With the HTC First you’ll have the full Facebook Home experience from top to bottom – even when you download the Facebook Home app and load it to your device that’s not an HTC First, you’ll still not have full notifications for apps in your News Feed. Other than that, it’s basically the same experience. And what about your Motorola DROID RAZR HD? You’re out of luck – for now, anyway.

The Facebook Home app is working today for four devices other than the HTC First:

• Samsung Galaxy S III
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
• HTC One X
• HTC One X+

Why these four devices? The first two devices are some of the best-selling smartphones in the past year. The HTC One X and the HTC One X+ are also some of the highest-powered smartphones on the market – and they’re all four carried by AT&T along with the HTC First. Sound like a deal behind the scenes to you?

UPDATE: According to Facebook, the following devices will be available for Facebook Home compatibility very soon! Can’t wait!

• Samsung GALAXY S4 (Future)
• HTC One (Future)

If you’re hankering for a partial Facebook Home experience before Facebook updates their development to handle more than just the five (make that seven) devices above, you’ll want to update your regular Facebook app and download Facebook Messenger. With Facebook Messenger you’ll get what’s easily the best part of the Facebook Home experience without needing the Facebook Home launcher: Chat Heads. Hear all about it in our Chat Heads post from earlier today!

Have a peek below at some additional Facebook Home insight as well – don’t forget to check out the HTC First review we’ve got along with our full Facebook Home review too!

What you’ll be doing to grab Facebook Home is heading to the Google Play app store and searching just that: “Facebook Home.” If you have one of the compatible phones listed above, you’ll see the app immediately and will be able to download and install with ease. When you first head back to your home screen after installing, you’ll be met by a pop-up that asks which launcher you’d like to use.

UPDATE: Facebook Home appears to be temporarily (hopefully) unavailable in the Google Play app store once again – check back soon!

UPDATE 2: Facebook Home is once again up and ready for action – you’ll be able to download it and make it work for some smartphones, but not all! Have a peek at our guide: Why doesn’t Facebook Home work on my phone?

If you choose Facebook Home, you’ll be brought into a brand new Facebook-centric universe, yours for the tapping. You’ll also want to make sure you’ve updated Facebook Messenger and your normal Facebook for Android app too – they all exist together in harmony. Have a peek at today’s “Chat Heads” update for more information on what Messenger brings to the table.

You’ll also want to head back to SlashGear’s full Facebook Home review as well as our review of the HTC First – the first smartphone to hit the market with Facebook Home installed right out of the box. Let us know if you plan on partaking in this lovely Facebook software experience on your Android device today!

Or if you plan on skipping the Facebook Home environment entirely!

The device above is also being tipped as coming with a quad-core MediaTek MT6589 processor, a lovely 5.3-inch touchscreen up front, and an impressive looking camera on its back with a single LED flash. You’ll also notice the resemblance to the HTC One X on the back with the raised lens and the flash partially interrupting the ring. It’s almost as if Lenovo took an HTC One X and slapped their name on it.

Next you’ll see a device that, if you didn’t know better, you might mistake for the HTC One S or one of the HTC Windows Phone 8 devices revealed over the past few months, complete with the brightly-colored back panel. This is what’s being tipped as the Lenvovo S820 and, according to Unwired View, will be “primarily aimed at women.” This device will also be coming with the quad-core MediaTek MT6589 SoC.

Have a peek at the timeline below and see if you can follow Lenovo’s thought process through to this point in the smartphones they’ve had leaked above. They’ll likely be coming to China first, with a possible (though not guaranteed) launch in the USA afterward. In a much more likely situation that we’ve seen happen before, we’ll be seeing more Lenovo devices here in the USA a little less than one year from now – shown at CES 2014 with another China-only market release.

[via MyDrivers]

With Jelly Bean, your HTC One X will have access to Google Now. This means you’ll get that super neat collection of tabs that tell you information about your location, your friends, your status, and the weather that surrounds you. You’ll also get sports scores and pertinent information about your future – and it’s being upgraded all the time, regardless of your OS version. You’ll be able to access this feature by putting your finger to your home button and swiping upward.

Take a peek at our original Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Review for more info on this operating system update from Google!

You’ll also be able to see notifications in a whole new way with updates grouped by application and running with the ability to expand on command. This update includes your ability to view the full text of an SMS message as well as a full photo in MMS inside your notifications pull-down. You’ll also be working now with an event notifications display with descriptions of said event without needing to open an app.

And there’s a new countdown timer for your front-facing camera. That’s a pretty weird update.

To grab this update, you’ll have simply to connect to a Wi-fi network and head to:
1. Applications
2. Settings
3. About Phone
4. Check for Updates

There you’ll be tapping the button and digging your fingernails into your kneecaps with anticipation. Once you have the update downloaded, load it. And that’s it! Let us know how it went and make sure you’re making full use of Google Now – if you wish!

Facebook speaks up on the changes

What you’ll want to see first is Facebook’s designers speaking up about the changes they’ve made themselves. They’re always good at making the case for a positive forward movement, and today’s video is no exception. They’ll speak up here about each of the three main points this change is pushing before we go through them one by one.

Rich Stories

Design choices throughout this new iteration of the News Feed on Facebook show the company to be coming to terms with the idea that images are king. If you post a photo, you’ll find that you’ve got the largest preview showing in your News Feed that Facebook has ever shown before – along with Like, Comment, and Share buttons right below in newly smoothed-out sections. If two people become friends, you’ll see one of them in a tiny icon and the other represented by not just their icon, but their header image as well.

When you see a link being shared, you’ll also see a short list of icons associated with the people who have shared it on Facebook as well. Hovering over one of these icons expands the rest – this element is in place to have people finding new friends with similar interest, of course. Along those same lines you’ll find Upcoming Events appearing next to single dates – Fridays, for example, will be of particular interest.

Finally you’ll see newly revamped posts from pages – this will be great for pages such as SlashGear (http://www.facebook.com/SlashGear) for appearing in your News Feed in a newly sleek setup. As with the rest of the feature updates, this redesign is much more simplistic than it’s been in the past.

Choice of Feeds

With a new pull-down menu that reads “News Feed” until you switch it, you’ll be able to select from any of the following to syphon your feed down to just the items you want: Most Recent, All Friends, Photos, Music, Following, Games, or Groups. This filter will be working in both the desktop (web browser) and mobile user interfaces soon – simple and smooth.

This filter will not be the first time you’ll be seeing a page that only shows photos and videos, but it is the first time we’re seeing Facebook push the “Following” aspect in a completely separate way. You can follow people on Facebook without friending them – this is good for “famous” users and the like – with this filter you’ll be able to see things that they share with the public and nothing else. This is much closer to what we see on Twitter on the daily – not so much the personal friendliness of Facebook.

Mobile Consistency

Both the desktop and the mobile editions of this change-over are going to be pushed almost at the same time. The desktop version will be coming first – with a limited roll-out starting today, the day of the update’s announcement. The mobile version – for iOS and Android at once, mind you – will be out in coming weeks.

The “Mobile Consistency” title refers also to the idea that the design for both user interfaces are now much more close to one another than they’ve ever been before. The biggest addition to the desktop end of things is the left-hand sidebar – get anywhere you need to from any Facebook nook or cranny, no more need to go all the way back to the News Feed every time!

HTC says that they’ll be “offering upgrades to some of its existing devices in the next few months,” so it looks like we may see older HTC devices running the new software before summer hits, although HTC mentions “global variants” of its devices, which could be a little confusing since HTC has international versions of its phones, and then there are US versions. It could end up that US gets the shaft with Sense 5 upgrades.

Then again, we’ll just have to wait and see what HTC ends up doing. Overall, this is certainly good news for HTC device owners, including those with the newer One series devices. However, Sense 5 may not come to every One series handset, so don’t get your hopes up if you’re rocking a mid-ranger like the One VX — HTC may not be focusing on lower-tier devices. The company also notes that some software features of the HTC One definitely won’t be making their way to older HTC devices.

HTC’s newest handset, the One, comes with a 4.7-inch full HD 1080p display with a 4MP “UltraPixel” camera. The device also packs an impressive 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor with 2GB of RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of storage space. The phone will be making its way to the market sometime next month, so save up your pennies if you’re eligible for an upgrade.

With the HTC One you’ve got the newest in new: a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor with 2GB of memory powering a fabulous 4.7-inch Super LCD 3 display at 1920 x 1080 pixels. The HTC One X+ has a quad-core 1.7GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor while the original HTC One X worked with either that same NVIDIA SoC at 1.5GHz (internationally) or the 1.5Ghz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4. As far as displays go, both of the X models had a 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 panel at 1280 x 720 pixels strong.

So while the X had 312ppi (pixel density), the HTC One works with a massive 468ppi – that’s quite the jump, and edging in on where the human eye can no longer discern pixels – wild! The new HTC One works with Gorilla Glass 2 as the HTC One X+ did while the One X worked with the original Gorilla Glass.

Inside you’ll find two iterations available for the original HTC One X, with 32GB of storage available in the international edition and 16GB inside the LTE version – the HTC One X+ came only in 64GB internal storage. The HTC One is coming in both 32GB and 64GB internal storage iterations. Each of these devices works with Android, while the original came with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Sense 4 and the new HTC One comes with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and Sense 5.

As far as the camera goes, it’s very much a whole different ball-game for the HTC One. With the HTC One X and X+, it was all about an 8-megapixel BSI f/2.0 AF back-facing camera with 1.3 or 1.6 megapixels up front – and an integrated HTC ImageSense chip to take care of the photography. Now it’s all about the Ultrapixel camera being presented by HTC as the next great innovation in the mobile camera universe. With that in mind, the HTC One works with 4-megapixel BSI f/2.0 AF on the back and a front-facing 2.1 megapixel shooter.

The original HTC One X worked with a 1800 mAh battery, the X+ had a 2100 mAh battery, and the new HTC One works with a beastly 2300 mAh battery. While the original HTC One X came in White or Gray, the X+ came in black, and the two iterations of the HTC One revealed thus far have been silver and black – with a very possible additional set of colors on the way!

Hardware

To answer that last question, the answer is simply, yes, it can. It doesn’t necessarily stand alone, but it should make the shortlist for anyone narrowing down what top-of-the-line smartphone to get themselves or their loved one this holiday season. The unibody design that we saw on the One X is the same as what we’re seeing on the One X+. Thanks to the polycarbonate housing, the handset is pretty light and also really thin, and the soft-touch finish allows for a firm grip on the device, but our black version was quite a finger smudge magnet. However, despite the large 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 720p display, the entire device doesn’t feel overwhelming to hold at all, unlike other 4.7-inch handsets that I’ve played around with.

Since it’s a unibody device, there’s not a lot of things that you can take apart easily. There’s no battery cover, which means you can’t replace the battery with a bigger one or use a spare, but that also means it’s a lot sleeker than non-unibody handsets. On the top, there’s a headphone jack along with the ambient noise sensor, with the power button on the right. On the left side, there’s the microUSB port, with the volume rocker sitting on the right side. On the bottom, there’s just the microphone. And finally, on the front, you have the three capacitive soft buttons — Back, Home, and Recent Apps — as well as the typical elongated earpiece that HTC is known for, with a notification light hidden within.

There’s a bit more happening on the back of the One X+, though. The 8MP camera protrudes just a tad from the surface, and there’s a single LED flash to accompany the camera. Also on the back is the microSIM card slot. It’s not necessarily situated on the back of the phone, but it’s also not really situated at the top — it’s mostly located in between on the curve, which is almost an odd place for it, but it actually works. The speaker is also located on the back towards the bottom, as well as the five small gold contacts for docking purposes.

On the inside is where all the real changes occur, though. The HTC One X+ trades in the dual-core Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon processor of the One X for a NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset that pairs a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor clocked at 1.7GHz with GeForce ULP graphics. The device also comes with 1GB of RAM and a whopping 64GB of internal storage. While there’s no microSD card slot, we think the 64GB of storage is plenty of space for any user.

The 4.7-inch display has a resolution of 1280×720, giving it a pixel density of 312ppi, which pegs it right up against the Samsung Galaxy S III and the LG Optimus G. It’s the same display in the One X, which arguably has one of the best displays on the smartphone market (before the DROID DNA came along). It’s super crisp and clear, and it provides an excellent viewing experience with text and images showing up extremely sharp and bright.

Software

The HTC One X+ runs Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box, with HTC’s Sense 4+ UI running on top. If you’re already familiar with HTC’s user interface, you won’t see many surprises in Sense 4+ other than the new Jelly Bean features like Google Now and Project Butter. Of course, if you’re looking for a device that offers a pure Android experience, you may not like HTC’s excessive skinning, but it adds a lot of nice features that many users will take advantage of. While HTC is sometimes accused of over-skinning, they actually left a couple of Jelly Bean features alone. For instance, they didn’t implement their own speech recognition tool over Google’s own solution. Instead, you’ll be greeted with pure Google Now and Voice Search on the One X+.

A lot of the differences between Sense 4.1 (on the One X) and 4+ are mostly behind the scenes and very subtle. The update claims smoother navigation, improved performance, and better battery life. HTC also seemed to remove shadows and embossments from text and replaced them with sharper effects in order to make text easier to read, although that may just be my mind playing tricks on me, but I did notice that text seemed a little crisper compared to other HTC devices I’ve played around with. Infinite scrolling has made a return as well, after being removed on the One X. This allows you to jump from the furthest left home screen to the furthest right, and vice versa.

As far as a possible update to Android 4.2, we wouldn’t be surprised if the One X+ eventually received it. It’s a new-enough device and a powerhouse of a smartphone for HTC and AT&T to definitely consider giving one of its best handsets an update to the latest Android version. Plus, an update to Android 4.2 would make the handset just that much more appealing to buyers who are wanting a future-proof device.

Benchmarks & Performance

With the HTC One X being an excellent smartphone, we knew going into it that the One X+ would only be an improvement, and that benchmarks would be a little better. However, the benchmarks showed that the One X+ provides quite the performance boost over the One X. In AnTuTu, the One X+ scored just over 16,200, which is right on par with Samsung’s Galaxy S III, but not quite up to snuff with the LG Optimus G or the Nexus 4. Of course, though, the difference is most likely negligible. Compared to the One X, which scores as high as 11,000, the One X+ is certainly quite a bit faster.

In Quadrant, the One X+ scored a 7,400, which is over double of what our scores were with the One X (3,400). It also does better than the Galaxy S III, which scored 6,000 during our testing, and performed just slightly better than the Optimus G. Of course, benchmarks aren’t everything, and what truly matters is if users will be happy with the performance of the phone and its user interface. Thanks to Project Butter that was introduced in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the One X+ is both snappy and smooth. Navigating through different screens and switching between apps was really quick. Surprisingly, playing a little bit of Asphalt 7 was a less-than-stellar experience, though — it was really laggy and framerates were disgustingly low. However, Mass Effect: Infiltrator played much smoother and provided better performance all around, which makes us think that Asphalt 7 may be an isolated issue.

Camera

The One X+ has an 8MP rear camera with a 1.6MP front-facing shooter. It’s essentially the same camera found in the One X, but with a slightly improved sensor that’s capable of recording 1080p video at 30fps instead of 24fps in the One X. The front-facing camera has also been upgraded to 1.6MP from the 1.3MP on the One X.

Overall, I really like the camera app’s user interface. It’s really easy to access all of the settings, and there’s even two shutter buttons, one for taking photos and the other for taking videos. This is extremely handy, since there’s no need to have to wait a few seconds in order to switch between the two.

Photo quality varies depending on the situation. With enough lighting, images can appear really crisp and sharp, but low-light conditions offer a different experience. Taking pictures in low light adds a ton of noise, almost to the point where images appear blotchy. Of course, you can manually adjust the ISO in the settings, but lowering it when you want to take a picture of a night scene opens the door for blurry photos, which is arguably worse than just having a lot of noise. Contrast and saturation is a bit too high as well, and sometimes exposure isn’t perfect at times, but with HDR mode turned on, photos get exposed a lot better. However, a lot of users won’t even bother with HDR mode anyway, since it’s a lot slower than just the automatic setting.

As far as different features, there’s Panorama mode and the aforementioned HDR mode, as well as a built-in Slow Motion mode. These aren’t anything new, as we’re already used to seeing these in the HTC One series. There are also a handful of color effects that you can choose from and apply them to photos and videos in real time — sort of like Instagram, but not quite as comprehensive.

As far as video quality goes, it was slightly above average, but it wasn’t without its faults. The increase to 30fps is certainly something that we don’t mind, but the difference from 24fps is negligible. Most videophiles will be able to tell the difference, of course, but casual videographers won’t care too much. Exposure changes going from dimly-lit areas to well-lit areas and vice versa is quick, and continuous autofocus works fairly well too, although there were times when it took a bit of time to refocus.

Battery

The HTC One X+ now comes with a larger 2100mAh battery compared to the One X’s 1800mAh battery. This is always a good thing, of course, but with the internal hardware enhancements, the 300 extra mAhs may have been required rather than just an amenity for picky users. Plus, the unibody design means that you won’t be able crack open the device in order to change out the battery for a spare or larger alternative.

However, we couldn’t find anything to complain about as far as battery life is concerned. HTC has certainly improved on the battery life of devices of yesteryear, and it seems the company is even advocating longer battery life in the software as well, with a permanent and easy-to-get-to “power saver” toggle in the notification tray. I ended up going all day long and well into the evening before I had to plug the One X+ into the wall. This was after I started the day on a full charge and with moderate to heavy usage, such as running benchmarks, playing games, and streaming Netflix at various times throughout the day.

With typical usage, I ended up getting well over a day and a half out of the battery, doing things like checking email, surfing social media, browsing the web, and keeping up with sports scores throughout the day. However, any hardcore gaming for an extended amount of time, as well as GPS navigation will certainly drain the battery faster than a water pipe can drain water, but that’s obviously to be expected, and we would hope that anyone who ended up playing mobile games on the One X+, or even have navigation up for an hour or two at a time would most likely have an outlet or car charger nearby.

Wrap-Up

The design and looks of the One X+ haven’t changed a whole lot since the One X, so if you were hoping for a cosmetic change of some sort with this updated model, you’ll be sorely disappointed. However, the real upgrades are on the inside, and while they may not be extremely significant (think Apple upgrading from 3G to 3GS, or 4 to 4S), they’re compelling enough that we’d easily recommend the One X+ if you don’t already have a HTC One device.

The presence of LTE alone can make this phone a viable competitor against the Nexus 4, even if it is just a slightly faster handset than the One X+. Other devices, like the Galaxy S III and the Optimus G are powerhouses, but if you’re not a big fan of their user interfaces, you wouldn’t be sacrificing a lot performance-wise if you ended up going with the One X+, except maybe the removable battery if that’s a concern for you. Other than the company’s flagship DROID DNA, the One X+ is certainly one of HTC’s best devices on the market right now.

Now, according to tweets appearing across the Twittersphere, users all over the world are successfully updating their HTC One X handset to Android Jelly Bean. According to HTC Source, the update is reaching both CID_038 and CID_044 handsets for users in Russia, the UK, India, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and more. The update will likely hit other areas soon.

The update is OTA, but you can try to nab it manually by going to “Software Updates” -> “Check Now” under Settings. The update originates with a 1.6MB file, followed by a larger 364.54MB Android update, which is a bit smaller than the first round of updates that appeared. Once updated, One X users will have access to a variety of new features.

The Jelly Bean update brings with it a faster user interface that boasts snappier orientation changes and more responsiveness when toggling betwixt apps. Rendering is more consistent, and there’s reactive touch for improved battery life. Face Unlock is more accurate than in previous iterations, certain SSIDs can be designated as mobile hotspots, and users can swipe from the camera viewfinder to easily review photos.

[via HTC Source]

The HTC One X+ will be running you $199.99 with a two-year agreement right out the gate while the VX will be popping up for just $49.99 with a two-year agreement. This provides you with the biggest and the smallest, the slightly more costly and the extremely affordable, both of them bringing AT&T 4G LTE and HTC’s own Sense user interface. See our AT&T HTC One X AT&T full review right this minute – and our original HTC One X international edition review as well!

The HTC One VX comes with a 9.19 mm thin body and a 4.5-inch qHD display covered with Corning Gorilla Glass. The back of this device has a 5 megapixel camera able to capture 1080p video backed up with HTC’s own ImageSense processor – a separate processor entirely from the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor under the hood. THis device also has Adreno 305 graphics, a 0.3 megapixel camera on the front, and a microSD card slot for memory expansion. Built-in storage for this device is 8 GB and you get 1GB of RAM to run the beast.

The HTC One X+ is an upgraded version of the original HTC One X for AT&T, this time coming with the processor that it had in its original international form: the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core SoC with 4-PLUS-1 technology. This device bears the bragging rights for being the first to market with the combination of the Tegra 3 and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean – the Tegra 3 here being clocked at a massive 1.7GHz per core.

This device has a 4.7-inch 720p HD display and works with an 8 megapixel camera with the same HTC ImageSense chip that the whole of the HTC One series has brought to the market. This device comes in one iteration, bringing with it a massive 64GB of internal memory that, as AT&T puts it, “is non-partitioned to store more high quality photos, video, music, movies and apps however the user wants.”

Expect more HTC action as we hit up the HTC event tomorrow in New York City as well – seeya there bright and early right here on SlashGear!

Of course there’s always the international flavor of the HTC One X with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor under the hood, but that device trades its motor in for a dual-core Snapdragon when it comes over the sea to AT&T. So here it is: the Galaxy Note II, with what may very well be the most powerful set of innards in a smartphone in the USA. This is the Galaxy Note II working with the game Asphalt 7: Heat.

You’ll see not just relatively swift loading times here, but undeniably fluid and lag-free transitions as well as gameplay throughout the race. This game is a racing game primarily, but also has many quick transitions between live-action gaming and cut-scenes as you crash into walls or crush your opponents into those walls to advance. The Samsung Galaxy Note II makes sure there’s no waiting to matter what you’re getting into.

We’ve got a full review of the Samsung Galaxy Note II as it appears here in the USA as well as a review of the Samsung Galaxy Note II international edition. They’re both essentially the same, as it were, with different apps and some different features included on each different iteration. The benchmark results we’ve been seeing with this device, again regardless of carrier, have been suitably impressive as well: it’s only competition has been the LG Optimus G (see our full review here) – but of course that device has a smaller display, too.

Judge for yourself with a bonus video of the LG Optimus G playing Asphalt 7: Heat as well! It’s a fight! Notice that all of the swiftness remains just as hot here with only slight variations in how each processor and machine run by said processor handles the load. You’ll have both options available to you very, very soon at AT&T, as it were – can’t wait!

Jelly Bean brings users a faster and more fluid user interface, with snappier orientation changes and responses when toggling between apps. The system offers more consistent rendering, and reactive touch responses that help conserve battery life. Other features include the ability to designate certain WiFI SSIDs as mobile hotspots, more accurate Face Unlock, and the ability to swipe from the camera viewfinder to review photos.

As far as the HTC One X, it brings with it a light weight of 130g and a 4.7-inch 1280×720 display. There’s a 1.3-megapixel front camera for video conferencing, and an 8-megapixel rear camera with autofocus, an LED flash, and support for recording videos in up to 1080p HD. Inside you’ll find an NVIDIA 1.5GHz quad-core Tegra 3 chipset, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage space.

HTC Sense 4+ is HTC’s custom overlay, and includes one-touch access to the camera, bypassing the lock screen, as well as two new gallery views, Tap and Go, and Self Portrait mode, which detects faces and applies minor enhancements to the subject’s eyes and skin. There’s no word on when the HTC One S will see some Jelly Bean action, but assuming HTC stays in its October timeline, it is reasonable to assume that users will see the update pop up in the next couple days. You can check out our review of the HTC One S here.

[via Gotta Be Mobile]

There are a couple caveats that you should be aware of, though. First, the service only works on “PlayStation Certified” devices, which means the Vita, obviously, but also only a handful of newer Android devices from Sony and HTC. The list consists of the Xperia Play, Xperia Arc, Xperia S, Xperia Ion, Xperia Acro, Xperia Acro HD, Sony Tablet S, Tablet P, the HTC One X, One X+, One S, and One V.

Second, PlayStation Mobile only works on up to three devices. This isn’t too much of a problem, since most users wouldn’t own more than a Vita, smartphone, and tablet at once, but for a service where its main selling point is playing games on multiple devices, you’d think they would allow unlimited devices or at least more than three.

Once you purchase games, and have PlayStation Mobile installed on three of your devices, you’re pretty much good to go. The games take advantage of both the Vita’s touchscreen and gaming controls, as well as the on-screen virtual DualShock controller for the Android devices. Right now, there are only 20 games to choose from, but we’re guessing that number will grow over time.

[via Android Community]

I’ve been a vocal critic of HTC’s cloud strategy in the past. The company had a head-start on mobile device sync, on remotely accessing a smartphone from the browser, of streaming video, of cloud gaming; it frittered each advantage away, either leaving them to wallow with little promotion and even less love, or seemingly forgot it had them altogether. “Quietly blundering” was the HTC strategy, culminating in the bizarrely handled axing of HTCSense.com services altogether.

But it’s not vitriol for vitriol’s own sake. In a market where Apple and Samsung have so definitively raised their game – and aren’t averse to combining competition on the shelves with some back-stabbing in the courtroom – any company that squanders any potential advantage deserves to be scolded.

HTC is now taking tentative steps back into the cloud. HTC Sense 4+, which debuts on the new One X+ flagship, reboots Sense online with “Get Started” – a way to easily configure your phone without having to actually paw and swipe at it. It’s front and center in the initial setup wizard and – as one of the few obvious changes in Sense 4+ – something HTC appears to be focusing on.

It’s very early days. Right now, “Get Started” is just that: a starting point for new Android users. You can set up your new device online – choose wallpaper, homescreen layout, and apps to download from Google Play – but you can’t then backup any changes you make on the phone itself. The sync is all one-way, a starting point (and a reset point) though there’s no real ongoing reason to keep visiting the online tool.

Nonetheless, I’m cautiously admiring of the new strategy. From what we’ve seen so far it’s being built out in recognition of HTC’s target audience: fresh smartphone users excited about their first device. The “set it up while you wait for it” approach could be a strong marketing point, playing on the geeky anticipation people feel when they’re waiting for a new toy. “Don’t just watch out the window for the mailman,” HTC should be telling people, “make your phone your own before it’s even in your hands.”

Sense online, in its old form, could’ve been a sticking point for HTC users. The value-add it brought should’ve been something HTC played on: don’t jump ship to iPhone, or another Android OEM, because then you lose out on contacts sync, on remote backup, on phone tracking and remote control in the comfort of your browser. Given the success of iCloud (and the persistent rumors that Samsung is developing its own, ahem, homage with S Cloud), HTC would be foolish not to revisit that strategy with Sense online 2.0.

HTC needs to be careful as it’s being expansive. Just as it needs to maintain sight of its “Hero Device” strategy, it also needs to deliver pitch-perfect cloud services. A 25GB DropBox bundle isn’t enough any more; users want holistic, integrated experiences they can’t get elsewhere. Apple has shown us that you needn’t throw the world at your audience, that it’s enough to give them a few core gems that are easily grasped and have clear value. Now, HTC needs to start looking at more than just one device after the next, and frame its line-up with a portfolio of cloud services that bring context and value users understand.

More on the HTC One X+ and Sense 4+ in our full hands-on

The HTC One X+ has the smaller of the two displays at 4.7-inches, but at that size with its 1280 x 720p Super LCD 2 panel, you get the higher of the two screen resolutions with 312 ppi. Samsung presents a 1280 x 720 HD Super AMOLED display over 4.8-inches, this bringing it up to 306 ppi in the end. Both devices are relatively light, with the One X+ coming in at 4.55 oz while the Galaxy S III weighs in at 4.7 oz. [Check our HTC One X+ hands-on right this minute!]

With the 5.31 x 2.75 x 0.35 inch body of the HTC One X+, you’ve essentially got just about as similar a size as you’re going to get on a different manufacturer with the Galaxy S III measuring in at 5.38 x 2.78 x 0.34 inches. The One X+ has appeared in black thus far while the Galaxy S III is available in blue, white, and garnet red – and again, all of these options either do now exist or will soon exist on AT&T in the USA. The HTC One X+ comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box and the Galaxy S III currently works with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The processors in these devices are rather different – though they may very well act rather similar in the end. The One X+ works with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor as its international iteration does while the Galaxy S III uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor. Have a peek at the battle between HTC One X and HTC One X (with different processors) to get an idea of what we’ll be dealing with here.

Both devices work with NFC, both have an 8 megapixel camera on the back, and the HTC One X+ works with an extra processor made specifically for image processing, just as the rest of the HTC One series has as well. With the HTC One X+ you’ll have Google’s own Voice Assistant and the new Google Now as revealed on the Galaxy Nexus with Jelly Bean – the Galaxy S III works with S-Voice for voice assistance.

Both devices work with a 2100mAh battery though the HTC’s version of it is not able to be removed from the device, while Samsung’s will be able to be switched out at will. The HTC device has 64GB of internal storage while the Galaxy S III on AT&T works with either 16 or 32GB of internal storage and has a microSD card slot for expansion up to an additional 64GB. The One X+ will work with Beats Audio and a built-in FM radio while the Galaxy S III has neither.

The HTC One X+ also works with Sense 4+, a new user interface from HTC, while Samsung works with TouchWiz. Both operating systems are rather interesting and fun to use, and both offer options for media consumption – music and video stores, that is. The pricing for the HTC One X+ has not yet been revealed, but the Galaxy S III will cost you either $199.99 or $249.99 on-contract depending on the internal storage size you want. Check em both out in your local AT&T retail location soon!

HTC promised back in July that it would bring Jelly Bean to the One X and One S, and it looks like the company is finally delivering on that promise. No specific date has been said yet, but the timeline for these kinds of updates usually depends on the carriers anyway — the One X is available on AT&T‘s network, and the One S is offered by T-Mobile.

The HTC One X features a 4.7-inch 1280×720 display and comes packing with Tegra 3 and a 1.5GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with 1GB of RAM on board. Meanwhile, the HTC One S has a 4.3-inch 960×540 display and comes with a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

We reported earlier this morning that 1.8% of Android users are now on Jelly Bean, which is up from 1.2% a month ago. That’s certainly not a large percentage, but you have to be patient with Android updates. Android 2.3 Gingerbread is still the most popular version, which claims over half of the market share at 56%.

Today HTC announced three more new phones, two of them part of the HTC One series – the HTC One X+, VX, and Windows Phone 8X – revealed earlier internationally, here coming to AT&T for the first time. The HTC One X+ is essentially a boosted version of the HTC One X, the One VX is essentially the equivalent of the One V, and the Windows Phone is a whole new device. Each of these devices look and feel nice, but they’re heartbreakers, each one of them – not in their quality, but in that they represent additional frays from the single device strategy.

“We had a fantastic year, with 65% growth year on year in the UK. But in Q4 we delivered a lot more products than in the past. Now we want to create more of a ‘hero’ approach. We make great phones, but it is hard to do that when the portfolio is spread too much. … So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs.” – Robertson

The closest we’ve gotten to a hero strategy as it was described earlier this year was the HTC One series as it stood in its first set of three, the HTC One X, V, and S. Then came the HTC EVO 4G LTE and the DROID Incredible 4G LTE and the whole show went down the drain. It should be clear why this happened – Sprint has the “EVO” brand that HTC relies on for sales on that carrier, the same being true of Verizon with both the “DROID” and “Incredible” brand names.

HTC has a hero strategy in place that’s different for each carrier. If they’d release one device – or even three devices like they did at the start of the One series, they’d have the power that not just Apple has with their iPhone, Samsung and their Galaxy S III and their Galaxy Note series as well. Make one phone and the money will flow.

The HTC One X+ is a device you may readily mistake for the original HTC One X as it looks essentially the same on the outside save for an exclusive carbon black finish rather than the original white. This device has nearly the same physical specifications as far as how it feels in your hand, but you’ll find boosts throughout the device to keep you up to date with the hottest phones on the market.

You’ll be working with HTC Sense 4+, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and for the first time in the USA, you’ll have the 1.7GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 4+1 technology – that’s an additional “ninja” core for low-power activities. This device has a 4.7-inch 720p display and an 8 megapixel on the back with HTC ImageChip hardware inside – that’s a dedicated processor made specifically for the camera, mind you. This device also has 64GB of internal memory right out of the box standard.

The HTC One VX is a slightly new form factor for the HTC One series with a 4.5-inch display fronted by Corning Gorilla Glass and 5 megapixel camera on the back. This device presents one of the slimmest unibody form factors on the market at just 9.19mm thin and equipped with the same lovely Sense 4.0 and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich that the first generation of HTC One devices came with earlier this year.

The HTC One X+ will bring on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and HTC Sense 4+ right out of the box, a couple of enhancements that the HTC One X and the VX will be gaining later this year.

Chip and battery are the big numbers, and HTC is pretty proud of them. The company claims performance is up as much as 67-percent compared to the original One X, while battery life has gained up to 6hrs more talktime versus the old phone.

In the hand, it’s unsurprisingly instantly recognizable as a One X: it still feels broad and flat, surprisingly slim, and the textured casing is easy to grip. The rear camera pucker – still an 8-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 lens – gets a ring of red around it, matching the pared down Beats Audio logo, while the front camera now musters 1.6-megapixels and, for the first time, gains access to HTC’s Image Chip technology.

That does its processing on the RAW photo data, rather than after its been converted to JPEG, and HTC sets the One X+ to automatically shoot vanity stills in Portrait mode with skin tone smoothing and other virtual botoxery. You can turn it off if you’d rather be seen in your hideous, unairbrushed state. The front camera also now gives a countdown by default, three seconds to allow you to pose rather than be snapped while thumbing the button.

It’s not the only change to the camera software. The UI now shows how many photos and minutes of video you have left – HTC will offer both 32GB and 64GB versions of the One X+, though neither gets a microSD slot – and if you lock the phone with the camera app still in the foreground, HTC assumes you’re a shutterbug tourist and bypasses the lockscreen next time you turn the phone back on to save valuable milliseconds of photography time.

Beats Audio has its new logo and a new feedback amplifier, boosting the performance of the One X+’s speaker. This, HTC says, “constantly monitors” the signal to the speaker and tweaks it so as to make it as loud as can be without clipping or crackling. Unfortunately, unlike on the Windows Phone 8X by HTC, there’s no companion amp for the headphone jack – arguably of far more use than a louder speaker – though the power has been increased from 0.5V to 1.5V. It’s also possible to use NFC to pair the One X+ with compatible Beats speakers.

Elsewhere in software, there’s now Jelly Bean (complete with Google Now) behind the scenes with HTC Sense4+ – a new strategy of nomenclature HTC says is less focused on micro-changes and more on usable features – strapped on top. The Gallery app follows the path of the Music hub, and pulls in content from Facebook, Dropbox, Flickr, Picaso, and what’s stored on the handset itself, and you can now sort images by date, event, and location, complete with a map view showing where clusters of shots were taken.

The One X+ is PlayStation Certified, and with the app – not installed to the phone by default – you’ll eventually be able to download Sony games. HTC Watch 2 does get loaded out of the box, however, and has also evolved into a hub of sorts: now, as well as renting and buying movies and TV shows from HTC’s store, there are links to video apps like YouTube and ESPN. A three-finger upward swipe flicks the content to your HTC MediaLink HD, and if the third-party video app itself has support for the MediaLink SDK, you can continue using the phone for other tasks while video keeps playing. Otherwise it’s simple screen-mirroring. HTC couldn’t say which developers had baked in such support, though did tell us it was in discussions about it.

Finally, there’s a resurrection of the online Sense tools, now part of the “Get Started” feature which will welcome all new One X+ owners. They’ll be able to set up their new phone – arrange wallpapers and homescreen widgets, choose apps from Google Play – in their desktop browser and then, by logging into the One X+ with the same Sense account, have it automatically set up that way. You can set up your online account before you even have the phone, in fact, giving you something to do while you eagerly await the delivery guy.

Unfortunately there’s only one-way sync, at least to begin with, so any changes made on the phone won’t be backed up online. Instead, all you’ll be able to do is reset the One X+ to the original configuration you first started with. Still, HTC says it does have plans to continue building on its online Sense provision, and we can hope it will make a better job of things the second time around.

For Europe, there’ll be UMTS HSPA+ models, with the promise of LTE versions for other markets. HTC did say that it could well change that and add an LTE for the fledgling EE 4G network in the UK, however.

As for Jelly Bean for previous devices, once the One X+ launches – in the UK, that will happen in early- to mid-October, across multiple carriers and alongside the original One X which will remain on sale – HTC will be pushing Android 4.1 to the One X, One S, and One XL shortly after. It will also include Sense 4+, though some of the hardware-specific features (like the speaker amp) obviously won’t be supported on the older phones.

That means the same 4.7-inch display, apparently, and the same neatly tailored polycarbonate plastic chassis. Inside, according to leaks earlier in the month, will be a slightly faster processor than before: a Tegra 3+ AP36 with a 1.6GHz clock speed (or, in single-core mode, up to 1.7GHz). That will be paired with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of ROM.

OS is tipped to be Android 4.1 Jelly Bean – about time, given Google’s latest OS has been on the scene for some months now – with HTC’s Sense 4.5 interface strapped on top. A 1,800 mAh battery, just as in the original One X, is expected to be doing power duty, and the pogopins on the back for charging cradles are clear to see.

In short, the One X+ is shaping up to be a minor tweak rather than an all-out refresh, likely running a little faster than the One X but otherwise offering much the same user-experience. If HTC is sensible, it will have spent its time tweaking power management, as rival devices – such as the Galaxy S III, with a 2,100 mAh pack – offer considerably larger batteries.

Update: GSM Arena spotted an early listing of the One X+ in a printed O2 catalog, which suggests the new HTC will have 64GB of internal storage and indeed run Jelly Bean on a 1.7GHz processor. MoDaCo claims the 64GB will be partitioned as a single, huge chunk, too, unlike the split arrangement of the One X. O2 lists the One X+ at £479.99 on pre-pay, with contract deals also expected.

The HTC One X was spotted in a leaked photo earlier today, and it would appear that many of the world’s online retailers are having some trouble keeping Wii U pre-orders in stock. Google Plus has grown to 400 million users total, with 100 million of those people using the social networking service actively. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer thinks that Windows 8 may prove to be as big as Windowws 95 (and talks very briefly about the “sweet spot” for Surface pricing), while we’re hoping that Microsoft’s Windows 8 event on October 25 will give us some more solid details on the price of Surface.

The Kindle Fire HD 7-inch tablet was the subject of a teardown earlier today, showing us just what exactly is under the hood. Speaking of the Kindle Fire, today Nokia confirmed that it has licensed its Location Platform to Amazon for use in the Fire line up, meaning that Amazon will be giving Google Maps the boot. JetBlue says it will soon be offering free Wi-Fi during its flights, and HP CEO Meg Whitman has looked to Apple for inspiration when it comes to redesigning the PCs and laptops it offers. Dragon Age III: Inquisition was officially announced today too, something we’re sure will get the anti-BioWare crowd all riled up.

The Angry Birds spin-off Bad Piggies was given its first gameplay video today (no it isn’t the same as Angry Birds), and today we got word that the Samsung Galaxy S IV may be launching as early as March 2013 – less than a year after the S III hit shelves. The Nokia Lumia 820 has been outfitted with a new bumper shell, and in one of the day’s more interesting stories, archaeologists may have uncovered a fort that was critical to Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. Canon revealed a number of new cameras today, but perhaps the most important reveal was of the Canon EOS 6D. Not to be outdone, Olympus had a couple of reveals as well, announcing the new Stylus XZ-2 iHS and the M.Zuiko Digital ED 60MM F2.8 “Nature Macro Lens.”

Finally tonight, we invite you to check out new review of the Sony Reader PRS-T2. That does it for Monday’s Evening Wrap-Up, so go out and enjoy the rest of your night!

According to this tweet, the HTC One X+ has dimensions of 134.36 x 69.9 x 9.3mm and weighs in at 129g. Like past rumors, this tweet claims that the HTC One X+ comes equipped with NVIDIA‘s new Tegra 3+ AP37 1.6GHz quad-core / 1.7GHz single-core processor. We’ve also got 1 GB of RAM under the hood, along with 32GB ROM.

This is all powered by a 1800mAH battery, just like the one found in the original HTC One X. That will likely be an issue for most, as the HTC One X received a fair number of complaints about its short battery life. With this new hardware, we can expect battery life to be disappointingly short once again, so brace for that.

Finally, our anonymous source claims that the HTC One X+ will come running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean behind HTC’s Desire 4.5. Naturally, it’s a good idea to remain on the skeptical side of things until HTC makes and announcement, but the specs listed in this tweet (or series of tweets, as it happens) seem to jibe pretty well with what we’ve heard in the past. Also worth pointing out is the fact that this is the same developer who outed the name of the HTC Accord, so he’s got some credit when it comes to HTC leaks. We’ll be finding out if this leak is legitimate soon enough, as the HTC One X+ is expected to get a reveal on September 19.

The HTC One series will continue to work with Beats technology, but Beats will no longer be integrated in future models, and Beats earbuds will no longer be included with any future models of any kind. The HTC One series has appeared on AT&T and T-Mobile with the HTC One X and the HTC One S this year, and the HTC One V has just popped up on one of its several carriers in the United States just this week with Cricket Wireless. HTC has recently reported that they’ve had a slightly less than impressive set of quarters in the earnings universe, and their competition has certainly ramped up in the last few years as far as Android goes.

The HTC One V is now appearing on several budget-minded carriers across the United States, the HTC One X is only on one carrier, and the HTC One V is only on one carrier. There’s an EVO 4G LTE device out there living inside this One generation without the brand name, and Verizon has a new HTC device in the Droid Incredible space. It’s a disconnected space, that’s for certain.

Have a peek at our timeline of HTC’s recent earnings reports to track how they’ve done over the past year. With the HTC One series appearing to be a master-stroke of genius earlier this year, it’s hard to see the manufacturer struggle here in late summer. As it stands, HTC’s only choice might be to keep up the vertical integration game that they started with HTC One – it’s the trend, and it certainly seems to work – ask Samsung!

[via Unwired View]

If you’re looking for every single little bit of information you can grasp at about the new iPhone, you’ll be super pumped up about the battery that leaked today. The next generation of iMac and Mac Pro may well have no optical drives – though the current newest generation MacBook Pro says different. The folks at Lenovo are coming on strong soon with what very well may be a convertible Windows RT tablet soon and very soon.

Over at Disney they’ve got some brand new touch-sensitive plants by the name of Botanicus Interacticus – multi-touch plans for the future! Yahoo is continuing their head-hunt with an eye on Twitter’s head of international markets. The Apple vs Samsung trail has done what Apple feared most: it’s revealed iPhone and iPad sales numbers – whoppers!

There’s a wireless DJ system from Pioneer appearing today that you really should have a peek at. Samsung has already begun detailing the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual processor with two 1.7GHz cores – backward from the four before? Hardly!

IBM is being tipped as having considered purchasing RIM – and earlier this week it was Samsung. Get your tinfoil hats out folks, RIM’s stock is about to rise again. Have a peek at Pitfall for iOS as it swings on in from 1982 – this time with a bit more advanced graphics. Battle.net has been hacked and Blizzard has commented, telling everyone to chill but be cautious.

HTC has listened to user feedback and changed the behaviour of one of the three capacitive keys found at the bottom of the handset. The recent apps button will now open context menus within apps instead of pulling up the multitasking grid in Sense. Now users will have to perform a long press of the recent apps key in order to pull up the multitasking menu.

In addition, HTC says that tab management in the browser has been improved thanks to the addition of a dedicated tab switching button. Camera white balance and autofocus has also been tweaked, and HTC says that the operating system should be a bit more stable overall thanks to some memory and platform tweaks.

Finally, HTC has added a Single Sign-On feature for Facebook that will allow access to Facebook information across multuple apps and browsers, and the company has also improved the Beats Audio functions. Developers see a nice little addition too, with expanded SDK support for the Media Link HD, plus a new framework that should help improve quality in video calling apps.

The improved version of the HTC One X is expected to retain its NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, but it will receive a bump in clock speed to 1.7Ghz. The battery will also be improved – we’re assuming HTC will increase the capacity – and a new color option will be on offer, which should please those looking for something other than white or grey.

The handset will be bundled with Beats headphones just like the HTC One X and other HTC phones, with Stuff also hearing word that current HTC accessories will continue to work without any trouble with the refreshed model, suggesting that the design of the handset won’t be radically different. Meanwhile, HTC will add ClearVoice to “improve call quality”, which sounds similar to HD Voice offered on certain carriers’ handsets.

Finally, HTC Watch 2, an improved version of the company’s video streaming service, will be bundled with the new handset. Pricing hasn’t been finalized, but Stuff believes UK carriers will offer the refreshed model on tariffs £5 more expensive than the current HTC One X. The handset is expected to be released around October 1st, just in time to go toe-to-toe with the Galaxy Note II and the next iPhone.

The One X+ will also be running Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean when it arrives, if the NenaMark2 benchmark results from TmoNews are to believed. The standard One X runs Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, so if this is true, the One X+ will be getting a pretty major upgrade as far as operating systems go.

Other than the increase in processing power and the shiny new install of Jelly Bean, the One X+ will be more or less the same as the One X. That 4.7-inch screen is still capable of running a resolution of 1280 x 720, which means 720p playback. The HTC One X+ apparently has been codenamed the HTC Evitaire for the moment, and currently, we don’t have any idea of when HTC is planning to pull the veil off this bad boy.

The HTC One X+ is said to making its debut at T-Mobile sometime in September, so anxious HTC fans may not have much longer to wait. Our pals over at Android Community have passed along a rumor that this may be headed to AT&T as well, but with the standard HTC X currently soaking up the spotlight at AT&T, that doesn’t seem all that likely. Anything goes in the realm of smartphones, however, so the HTC One X+ could very well be headed to AT&T’s shelves. Stay tuned.

Some are stating the new price point from AT&T is available right this minute, with RadioShack matching it come this weekend. There is no special requirements either, as HTC and AT&T has made this the new price for the One X for those looking to update and sign a new 2-year contract as usual.

Dropping the HTC One X down to $99 makes this phone a steal, as it was already awesome at $199. This will also cause some problems for Motorola and their new Atrix HD (see our review) as it offers similar specs and a smaller screen. This could also undercut Galaxy S III sales. The HTC One X features a 4.7-inch SLCD2 display, a 1.5 GHz dual-core S4 processor, and that impressive 8 megapixel camera on the rear. Hit the timeline below for One X news and our full review. If you’re interested in a new AT&T phone the HTC One X should be near the top of your list.

Timing for the upgrade is not confirmed at this stage, with HTC apparently still working on things behind the scenes. “Please stay tuned for more updates regarding device upgrades, timing and other details about HTC and Jelly Bean” the company told us.

Some of the surprise element of the update confirmation has been pulled, given indications of HTC’s plans already emerged earlier in the week. Australian carrier Telstra was spotted promising Jelly Bean in the pipeline for the HTC One S and One XL, though at the time there was no mention of the One X flagship.

We’re checking with HTC to see if it can share more specifics on timescales for European and North American variants of the One Series updates, and will update if we hear more. More details on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in our full review.

Update: An HTC spokesperson tells us that the update “is for all versions worldwide, including the carrier-specific versions in the U.S.”

There’s no firm date or even vague timeline for when you might expect to see Jelly Bean roll out to the two devices, but at least you can take comfort in the fact that HTC is busy behind the scenes working on the update. Even then, they’ll have to hand it off to the carriers to make sure everything plays nice with specific devices and networks, so we’re probably still in for quite a wait.

Still, it’s good to know the the update is coming for HTC’s fresh handsets. There’s no word on the international mode of the HTC One X, which features a NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor instead of the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 found in the XL, but it’s probably a safe bet that the quad-core version will see the update too. If you’re absolutely desperate in the meantime, you could always wander on over to xda-developers and see what they’re cooking up from the AOSP code.

Total revenues for the three month period of April to June 2012 amounted to NT$91.0bn ($3.05bn) while unaudited operating income was NT$8.2 billion ($274m). Pre-tax net income was NT$8.9 billion, and HTC says overall earnings per share come to NT$8.90 based on 831,227 thousand weighted average number of shares.

HTC has not had an easy time of 2012. The company has faced a strong challenge in the European smartphone market from the Samsung Galaxy S III, though its own HTC One X was well received by reviewers, and it still struggles to find a place in the growing tablet market.

Meanwhile, HTC has come under fire in the US from Apple, with the Cupertino company managing to secure a temporary sales ban preventing the One X and EVO 4G LTE from being brought into the country. That ban was only lifted after HTC tweaked the relevant software to bypass Apple’s patented technology, with sales gradually resuming in May.

Last quarter, HTC described its previously sluggish performance as a side-effect of a “rebuilding period” in which it readied its One Series line-up. The company is yet to comment officially on the Q2 results.

Apple suggested last month that HTC misled customs officials over the software on phones to get past the ban, although the ITC doesn’t share the same thoughts: “The commission finds that Apple has not demonstrated the propriety of temporary emergency action here. The commission will not direct Customs to detail all subject HTC products because the commission does not have the information necessary to determine whether the respondents are currently violating the commission’s limited exclusion order.”

It was previously reported that the version of Android HTC has included on phones such as the One X and EVO 4G LTE have been modified to remove the infringing patent. The international version of the One X shows the context menu that appears when a user long taps an item, whereas the American version removes this and places the relevant options in Android’s Settings area. As a result, the custom ban was lifted on the handsets and began shipping to retail stores.

[via Bloomberg]

The current HTC One XL makes use of a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor to utilize LTE capabilities. The quad-core Tegra 3 chip found in the international HTC One X is currently incompatible with LTE, so HTC might want to have its cake and eat it too by offering both quad-core and LTE with Qualcomm’s solutions. The APQ8064 chip is said to be clocked at 1.6Ghz and is paired with an Adreno 350 GPU.

It looks like the display will be the same that’s found on the current HTC One X and XL, a 720p Super LCD2 panel, and the camera will feature the same 8-megapixel sensor. RAM, however, will see a bump to 2GB, matching what’s found in the American versions of the Galaxy S III. It isn’t clear if the design of the phone will stay the same, but see what you can make out in the dim and shaky video embedded below. We recommend you take all of this with your daily dose of salt in the meantime.

UPDATE: Many have cried foul over the alleged screenshots, with the texture on the settings menu not matching what’s found on current Sense 4.0 devices, and the previously embedded video has been made private. On top of that, would HTC really release a new flagship device so soon and risk customer loyalty? Apologies, friends, but the information is more likely than not fake.

[via NewGadgets]

This news comes with words from chief financial officer Chia-Lin Chang who noted that “a bigger softness is from Europe than the U.S.”, this allowing investors to understand that it’s their international launch, not their launch in the states, where the HTC One line has not met demands. Opinions abound that the Apple ban on the HTC EVO 4G LTE and HTC One X earlier this year had a bit to do with slow sales, though now it appears HTC is keeping up.

HTC’s second-quarter revenue target is now T$91 billion ($3.03 billion) down from T$105 billion, this compared to last quarter’s actual revenue at T$67.79 showing the actual growth of HTC after last year’s lest-than-awesome sales on the whole. Chang continued, saying “sales in China are better than we thought; we expect China will contribute a representative percentage to the revenue this quarter. Given all the things happening in the second quarter here, we certainly hope we can get the right guidance and have a more smooth transition going forward.”

Keep up with HTC’s big Android push in the timeline below and stay tuned as the HTC One series continues to blow up!

[via Rueters]

The first of these games – as seen above – is Dead Trigger, a first person shooter right up along the lines of Shadowgun, made here to destroy no less than a whole host of zombies! Don’t let your guard down or it’ll be green curtains for you!

Second is Puddle THD, a game that takes what the Tegra 3 can do for real-world physics and pushes it to the wonderful world of aquatics. Your task is to make a puddle of water get from one place to another – don’t get to hot on the trigger though, because just like real water, this puddle is wily.

Next is Deamons Score, a “break-beat” action game made in the world of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 for 3D graphics that’ll have you pushing forth with depth-of-field effects, bloom effects, rim lighting, and dynamic shadows. Get ready to fire some oversized pistols – this game is not for kids.

Bounty Arms will have you knocking your enemies out cold – or straight up killing them – as you side-scroll through this 3D action game with co-op play and particle effects made possible by the Tegra 3. This game is made playable for the first time at E3 along with several of the other games here made available for the first time on Android.

Finally there’s Heroes Call. This game is made to take your RPG skills to the next level with high resolution light maps, weapons, armor, and collectable items galore, and multiple characters moving through a highly detailed fantasy realm. All of this on your mobile device. Prepare yourself!

Each of these games will be available immediately if not soon via the TegraZone for your Android device – make sure you’ve got Tegra 3 under the hood or you’re out of luck!

[via NVIDIA]

You’ve already seen the PlayStation Suite in different forms for months, with roots in the mobile world going back years in some cases. Have a peek a recent story of ours on the release of a Sony PlayStation Suite SDK open beta and see that not only were the two Sony tablets involved in this program thus far, the PS Vita has been as well. Now it’s time for prime time.

This program will have both the HTC One X (primarily) and the HTC One S being touted as fabulous places to play mobile-aimed PlayStation Certified games. We’ve seen such a program as well in the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY as it also worked with certified PlayStation physical controls. With HTC in the game, it’s time to move beyond the realm of Sony devices and controls and straight on through to the touchscreens of all Androids – some day!

PlayStation Mobile will have a store full of PlayStation Certified games ready for the picking and downloading on Sony-partnered devices across the Android landscape. This program will compete with the NVIDIA TegraZone as well as the Qualcomm Snapdragon GameCommand environments with the power of the PlayStation to back it up.

You can jump in on all the developer action over at PlayStation.com’s PlayStation Mobile Site. This will be your one-stop shop for everything a developer might need to move forward with their application on Sony-partnered devices. PlayStation Mobile branding here you come!

[via PlayStation Blog]

In an update to the HTC investor website, the company posted the following: “HTC has completed the review process with US Customs and HTC devices have been released, as they are in compliance with the ITC’s ruling. Future shipments should continue to enter the US and we are confident that we will soon be able to meet the demand for our products.”

The International Trade Commission ruled back in December than future HTC Android handsets were to be blocked after devices were found to infringe on one of Apple’s patents. The patent related to the use of email and phone links and the context menu that appeared when a user tapped one of the links. HTC have worked around the problem by removing the context menu and allowing users to customize the performed action in the main Android settings instead.

This May 24th shipping date for the HTC EVO 4G LTE only appears to apply to customers who pre-ordered directly through the carrier at the moment, with businesses like Best Buy not having spoken up on the situation as of yet. Last we heard from Best Buy, the EVO was still delayed indefinitely. Now we must wait just three more days until the red kickstand-having beast arrives on smartphone loving fans’ doorsteps across the nation.

Earlier today we had a look at the HTC EVO 4G LTE as it compared to the HTC One X, both smartphones being top-tier Android monsters for their respective carriers. Have a look back at our [HTC EVO 4G LTE full review] as well, and head to the timeline below to follow the EVO back to its origin earlier this year. And don’t forget to join us on our ImageChip Tour of New Orleans with the HTC EVO 4G LTE as well – fun stuff!

Wrong – at the moment the AT&T 4G LTE network is spreading at a relatively high rate while the HTC EVO 4G LTE has just Baltimore and Kansas City to call its own for 4G – and that’s it. AT&T’s LTE, not to mention the rest of its data network on 3G and below, have worked a whole lot more reliably than any connection on the EVO 4G LTE – have a peek at our reviews of both devices we’re looking at at this point to get an idea of what the carriers have provided us as far as data coverage across the nation:

• HTC EVO 4G LTE Review
• HTC One X (AT&T) Review

Then make sure to keep up with the HTC One S as well, if you’re up for it. This smartphone contains a whole lot of the same awesome specifications that these other two titans do, but it’s a bit smaller for those of you with human sized hands. Consider the fit!

• HTC One S (T-Mobile) Review

Then back to the main competition – the HTC EVO 4G LTE has a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution display, that being the same as the HTC One X, both of them with a fabulous 312 PPI in the end. The difference between these two in their displays though is the Super LCD technology in the EVO with just LCD tech in the X. Have a peek at the difference in the straight-on photos above and below (they’re all taken with full brightness on all screens.)

The EVO has the ability to carry microSD cards in its one slot with 32GB capacity, while the X has no storage and 32GB built-in. The EVO then has 16GB built-in which allows it to have up to 48GB of storage in all. The HTC One X weighs a bit less than the EVO (though both sit right around the X’s 130g, light!) To keep up with its slightly brighter display (we must assume,) the EVO has a bigger battery, with 2,000mAh instead of the X’s 1,800mAh.

Hands-on with the HTC EVO 4G LTE:

Hands-on with the HTC One X with AT&T:

Both devices run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, both run HTC’s own Sense 4.0, and both are extremely well put together. The EVO has a dedicated camera button where the X does not, the X comes in white while the EVO just comes in red/black, and both devices will end up costing you a bit over $150 if you can grab the right weekend deal. In this battle now more than ever you’re going to have to consider the data speed. If we had to choose solely based on data, we’d choose the HTC One X without question.

On the other hand, if we had to choose based solely on the amount of kickstand either device had, we’d have to go with the EVO – last kickstand in the west!

Posting to the HTC investor website, the company describes how each phone model must undergo inspection by custom officials to ensure that they no longer infringe on Apple’s patent. It’s already been revealed that HTC has modified its Android ROM in the US to remove such context menus, instead letting users change which apps are launched in Settings. The full statement reads:

Each imported HTC model must be reviewed by Customs and will be released once Customs officials have completed the inspection. Some models have gone through inspection and been released to our carriers customers. We don’t have the status of each specific device model at this time, but we are working closely with Customs. We remain confident that this issue will be resolved soon.

That might explain why the HTC One S has managed to slip through to T-Mobile, since the December ruling doesn’t single out specific HTC phones, only future handsets. The One X and EVO 4G LTE, meanwhile, may not have been inspected yet, hence the delays in getting them out of customs and into the hands of customers. Still, HTC has removed the offending action from Android’s software, so it’s down to customs to give the phones the all clear at this point.