Want some more Droid 3 eye candy? If you just recently bought a Droid 2, the answer is probably "no, please, no" -- but nonetheless, we've got some for you. A couple more shots of the rumored refresh have popped up on HowardForums once again, showing off a QWERTY keyboard that looks largely similar to the one it's replacing with one very, very notable exception: it's a 5-row deal this time around with what appear to be half-height keys for the numeric row. People love 5-row keyboards, so if this is legit -- and we really have no reason to doubt that it is -- that feature alone could move a lot of phones. More on this soon, we hope.
We've had an affinity for INQ's Cloud Touch since we Poked and prodded the little device back in February, and now thanks to Carphone Warehouse we've got the all important pricetag to accompany the specs. Starting April 6, you'll be able to pick up the Facebook-ified device in the UK completely SIM-free for £300, or about $486. Not a bad deal for a 3.5-inch Android 2.2 handset with a 5-megapixel shooter and a custom Facebook homescreen. Of course, it lacks the Facebook Buttons of HTC's offerings, but if you simply can't wait to be the first person on the block with a Facebook phone you should definitely give the Cloud Touch a peek.
Dell's Streak 5 tabletphone hasn't held our interest much lately, even with Android 2.2 on board, but Dell's got a new deal that may be too good to pass up. If you already had your heart set on nabbing a Dell notebook or desktop PC priced at over $699 -- say, one of those shiny new Sandy Bridge rigs -- you can add an unlocked Streak 5 to your cart for an additional Benjamin. Now that's what we call an impulse buy.
The Samsung Nexus S 4G for Sprint is pretty much what you'd expect: a Nexus S with its GSM / HSPA radio swapped for a set of Sprint-compatible CDMA / EV-DO and WiMAX radios. While the Nexus S 4G lacks a SIM slot, it's actually 0.3mm thicker than the Nexus S -- that's the thickness of a business card, and is meaningless for all practical purposes. The phone also features a 4G signal indicator in the status bar, along with a 4G sub-menu in the wireless settings. Our demo unit was running Android 2.3.4 (!) -- a version we have not yet come across -- but we were told that neither the hardware nor the software are final at this point. So don't be surprised if the production model receives a few tweaks before launch. Perhaps a Sprint logo? Hop past the break for our hands-on video.
Baidu's CEO Robin Li hinted that China's largest search engine may be planning a lightweight mobile OS for smartphones and tablets. Hot on the heels of retreating Google, Baidu currently enjoys 75 percent of China's web search revenue to Google's 16 and may well be pressing in the OS domain as well. The OS concept will center on the search box -- or Baidu Box -- with the end goal seeing it become the sole interface on a mobile device. Mr. Li further stated his hope would be to see that interface up and running on the device within a second of boot up. While this OS will apparently be search-centric, its other features will focus on social media and other online content. Of course, this is a three to five year plan, so we can definitely expect hardware advances and system advances to help make this lofty dream into a reality.
No, you won't be able to use it on your next flight, but if you're lucky enough to have your own business jet, you will soon be able to get Aircell's new Android-based smartphone designed for aircraft use. While the company's staying fairly mum on specifics at the moment, the phone is said to pack a 3.8-inch capacitive display, and it's designed to be backwards-compatible with all Aircell Axxess communications systems currently in production, as well as its forthcoming Gogo Biz Voice service. No word on pricing just yet, but Aircell is promising to reveal that sometime before the phone launches in "late 2011."
Google promised us the ability to buy stuff while inside Android apps, and sure enough, it's now just about ready to deliver it. Eric Chu, responsible for the company's Android Developer Ecosystem, has announced app submissions are now being accepted from those wanting to offer up purchasable items within their software. He also points out there'll be about a week's worth of internal testing before the whole system opens up to the public, likely before the end of the month so that Google may stick to its word of rolling out the service in the first quarter of this year. Once that's done, you'll finally be able to buy your way to in-game glory instead of having to grind away at it like some unenlightened schmo.
Square Enix isn't exactly a stranger to the smartphone scene, but it looks like the company behind Final Fantasy (among countless other games) is now going to be moving quite a bit beyond ports of its existing games for other consoles. The company has just announced the launch of its new Hippos Lab game development studio, which will be primarily focused on creating "high quality original content" for smartphones. Details are unfortunately still pretty light beyond that, but the studio has apparently been up and running since March 7th, and it says it hopes to have its first game "ready soon." No word if they've scored the license for Hungry Hungry Hippos.
This one isn't quite completely official just yet, but a helpful tipster has passed along the screenshot above which quite clearly suggests that some software updates are coming to a trio of Sprint's Samsung devices on March 21st. That includes a new and hopefully improved over-the-air upgrade to Android 2.2.1 for the Epic 4G, as well as an Android 2.2 update for the Transform, both of which also include a number of other additions like Flash 10.1 on the Epic and Swype on the Transform. Also not left out of the fun is Sprint's version of the Galaxy Tab, which is getting the Sprint ID update we saw first hand at CES back in January -- it's headed to the Epic and Transform as well.
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[Technorati Tags: Samsung, Epic 4G, Galaxy Tab]
Just about every other carrier has its own variant of LG's fast-selling Optimus One smartphone, and you can now even count Cricket Wireless among that group. It recently launched the LG Optimus C, which offers yet another oh-so-slightly-different design along with all the same specs we've seen before -- a capacitive 3.2-inch HVGA display, 3.2 megapixel camera, a 600MHz processor, and Android 2.2 with some minor LG customizations. That may not sound like much, but we've found the other versions of the phone to be surprisingly snappy and solid for such a budget-priced smartphone. That budget pricing of course continues on Cricket, which is offering the phone for just $130 after a $20 web discount and $50 mail-in rebated -- and, yes, that's without a long-term contract, although you will apparently have to sign up for Cricket's $55 a month unlimited Android plan to start with.
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[Technorati Tags: LG, Optimus C]
