Mobile Phone Blog:

I have a message for everyone in America: I now officially am so very, very angry at you, for the simple and solitary that I am now incredibly, brain-breakingly jealous of you. The title of this blog post should tell you why, and the picture should drive it right home. Yes, you lucky, lucky people are getting a phone that has the same paintjob on the back as a Fender Strat.

This is deeply unfair, because I’d give my eye teeth for a phone that looked like that.

And you can tell I’m jealous, because I wouldn’t normally even run a story about a phone that’s only available in America, and is, in any case, a copy of one we already have in the UK (in this case, it’s the myTouch 3G, which is basically the same phone as our HTC Magic). According to BGR, the myTouch 3G Fender is a limited edition phone, being released exclusively for the holidays. Or, like, Christmas, as we call it over here. And apparently, only 10,000 of them are being made, and while that may not sound that limited an edition, I’m willing to bet they sell out pretty damn quick.

Now, I could get all bitter here (y’know, since everyone in America now has access to a phone that has possibly my ideal paintjob on the back, grumble grumble mither whine), and point out that the HTC Hero, which we do have over here, is a better phone, anyway, and has the Sense UI on, which is proper nice. I could mention that the only thing stopping me from getting an HTC Magic and going to town with a Sharpie to make my own limited edition is my complete and utter lack of artistic talent, and if I really wanted it, I could make my very own limited edition (which, to be fair, would look like a Sharpie marker pen had been sick on it, and would command prices in the region of no pounds whatsoever).

But hey, I’m not bitter. After all, wasn’t it Hendrix himself (who, incidentally, very often used a guitar with that sunburst finish on, before he set fire to it) who told us that all men were equal, and all men of all creeds and colours should come together singing “free at last” (that could’ve been Martin Luther King, though)?

Or, as Bill Pullman said, in Independence Day, “We can’t be consumed by our petty differences any more.”

I guess what I’m saying is, if the ID4 invasion were to come to pass, I’d feed you to the aliens myself, to get my hands on your Fender phone…

What other instruments should get a phone makeover? Ringo’s zebra-pattern Ludwig drums, maybe? Or Zakk Wylde’s ‘Bullseye’ Les Paul? Leave us a comment and have your say!

Ages and ages (well, alright, about a month and a half) ago, a new phone popped up on radar, and it appeared to be designed as an entry-level smartphone, a smartphone for the masses if you will. It was the HTC Click, and now, it’s finally been officially announced. Only it’s not called the Click any more, according to HTC’s press release. It’s got a much cooler name, now.

Yup, the Click is dead.

Long live the HTC Tattoo.

And, oooooh, it looks nice. The design hasn’t changed one iota since it got leaked as the Click, which means the HTC Tattoo still looks very much like the baby sibling of the HTC Magic. Which isn’t a bad thing, by any stretch of the imagination.

The whole point of the HTC Tattoo is, in the manufacturer’s own words, to ‘bring Android to all’.

So, yes, it’s very much an entry-level smartphone, with a 2.8 inch touchscreen (small by the standards of its big brothers) and a 3MP camera. However, it has got Android, so that brings some smartphone goodness. Of course, since it’s an entry-level phone, price is going to be a big factor in making it a success, and I predict, given that Android costs HTC nothing to use, that the price’ll fall somewhere between ‘very reasonable’ and ‘dirt cheap’. It’ll certainly be the cheapest Android phone out there, so if you’ve been waiting to get an Android phone, but didn’t want to get one of their top-enders, now’s your chance!

Ooh, and the other cool thing, apparently you can change the covers on it, like ya used to do with the Nokia 3210. Well, to be fair, it’s probably only the battery cover you can change, but HTC promise you can put your own unique, custom covers on there. Which is pretty cool, as it means that, along with the Sense UI (which I love, and which was last seen in the HTC Hero), you can personalise the HTC Tattoo till the cows come home.

We’ll have to see what it’s like when it finally gets a general release, but for now, I’m saying this will be a rather lovely little phone…

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

Android’s continuing its quest for smartphone dominance, and as we reported in a blog post, ooh, ages ago, the open source OS is making a play for the world of cheap, entry-level smartphones. Yep, it’s the HTC Click, and if I had to describe in one trite sentence, I’d call it the baby brother to the HTC Magic.

Well, now, there’s video footage of it living, breathing, and generally being a working Android phone.

‘Ere ya go, have a look for yourselves:

So, what to say about it?

Well, as you can see from the vid, that description of it being the Magic’s baby brother isn’t far off the mark, at all, really. The design similarities between the two are striking, to say the least. It really does look like someone stuck a vacuum pump on the Magic, sucked the juice out of it, and stuck some new (and, crucially, cheaper) buttons on the front. And the screen’s obviously smaller, but that’s fine, because the HTC Click, if the rumours about it are accurate, was always designed to be a low-end smartphone, or, as I would cynically suggest, a chance for Google to grab the hearts and minds of new smartphone users (maybe people buying their first smartphone, or maybe people who wouldn’t normally get a smartphone), and indoctrinating them into the ways of the big G.

Of course, they have a fair chance of succeeding in that goal. I can remember seeing a video survey on Youtube, once, in which people were asked what browser they use on their PC, and in which, a worryingly high number of them answered “Google”.

But then, most of them didn’t know what a browser actually is, anyway, so…

Still, I’ve liked the look of the last two Android phones to hit from the Taiwanese manufacturer (that would be the aforesaid Magic and the HTC Hero), so I’ve no doubt I’ll very probably like the HTC Click, too. Certainly looks rather cool, I’ll give it that!

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

After having a really rather rubbish day (which involved a trip to A&E, with an inflamed wrist that I can barely move, which is now strapped up in what is essentially a massive crash harness; typing, as you can imagine, is rather… interesting), I was in need of a ruddy good pick me up, so I finally got my bottom in gear, and watched last week’s Mitchell and Webb Look, which I missed last Thursday because of the awesomeness that was Torchwood.

Imagine my surprise to see that there’s a sketch in it that just brilliantly lampoons mobile phones, thus neatly killing two birds with one stone: 1/ it made me laugh quite heartily and 2/ it gave me something to blog about!

Plus, how often do you see something as commonplace and not inherently funny as texting get riffed on to produce comedy genius?

Honestly, Mitchell and Webb are grand masters of this kind of wordplay. But then, they’re probably about the funniest thing on British TV for chuffin’ ages, so that’s hardly surprising. That’s part of the reason why Thursday nights are now just about my favourite part of the week. There’s Mitchell and Webb, Mock The Week’s back, and there’s the ongoing twisted genius of Psychoville.

See, this is why I’m a firm fan of the licence fee. Commercial telly is run by advertising budgets, and it’s those advertising budgets which have made ITV axe Primeval, a move I won’t very soon forgive them for. The BBC, funded by us, at least does decent telly, and you don’t get ad breaks in ‘em. So, anyone who disagrees with the TV Licence, I invite you to consider the alternative, which is what ITV seems to be turning into: wall to wall, reality show cack.

But I digress…

Mitchell and Webb. Comedy geniuses. Oh, and here’s the other reason I love the BBC: they stick the best bits on Youtube, so I can actually show you the actual sketch, instead of describing it to you (which would be dull) or making you wade through iPlayer to see it. Witness the glory of subtext mode (and wait till you see what their idea of predictive text is):

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! What a genius invention that would be!

Hmmmm, Android’s open source, isn’t it? Right, anyone who’s got an HTC Magic, get coding and make subtext mode a reality!

Would you welcome a feature that told you what people REALLY meant when they sent you a text? Leave us a comment and have your say!

I’m well known, in my house, and in fact, wherever I go, as someone who never, ever buys a newspaper. If I buy one, I’ll just end up seeing something depressing, or something that makes me want to punch the entire world in the face. And anyway, I’m utterly, firmly convinced newspapers do not exist to tell us the news; they exist merely to sell more newspapers, and scare the living cacky out of people. On the one hand, you’ve got the likes of the Daily Mail… and on the other end of the political-dogma-spectrum, there’s the Guardian.

Well, the Guardian also does tech blogs, and today, they’ve run an article saying that, according to industry insiders, Nokia are going to release an Android phone.

Awhuh? We could see something like a future Nokia N97 running Android?

Well, no.

Since my first thought when I read that was “yeah, right, that ain’t gonna happen”, I take absolute and complete pleasure in saying this next bit: they’re wrong. The story is not true, and there are several reasons why. The first argument against it is simple: Nokia owns Symbian, and they specifically bought that OS to set up the Symbian Foundation, whose new version of the Symbian OS will be, you guessed it, a direct, open source competitor to Android.

The next reason is to do with something called Maemo. What’s Maemo? Easy, Maemo is Nokia’s very own Linux variant, that they use on their internet tablets. And what’s Google Android? Yup, a variant of Linux…

So, what are the chances of Nokia releasing a device that would 1/ defeat the object of ever having bought out Symbian, and 2/ render its own Maemo Platform completely pointless?

And finally, there’s one more bit of evidence in the argument against Nokia using Android: Nokia’s own word on the subject, in which a spokesman for the Finnish manufacturer said, “Absolutely no truth to this whatsoever. Everyone knows that Symbian is our preferred platform for advanced mobile devices.”

So, there you have it. Google Android will be staying on the likes of the HTC Magic for the time being (and another new phone that I’ll tell you all about in the next post I do today… and trust me, if you’re an SE fan, you don’t want to miss this one). Sure, if the multiverse was big enough, then in some space-time continuum, somewhere, Nokia might make an Android phone, in the same sense that in an infinite universe, Sony Ericsson might actually decide to finally make a phone specifically for me, based on my specs, and appoint me as their creative guru. Quantum makes all things possible.

Ain’t gonna happen in this universe, though…

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

Ages, and ages, and ages, and ages ago, I did a blog post about Chinese clone phones. Like, a year and a half ago. And one of the things I noted in there was that Chinese cloners seemed to be starting to get away from just cloning stuff, almost like they wanted to start being taken seriously for making their own original phones. However, there’s one phone in that original blog post which is still slowly making its way to the market. It’s the Meizu M8 and it really is the phone that won’t die.

Which ain’t bad, considering it started out life as a simple iPhone clone, and now, seems to be developing into a decent phone in its own right. Even if the new interface does have a passing resemblance to the Palm Pre (come on, you can’t expect the cloners to come up with original idea overnight… it does take a bit of time, y’know).

Some people will shout that it looks just like the iPhone, and while it’s true that is shares the same one-button-only design, who actually cares? There’s only so many ways you can design a touchscreen-only phone, by essentially, making the body bulge in different places. But here’s the thing, y’see… I’ve been secretly keeping an eye on the Meizu M8 for months, even though I haven’t blogged about it directly before.

And here’s my guilty secret: I actually quite like the look of it.

Yes, I am coming out as a fan of the Meizu M8, although it’s primarily because I’m intrigued by the idea of a phone that’s been in development for at least 18 months, that hasn’t actually been released yet. It’s either, when it does get released, going to be monumentally awesome, or spectacularly awful. I get the distinct feeling there will be no middle ground. And it’s powered by Windows CE (not WinMo, although recent rumours have also said the final version might run Google Android, like the HTC Magic), which is an OS you see once in a blue moon, so that’s piqued my interest, as well.

What Meizu really need now is perceived legitimacy. Sure, the M8 may have started out as an iClone, but it’s evolved to the point where it could actually be a properly decent phone in its own right. Meizu need to shake off the image of cloners, and if they do, I reckon they might have a fair shot at becoming a respected manufacturer.

And so, I am now starting my campaign to get Meizu to send me an M8 to review. This will primarily involve me saying “awww, go on, pretty please” a lot, and I’m probably on a hiding to nothing, but if they want an unbiased review to help them get the legitimacy they need, I’m all prepared to give them a chance as a legitimate manufacturer.

Plus, it gets me a new toy to play with, which ain’t to be sneezed at.

Show your support for the “Go on Meizu, send us an M8 to play wi- er, review” Campaign! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

A couple of days ago, I ran a blog post about the upcoming T-Mobile G1 Touch, during which, I commented on the rumours that it might end up being either an HTC Magic, or a Huawei U8230. Refreshingly, and yet annoyingly, I was wrong on both counts, because the G1 Touch has now been unveiled, and it ain’t either o’ those two.

Nope, according to Pocket Lint, the G1 Touch is officially the HTC Hero with a new, exclusive black body.

Now, I won’t go on about the details of the phone again, since I did all that in the HTC Hero posts I’ve done, and the T-Mobile G1 Touch is, except for the branding, exactly the same phone. There is one point, though, that I think needs making, and this applies to the Orange version of the HTC Hero, as well.

Seriously, just look at the size of its chin! Jimmy Hill, or what (or, for any American readers, “Jay Leno or what”)!

And yet… here’s the strange thing. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s been the biggest thing in mobiles this week, and hence has got so much press coverage… or maybe I’m just feeling a bit weird, today… but the chin is actually starting to grow on me. I am starting to like the chin. It’s a manly chin, like Kirk Douglas.

Anyway, enough of that. There’s no release date for either the G1 Touch or the HTC Hero that spawned it (for more info on the HTC Hero on Orange, have a look at our news section), but keep your eyes peeled for more info!

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

I’ve done a post on it before, but there’s recently been a lot of buzz about something called augmented reality. It’s something that’s starting to actually appear in the market proper, so it’s about time I did one of my patented explanatory/wow-look-it’s-the-future type posts, that probably ends up confusing you more, because I tend to get excited, and write drivel.

I shall try my best to make it readable, though.

The first and obvious question is: what is augmented reality? Well, it’s simple. It means the device you’re using, whether it be a mobile phone or a massive pair of VR goggles, takes the live image it sees of the world, and shows you that, but augments it. And it does that by overlaying stuff on top. Boeing use it when they’re making planes, according to The Guardian, so the engineers can have a virtual wiring diagram displayed in their goggles, over laid on the actual engine they’re taking to bits, to stop them having to refer to whatever the aerospace equivalent of a Haynes Manual is, every five seconds.

However, mobile phones have got in on the act as well, and it ain’t just aerospace-boffin-types who have access to AR, now. There’s already an app on Google Android (yep, so you can get it for your HTC Magic… and if you do, try it out, and let us know what it’s like in the comments) called Wikitude, that takes the real world feed the camera sees, and overlays info and marketing on top of that. You know, things like where the nearest pub is (the one thing every Englishman wants to know in any new town they visit), or info about that stately home just up the road, that looks pretty, but dear god, it’s 17 quid to get in, forget that!

If nothing else, in that example, you’d have saved both the embarrassment of refusing to pay 17 quid to get in, and, let’s not forget, you’d have saved £17…

Oh, alright, perhaps a better example’s in order.

Wimbledon.

Y’see, IBM have released an AR app specifically for Wimbledon. It runs on Android, and combines the camera, GPS and the phone’s compass, so that the phone knows where you are, which way you’re pointing, and what you’re looking at. IBM have also plotted where everything is in the grounds, and crucially, put live data feeds into the app. So, point the phone in the general direction of the one of the courts, say, and it tells you who’s playing, and who’s winning. Point it at the bar, and it’ll tell you what they’re serving, how big the queues are, and how far away it is. Point it in the general direction of the taxi rank, and it’ll tell you how long you’ll have to wait for a taxi. Here you go, check it out in action:

Alas, it probably won’t tell you where Cliff Richard’s sitting, so you can either run away, or throw bricks at him, before he starts singing…

Now, of course, Wimbledon’s a closed environment; it’s relatively easy to plot everything going on in there, and get the live data feeds set up. Out in the real world, the sheer amount of information would be a much more daunting challenge. But I’ll tell ya what, if they can sort that out, and get the world fully augmented, that’s going to be a proper game-changer.

It’s a fair way off, yet, and it’s going to take an awesome amount of work to get a ‘whole world’ augmented reality app fully functional, but by god, if and when they do, it’s gonna be exciting!

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

Today was the big launch day for HTC’s new phone, and as many people have speculated over the past couple of weeks, it is the HTC Hero that’s been launched. What wasn’t expected, however, was a later announcement, from Orange’s press room.

Yup, Orange is going to be getting exclusive dibs on the HTC Hero, making it their first ever Android phone.

This is a good thing, since Orange could do with a bit of exclusive-handset-love. I mean, Vodafone’s got the HTC Magic, O2 have got that fruit-based thing that shall not be named and are rumoured to be getting the Pre, T-Mobile have got the G1, and what have Orange got?

Well, alright, granted, they’ve got the Samsung i8910 HD, which is probably one of the hottest phones of the year, but they need a bit of Android love, too.

So, enter HTC Hero, stage left. And look: new interface! It looks very much like HTC have taken Android and stuck their own UI on top. And let’s be honest, it owes more than a passing nod to TouchFlo. I won’t go on about it, since I’ve done a post about it before, but it really does look like they put Android and TouchFlo in a room, let them get jiggy, and caught the offspring before it could leg it.

And that’s no bad thing, because it looks stunning. You’ve got the ribbony slide thing going on at the bottom, like on TouchFlo, but it takes you to the different homescreens, a la Android. And of course, there’s the big digital clock from TouchFlo, but in the form of a widget, and you can add other widgets to the homescreens, just like Android. So, it really is an amalgam of the two.

Looks-wise, it’s all thin and sleek, although I’m still not convinced by the huge chin on the bottom, which disturbingly looks to be even bigger and more angular than the one on the G1. Still, you get a better camera, as it now weighs in at 5 megapixels, so you do get something rather nice to make up for the Jimmy Hill chin. The best news, though, HAS to be that it supports both Flash and multitouch!

And since I love you guys so much… video of it in action:

Gimme!

All in all, despite the big jawbone, this is still a rather tempting purchase. There’s no news yet as to when Orange will get it in stock, but keep checking back, ‘cos I’ll keep my ear to the ground!

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

After the success of the T-Mobile G1 (a good but flawed and not very pretty phone), the big network with the magenta badge were always going to unleash another Android phone on the world. Thanks to TalkAndroid, we now know what it’s called. In a completely uninspiring way, they’ve decided to name it the G1 Touch.

What’s less clear, though, is what the phone actually is. Y’see, there are two rumoured candidates on what might carry the G1 Touch badge.

The first is the obvious one: the HTC Magic. That’d be a no-brainer, since it’s already on the market under that name (on Voda), and T-Mobile USA are getting it as the myTouch 3G. Logic would suggest that the HTC Magic is going to be the G1 Touch.

However, there’s also a rumour going about that it won’t, in fact, be the Magic that ends up with that magenta badge on, but something else entirely: the Huawei U8230. This one’s a bit of an unknown at the minute, since it’s not even officially be launched by Huawei, but if I’m honest, this is the one I hope for. I hope it is the Huawei.

The reasons are a bit, well, tenuous at best, but essentially, it’s because: 1/ I’ve already seen the HTC Magic, and so I want something new to talk about; and 2/ I find the name Huawei incredibly funny. I don’t speak Chinese, but I’m told it means something along the lines of “splendid achievement”. That’s not why I find it funny, though. The reason I find it funny is because I simply cannot say it without doing it in a rubbish Geordie accent…

Any company that makes me sound like an extra on Byker Grove gets my vote!

Specs-wise, both phones are pretty evenly matched, with 3MP cameras, and various other gubbins. The Huawei’s prettier, though, in what looks to be a metal-casing (phew, a genuine reason for me to favour it!). But then, bear in mind that HTC are supposed to have another product launch coming up very soon (on Wednesday, in fact), so it could be a brand new HTC no-one’s heard of.

I say we wait and see…

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!