Isaiah's Tech

HTC may be looking to trim down on delivering numerous smartphones every year but they're still not shying away from the mid-end market. The "Primo" is rendered above and is said to be sporting a 3.7-inch Gorilla Glass display, a 5MP camera, 512MB of RAM, a dual-core 1GHz Qualcomm CPU, Beats Audio, and Android 4.0 with the Sense UI. The smartphone could be getting official at MWC next month but we'll just have to see what happens.

[Phandroid]

3D may be overhyped but some people are buying into the trend. And, that's why we're seeing what we see above. Reportedly, LG's working on a successor to their Optimus 3D smartphone. Right now it's being codenamed the "CX2" and it should be improved in every aspect. This one's said to be packing a dual-core 1.2GHz TI CPU and a slightly improved 4.3-inch 3D display. The body is said to be 2mm thinner (just 10mm now) and the rest of the specs are said to be 8GB of storage, WiFi b/g/n support, NFC, Bluetooth 3.0 support, and HSPA connectivity. It's unknown what version of Android it'll be running but it may make an appearance at MWC which takes place next month.

[PocketNow]

Now here's a smartphone that should give Samsung's Galaxy S III a run for its money. It's the LG "X3" which is said to be packing a 4.7-inch display with a 1,280 x 720 resolution, a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU, and some version of Android (possibly 4.0). The smartphone is apparently set for a late Spring or early Summer release date so we could see it unveiled next month at MWC.

This is said to be the company's next flagship device and it looks pretty great. Specs include a 9mm thin body, an 8MP camera, a front-facing 1.3MP camera, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, WiFi b/g/n support, HSPA connectivity, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, and a 2,000mAh battery. Look out for this one to be announced next month!


[PocketNow]

PocketNow has managed to snag a photo of the rumoured HTC Quattro which will be packing Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 chip. This tablet could be officially unveiled at CES or MWC which take place in early 2012. The tablet is said to feature a 10.1-inch display with a 1,280 x 768 resolution, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, WiFi / Bluetooth 4.0 support, a 2MP rear-facing camera, a 1.3MP front-facing camera, Beats Audio, the Android OS, and possibly includes stylus support. The tablet should be available in early 2012 in WiFi-only and 3G models so you can look out for it in a few months.

[PocketNow]

Coming from DigiTimes is word that HTC is prepping a quad-core tablet and smartphone for early 2012. Apparently, they could be unveiling both at MWC 2012, which kicks off on February 27th. They should both be running the Android OS and it could have Nvidia's Tegra 3 chip inside of them - or possibly even Qualcomm's. The tablet is completely unknown right now but the smartphone could be the HTC "Edge" and the company is planning to release another Android smartphone which could turn out to be the "Ville". I'm definitely looking forward to this announcement!

[The Verge]

Huawei hasn't officially announced it yet but spotted at their booth was what you see above. This is another Andorid-based tablet from the company, this is the IDEOS S7 Pro. Unfortunately, this one isn't running on "Honeyecomb" but does feature a dual-core 1.2GHz CPU, dual cameras, WiFi b/g/n support, HSPA+ connectivity, and Android 2.3. Furthermore, Engadget Spanish is claiming to have heard a representative say that it will be available this Spring and that the company also has 10-inch tablets on the way.

[Engadget]

T-Mobile USA has just announced that they'll be launching two new Android handsets in the future. The first one is the T-Mobile Move which features a 2.8-inch 320 x 240 resolution touchscreen display, a 2MP camera, 150MB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, and Android 2.2. The other handset in the Samsung Galaxy Mini which will be hitting the carrier later this year. This handset features a 3.2-inch touchscreen display, a 600MHz CPU, 150MB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, and Android 2.2. Both of these handsets will be launching with a sub $75 price on a 2-year contract.

[BGR]

Now that most of the high-end tablets and smartphones have been announced at MWC it's time for coverage of the low-end stuff. At LG's booth, the T500 and C330 handsets were spotted and they're both feature (dumb) phones. The T500 is above and reportedly features a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen display, social integration, and a rear-facing camera. This model doesn't have WiFi, that'll be the T505, and there's also the T535 which will have NFC capabilities. The other handset is below and it's called the Etna 11 C330.

This handset will likely be a part of the growing Neon line-up and it sports a 2.4-inch QVGA touchscreen display, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, social networking, and a rear-facing camera. This one's, of course, intended for the teens for quick text messaging. Price and release dates for both of these handsets are unknown right now.

[Unwired View]

We heard about Toshiba's Windows 7 tablet a few days ago and it made an appearance - behind glass and not turned on - at their booth at MWC. This tablet looks exactly like their 10-inch "Honeycomb" powered tablet that should be launching in the first half of this year but this one is a slightly larger 11.6-inch model. Confirmed specs for this tablet include an "Oak Trail" Intel Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and the company's skinned UI over top of the Microsoft OS. This tablet will reportedly be shipping in the second half of the year but the price is still TBD.

[Engadget]

Eric Schmidt took the stage at MWC 2011 just a few minutes ago and mentioned a whole lot of things. He mentioned that he was hoping that Nokia would choose the Android platform because of all the success that their OS has had. He also mentioned that there are 150,000 applications on the Android Market and that daily activations are now at 350,000 a day. That's all great news, but what about the future of Android?

Schmidt mentioned that the OS will be getting updated every six months still - not once a year which is what Vic Gundontra told us. Maybe they're still working on getting it to once a year for now. That's not all though. He also mentioned that the next version of Android, Ice Cream, will be combining the great aspects of Gingerbread and Honeycomb which is great. He didn't tease what the future of the mobile OS would look like but Google I/O is happening soon so maybe it'll happen then.

[Phandroid]

The last thing that HTC announced today are these three smartphones: the Incredible S (above), the Desire S (below), and the Wildfire S (very bottom). These three smartphones are all slightly better than their original models and they should all be available in Q2 of this year if things work out. Let's kick things off with the Incredible S, shall we?

This smartphone is the best of the bunch and features a 4-inch WVGA Super LCD display, a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 1.1GB of ROM, a microSD card slot, 768MB of RAM, WiFi b/g/n / Bluetooth 2.1 support, an 8MP AF camera with a dual-LED flash and 720p HD video recording, a front-facing 1.3MP camera, aGPS, and sadly just Android 2.2 with the Sense UI. The buttons on this smartphone aren't labels (Engadget points out) so when you turn the phone the buttons will turn as well. That's pretty neat. This will be available sometime in the middle of Q2. Pretty good for their latest flagship but Samsung seems to be blowing them out of the water.

Next up from the company is the HTC Desire S. This one packs a similar spec sheet but features a smaller 3.7-inch S-LCD WVGA display, a lower 5MP AF camera with an LED flash and 720p HD video recording, a front-facing camera, and runs Android 2.4 with the Sense UI. It's pretty similar to the original Desire so if you already have that then it might not be worth the upgrade. This will also be available in mid-Q2.

[Engadget]

Coming from PhoneScoop is what you see above and it's reportedly the ZTE Amigo. This handset is said to feature a 3.5-inch touchscreen display along with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that looks pretty easy to type on. On the back of this phone you get a mediocre 3MP camera but there's no word on how fast the CPU inside of it is. This handset isn't the best in the world but it should be a pretty good budget Android handset. This will be shipping this May in the UK. After all, there has to be a reason why ZTE is the fourth largest phone manufacturer in the world.

[Phone Arena]

HTC has just unveiled what just seemed like a crazy rumour. Yup, these are Android-based handsets with a Facebook button awkwardly on the front of them. The one above is the HTC Salsa while the one below is the HTC Chacha - weird names for weird devices, I see. Both of these handsets are expected to launch in late Q2 of this year so quite possibly in June. If you want to check out the specs then check them out below.

The above handset is the HTC Salsa and it packs a 3.4-inch touchscreen display with a 320 x 480 resolution, a 600MHz CPU, 512MB of ROM / RAM, a microSD card slot, WiFi b/g/n / Bluetooth 3.0 support, a 5MP AF camera with an LED flash, a front-facing camera, a 12.3mm body, and Android 2.4 with the Sense UI. This handset is barely different from the HTC Legend but people will likely still go out and buy one.

The other "Facebook phone" is the HTC Chacha. This one packs a 2.6-inch display, a QWERTY keyboard, 512MB of ROM / RAM, a microSD card slot, WiFi b/g/n / Bluetooth 3.0 support, a 5MP AF camera with an LED flash, a front-facing camera, a 600MHz CPU, a 10.7mm thin body (with a slight chin), and Android with the Sense UI.

Update: Facebook has mentioned that you can expect a "dozen" of these phones this year and these are the first two.

[Engadget]

HTC unveiled exactly what we were expecting at their event today and what you see is officially called the Flyer, which I thought would be just a codename. This tablet features a 7-inch display with a 1,024 x 600 resolution, a 1.5GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, an aluminum unibody design, a 5MP camera, a front-facing 1.3MP camera, a microSD card slot, and Android 2.4 with the Sense UI. That's not all though; the display is meant for "groundbreaking pen experience" so you'll be able to use a stylus if you need more accuracy. This tablet will reportedly be available in Q2 of this year but the price wasn't mentioned. Check out Engadget's hands-on with the tablet at the link below.

Update: Apparently, this tablet will eventually be getting "Honeycomb" but it'll be after it launches. We'll see how long it takes.

[Engadget]

Huawei has finally made their Ideos X3 handset and their Ideos S7 Slim tablet official. The X3 sports a 3.2-inch display along with Android 2.3. The full spec sheets haven't been announced yet so that's what we're going to have to wait. But, a few websites have already posted their first thoughts on the Ideos S7 Slim tablet and, so far, they're not good. We know that the tablet features a 7-inch display, 3G / WiFi support, a 12.5mm thin body, and Android 2.2. The display, from what I've seen so far, looks pretty bad at moderate viewing angles but that's what makes the price tag cheap.

[Phandroid]

You might have never heard of the HTC Revolver but that's okay because I haven't either. Engadget has just got some exclusive information on this handset and it could be the company's upcoming flagship device. This handset is said to be sporting a 4.3-inch capacitive LCD touchscreen display, a dual-core 1.2GHz CPU, 16GB of internal storage, 1GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, a front-facing 3MP camera, a microSD card slot, 3G+ (HSPA+ if it's headed to AT&T) connectivity, and Android "Honeycomb". Interesting.

This is looking like a pretty damn good handset but it doesn't look attractive to me. Apparently, the tipster mentioned that this will be hitting AT&T's website this Spring and it'll be marked as "Coming Soon". Does that mean we'll see it at MWC? Possibly.

[Engadget]

If you love Windows Phone 7 then I hope you managed to catch Microsoft's MWC event earlier today. They showed off and announced a bunch of new things and I'll just recap them for you. First off, they showed off multitasking on the OS and it looked fairly good. The company also announced that Twitter integration (into the People Hub) along with Internet Explorer 9 Mobile would be headed to the OS later this - hopefully with HTML5 support. We do know that IE9 Mobile will definitely have graphics and hardware acceleration so that's great news.

Update: Another Engadget post has mentioned that this update is going to be coming in early March and that's not all it will bring. It'll also feature "Copy and Paste" which is great. Along with this news is finally word that CDMA support is coming in "early March" so you can expect Verizon and Sprint to announce their batch of Windows Phone 7 handsets in the very near future. Hopefully, the HTC 7 Pro will be launching soon.

[Engadget]

They showed it off at CES and it showed up at MWC as well. At ViewSonic's booth, they're showing off the ViewPad 4. At CES they announced that it would be launching with Android 2.2 but now they're saying that it's going to be running Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" when it actually hits the market which is great news. In case you forgot, the ViewPad 4 features a 4.1-inch display, a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, WiFi b/g/n / Bluetooth 2.1 support, aGPS, an HDMI output, Flash 10.1 support, a front-facing camera, and a 5MP camera with autofocus. The price and release date hasn't been announced yet but maybe it will be later this week while the event is going on.

[Tech Radar]

Acer showed off a fairly new tablet at MWC that we've heard about before. This is Acer's 10.1-inch tablet which will be called the Iconia A500 when it hits the market later this year. This one's expected to be running Android "Honeycomb" when it launches but the prototype at the event was running just version 2.2 "Froyo". Inside of this tablet you'll find a dual-core Tegra 2 chipset so you know that it'll definitely be powerful enough to run some games on. The full spec sheet wasn't able to be confirmed but it has dual-cameras of course. This tablet will reportedly be hitting the UK this April.


[Phandroid]

ZTE showed off a bunch of devices here but we have no clue if they'll ever hit North American land, but they'll likely be available somewhere in Asia in the future. They announced the 7-inch ZTE Light and Light 2. These are going to be running 1.2GHz dual-core CPUs, while the Light 2 is packing WiMAX and even LTE connectivity which is pretty awesome. The company wasn't big on announcing full spec sheets because all they did was tease their devices.

Moving along they also announced the Light10 which features a 10-inch display a 1.2GHz CPU, and Android "Honeycomb". They also brought the ZTE Skate to their booth which was actually inspired by a skateboard. Interesting. It features a 4.3-inch display, an 800MHz CPU, an Adreno 200 GPU, a 5MP camera, and stock Android 2.3 (at least for now). They also briefly mentioned an "Internet Box" which could be hinting that they're planning to launch Android-based set-top box. That's all guess work right now so we'll just have to see what they company announces. Maybe it's Google TV?

[Phandroid]