This is a good addition to the Did You Know? fact section of LaptopMemo. Did you know that according to Eric Schmidt at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday, 60,000 Android phones are shipped everyday, with 1.8 million handsets per month and over 21.8 million handsets per year, worldwide? Although he failed to say whether or not these devices are being shipped to retailers, or if they are being sent to owners, it’s still impressive.
A multitouch eBook Reader. Let’s see here, why would I need multitouch in my reader? Maybe when I’m waiting for the page to load I can amuse myself by pinching-and-zooming to wait even longer? Or maybe I can just look at how weird and ugly my e-reader is?
It’s unfortunately coming out in May for $250, features a 6-inch, 800×600 display, along with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 1GB of storage, microSD and an accelerometer. It can read both ePub and PDF formats. There is no electronic bookstore behind it, so you’ll have to fatten it up with PDFs and ePubs. [E-reader-info via Electronista]
How long did you think it would take? A month? A week? Heck no! A new topic at the MoDaCo forums reveals that a modder has already started work on porting the HTC Desire ROM to the Nexus One. Although it may sound easy since both smartphones are technically the same, with the Desire only having Sense UI, but it’s a bit more difficult than that. Strangely, the ROM doesn’t fit into the Nexus One’s internal storage, so some clipping was needed. Overall though Flash 10.1 works, and the idea of Sense making its way to the Nexus One is one step closer.
[Via Modaco, xda-developers]
Are you jealous of the few people who own a Nokia N900 and are gleefully smiling while using Firefox Mobile (aka Fennec) to browser their useless websites? Well things are about to change. Mozilla’s VP of Mobile, Jay Sullivan, went on to say that Firefox for Android would launch“late this year”. Why not any sooner? Well, Mozilla couldn’t design Firefox on Java, Android’s way of writing apps, but when Google opened up native C/C++ support, Firefox Mobile was all smiles. Now with Android expanding its horizon in the hearts of users, and more browsers headed to Android soon, the browser battle between Firefox Mobile, Skyfire, Dolphin Browser, and the built-in Android browser will heat up.
And I’m totally okay with that. [TechRadar]
More tasty stuff coming out of MWC 2010? Yup, and here we’ve got something exciting as well as a victory for the consumer. Soon in March you’ll be able to use Skype and its user-to-user calling features to the limit, the ability to call internationally at Skype’s cheap prices, make ulimted messages to your Skype friends, and you’ll have an always-online presence, so you’ll always know what’s going on.
So far Skype will be available on the Motorola DROID, HTC DROID Eris, BlackBerry 8530, BlackBerry 9530, BlackBerry 9550, and BlackBerry 9630. You surely have at least one of those smartphones, right? Sure you do; press release is after the jump.
If things at MWC 2010 can get any better than they already are, it’s having the one best smartphones — the HTC HD2, running not Windows Mobile 6.5, but Windows Phone 7 Series as seen above at Mobile World Congress. If it is true that the HD2 is given the chance to run Windows Phone 7 on an official scale via an update, then it would immediately be the flagship Windows Phone; just as it is for the current version of WinMo. We can be hopeful, otherwise we’ll have to leave this job to the — hackers. [PhoneArena]
UPDATED: Look who just posted a tweet saying it’s fake. And it is.
Envious of all of the good Android 2.1 phones flying out of press releases this week? Well, if you happen to own an Android phone made by HTC or Samsung on Sprint you’re in luck. On Twitter Sprint tweeted the above message, and hopefully unlike others they’ll live up to their promises. This should be an OTA update, so you’ll know exactly what to do, come second quarter of 2010.
[Twitter via PhoneScoop]
There wasn’t much we were expecting from RIM, but today we’ve been proven wrong. Today co-CEO , Mike Lazaridis, and Director of Developer Relations gave us a sneak peek of what a future web browser on a BlackBerry might look like. Which is impressive; the browser had a score of 100/100 on the Acid3 Test. Hopefully that was real and not a phony, but you can decide that for yourself in the video embedded for you after the break. [CrackBerry]
Heard of the HTC HD2? Okay then, you know the Mini too. With a 3.2-inch HVGA display, it’s crisp enough to not make you feel really small against the HD2′s 4.3-inch super touchscreen. Besides the petite appearance, and usual HTC charm (HTC designs some of the best phones you’ve ever seen), you have Sense UI, and in true imitation of the HD2, it uses Windows Mobile 6.5.3, and will not get the new Windows Phone 7 Series announced yesterday. Let me rephrase that: “the disgraced Windows Mobile 6.5.3″. There, that’s better. But remember that when WM7 launches, you’ll want the best hardware you can get right? This isn’t it. Back to the drawing board HTC, you have a Windows Phone 7 smartphone to design. Oh, and it uses 7.2Mbps 900 / 2100 HSPA bands, with a European and Asia release in April. No word on real specs and carriers, but this is MWC 2010 after all, we’ll know soon enough. Promo vid is waiting for you after the jump.
Here it is folks! The HTC Desire, a Nexus One with the same specs and Snapdragon CPU, same 5 megapixel camera, except with more Sense in mind, and a little more style, only excluding the dual-mic feature that its cousin the N1 has. The same 3.7-inch AMOLED screen is also carried over, but instead of the nearly-useless trackball, you get a much cooler trackpad. Things get really cool though on the flipside with the software, where you’ll have the Weather and News widgets, as well as the new HTC Sense UI Friendstream, which allows you to stream your friends from Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. Helicopter view is also present, and wait for, wait for it — Flash 10.1. So tell me what’s better on more practical here, the Nexus One or the Desire? I think I found my next Android phone, that I will buy. But review it first of course. Promo vid after the break.
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