HTC -- Engadget Mobile

Rogers Magic and Dream now yours for $99.99

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jul 3rd 2009 at 11:23AM

If you're ready, willing, and able to sign up for a new three-year agreement on Rogers, HTC's two inaugural Android sets just got a good deal cheaper for you. Originally priced at $149.99 on contract, both phones are now down to $99.99 -- a stellar deal, we think, considering you're getting 7.2Mbps HSDPA, capacitive touch, 3.2 megapixel autofocus cameras with video capture, and HTC-customized Android ROMs. Maybe Rogers is discounting so quickly because they figure the phones aren't quite as appealing in light of the recent Hero announcement -- or, more intriguingly, maybe they're prepping for an actual Hero launch of their own now that we know there's an 850 / 1900 3G version in the mix.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Read - Dream (Black)
Read - Dream (White)
Read - Magic

HTC's TouchFLO 3D 2.5 changes described in detail

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jul 3rd 2009 at 8:18AM

HTC's a bit of a sieve when it comes to leaking new builds of really awesome things, and the trend continues with TouchFLO 3D 2.5 seemingly out in the wild and running on some Touch HDs. Rumor has it this is the build that'll premiere on the company's upcoming Firestone superphone, bringing some of its Sense concepts to the WinMo platform -- most notably including widget support. You've got new assignable shortcuts on the home screen, a revamped messaging experience (presumably to better fit in with HTC's contact-centric mantra), and a new Footprints screen. That's all well and good that Firestone buyers will likely see this, but here's the million-dollar question: what current devices will get official upgrades, if any?

[VIa wmpoweruser.com]

HTC Hero hits FCC with US 3G

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jul 2nd 2009 at 10:54AM

No mention was made of a Hero with 3G that'd work on Rogers or AT&T back at its announcement a few days ago, but HTC has been getting awfully good at making phones that work properly around these parts -- so we can't say we're entirely surprised to see a Hero approved for WCDMA on Bands II and V gracing the FCC today. For the record, Bands II and V are 1900 and 850MHz, respectively, which is exactly the combo AT&T subscribers would need to flip the switch on high-speed data. We're not sure if this negates rumors that the Hero would be coming to Sprint, but if we can just get this version released and in our hands, you know... maybe our minds would be operating with a little more clarity.

New HTC Hero ROM leaked, Flash 10 already chugging along on a few lucky G1s

by Paul Miller, posted Jun 30th 2009 at 10:40AM

Step aside, JAC Hero, there's a new firmware in town. Fatal1ty (that Fatal1ty?) and nk02 have not only managed to obtain the HTC Hero's new (and almost final) Sense UI-infused firmware, but have spruced it up for consumption by HTC Magic / Dream users. There's naturally a bit of glitchiness -- apparently WiFi and Bluetooth don't work at the moment, and the camera is all funkified, but the real treat here is the first implementation of Flash 10 on Android, even if it is a bit "laggy" on the RAM-starved G1. The widgets are also on display, and other than Flash the general experience is apparently pretty snappy. Naturally, the xda-dev folks won't be leaving well enough alone, and we should be seeing refined versions of this and future Hero firmwares leading up to and after the release of the actual device.

[Via xda-developers forum; thanks Jeremy W., screenshot by johnnylicious]

HTC Hero spotted on Orange UK website

by Thomas Ricker, posted Jun 30th 2009 at 6:08AM

The HTC Hero has made its first appearance on a UK carrier's website, but finds itself burdened with a teasing "coming soon" badge. Having talked to Orange, we can confirm previous reports that the device will be available for free on some, as yet undetermined but surely eye-gouging, price plans. The company said they are still testing the device and should have pricing information by tomorrow. Expect T-Mobile to quickly follow suit and unveil their Hero by another name (G1 Touch?), also fully subsidized. Both carriers will be offering the graphite edition of the phone, so if you have your heart set on the white Teflon-coated goodness, you may have to go the SIM-free route.

HTC Hero up for pre-order on Amazon UK: £429, July 15 delivery

by Nilay Patel, posted Jun 28th 2009 at 3:09PM

We doubt the July 15 delivery date is set in stone, but UK residents itching to get a little Hero in their lives are now able to pre-order HTC's latest for £429 ($708). That's pretty much what we'd expect for an unlocked set, but Orange is planning to offer the Hero free on contract, so we'd be inclined to hang on just a teensy bit longer. Video after the break.

[Via Phandroid]

Continue reading HTC Hero up for pre-order on Amazon UK: £429, July 15 delivery

T-Mobile's HTC Touch Pro2 and Dash 3G get spec'd

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jun 27th 2009 at 8:03PM

While we twiddle our thumbs and wait for the Dash 3G and the Touch Pro2 to make their fanfare-laden debuts on good ol' Number Four (that's our pet name for T-Mobile USA, of course), literature is starting to show up that should make the wait marginally more bearable by giving us a few pretty pictures to look at and words to read. There's nothing Earth-shattering in here, but we see that the Dash 3G has 256MB of ROM and an impressive rated 8.3 days of standby time -- we'll believe that when we get that kind of performance ourselves -- while the Touch Pro2 moves up to 512MB, keeps the 8.3 days of standby, and touts its unusual full-duplex speakerphone that dominates the rear of the device. If you do a lot of conference calling, you must be beside yourself right about now, eh?

T-Mobile Dash 3G sits down for a photo shoot

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jun 26th 2009 at 8:24AM

We personally prefer having phones in our own hands -- call us crazy -- but a close second would have to be full, revealing pictorials that do a great job of breaking down every little detail. That's where MobileBurn swoops in with its 11-strong gallery of shots of T-Mobile's branded Dash 3G from a New York event this week, showing a distinct lack of Inner Circle support -- and no, T-Mobile, we hate to inform you that the inclusion of myFaves support is not an even trade. That said, we've no doubt this'll still be a decent seller for folks looking to replaces their aging gen-1 Dashes with something a little speedier when it hits retail next month.

HTC's Sense UI not coming to any "Google" branded phones

by Ross Miller, posted Jun 25th 2009 at 10:31PM

We've got some good and bad news... mostly bad, though. First, the good news: HTC is looking into finding a way to bring its new Sense UI -- the one featured prominently in the new Hero -- to its non-Google branded Android devices, such as Canadian carrier Roger Wireless' Magic. Unfortunately, and this is the bad news, even that's not a sure thing, and as you can probably guess from the wording, any phone that's got the "with Google" branding, like T-Mobile USA's G1 and myTouch 3G, won't be getting a chance at all due to the same licensing terms that prevented Microsoft Exchange clients on those same phones. Them's the breaks, folks, but we're sure some hacker with enough know-how will bypass the silly restrictions and do it anyway.

HTC Ozone comes to Verizon June 29 for under $50

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jun 25th 2009 at 10:08AM

Is it cooler than Sprint's Snap? That's for you to judge, but whatever the case, Verizon has now announced its own version of HTC's latest WinMo Standard handset. The so-called Ozone features WiFi, global roaming capability, VZ Navigator and visual voicemail support, a QWERTY keyboard (which feels great if it's anything like its cousin's), and a beefy 1500mAh battery that we're betting will keep this thing going all day and then some. The best part, though, might be the price: it'll be just $49.99 on contract after rebate when it launches online on June 29 and in stores on July 13.

HTC Hero hands-on: Flash, keyboard and ruminations (updated!)

by Thomas Ricker, posted Jun 24th 2009 at 11:56AM

We're going to need some real time with the device to make a final opinion, but we're cautiously optimistic that HTC has a winner with its new Hero. Here's what we've got from our first looks at the phone in London and NY:

The beveled edges along the back makes the handset sit comfortably in the hand, and while the teflon coat doesn't necessarily feel revolutionary, it's going to make a world of difference after a couple of months riding in our grubby pockets. It's certainly solid, but much more so than other "brick" phones.
The Sense UI (or as HTC terms it, "user experience") riding a capacitive touchscreen offers a people-centric approach to managing your information that is absolutely dreamy at first blush -- though it shares a lot of TouchFLO heritage. In fact, HTC promises to have a very similar Sense-branded experience for Windows Mobile.
The on-screen keyboard also seems quite useable with a nice simulated haptic forced-feedback bounce when you strike each key in either landscape or portrait mode (which can naturally be deactivated). HTC has built its own touch keyboard from the ground up, and in our brief couple of tests we'd say it's probably the best touchscreen typing experience we've ever felt. It never lags behind, and has great colorful visual cues for its auto-corrected words -- green means it's suggesting a correctly spelled word, red means we've gone off the beaten path, and the T9-style multiple suggestions are heavenly.
This intuitive one-hander isn't shy with the specs either as we've already seen in the official press release. Our only concern is possible sluggishness from the Qualcomm processor that cause the graphic transitions to stutter a bit and results in screen rotations that feel dangerously uncomfortable.
We were told that the device we saw was running pre-production firmware so there's still time to tweak -- though not much with a July European launch.
The Hero is not a "Google Experience" device. As such, you won't find the Google logo anywhere (no big deal) but you also won't be downloading any firmware updates over the air -- sideloading only kids. Not a deal breaker but an annoying and seemingly arbitrary limitation nonetheless. There's still a small lack of clarity of how updates will work with HTC's "mods" living on top of basic Android -- even if they're able to port in new Android versions seamlessly, we imagine there will be some breakage.
For a device without a physical keyboard, the Hero seems a little thick up against its HTC Magic, Nokia N97, and iPhone 3G counterparts, but not overly so.
HTC has confirmed that whichever (unspecified) carrier gets the phone in the US will have a modified version, both in software (carrier-specific services) and in hardware chassis tweaks. Just don't take our teflon away, ok HTC?
Battery is the same larger slab that's in the myTouch, and HTC also claims to have done some vague, unspecified things OS-side to improve battery life as well. "Heavy users will be able to get through a day."
The camera is responsive and seems to do a fine job at autofocus, but wasn't astonishingly great at first glance.
The phone will be available for free on T-Mobile UK -- if only we could be so subsidy lucky in the US.

There are four videos for you after the break. The first shows Flash running at full screen on the HTC Hero courtesy of YouTube. The second, however, shows it failing when running a trailer from Yahoo Movies, just like Adobe did -- in fact, it crashed all four times that we tried it on what we were told was a Hero running the final build of the OS. Third one is a quickie showing the on-screen keyboard rotating from portrait to landscape and back. Lastly, we demonstrate the hardware a little bit and show off our lightning speed at typing. For the real completists, there's also a new gallery of hands-on shots from the NY launch event right below.

Gallery: HTC Hero hands-on

Gallery: HTC Hero additional hands-on

Continue reading HTC Hero hands-on: Flash, keyboard and ruminations (updated!)

Adobe demos Flash on the HTC Hero

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jun 24th 2009 at 10:09AM

Been hankering to see what Flash -- via the Open Screen Project -- actually looks like on an Android (or any modern mobile) device? Well hanker no more, ya'll. Adobe has helpfully dropped a video on us which has Flash team member Adrian Ludwig demo'ing the newly minted HTC Hero (multitouch gestures included). Once the content loads up, it seems to run at a pretty snappy rate, though waiting on Flash content to appear doesn't look encouraging if you're in the midst of casual browsing (or on a weak connection). We'll be interested to see what this is like in the real world -- and for platforms beyond Android -- but for now at least we've got something to go on.

Read - HTC Hero: The first Android device with Flash
Read - New HTC Hero Delivers More Complete Web Browsing Experience with Adobe Flash Technology

HTC launching new Android phone in London tomorrow? We'll be there!

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jun 23rd 2009 at 9:41PM

We'd already pretty much figured that HTC's London event tomorrow would have something to do with Android -- the invite for the shindig playfully teases us with a rose in the picture, after all, which is probably a reference to HTC's Rosie UI that's been circulating in leaked ROM form for a while now. Indeed, Pocket-lint points to a fellow journalist whose "colleague" has apparently played with the new hardware and gives it a "rave review," so we're excited to find out what it is exactly that HTC's got brewing -- and as we've said before, it certainly lines up nicely with T-Mobile UK's promise of more G1 Touch details "soon." At any rate, we'll be on hand to find out what's good as it happens, so stay tuned for all the HTC news that's fit to print starting at 6:30AM ET, 11:30AM London time.

T-Mobile myTouch 3G gets unboxed, user guide outed

by Ross Miller, posted Jun 23rd 2009 at 7:44PM

Can't wait until July to check out every nook and cranny of T-Mobile's version of the Ion / Magic? A couple of tipsters, including one anonymously, have lent us a hand in that department with pictures of an apparent myTouch 3G unboxing, as well as an entire user guide dating back to May 19th. We're still rummaging through it ourselves, but so far we're not seeing anything we didn't already know or see for ourselves with the phone's many other releases. Completionists can hit up the 113-page manual in the gallery below.

Gallery: T-Mobile myTouch 3G unboxed

Gallery: T-Mobile myTouch 3G user guide

[Thanks, Derek]

HTC Firestone possibly rendered again, less blurry this time

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jun 23rd 2009 at 3:13AM

Thai site Sanook has what appears to be the first decent render of HTC's mighty Firestone, the yet-to-be-announced heir apparent to last year's Touch HD. Of course, following up a device of the Touch HD's stature is no simple task; for starters, the Firestone tops up with Windows Mobile 6.5, but the big news might be that the Firestone's rumored to be coming out of the gate with an 8 megapixel camera -- a move that would likely put it head-to-head in some respects with Sony Ericsson's rumored XPERIA X2, and at that point, the only question might be how badly you need QWERTY. The Firestone's rumored for an August release, so we could end up with an epic battle on our hands here through the latter half of the year.

[Thanks, Josh]