Mobile Phone Blog:

I honestly don’t know why I keep talking about the HP Pre 3. It’s been six months since it was announced, and it’s only now going on sale, so the worry was that the hardware would end up being a bit dated. Well, now there’s a video from Pocketnow, doing a hardware review, and it seems that worry was bang on the money…

Yup, alas, it comes across like a phone from 2009. If it had been released in February, when it was announced, it might have stood a chance against the likes of top-end Android phones at that time, but now? Since it’s going up against phones like the HTC Sensation and the Samsung Galaxy S II, not a chance… (more…)

Ooh! I always get excited when I see HTC are holding an event, ‘cos it usually means new phone are incoming. So, imagine my excitement when I saw, on HTC’s Facebook page, that they’ve got just such an event coming up in September. September 1st, to be precise, and it’s a meetup in good ol’ London.

Y’see, the reason I’m excited is because the last time they had one of these, we got the HTC Sensation, and what do we have waiting in the wings, all ready to show its face? The all-new, even more powerful HTC Vigor, that’s what.

As I may have mentioned before, I really want to see the HTC Vigor… (more…)

Okay, I’m a bit behind the curve on this one, ‘cos Daniella did a news post about it the other day, beating me to the story about the leaked HTC Vigor. But as I’ve said before, someone beating me to a story has never stopped me talking about it, myself, afterwards. That’s especially true when the phone that’s been leaked is the HTC Vigor, and can best be described as an even more powerful version of the HTC Sensation.

I know, right? How can it get even more powerful? Well, ’tis simple. Instead of a 1.2GHz processor, it has a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. it also has everything else the Sensation has, and on top of that, it’s got Beats audio tech, as pioneered by Dr Dre. So, it’s mind-blowingly good… (more…)

Right then, they do say that your choice of mobile phone says a lot about you, so if that’s true, can we discern what makes people tick, purely by looking at what phone they use? Probably not, to be honest, but that hasn’t stopped Hunch having a go. And gawd bless ‘em, they’ve made an infographic out of it, which is always good. Click on the image there, to the right, to expand it, ‘cos it’s huge.

So, what can we tell about people who use one of the two big platforms on the market, Android and iOS? Well, quite a lot as it turns out, although Hunch says themselves, correlation is not the same as causation. I’m living proof of that.

More on that in a second… (more…)

I’m a nerd. This is well known. And as a nerd, it goes without saying that I love Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the books, the radio plays and the TV show, not the movie… no, the movie was awful). Imagine how much I must love it, given that I got excited about it coming to mobile phones in spite of it only coming to iOS (so far, anyway… I live in hope). Awesome, Hitchhiker’s Guide mobile game incoming?

No. I don’t mean they’re making a game of it, no sirree. What Hothead Games (creators of DeathSpank) are doing is far more glorious; they’re bringing the actual Hitchhiker’s Guide, the fictional tome used by Ford Prefect, itself, to iPhone and iPad. Awe. Some. (more…)

Would you believe it’s been under 3 years since Android first hit the market? It feels like it’s been with us forever, especially when you look at how completely smurfing awesome Android is now. Seriously you find yourself asking just how an OS can become so good, after it’s only been on sale for 3 years. Well, I do, anyway, especially when I compare something like the HTC Sensation to the original T-Mobile G1. So, Google are dominating the world in phone software, but are they dominating the world in terms of sales?

Well… yes, as it happens, they are; according to a Tweet from Andy Rubin, there are half a million Android devices being activated every single day. Mein Gott im Himmel, that’s a lot! (more…)

Ooh, now then, just like the title says: what’s this? Why, I do believe it’s a phone I’ve never, ever seen before; furthermore, it appears to be a phone with a neat new touch on the “side-sliding QWERTY” formula. As you can see, in the pic from PocketLint, it’s a side-sliding QWERTY phone, running on Android, but with a twist; it’s a second screen, slap bang in the middle of the keyboard.

Oh, and as you can also clearly see, it’s an LG phone, which explains why I’m getting a really strong ‘LG Venus’ vibe from it. That second screen seems to function as some kind of dedicated app launcher, with eight slots on it, where you can put any shortcuts ye like. However, that doesn’t answer the big question: what is this thing? (more…)

Right then, I blogged a while back about a raft of new HTC phones that were all set to hit the market, and one of those was the HTC ChaCha, an Android with a full QWERTY keyboard, and a ton of Facebook integration, including a dedicated Facebook button on the front. Not particularly a phone I’m bothered with buying, but for people who use Facebook a lot, it looks absolutely spot on.

According to Pocketnow, we ain’t gonna have to wait too long for it arrive, either. Yup, allegedly, it’s going to be arriving in early June. June 6th, apparently. So, if you’re after a good phone for Facebooking (Is that a real word? Ah well, it is now), is this the one? That’s the big question, innit: is the HTC ChaCha any good? (more…)

Well, folks, it’s time for some more statistics, but I promised myself that when I did this blog post, I was going to remain professional and mature, and avoid resorting to puerile, stupid humour. And then I realised that this is me we’re talking about, here, so the chances of it not being stupid and juvenile are roughly the same as the chances of a stunned otter becoming the 45th president of the USA. Anyway, here… statistics, in video form:

Yes, I could have focused on the fact that 74% of users make a purchase based on a smartphone search, or the fact that 81% of users browse the internet on their phones. But that’s no fun for a headline, is it? So, yes, there it is: 39% of smartphone users actually use their phone while sat on the pot. (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…)