Mobile Phone Blog:

Okay, as you may remember, I did a blog post yesterday, about the bit of a furore that kicked off when HTC announced that the HTC Desire wouldn’t be getting an update to Gingerbread, with the reason being that they couldn’t fit both Gingerbread and HTC Sense on there. Well now, according to The Register, HTC have done a big ol’ U-turn, and said that the HTC Desire will be getting the update, after all.

What they don’t mention is whether it will include HTC Sense, or whether it will be an update to stock Gingerbread. Given that their reasoning for saying it wouldn’t be available, it seems unlikely to be the former, unless HTC have mastered the art of sorcery, so maybe it’s the latter? (more…)

[The opinions expressed in the blog post are entirely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mobileshop.com.]

Ooh blimey, here’s a story that’s been causing some frothing of the mouth; HTC have issued a statement, via their Facebook page, saying that a Gingerbread update will not be coming to the HTC Desire. Apparently, there’s not enough memory on the Desire for them to fit both Gingerbread and HTC Sense on, so they won’t be offering an update. Which sounds fair enough to me.

Ooh ‘eck, you should see the complaints on that source link, though! Right about now, you’re probably expecting me to side with the people who are complaining about the update, right? Well, you’d be wrong, because after seeing an epic sense of entitlement in that source link, it’s put me in a bad mood, and I’m not going to… (more…)

For ages, the HTC Wildfire has been my yardstick for judging how good a mid-range phone is; the reason being, of course, that the HTC Wildfire is chuffing awesome. In my honest, sincere, and not-at-all-humble opinion, the Wildfire was the absolute high water mark for mid-range phones.

But time marches on, as time tends to do, and what was brilliant yesterday just isn’t cutting edge today; and so, we say hello to the successor to that world beater, the brand new HTC Wildfire S, due to be hitting shelves in the UK veeeeeeeeeeeeery soon. But the big question is: is it any good?

The answer is, as some of you may have expected, “Well, duuuuh…” (more…)

Ooh, here we go, another unsubstantiated rumour, this time coming in the form of a Youtube video. The video in question purportedly shows a new HTC phone which, based on the buttons on it, runs on Windows Phone 7. Oh, and it also purportedly has a 16MP camera…

Right, so, the question now is: is this 16MP HTC Windows phone fact or fiction? Or, as I prefer to say it, is it real or cobblers? Well, let’s examine it critically, shall we? (more…)

Ever since Steve Jobs said, “Flash is rubbish on mobile phones, rah, rah, rah,” Adobe have been on a mission to prove him absolutely, completely wrong. And thus, today, Adobe have released the newest version of Flash for Android phones. It’s version 10.2, according to Engadget, and it’s bought even more speed to mobile-based Flash.

There’s noticeable speed improvements for 480p videos, for one thing, whether you’re running a dual-core phone or not, although devices running on a Tegra 2 processor (like the Motorola Xoom) get the most noticeable speed boost. (more…)

How about a nice bit of rampant generalisation, mixed in with a healthy dose of sexism, to start the week? Basically, according to Mashable, Frank Meehan (CEO of INQ) has gone on record to say that Android, basically, is too geeky for ‘pretty girls’.

Well, dip me in marmalade and throw me to a pack of wild cyborg-badgers! Except the thing is, though… bizarrely, despite my experience of Android users so far (more on that in a minute), I can sort of see what he means. His contention is that Android is basically for geeks, and that people don’t feel the same emotional attachment to it as those people who use, for example, an iPhone 4. Having tangled with a fair few iPhone lovers, I can attest to that being true… (more…)

The good news? HTC have announced a boatload of new phones! And a new tablet! Woohoo! The bad news? They’re all (apart from the tablet, obviously) sequels or mid-range optimised for Facebook, and therefore, not as inherently exciting as the HTC Desire HD was, when it was launched.

That’s not to say that they’re not good phones, though, because they do look rather nice; one of them in particular looks absolutely gorgeous. And the tablet device looks… well, intriguing to say the least, thanks to one unique thing it has over most other Android tablets. So, read on, and let’s see what new stuff they’ve come out with… (more…)

Despite the fact it sometimes returns some rather funky translations, I rather like Google Translate, especially on mobile phones. ‘Tis useful being able to translate things on the fly, and it’s pretty invaluable if you go on holiday abroad.

According to Google’s Blog, it just got even better, ‘cos now, you can use it for live chats as well as to translate things like websites. And that is brilliant, as it makes the world that little bit smaller, and it makes that little bit easier for all people to talk to each other, and actually understand each other.

Alright, that sounded annoyingly optimistic but I love the idea of being able to speak another language without learning another language… (more…)

Gawd blimey, I knew the HTC Desire HD was good, but I didn’t know it was a superhero. Y’see, it’s well known that the Desire HD is effectively the UK version of the American HTC Evo 4G, and apparently, according to AssociatedPress, the HTC Evo 4G has a bulletproof battery:

That… that’s ludicrously awesome! I’m going to have to rethink my opinion of HTC phones; I already think they’re brilliant, but after this, I can’t help but think of them as the bleedin’ Justice League… (more…)

After a long delay, the HTC Legend is finally getting an update to Android 2.2, also known as Froyo.

This update means the Legend will be joining its high spec cousins, the HTC Desire and HTC Desire HD, in running the most advanced version (until Android Gingerbread becomes widely available) of Android currently available.

As such, the HTC Legend will now have access to the extra benefits that comes from having this new, improved version of Android. This includes, amongst other things, several speed optimisations to make the operating system run faster. (more…)