HTC Sensation Officially Announced; Packs 4.3-Inch qHD, Dual-Core 1.2GHz, and Gingerbread With Sense 3.0

HTC has made their new flagship phone official today and I was totally wrong about this being a Nexus device. The "Pyramid" has been officially announced as the HTC Sensation and after Vodafone and Qualcomm gave us hints as to what the smartphone would offer we now know everything. The Sensation packs a 4.3-inch qHD (960 x 540 resolution) Gorilla Glass (Super LCD) display, a dual-core Qualcomm MSM 8260 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB of internal storage, an 8MP AF camera with a dual-LED flash and 1080p Full HD video recording, a front-facing camera, a microSD card slot (8GB in the box), 768MB of ROM, an aluminum unibody, a 3.5mm headphone jack, WiFi b/g/n / Bluetooth 3.0 support, DLNA, a 1,520mAh battery, an HDMI output, and Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" with the Sense 3.0 UI.

Yeah, that's quite the spec sheet and it's sounding like one of the best smartphones on the market right now. This smartphone will be hitting the UK, Germany, and other European markets in mid-May and, of course, Vodafone will be getting a short exclusive for the device. The company also announced the 4G model which will have HSPA+ and will hit T-Mobile USA later this Summer. If you're interested then there's a promo video below.


[Engadget]

Virgin Mobile Prepping To Launch 4.1-Inch Snapdragon Packing Android Handset

It looks like Virgin Mobile's latest survey has just hinted that they're going to be launching a new smartphone in the near future. Coming from them, the handset will feature a 4.1-inch touchscreen WVGA display, a 5MP camera, Bluetooth / WiFi support, 3G connectivity, an HDMI output, and a Snapdragon CPU, and Android 2.2. Now, we don't know what smartphone it is right now but it's looking pretty good. I'm going to assume that it'll be an HTC handset though.

[Engadget Mobile]

AT&T To Release the HTC Freestyle On February 13th For $99

AT&T has just officially announced some good news for you Qualcomm Brew lovers out there. The HTC Freestyle will be available on Sunday February 13th for $99.99 on a 2-year contract. Quite a bit to pay when they have a load of Android phones coming but maybe your significant other will want one. Valentine's day is the next day.

[Engadget]

Android and Brew-Based Mid-Range HTC Handsets Leak, Aria 2 and Smart 2?

Coming from PocketNow (here and here) is word that two new HTC handsets could be on the way. The first handset is said to be a mid-range handset sporting Android (above on the left) that's clearly going to have the traditional start/end call buttons which is extremely rare for an Android phone to have. The other phone on the right is said to be running on Qualcomm's Brew OS but that's all we know. Specs for both of these phones are completely unknown but they could be the Aria 2 and the Smart 2, respectively. Maybe the official announcement will be at MWC.

[Electronista]

Brew-Powered HTC Freestyle Hitting Canada Via Rogers?

HTC has just hinted that their Brew-powered Freestyle handset may be headed to Canada. You should already know that this will be hitting AT&T in the US so it could hit Rogers in Canada if things pan out the way they should; AT&T's press release it does hint that America Movil and Rogers Wireless "have agreed to use Brew Mobile Platform." Check it out on HTC Canada but the release date is still unknown at this time.

[Mobile Syrup]

HTC F8181 Freestyle's Its Way Onto AT&T Next Month With Qualcomm's Brew

Not exactly the most interesting story of the day but HTC and AT&T have announced the first dumbphone of CES. Dubbed the Freestyle (F8181), this handset sports a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display, and Qualcomm's Brew MP platform with a hint of the Sense UI over top of it. This handset will be available sometime next month (February) for an unmentioned price. It should be cheap though since it's being described as the QMP which stands for Quick Messaging Phone.

[Engadget]

AT&T Acquires 700-MHz spectrum from Qualcomm

AT&T is buying spectrum licenses in the 700 MHz frequency band from Qualcomm for $1.925 billion. The spectrum will be used as part of AT&T's Long Term Evolution 4G mobile broadband network.

Qualcomm had been using the spectrum to support its FLO TV business, but Qualcomm is shutting the service in March 2011.

The spectrum covers more than 300 million people total nationwide and includes 12 MHz of 700 MHz D and E block spectrum covers more than 70 million people in five of the top 15 U.S. metropolitan areas, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The network also includes 6 MHz of 700 MHz "D block" spectrum covers more than 230 million people across the rest of the United States.

Frequencies in the 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands are highly favored for mobile services because the signals feature both more range and greater ability to penetrate buildings. As indoor coverage is a continual issue for mobile services, the new frequencies will help AT&T deal with indoor coverage for its LTE network.

read more here

Next iPad On Track For Q1 2011, Will It Be a Global Tablet?

DigiTimes is reporting some pretty good news if you're waiting for the second-gen iPad. Apparently, it'll be launching in Q1 2011 which would mean that Apple's yearly launch will be in full-effect. They announced their first iPad in January with a launch in April, so maybe we'll see it hit the market a little bit earlier this time around. The next iPad is said to have a FaceTime camera, a faster CPU (probably from Samsung), a miniUSB port, a bit more RAM, and a "Smart Bezel" feature whatever that is. You should be expecting a display of the same size since Apple seems to hate 7-inch ones.

Update: Coming from AllThingsD (via Slash Gear) is word that Apple could make the next iPad a global model so that you'll be able to use anywhere (on AT&T's and Verizon's network too). If this is the case, it'll likely use Qualcomm's multi-mode GSM/CDMA chip. The next iPad could also feature a Retina Display, which would be insane (I can't see it happening though).

Update: Remember that a patent yesterday said that we might be seeing the next iPad sport a carbon fiber body. This would make it lighter than the current aluminum models. Hopefully the next iPad is sporting an all black body as well.

[9 to 5 Mac, Slash Gear]

MTS Releases the Kyocera Rio In Canada

Canada's MTS has just released yet another handset, the Kyocera Rio. This handset is available right now (here) for free on a 3-year contract, $69.99 on a 2-year contract, and $304.99 contract-free. It's been a while since we've heard about this mid-end handset so I'll recap the specs. It features a 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen display, aGPS, a 1.3MP camera, a 3.5mm headphone jack, tri-band CDMA 1x connectivity, a microSD card slot, and the Brew OS.

[Mobile Syrup]

Google Says "No Phone" Right Now

Andy Rubin, Google Director of Mobile Platforms says Google is not announcing today a Gphone. Google has announced the Open Handset Alliance and Android.

Android is an open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications.

The Open Handset Alliance consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC, Sprint and T-Mobile.

The phones will also be available through the world’s largest mobile operator, China Telecom, with 332 million subscribers in China, and the leading carriers in Japan, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, as well as T-Mobile in Germany, Telecom Italia in Italy and Telefónica in Spain.

"We recognize that many among the multitude of mobile users around the world do not and may never have an Android-based phone," says Rubin. So Google will work to ensure that its services are independent of device or even platform. "For this reason, Android will complement, but not replace, our longstanding mobile strategy of developing useful and compelling mobile services and driving adoption of these products through partnerships with handset manufacturers and mobile operators around the world."

The software developer kit is expected in about a week. Phones built on Android will be available in the second half of 2008.

More Google Partners

Japanese wireless carriers KDDI and NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Broadcom, HTC, Intel and Texas Instruments also are said to be partners for the upcoming Google phone initiative.