HTC yesterday announced the Evo 4G Android handset, the company’s most highly-specced mobile phone ever and the the world’s first handset to boast 4G/Wimax data connectivity.

The HTC Evo 4G (commonly codenamed Supersonic) is powered by a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor and runs Android 2.1. It includes a TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen screen, an 8-megapixel camera in the rear and a 1.3-megapixel camera in the front.

The Android operating system (2.1) is also able to take advantage of the video circuitry onboard the Snapdragon processor, enabling the device to capture and playback video at high-definition 720p resolution.

HTC Evo 4G Specifications

Screen: 4.3-inch 480×800 TFT LCD with capacitive multi-touch screen

Camera: 8 Megapixel autofocus with dual LED flash

Second camera: 1.3 Megapixel, front-facing

Operating system: Android 2.1

Input: Multi-touch with HTC Sense interface

CPU: Qualcomm QSD 8650 (Snapdragon), 1 Ghz Memory 1 GB ROM, 576 MB RAM

Memory: 8 GB microSD (up to 32GB supported)

Connectivity: CDMA2000/EV-DO Rev. A/4G WiMAX; 802.16e: 2500MMz; Wi-Fi (802.11b/g); Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP Stereo and EDR

Battery: Li-ion 1500mAh

Physical size: 122 (4.8) x 66 (2.6) x 12.7 (0.5) mm (inch) Weight 170 g (6.0 oz)

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HTC Evo 4G Specifications

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

The new update to the pretty slick Samsung Galaxy should be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress next month, with tech review websites such as the Electric Pig saying it could be a  ‘Nexus Killer’. You all know my views on the Nexus One – and why it was even made, and so I disagree completely – both on the concept of a ‘Nexus killer’ and a phone which is to be made which would have the aims to be a Nexus Killer.

Specification wise the handset with have a 3.7 inch AMOLED display, sport a Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 5 Megapixel Camera, bluetooth, Wifi, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, run Android 2.1, come pre-loaded with GPS and have a MicroSD expansion slot. Nexus One wannabee or what?

Rumor wise, the mobile phone should be available to mass consumers this next quarter – and is definitely something to get excited about. Samsung mobile phones have always been reliable and well made handsets, and although Samsung have released some rather shady mobile phones with poor OS’s, it is nice to see them carry on with Android > definitely the best OS for social networkers.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Hailed as an awesome concept, Helsinki recently showed off a new concept that would enable a mobile handset to measure an object’s distance, speed and direction. Furthermore, it could also be applied to a handset to further increase a mobile phones interactivity – where by you can control the volume control, switch songs and choose speed dials with simple gestures.

A nice concept, this type of technology is not incorporated in to mobile phones as of yet – but it could be soon, if it is patented, expect it to be within the Nokia N series with the next 12 – 18 months.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

On Friday afternoon, Motorola announced that they have filed a complaint with the International Trade Commision over allegations of patent infringment – where, in this case, RIM did have a license to use certain technologies in their handsets patented by Motorola, but that license expired in 2007.

Motorola have filed the patent issues under Wi-fi, application management, power management and UI (user interface). Motorola wants the imports and selling of infringing devices to halt, and Blackberry to stop using their technology unless a license is agreed.

In a statement, Jonathan Meyer of Motorola said; “In light of RIM’s continued unlicensed use of Motorola’s patents, RIM’s use of delay tactics in our current patent litigation, and RIM’s refusal to design out Motorola’s proprietary technology, Motorola had no choice but to file a complaint with the ITC to halt RIM’s continued infringement”

As of yet RIM has not commented.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Of course, the question mark within the above paragraph is there because of Apple revealing a private event on the 27th of Jan, which could be the dwelling of a new updated version of the iPhone OS. Although, this is not official yet – but if it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple updated the UI to offer multi tasking. Another reason I write ‘until now’ is because Android is still playing catch up – come on, you have to agree on that, and Apple is still the one leading. And so it could really rattle the Android OS to see their latest 2.1 update look far out dated to the new iPhone OS update.

Of course, my assumptions are pre-tense, they are a prediction – man, if I had a time machine. . well, I would be bringing a PS4 home and an iPhone 4G, possibly a Nexus Two aswell < and from that I would become the most famous blogger in the world (mwahaha).

But unfortunately I have no time machine, only common sense – and a web site, and so I have my imagination only. But by no means is having an imagination a bad thing, I mean, it has always stood humanity in good stead when looking forward to the future. Google was created out of imagination, as was the Mac design, the contour of Ferraris – in fact, i’ll bet you can not think of anything that wasn’t made, thought up of or said without imagination. And ‘yes’ and ‘no’ do not count.

And so begins the main topic; The Nexus One, right, you may have read my post covering the Nexus One sales for its first week; if you did not, then here is the graph which I included:

I have seen this graph a few times, no – lets be honest, I have seen this graph hundreds of times > this thing has been blogged to death. Bored I am of the true dribble some people come out with. Anybody that says ‘thats because the Nexus one is shit’ is either an idiot, or a mentalist. I’d guess both. And have a heard a lot of people say it. That means that, through all the Tech Blogs I have read which include any sort of’ ‘The Nexus is shit’ > around 8 out of 20 for every 20, they are written by idiotic mentalists. Either that, or they miss the point of the Nexus completely.

The Nexus is a hit. Full stop. End of story. Period. Disagree? Then justify it. Skeptical? Then crawl into a hole. Obviously figures speak for themselves – I mean look at that! 20,000 sold? Pah, compared to the Droid that is pathetic > and compared to the iPhone 3GS a joke. If I was an accountant this would be proof that this product is a miss, in fact, this post would probably be on a Powerpoint explaining just why it is a miss.

But I am not an accountant, and that is why I can write with imagination. To get to the base of the answer as to why the Nexus has been a hit you need not look at figures – you look at marketing. Yeah, I saw pretty little too. So you’d guess that because there was such little marketing that the actual marketing that was implemented was ridiculously expensive as to make it as effective as possibly. You’d be wrong.

The main form of advertisement, hype and all round appeal for this phone was not through a television set, a junk e-mail or a big shiny banner on top of Engadget – it was, in fact, you. Yep – you. Anybody will two hands, a Twitter account and access to an Android forum went schizophrenic on the subject. Endlessly typing about this new product, furiously bigging it up – and countlessly dissing the Apple fan boys because, at last, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, there was a mobile phone which had the processor to match the OS.

And so with pretty much zilch spent on marketing – well, especially compared to Apple, you’d think that reading the above paragraph that the campaign was a huuuuge success – a momentous occasion for the Nexus and a huge fist in the ear for Apple. Well – you’d be right. And welcome to the club =).

The point of the Nexus was not to be an iPhone killer – it was never meant to switch people, to convert them – it was also almost certainly never meant to turn people in to mentalists, what it was supposed to do was to test out a form of advertisement which to date nobody has tried. Sure, the Nexus has its down sides – as does an iPhone 3GS < and having tried both, I can not decide which is best. But staying on topic, Google only wanted to see if this was an effective advertisement on its own – without the use of a big shiny banner.

The Nexus is a side effect to what Google is actually doing, in my opinion Android is the big thing here – not the Nexus. Lets put it this way – the iPhone 3GS sold 1.6 Million units in week one. Thats good, but it is nothing compared to what Android powered phones all together have sold. Take the Droid, add the Nexus Sales, the Cliq sales, the HTC Hero sales, the HTC Tattoo sales, the G1 sales, the Backflip sales and pre-determine the sales of the 3-5 upcoming Android powered phones to come in 2010 and the iPhone 3GS figures seem a little, well, low.

The individual mobile phone sales figures are the brands problem, Google can just sit back and endlessly enjoy those brands promoting their OS freely – a little bit like you did with your twitter account. And so without a doubt, without any hesitation, I can call ‘project Nexus’ a success for Android – and a learning curve for Google. Like they say ‘safety in numbers’. And on the advertising method side of things – sure it sold 20,000 units which is low > but as a wise man once said; “I didn’t fail; I found 2000 ways not to make a light bulb. I only need one to make it work” < Thomas Edison.

And so the Nexus One is a hit, both for Google in terms of a learning curve and for Android in terms of publicity and developer interest. The Nexus One is a hit: Disagree? Then you’re a mentalist.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Twidroid is one of the market leaders in Twitter apps for Android. With the ability for multi-account support this app is definitely one to check out < that is, unless you haven’t done so already.

2. Hi AIM

Hi AIM is an instant messaging client with no fees to pay (unlike SMS) < it requires an AOL account though. Because this has received such a high amount of praise, the number of Android users signing up for an AOL account has vastly increased – and so you’re mates should be on it.

3. Last.fm – Personal Radio

This personal radio app is truly brilliant. It offers crystal clear sound quality as well as the ability to custom tune your favourite stations.

4. Google Sky Map

As one of my personal much used favourites, the Google Sky Map sits in at number 4. Point your Android powered phone at any point in the sky and it’ll log and create an image based on specific light sources. Truly awesome, if not a little bit gimmicky.

5. Meebo IM

Meebo is a fantastic app that supports all major IM clients such as Google Talk, MSN, AOL, Yahoo and Facebook.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Flurry monitors the usage of more than 10,000 developers’ applications on the iPhone and Android platforms. In total, Flurry tracks applications on approximately four out of every five iPhone and Android handsets on the market, and so the credibility of this report does not beg question.

The rather un-complex report, which shows the Motorola Droid figures as well as iPhone 3GS figures shows that the Nexus has not done too well for its first week;

According to the data compiled by Flurry that figure is one twelfth of the Motorola Droid (250,000 first week sales), and one eightieth of the iPhone 3GS at 1.6 million first week sales.

Don’t be startled by these figures though, because The Nexus One has had no mainstream promotion, no high flying television advertisements and has sold 20,000 units just through internet hype. The Motorola Droid, however, did have a huge marketing push at the beginning of its launch < and the iPhone was at its 3rd generation and so was already an established handset.

Perhaps a better comparison would have been the G1, the HTC Hero and the Droid< everybody knew the Nexus would not sell like the 3GS because of the lack of advertisement – this only confirms what we already knew.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Specification wise the handset will ship with the Brew® Mobile Platform OS, adapted with HTC Sense, pack a 300MHz processor, 256 MB of Ram and MicroSD Card slot. Other features include a 3.2 megapixel camera which has a flash and autofocus, bluetooth (naturally) and a 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with QVGA resolution.

This phone sounds really promising, the OS – Brew Mobile Platform, is a free OS that was announced over a week ago < and so it is pretty new. It was developed by Qualcomm and looks pretty neat, with sliding functions and the customisation of Android.

On top of that, behind the scenes Brew isn’t that system heavy – and so the rather understated 300MHz processor shouldn’t have trouble pulling its weight around from side to side, like Android does sometimes.

It will also vastly reduce the cost of this mobile phone, in fact, it will vastly reduce the amount of any mobile phone which runs it – and as it requires a less powerful processor, further costs can be cut again.

Furthermore, and whilst were on the subject of Brew – in the midst of all this OS talk between techies and enthusiasts, there really is no room for another OS < that is atleast not a free one. Expect to see a lot more of this OS within phones soon, as the fact it is free will appeal to a lot of manufacturers. Perhaps then it is the right time for Nokia to be making the transition of Symbian over from closed to open source. Heres some piccies of the Smart for you;

I like the design of this phone, its cute but masculine at the same time. From what I have seen, the build looks very good and i’ll bet it’ll feel quite weighty given its glass screen. Hopefully, and I hope to god i’m right, this could be the first mass consumer market product from HTC, which could have students flocking into shops to buy it for its low price.

For more information on this phone, the HTC Smart, check out the official HTC website for further details: HTC Smart Info.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.