We’d forgive you for having forgotten about C-motech’s Mangrove UMPC; after all, the market for a 7-inch touchscreen tablet running Windows Mobile 6.5 is hardly vast. Still, we were interested to see the unit at Qualcomm’s event today, though its tubby form-factor was a whole lot less impressive when sat next to the Quanta Android Smartbook.
We’re not sure what we’ll do with our time now that Nokia have officially announced that their N900 is available in the US. It seemed like we spent half our day fielding rumors about its release – either dates or postponements – that’s when we weren’t playing with the device itself, of course.
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Things have been quiet on HTC's Snapdragon Android plans since CEO Peter Chou squashed talk of an Android-based HD2, but that hasn't stopped "senior Android guys" from carrying around such a handset for at least the past few weeks. According to TechCrunch, the so-called HTC Dragon or HTC Passion is expected to hit shelves very soon, and will likely be thinner than the Motorola DROID or the Apple iPhone 3GS together with including Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon chipset.
Acer have confirmed that their first Android smartphone, the Acer Liquid A1, will arrive in late November, at least in the UK. According to retailer Clove, the Qualcomm Snapdragon based smartphone – which will run Android 1.6 Donut rather than the newer Android 2.0 OS – is priced at £286 pre-tax ($481).
Last week, the buzz was clearly on the DROID (see my first take here) but there was another device that was also getting a lot of attention, albeit somewhat more restrained as few folks had one to work with. A few weeks ago, I wrote a column that emphasized people shouldn’t dismiss Windows Mobile. Over the last week I’ve been using the phone with the quiet buzz that proves that assertion. Sadly, it’s the best Windows Mobile phone that you can’t buy in the US yet. What device am I talking about? None other than the HTC HD2.
The HD2 is marked by two features not usually found on most Windows Mobile phones. The first is a capacitive touch screen. This is the first Windows Mobile device that has no stylus and is totally designed for input by touch alone. The second is a 1GHz Snapdragon processor that makes Windows Mobile and especially the HTC Sense UI fly. Finally, add in a gorgeous 4.3″ screen and you realize this is not your father’s Windows Mobile device.
Twelve months ago HTC shook up the Windows Mobile world with the launch of the Touch HD, a smartphone that offered a vast touchscreen, lashings of connectivity and the latest version of their UI tweaking, TouchFLO 3D, to produce what was hitherto thought impossible: an alluring Windows Phone. Now, the company have attempted just such a revolution with Windows Mobile 6.5 in the shape of the HTC HD2. They’ve upped their game with a speedy Snapdragon processor, even vaster display and a fresh UI that’s been educated by their recent work on Android. Can the HTC HD2 again do the unthinkable, and give us a reason to love Windows Mobile?
No great surprise here – after all, HTC CEO Peter Chou already exclusively confirmed it to us back in October – but HTC have officially announced that the HTC HD2 Windows Phone will be headed to the US in early 2010. According to a new press release today, the HD2 “will be available with a major carrier in the US in early 2010″; previous leaks have suggested T-Mobile will be the lucky network to offer the smartphone.
Sony Ericsson have finally come clean on their latest smartphone, and as expected it’s an Android flagship. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 – previously known as the Rachael and the X3 – is a Snapdragon-based touchscreen candybar, with a huge display, 8.1-megapixel camera and some “special sauce” in the shape of two homegrown applications – for communication aggregation and media aggregation – with a custom UI. SlashGear caught up with Sony Ericsson in London yesterday to take a look at the new smartphone, and find out why the company reckons this is the launch not only of the Android X10 but of a new “user experience platform”.
After the cut: live XPERIA X10 gallery and video
It’s fair to say that the last time we saw excitement to this degree about a Windows Phone it centered on the HTC Touch HD, and so it seems only right that it’s the company’s successor to that handset, the HTC HD2, that is prompting such interest in 2009. Announced last month after copious rumors, what makes the HD2 special is its 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen, HTC Sense UI and 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It’s taken a while, but the HTC HD2 has finally dropped onto the SlashGear test bench, so check out our first impressions and an unboxing video after the cut.
Updated with first-boot video demo after the cut
The weeks are just flying by, time change is this weekend so I hope you aren’t late for anything. The holidays will be here before we know it. This has been another busy week in the gadget world. HTC has confirmed that Android 2.0 smartphones are incoming and the HTC Dragon is the likely first Android 2.0 device to come from HTC.
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SlashGear Japan
