone, GSMA, HTC, HTC Magic, LG, LG Arena, Mobile World Congress, Nokia, Nokia E55, Nokia N86, Samsung, Samsung Omnia HD, Sony Ericsson, Sony Ericsson Idou, Sure Type, T-Mobile, T-Mobile G1, T-Mobile G2, Touch Diamond2, Touch Pro2, Vodafone

Despite all the iPhone 3G, the Samsung Blackjack II got the top rating in Consumer Reports’ 2009 issue which, among other features, looks back at the best smartphones of 2008.

The media-darling iPhone and the equally hype-laden T-Mobile G1 (the HTC Google Android smartphone) didn’t even make the Top 5, instead tying with one another for 6th.

The remaining Top 5 behind the Samsung Blackjack II were:
2.  T-Mobile Wing
1. Motorola Q9C
2. T-Mobile Shadow
3. BlackBerry Pearl Flip

There is, however, a HUGE caveat to this list, albeit not one that affects the iPhone’s status any (or the HTC G-1’s for that matter), that being that the following contenders were released too late in the year to be considered in the running:
• BlackBery Bold
• BlackBerry Storm
• HTC Touch Pro and all its variants

Surely, that would have made a big difference to the results.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, BlackBerry Bold, Blackberry Pearl Flip, BlackBerry Storm, Blackjack, Blackjack II, Consumer Reports, G-1, G1, Google Phone, HTC, HTC Touch Pro, iphone, iphone 3g, Motorola, Q9C, Samsung, Shadow, T-Mobile, Wing