Gadget Venue

A couple of videos have surfaced showing off Qualcomm’s new smartphone platform 7×30.

The new platform uses the Snapdragon CPU and is designed as a system-on-chip that has capabilities of HD video at 720p as well as capabilities to utilise 3D.

YouTube also functions using Flash 10.1 without any hickups making it super smooth. [Read more…]

Last week we mentioned that LG were readying the first Windows Phone 7 Series handset ready for launch sometime between September and November this year.

Engadget managed to take a look at the handset whilst filming the Engadget Show. A quick look at the picture above shows that it appears to have the right things in place to qualify as a Windows Phone 7 Series handset such as it having 3 hardware buttons below the screen and a large high-res screen that’s capacitive touch. [Read more…]

We’ve seen a number of rumours that the HTC HD2 will be getting an update to Windows Phone 7 Series. However, due to one simple technical requirement it closes off the rumour.

The hardware guidelines are quite specific in that phone manufactures need to have a specific processor (ie, the 1GHz Snapdragon from Qualcomm), a high-res screen, a 5 megapixel camera and a 3.5mm headphone jack… which the HTC HD2 already has. However, one of the “strict” requirements of the chassis 1 phones is that they also need to have three hard buttons below the screen. The HTC HD2 happens to have five which breaks the deal.

That’s the official line from Microsoft, at any rate. Natasha Kwan, General Manager for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business in the Asia-Pacific region, told APC that the HD2 ‘doesn’t qualify because it doesn’t have the three buttons.

[Read more…]

The Nexus One from Google [GOOG] will be arriving in the UK in April according to news from the Telegraph. An exact date in April is unknown at the moment and pricing is also unknown although it is expected that the phone will be priced similarly to the Apple iPhone in regards to tariffs.

Just like Google have done with T-Mobile and soon Verizon, the Nexus One will go on sale direct from Google at Google.com/phone rather than going on sale direct on the networks own sites or resellers sites. We assume that support will also be handled the same in that Google will be responsible for sales, after sales and technical support in relation to the hardware while network issues will be handled by Vodafone. It is also unclear if calls will be handled in the US for support, or if Google will take an email only support approach like originally when the phone launched in the US. [Read more…]

Yesterday, Palm released webOS 1.4 for the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi which brings a number of bug fixes and enhancements to the devices.

Now the update has been officially announced on the Sprint network (as reported yesterday) along with the O2 and Movistar networks. The download is 39MB in size and brings video recording as well as flash (Palm Pre only) to the smartphones.

Other networks are having to wait a little longer such as Verizon, Bell and Telcel with the only time scale being mentioned as “soon”. Hopefully these networks will built and push the update out soon. [Read more…]

Verizon [VZ] are planning to launch the Google Nexus One phone on to their network on March 23. The information came from a worker over at Google [GOOG] who wishes to remain anonymous according to neowin.

We already knew the phone was heading in the direction of Verizon, but until now we have only heard it will be launched Spring 2010.

Currently the Nexus One is only available on the T-Mobile network, so adding it to Verizon will bring some interesting competition. It is believed at this point that Google will continue to sell it the same way through Google only with themselves supporting hardware and after sales and leaving Verizon to tackle just the networking issues that may arise. [Read more…]