Archives for March 2010

O2 have announced that they are also going to be carrying the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Android based mobile phone. This follows on from announcement from Orange and T-Mobile that they will also stock the handset.

Those on the O2 network, or those who want to switch to the O2 network are able to sign a 24 month agreement at £30/month and get the Sony Ericsson X10 handset for free. With that £30/month contract you also get 600 free minutes as well as unlimited text messages.

The Sony X10 is the companies first step in to the Android OS market over here in the UK. The X10 it’s self will run the Android 2.1 operating system and have all the usual Google [GOOG] apps installed such as YouTube, Search, Mail and Talk as well as have Facebook installed. [Read more…]

Yesterday we mentioned that SanDisk were launching a microSDHC card that has a 32GB capacity. This was a fantastic achievement considering they are the first company to ship a microSDHC card with that capacity. Along with that announcement came along another announcement that they have also managed to squeeze 64GB of storage capacity on to a card similar in size to a microSDHC card.

The new card is designed to be embedded in to mobile phone devices. You might wonder why a company would want to embed a card that’s traditionally not embedded so it can be removed. The reasons for this is based around the new Windows Phone 7 Series devices that Microsoft [MSFT] announced would have a fixed (un removable) memory card inside. A card like the one pictures above (the left card out of the 3 pictured) is a card that can be embedded. Unlike microSDHC cards that are currently 32GB in size, these particular cards are up to 64GB capacity now. [Read more…]

Mobile phone company HTC have announced that they are going to be opening an online store soon. This follows on from companies such as Apple [AAPL] who already operate on online store and do plenty of business through it.

The new HTC Store will open for those in America and will be found at the www.shopamerica.htc.com website where you will be able to browse around and purchase many HTC items such as mobile phones and accessories that the company sell. When purchasing a phone you will also be available to activate the phone through the HTC site on one of the four major networks found in the US.

This move will allow you to more easily select what you want rather than what a sales person wants you to have as well as see what other networks offer in terms of better pricing plans and tariffs. [Read more…]

The HTC EVO 4G smartphone was announced yesterday on the Sprint network as previously mentioned at gadgetvenue. SlashGear decided to collect some data about the 4G network that it is available on in the US to figure out exactly where you are going to see benefits of having a 4G phone and where you can fully utilise the fast connection.

The phone it’s self looks fantastic and has a number of powerful features built in allowing it to run fast with the 1GHz Snapdragon CPU as well as show crystal clear images on it’s large 4.3 inch display. The phone it’s self runs the Android 2.1 operating system.

The 4G network that is used is built by Clear and currently covers 27 markets in the US with further expansion this year to allow for 120 million people to connect by the end of 2010.

If you are getting the phone and use it out of a WiMAX area there’s nothing too much to worry about as the device automatically switches to EVDO Rev.A networks. The 27 markets right now covers around 30 million people, so if they plan to achieve 120 million people by the end of the year, they need to quadruple their network size essentially. [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] have released an update for their Android based Google Voice App which now brings more speed to notifications of messages. Previous versions of the Android Google Voice app had updates set to arrive every 15 minutes by default. The quickest you could get notifications was 5 minutes if configured that way, or manually if you wanted to tap an update button every minute on the screen.

The new version now uses push to notify you with in seconds of receiving a text message or voice mail to your Google Voice number. The new feature is called Inbox Synchronization.

The service does need to be activated in the Google Voice settings for it to work. To make the change simply go to G Voice, hit settings, refresh and notification where you have the option of instant updates. When the option is disabled Google Voice will also automatically disable SMS forwarding to prevent you getting messages at the same time on your phone. [Read more…]

The HTC HD2 is now available to buy (officially) on the T-Mobile network in the US. Considering yesterdays announcement of the HTC EVO 4G phone yesterday I don’t think T-Mobile could have planned it any worse. That aside, the HD2 is still a nice phone and on the T-Mobile network it has a number of features such as connectivity to Blockbuster and other channels bundled in.

The HD2 is a Window Mobile 6.5 device that unfortunately won’t be getting updated with Windows Phone 7 Series due to it lacking in certain areas in regards to the criteria set forwards by Microsoft [MSFT] in what hardware specifications are required to run the new OS.

Early reviews of the HD2 on T-Mobile (when it was sold early) indicate that the screen is very nice and better than the iPhone due to it’s sheer size and how clear it is. [Read more…]

Sketch-a-Search is an application built by Yahoo! that allows you to search for restaurants nearby by drawing a line on a map around the area you want to search in.

By using your GPS or cell tower co-ordinates the application searches within the area you draw around. The restaurants once listed can then be filtered by distance, type of restaurant as in romantic/family/casual/formal and also by it’s 1 – 5 star rating in terms of how much of a recommendation the restaurant is.

Switched managed to do a brief hands on of the application and although it worked relatively well, it did feel a little laggy in points where drawing was concerned. Also the filtering wasn’t up to scratch due to the lack of data in certain areas. [Read more…]