The news will come as a relief to HTC Desire owners, who have already seen their handsets updated once before – from the Android 2.1 the smartphone launched with, to Android 2.2 Froyo – and faced the prospect of the phone being left behind after the Desire S announced at MWC 2011 last week. The Desire HD is several months old (as is the Desire Z), and is expected to be replaced later in 2011 with the dual-core smartphone believed to be codenamed the HTC Pyramid.

Finally, the HTC Incredible S was only announced last week, and the only device of HTC’s MWC launch that came with Froyo pre-installed rather than Gingerbread. The HTC-made Google Nexus One is currently being updated to Gingerbread as well.

R3 Media Network

Android Community
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Sharp Galapagos tablets due in Japan on December 10
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Gingerbread GRH47B Build Spotted
Ameri-Smartphone Moon over Japan – Sharp Corporation to Release Galapagos Android Devices
HTC Desire Z now available from Vodafone UK [Updated]

SlashGear
Windows Phone 7 outsold by Android 15:1 in UK suggests retailer
ASUS Eee Note EA-800 hits Taiwan this week for $228; US debut in Q1 2011
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Apple masses legal team ahead of Nokia patent showdown
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comScore says online spending on Black Friday hit $648 million
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Samsung Super AMOLED production up 10x in 2011 as company posts record small display profit
Chinese Government directly responsible for Google-hack says WikiLeaks [WHAAAT?]
Microsoft physical touchscreen patent app tips dynamic Surface
iPhone 3GS & 3G get iOS 4.2.1 carrier unlock with new redsn0w tool
Why Apple’s all-SSD, Light Peak MacBook Pro makes sense [COLUMN]
Richard Branson vs Rupert Murdoch in iPad Magazine Wars Soon
In Search of Solder and a Sense of Achievement [COLUMN]
MacBook Pro refresh with SSD, Light Peak & no DVD in April 2011? [BIG FAT NEWS]

To see more wrap-up posts, follow the following tags: [The Daily Slash] or [SlashGear Morning Wrap-up]

SlashAnalog Your Daily Slash category for the day is wonderfully Analog, and this is just that. What we’ve got for you today is a video of the reality inside one (and almost certainly many many many) playing card factory. What you’ll see is a series of workers packaging boxes and boxes and boxes of cards. Each box is taken from an unfolded stack, then filled with the correct amount of cards which are taken from a large stack of these cards placed in order. See how they always grab the correct amount, every single time? That rocks. Welcome to the future?

[Via BoingBoing]

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SlashGear
T-Mobile HSPA+ Enabled 4G Network Now Hits Over 75 Metro Markets [4G!]
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HTC Desire Z [REVIEW]
Smartphones by the Numbers Now 28% of U.S. Cellphone Market [ON TIME ANALYSIS]
iPad grabs 95% of tablet market share as Android readies its assault
Samsung Galaxy Tab suffers indignity of video teardown
Shhh! Chrome OS Releases in November!

Shh! Secrets and super sultry sandwiches of tomato topped electronics! To see more Daily Slash posts, click here: [The Daily Slash]

Hardware

As we said, if you’ve seen the T-Mobile G2 then you’ll be familiar with the Desire Z hardware. The matte grey and silver handset measures 119 x 60.4 x 14.16 mm, making it a little on the thick side thanks to that hardware keyboard, with a 3.7-inch WVGA Super LCD capacitive touchscreen. Underneath are narrow touch-sensitive buttons for home, menu, back and search, along with an optical joystick that can be pressed as a select button.

On the left hand side there’s a microUSB charge/sync port and a volume rocker, while a dedicated camera shortcut button is on the right, a welcome addition to HTC’s Android range. The power/lock button and 3.5mm headphone jack are on the top edge. On the back is a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, together with an eye-catching brushed metal battery cover that’s released by a small switch. Underneath is a 1,300mAh battery, SIM card slot and, underneath the battery itself, a microSD card slot. We’d prefer to have had the memory slot more readily accessible.

HTC Desire Z unboxing & hands-on:

Push the left side of the screen, and it lifts and slides across to reveal the Desire Z’s hardware keyboard. This has four rows of keys – the numbers share with the top letter row, and are accessed with an Fn button – with dedicated @, search and tab buttons, along with two shift keys and two user-definable shortcut keys. As you’d expect it’s all backlit.

The keys themselves are reasonable but not the best we’ve encountered on a phone; certainly, they’re not as good as on HTC’s own Touch Pro2, an altogether chunkier handset but which made up for its scale by having a particularly usable ‘board. The Desire Z’s keyboard is better than a first-gen DROID, and there’s a reasonable amount of travel given the shallow key-tray on offer, but they’re still on the cramped side which prevents faster typing.

We were initially concerned by how sturdy HTC’s hinges on the Desire Z might be, though they seem to be wobble free for the moment. More worrying is the minimal spring-loading used: hold the phone by the top half, and you can see the lower section droop away under its own weight. Tilt the phone slightly, and it’ll pop open. Now, the likelihood of you ever trying to carry the Desire Z by just the top or bottom half is probably quite low, but it does mean the handset opens quite easily in a pocket and can get caught, as well as making us wonder about long-term performance.

[Update: HTC tells us that the hinge strength was a conscious choice, and that the Desire Z is designed to be free enough for the phone to be opened with a single finger. The company is confident it won't be a long-term durability issue.]

Inside, the Desire Z has an 800MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7230 processor paired with 512MB of RAM and a 1.5GB ROM. It obviously lacks a few CPU cycles when compared to the 1GHz processors we’ve been used to seeing recently, but it’s from the silicon company’s latest-gen Snapdragon range and includes the Adreno 205 GPU for improved graphical crunching. We ran Quadrant, an Android benchmarking tool, and the Desire Z scored 1533; that’s less than the G2 manages, but still higher than the 1GHz Nexus One or DROID X on Froyo. Meanwhile there’s quadband GSM/EDGE and dualband (900/2100) UMTS/WCDMA, along with WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, GPS, a digital compass, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor.

Software

As with the HTC Desire HD, the Desire Z runs Android 2.2 Froyo with the latest version of HTC’s Sense interface on top, and support for things like Flash Player 10.1. The software experience for both is the same – we’d recommend reading our Desire HD review for all the details – including integration with the new HTCSense.com online portal. A free service, Sense online allows you to remotely track the Desire Z, access its SMS/MMS messages, lock the phone or make it ring, or even completely wipe it.

Having set up Sense for the Desire HD, we had hopes it might carry across all our linked contacts when we used the same account on the Desire Z. Unfortunately this didn’t prove to be the case; we still had to do the work manually. Froyo supports multiple Gmail and Exchange accounts loaded simultaneously, with push-email for both together with calendar and contacts sync, as well as POP and IMAP, and as ever HTC’s custom apps work well. We were glad of the optical trackpad, too, which makes navigating through text far more straightforward; it’s something we definitely wish HTC had managed to squeeze into the Desire HD as well.

HTC’s on-screen keyboard continues to be one of the best text-entry systems around, and ironically we were faster at some points using it over the physical ‘board. Unfortunately the OSK’s clever auto-correction and auto-punctuation system has mostly been ignored with the physical keys: you can double-press the spacebar to insert a period, but there’s no automatic change from “im” to “I’m”, for instance.

What might frustrate would-be Desire Z owners is the absence of a pure-Android version of the handset. The T-Mobile G2 runs bare Froyo, without any modifications like Sense, which likely means it will get future OS updates quicker than the Desire Z does. Now, we like Sense – and the new online component is great – but we also like to have the choice whether to use it or not.

Multimedia

While the Desire HD proved very capable with multimedia playback, the smaller screen on the Desire Z is somewhat less eye-catching. It’s a decent SLCD panel, with reasonable viewing angles, but we still prefer the zinging colors from AMOLED screens like on Samsung’s Galaxy S family of devices. The video app supports 3GP, 3G2, MP4 and WMV clips, which falls short of what Samsung is offering, but playback is generally solid and sound through headphones is good. Audio, meanwhile, supports AAC, AMR, OGG, M4A, MID, MP3, WAV and WMA formats, and there’s an FM radio which requires a wired headset to use as the antenna.

In addition there’s DLNA streaming using the preloaded Connected Media app: you can choose from the music, photos and video stored on your handset to squirt over WiFi to a networked media player. Unfortunately HTC doesn’t offer an HDMI output on the Desire Z.

Camera

While it lacks megapixels on the Desire HD, the 5-megapixel camera on the Desire Z is still capable of 720p HD video recording. Stills are grainy and look unusually overcast, even when taking in decent daytime lighting; in low-light, the flash suffers from the usual LED malaise of having a particularly narrow sweet-spot outside of which subjects are either overblown or hopelessly under-lit. There’s no front-facing camera, either, which means no video calls or easy self-snaps.

Video is better, looking crisper than the HTC HD7 managed with its 5-megapixel optics and lacking the Windows Phone 7 device’s hunting autofocus. There’s only minor blur, though with no HDMI output you’re left using HTC’s DLNA app or uploading content to YouTube via the usual Android channels if you want to share footage on a bigger screen. In short, HTC still hasn’t addressed criticisms of its camera quality, and the company continues to lag behind rivals like Samsung.

HTC Desire Z 720p video sample:

Phone & Battery

The Desire Z impressed when it comes to phone performance, proving particularly tenacious with a signal in places a Nexus One gave up. Audio quality was decent, and we had no problems pairing various mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets (and using AVCHD buttons on the latter, to control audio playback). Meanwhile the speakerphone was loud, though certainly not the loudest we’d heard.

Battery life was the real surprise, however; with push-email turned on, both WiFi and 3G active, and some browsing, messaging and calls, we managed to make it almost through two days of use before the Desire Z died. Using the GPS and 3G for navigation while mobile did drain things a lot faster, however, but with moderate use this could be one of the first Android handsets not to demand a nightly recharge and yet also having sufficient power to run whatever apps you like.

Wrap-Up

The market for Android smartphones continues to get more crowded, and the bar for what makes a great handset keeps getting higher. That’s great for the consumer, but it does make the Desire Z’s job harder. Hardware keyboards are still rarer among Android devices than their all-touch counterparts, which gives the Desire Z something of a pass along the way, but we’re not 100-percent convinced by the usability of this particular HTC ‘board. It’s good, especially after some practice, but then HTC’s on-screen keyboards are good too and, thanks to the correction features, accurate as well.

Our temptation, then, would be to opt for the HTC Desire HD with its better-quality camera, Sense online support, huge display and great on-screen keyboard. The compromises in bulk and usability involved in getting the Desire Z’s physical QWERTY will likely be too great for most users. If you’re addicted to a hardware ‘board then we’d pick the HTC Desire Z over its DROID 2/MILESTONE 2 counterpart, but there are stronger all-round Android phones on the market today.

Your Moment of Near-Halloween Geek-Zen The greatest parts of the fact that the folks around my generation are having kids are the ways they have fun raising those children. Take, for example, the costumes they take the time to make for them. Today it’s your choice, two of the most amazing kid costumes DIY created by their parents (or grandparents in the case of kid #2.) Choose either Sweet Juniper’s Kid Robotcop, or Kid Jawa as presented by “fatrobot” of Reddit. I could never make such a choice, never in all my life.

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Dress your little kid or animal or animal/kid up for Halloween or I will just cry forever. All kids should be in costume at all times, and all costumes should employ LED lights. To see more Daily Slash posts, click here: [The Daily Slash]

Video after the cut

Where the Desire HD has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, the Desire Z has Qualcomm’s 800MHz chip; as we’ve seen in the T-Mobile G2, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a significant shortfall in performance.  Connectivity includes WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, microUSB and quadband GSM/dualband HSPA, plus there’s GPS, an FM radio, and a 3.5mm headphone socket.  RAM is 512MB – two-thirds of what the Desire HD offers – and there’s a 1.5GB ROM, along with a microSD card slot hidden underneath the battery.

As for software, the HTC Desire Z runs Android 2.2 Froyo with the latest build of Sense on top: that means the same offline mapping, boosted social network integration and links with HTCSense.com for remote management and access.  The keyboard, meanwhile, is a four-row affair with backlit buttons that sit nicely on the clicky side of things, though HTC has combined the top letter and number rows whereas we prefer them to be separated out.

HTC Desire Z unboxing & demo:

So far the Desire Z has been solid, taking out HTC Sense online credentials (as set up on the Desire HD) alongside the regular Gmail and other accounts; however we have had to re-link Sense and Gmail contacts, despite having done that all before on the previous phone.  It’s a thicker device in the hand, though obviously shorter and narrower; we have no issues with the outer casing, which feels sturdy, but the hinge might be another matter.  There’s very little tension holding it closed: pick the Desire Z up by the top section, and the weight of the lower-half will pull the hinge open.

It’s too early to say whether this is a serious issue or otherwise, and indeed whether the rest of the polished Android experience leaves it a non-issue.  We’ll be putting the HTC Desire Z through its paces over the next few days, so expect the full SlashGear review next week!

Right now, full support is limited to the Desire HD and Desire Z, though we’re hoping HTC extends that to at least some of their more recent models.  Any HTC user can register so as to activate their warranty, and also will get free wallpapers and other downloads, but you’ll need a fully supported handset in order to use the tracking and remote access functionality.

[via Android Community]

That, Amazon UK reckons, will also arrive on October 11th 2010, though you’ll need a little more cash to pick it up.  The RRP is £539.99, which the retailer has slashed to £469.99.  That gets you a 4.3-inch touchscreen (versus the Desire Z’s 3.7-inch panel) though of course no hardware QWERTY keyboard.

If you don’t want to spend all that money upfront, various UK carriers have announced that they’ll be offering the Desire HD and Desire Z free with a new agreement, though you might end up paying more over the course of your contract.  Check out our hands-on with the HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z for more information (and video) on each Android 2.2 smartphone.

Meanwhile O2 are saying the HTC Desire HD will be available on their network via Carphone Warehouse stores, again with no sign of any pricing.  Orange and Three are yet to make any public announcement, though we heard at yesterday’s press event that they would indeed be offering the devices.

Less clear is availability for the HTC Desire Z.  No carrier is saying anything quite yet, but Amazon UK have listed the QWERTY smartphone for £499.99, unlocked and SIM-free, with an October 18th release date.

HTC Desire HD live:

HTC Desire Z live:

The Media Link box itself looks to be relatively straightforward, with a mini HDMI port and a microUSB port on the back – the latter, we’re guessing, for power rather than data – and a power button with indicator light on the front.  Since there’s no obvious wired network connection it looks like WiFi (probably b/g/n to match the phones) is the only way to hook things up.

Once connected, we know that the smartphone acts as a remote control for managing what media is played back through the HDTV – that could be video (up to 720p HD), audio or photos you’ve sideloaded, or alternatively 720p HD video you’ve recorded with the phones’ own cameras.

Unfortunately HTC’s press release was light on any reference to the Media Link, and beyond its brief flash onscreen during the presentation no further detail was given.  The company tells us that it will be available globally in Q4 2010, but doesn’t have pricing information right now.

As with the Desire HD, construction is rock-solid – though the “Z Hinge” mechanism feels like the point which is most likely to fail first – and it’s quick and responsive. The new version of Sense has some really neat features, including being able to rearrange homescreen panes directly from the zoomed-out “helicopter view”, easier widget management, and of course the new navigation package which takes the Google Maps experience and makes it far more like a dedicated PND. The in-car UI, for instance, is now sticky: once you load it, if you tap the home button it takes you back to that UI rather than to the basic Android homescreen. A minor tweak, but an important one to those trying to use their phones for directions while driving.

Ironically, we can’t help but compare the Desire Z to Nokia’s E7, announced at the first day of Nokia World yesterday. Obviously the Nokia is bigger – with a 4-inch display rather than a 3.7-inch panel – and that means a bigger chassis and a more spread-out keyboard. The E7′s keys have an edge over those of the Desire Z’s, but we’re not sure that’s enough to pull users over to Symbian^3 from Android 2.2 Froyo. We’ll have to spend hands-on time with both to figure out the compromises and whether they’re worth it, but as a mainstream QWERTY smartphone the Desire Z has us very excited indeed.

HTC Desire Z hands-on:

The Desire Z has a 3.7-inch display, and a 5-megapixel camera with LED flashes; the Desire HD ups that to an 8-megapixel camera.  Each runs Android 2.2 Froyo on Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor, with 1.5GB of internal storage and 768MB of RAM (for the HD at least; HTC’s spec sheet doesn’t mention the Desire Z) and a microSD card slot.  Both get dualband UMTS/HSPA, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack, AGPS/GPS and 720p HD recording.

As for size, the smaller Desire Z measures 119 x 60.4 x 14.16 mm while the Desire HD comes in at 123 x 68 x 11.8 mm.  Both phones will be hitting the market from October 2010, with Vodafone a key carrier partner in Europe.

Press Release:

HTC UNVEILS HTC DESIRE HD AND HTC DESIRE Z WITH NEW HTC SENSE AND HTCSENSE.COM

HTC Sense integrates a variety of multimedia and location-based enhancements and introduces HTCSense.com, a series of new connected HTC services

LONDON, UK – September 15, 2010 – HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, today unveiled a new HTC Sense experience with the new HTC Desire HDTM and HTC Desire ZTM Android-based smartphones. The new HTC Sense experience continues HTC’s strong focus on the customer, placing people at the center by simply making its phones work in a more personal and natural way. HTC Sense introduces a number of key innovations including a series of connected services called HTCSense.com that enhance people’s mobile experience on HTC phones.
“We’re excited to be taking the HTC Sense experience beyond the phone to a whole new level with a series of connected HTC services we call HTCSense.com,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “Our customers will value the holistic approach we’re taking to enhance their mobile experience. This customer-first philosophy has resonated with people buying HTC phones and this drives us to continue introducing new innovative smartphones like the HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z.”
“As a key Android partner and smartphone brand, HTC continues to bring new innovation to the platform,” said Andy Rubin, VP engineering at Google. “Android is about choice and the new HTC smartphones continue to provide customers with powerful choices and flexibility.”

HTC Sense
The new HTC Sense experience offers a variety of enhancements that improve how people capture, create, share and access multimedia content. With a newly created camera experience, people can record HD videos or capture and edit images with a variety of fun camera effects. With HTC Locations, a new differentiated online mapping experience, people have instant, on-demand mapping without download delays or incurring mobile roaming charges.
HTC Sense also includes a new integrated online e-reading experience utilizing a new e-book store powered by Kobo and a new, mobile-optimized e-reader that includes the ability to highlight, annotate and quickly search for definitions or translate unfamiliar terms.

HTCSense.com
With the new HTCSense.com service, people can simply manage their mobile phone experience from their HTC phone or personal computer. For example, people can easily locate a missing phone by triggering the handset to ring loudly, even if it is set to silent, or to flag its location on a map. If the phone’s been lost or stolen, users can remotely lock the phone, forward calls and texts to another phone, send a message to the phone to arrange its return or even remotely wipe all personal data from it. HTCSense.com makes it easy to setup a new HTC phone or access archived mobile content such as contacts, text messages and call history from a PC browser. People can also customize their phones with exclusive HTC content like wallpapers, HTC scenes, sounds or plug-ins.

HTC Desire HD
HTC Desire HD showcases outstanding multimedia content with its bright 4.3” LCD display and Dolby Mobile and SRS virtual sound and is the first to be powered by the new 1GHz Qualcomm 8255 Snapdragon processor. The HTC Desire HD enables 720p HD video recording and includes an 8-megapixel camera with dual-flash. Building on the unibody heritage of the HTC Legend, the HTC Desire HD is sculpted from a block of solid aluminum and exudes the air of quality and strength that HTC has come to be known for. It also includes the new HTC Fast Boot that enables people to quickly make a call or check emails by shortening the time taken to complete the power-up sequence.

HTC Desire Z
For people constantly on the go, HTC Desire Z makes it quick and easy to stay connected with friends on Facebook and Twitter or with colleagues and customers at work. HTC Desire Z features a unique ‘pop hinge’ that opens to reveal a QWERTY keyboard for fast, convenient typing. HTC Desire Z’s keyboard also includes a variety of keyboard shortcuts and two customizable keys for providing instant access to common functions without the need to open menus. HTC Desire Z also includes 720p HD video recording and a 5-megapixel camera with automatic flash. It is the first phone to utilize the new 800MHz Qualcomm 7230 processor for improved performance and battery life and also includes HTC Fast Boot.

Availability
The new HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z will be broadly available through mobile operators and retailers across major European and Asian markets from October 2010 with the HTC Desire Z shipping in North America later this year.