The GSM flavor of Motorola's DROID, or Milestone as it will be known in Europe, has multitouch built-in to the UI. For reasons we can only assume have something to do with an unspoken intellectual property agreement between Google and Apple, the US version of the user interface lacks multi-touch features like pinch-to-zoom even though the underlying 2.0 OS supports multitouch events. However, the video of a GSM DROID headed to Europe clearly shows this feature at the 3 minute mark. No really, see for yourselves after the break.
Our dear colleagues over at Engadget German have had a chance to play with RIM's just-announced BlackBerry Bold 9700 today, and every indication we've gotten is that this thing is a perfect -- if not extremely conservative -- successor to the first-generation Bold. Interface and network speed are both praised (both the 9700 and the Bold before it feature a 624MHz core, so there's some magic going on here) and the microSD card is now hot-swappable, meaning that you've got a theoretically limitless supply of storage space if you happen to be carrying around a pocketful of 16GB cards. Check out the full gallery below, and naturally, stay tuned for a review of this bad boy just as soon as is humanly possible.
And it's out. The BlackBerry Storm2 just made its first official carrier appearance with Vodafone. The promising followup to the much maligned BlackBerry Storm will be free on pay-monthly contracts from £35 on up. Specs include a 3.25-inch 360 x 480 pixel capacitive SurePress (new and improved) touchscreen display, 802.11b/g WiFi and 2100MHz UMTS/HSPA data, 256MB of flash memory (double that of the original Storm), 2GB of onboard memory with microSDHC expansion, 3.5-mm standard headset jack, 3.2 megapixel camera with video recording, built-in GPS, Bluetooth 2.1, and 1400mAh battery giving about 6 hours of 3G talk. BlackBerry OS 5 too, of course, when it lands on October 15th in the UK, Ireland, Germany, The Netherlands, and Spain -- France, Italy, and South Africa in time for Christmas.
Update: Now on official RIM page too with a detailed comparison against the original Storm.
Hey, Britons: about a nice three-pack of "wow!" to start your week off right? We'd like to direct your attention over to Vodafone, where three particularly notable handsets that we've been following in recent months are now in stock and ready for delivery. The HTC Tattoo represents the new low end in Android fare, bringing a resistive QVGA display and a 3.2 megapixel cam to the table -- it'll go out the door for free on a £25 monthly plan. Heading over to the Windows Mobile side of the trailer park, the GM750 is a Voda exclusive loaded to the hilt with that newfangled WinMo 6.5 everyone's been talking about these days; it comes loaded up with a 5 megapixel camera and, like the Tattoo, can be yours for nary a penny on a £25 plan. Finally -- get ready -- the Symbian-powered Satio from Sony Ericsson is ready for your consumption, all 12.1 megapixels of it, for just another 10 quid a month. We'll take all three, thanks.
We're not sure where this intel is coming from exactly, but The Guardian is flatly stating that RIM will be teaming up with Vodafone this week to officially announce the Storm 2, which -- barring unforeseen circumstances, of course -- would make it the first carrier to do so. The phone will apparently be offered starting on a £30 (about $47) plan, though it's not clear whether that'll be hefty enough of a contract to make the phone free upfront. Either way, the bigger question might be whether Vodafone and Verizon are going to consider allowing early original Storm adopters to upgrade their beleaguered devices at a discount; we'd certainly hope so, but nothing's certain with these guys.
We're not saying BlackBerry's Storm successor is due for release just around the corner. We're not saying that, but we have been seeing a number of telltale signs that piezoelectrified touchscreen device is soon for this world. Herein we present the two latest pieces of evidence, a Vodafone display found at Carphone Warehouse and a leaked, very blurry Verizon Wireless training video that contains a scraps of details. It'll launch with BBOS 5.0, unsurprisingly, and come packaged with a 16GB microSD card and 2GB internal storage, a Bing search app, and City ID app. See it for yourself after the break -- excited yet?
Now that O2 has lost exclusivity, everyone's getting in on the iPhone action in the UK. First it was Orange, now Vodafone has inked a deal said to have been signed only last night as a defensive move to stave subscriber defections. The new agreement sees Vodafone selling the iPhone 3G and 3GS to the UK and Ireland in early 2010, a bit later than the Orange Apple expected before Christmas.
This time last year, you might have thought that LiMo was waning in the shadow of Android's eminence, but we're witnessing the vanguard of a new resurgence in the form of the Vodafone 360 H1 and M1 handsets by Samsung. Being the first LiMo Release 2 devices, they'll come with a bagful of fancy 3D UI visualizations to splash atop 3.5- and 3.2-inch touchscreen displays, with the bigger H1 (pictured) getting the AMOLED treatment, WiFi, HSDPA and 16GB of internal memory, and the M1 receiving HSDPA and 1GB of expandable memory, but no WiFi. They are making their debut alongside Vodafone's new 360 online platform, which takes over from the former Live service. You can expect it to bring Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk integration, as well as an app store to compete with the other heavy hitters. The M1's three color options are pictured after the break.
Vodafone UK never seems to have a shortage of exciting new models in the pipeline; right now they've got no fewer than eight biggies listed on their Coming Soon page, and while we wouldn't necessarily categorize every last one as "exciting," there are a couple doozies in there. Besides the HTC Tattoo that we mentioned earlier, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 is following on a month later in November holding down Windows Mobile 6.5 with its positively mind-bending customized home screen. Also notable is the Samsung "Genio," known globally as the recently-announced Corby -- Samsung intended it as an entry-level full-touch phone for the younger crowd, and to that end, Voda looks to be selling it on prepaid. It's gotta be a tough call deciding what to buy next for subscribers, but if you ask us, that's a positively awesome problem to have.
This next item is sure to please HTC fanboys and Anglophiles alike: according to some well-crafted PR, Vodafone has confirmed that it will be launching the HTC Tattoo sometime next month. Indeed, if Android, resistive touchscreen, and FM Radio aren't enough to blow your mind, wait'll you hear this next bit of news: this one is available in black -- a UK exclusive! Maybe not worth moving overseas for, but possibly worth pre-registering for? If you think so, hit the read link and get started. PR after the break.
Though Verizon Wireless and corporate half-parent Vodafone are finally getting close to achieving technological synergy now that both are moving to LTE for their next-gen networks -- and contrary to recent statements -- rhetoric is heating up that suggests the marriage may not last forever. Speaking at an investor's get-together this week, Voda CEO Vittorio Colao said that "the board continues to look at" the company's investment in the joint venture with Verizon -- which we take as executive-speak for "everything's for sale for the right price." The popular rumor is that Vodafone's bummed about Verizon's failure to pay dividends for the past four years, which effectively means that Big Red isn't actively contributing to the wireless giant's bottom line. Verizon's made no secret of the fact that it'd love to own the joint venture outright, so come on, guys... Verizon's got money, Voda's got the goods, let's sit down at that oaken conference table on the 45th floor and work this out.
It's been awhile since we last saw the xpPhone, a quick, quiet demonstration at Computex that left us doubting whether the thing would ever see the light of day outside a packed showroom floor. It seems our doubts are about to be put to rest as ITG, creator of the thing, has thrown up a pre-order page on the phone's website. There's no mention of a price, and indeed you won't be asked to plunk down any cash right now (it's not much of a pre-order), but what's interesting is that it asks you to choose between 3G modules for Vodafone, Orange, or AT&T. That means ITG seemingly has aspirations of a global release for this thing, and while we're not sure how many people are going to want to lug around a MID-sized monster celly with a "super big" 4.8-inch LCD and a weight of nearly a pound, surely some nation in the world has pockets big enough for this.
The LiMo Foundation's platform is far from vaporware -- countless Japanese domestic market handsets run it in one form or another, which makes sense considering that NTT DoCoMo, NEC, and Panasonic are all counted among its founding members -- but outside the land of the rising sun, LiMo's had very little end-user impact even as it's collected big-name members and released several rounds of specs and whitepapers over the last year and a half. To a certain extent, that's by design; unlike Android, LiMo is as much about creating synergies for manufacturers and carriers as it is about giving subscribers flashy user interfaces, but a new Samsung for Vodafone leaked on Boy Genius Report today suggests that we might be getting flashy UIs nonetheless. We don't know what this phone will ultimately be called, but it doesn't take more than a couple glances to pick up on the fact that it's relatively high-end, equipped with an 8 megapixel cam and full AMOLED touhscreen. The social-oriented interface looks seriously tricked out with faces (hopefully of people the user knows) moving in and out in three dimensions -- usability is an open question, but at least it's pretty to stare at, which is really what a good phone's all about anyway, right? Word on the street is that this might be announced at a London event on the 24th, but here's our question: where's Verizon in all this?
Well, well, looks like LG's got more in its Android bag than just that GW880 for China Mobile. Vodafone was casually displaying the Android-based Etna at its IFA booth, and while we don't know too much about the QWERTY slider, we do have some basic specs -- you're looking at 3-inch touchscreen, a five megapixel camera, and what looks like a pretty stock Android install. No word on price or release date, but LG is supposedly launching three Android sets this year, so we're hoping we'll find out more real soon.
Update: LG tells us that the Etna will be available in Germany "before Christmas."
The GM730's barely had time to breathe since its intro earlier this year, but Windows Mobile 6.5 awaits -- and with it, the world's expecting a slew of new models to kick things off right. Following the GW550 announcement straight from LG proper earlier today, Vodafone has stepped in to announce that it's secured European exclusivity on the GM750, which largely carries over the GM730's visual cues but swaps out 6.1 for 6.5. The 5 megapixel cam and S-Class support are carryovers from its predecessor, but considering that neither is a slouch, we can't say we're complaining. Look for the GM750 to launch in Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the UK (along with France through SFR) to celebrate 6.5's initial release on October 6, with other countries following on later.
