Dell roadmap leaks outing Android schedule

A roadmap outlining some of Dell’s Android plans for smartphones and other gear has surfaced online. According to the roadmap, Dell has a 4-inch smartphone codenamed Hancock that will launch in September. The smartphone is supposed to pack Android Ice Cream, dual cameras, and a dual-core processor.


The smartphone would reportedly have 960 x 460 resolution screen, an 8MP rear camera, and a 1.3MP front camera. The roadmap also shows a 4.3-inch Ice Cream phone for Q4 dubbed Millennium with a 960 x 540 screen, DLNA support, and a dual-core processor.
The roadmap also shows four Dell tablets that are in the works with the Gallo coming in April, the Sterling in Q4 both on Honeycomb. In early 2012, the roadmap has the Opus One and Silver running Android. We have heard grumblings about new Android tablets from Dell already.

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HTC honored with device manufacturer of the year award

“For HTC to be recognized by the industry in this way for the growth and success we have experienced in the last year is truly humbling. Thousands of people at HTC work tirelessly to create the intuitive and deeply personal smartphone experiences for which we have become known. This award is a measure of their passion and dedication,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “This award also belongs to the tens of millions of customers around the world who enjoy our phones and inspire us each day to create new innovative experiences. To those people, to our partners around the world and to the HTC family, you have my sincere thanks and congratulations.”

In awarding HTC, GSMA commented that HTC came out of nowhere and built it’s market clout on fresh branding and a strong portfolio of smartphones across multiple platforms. Additionally, they enjoy good customer service and communication, making the award well-deserved.

HTC AWARDED AS ‘2011 DEVICE MANUFACTURER OF THE YEAR’ BY THE GSMA
Device Manufacturer of the Year Award Is Industry’s Top Global Honor
BARCELONA, SPAIN – Mobile World Congress – 16 February, 2011 – HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, has been honored this week with the highest industry honor as ‘Device Manufacturer of the Year’ by the GSMA at its Global Mobile Awards ceremony in Barcelona. The award follows a year of global momentum for HTC, which saw the launch of a large portfolio of industry leading smartphones such as the HTC Desire. HTC was awarded from a list of three finalists that included Apple and Samsung.
“For HTC to be recognized by the industry in this way for the growth and success we have experienced in the last year is truly humbling. Thousands of people at HTC work tirelessly to create the intuitive and deeply personal smartphone experiences for which we have become known. This award is a measure of their passion and dedication,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “This award also belongs to the tens of millions of customers around the world who enjoy our phones and inspire us each day to create new innovative experiences. To those people, to our partners around the world and to the HTC family, you have my sincere thanks and congratulations.”
The GSMA judges commented, “this company (HTC) has built its market presence from nowhere, with fresh branding and marketing and a strong portfolio of devices across many platforms. In particular, it has proven an exceptionally popular and enduring phone manufacturer. With great communication and good customer service, this is a well-deserved award.”
HTC previously was awarded for the ‘Best Mobile Phone of 2010’ with the HTC Hero.
A committee of judges that include industry analysts and consultants, mobile operators, educators and other industry leaders determines the GSMA Awards. For more information on the 2011 GSMA Global Mobile awards please visit – http://www.globalmobileawards.com
About GSMA
The GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media & entertainment organizations.
About HTC
HTC Corporation (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry. By putting people at the center of everything it does, HTC creates innovative smartphones that better serve the lives and needs of individuals. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

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T-Mobile to carry the Galaxy Mini

T-Mobile has announced it will carry the Samsung Galaxy Mini, a budget friendly little brother of Samsung’s Galaxy. In addition, T-Mobile will carry the T-Mobile Move. Both phones will cost between $50-75 with a standard two-year service agreement.


As noted last month by SlashGear, the Galaxy S will sport a pocket sized display just under four inches but will enjoy a 5-megapixel camera capable of shooting 720p HD video.

The Move, which T-Mobile calls the more affordable Android phone on the market, will have the same 600 Mhz processor and 150MB RAM, as the Galaxy Mini, but with a smaller 2.8 inch screen and 2MP camera.
Look for the Mini to hit markets in the Spring, while the Move will come to Europe in May on it’s way to the States by summertime.

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Study: Nearly 70% CIOs to buy Tablets in 2011

Morgan Stanley strikes again with yet another interesting study which reflects the trend of CIOs planning to purchase tablet computers for employees in 2011. Over half of companies surveyed stated that they were either in the process of purchasing tablet computers or planning to by year’s end. The trend shows that tablets are not only gaining traction, but reflect the belief by corporate America that they will make workers more efficient in their work.


The study finds that 21 percent of CIOs surveyed were in the process of buying tablets, while another 51 percent expect to begin doing so in the coming year. In total, 67 percent of the CIOs surveyed said they’re either planning to deploy tablets or provide support for employee-owned ones this year.
Of those, iPads accounted for 29% of new enterprise activations, a number that is sure to meet some competition once Android tablets like the Motorola XOOM become widely available.

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Mapquest Android App Lands For Free On The Market

Buy an Android Phone, use Google Nav, never buy another Garmin- that’s the thought process I think a lot of people have when looking at Android’s positives. Yes, I know there will be plenty of people saying that nothing can replace a dedicated GPS unit for many different reasons – reliability, size, map data, battery life etc… – but the bottom line is that in most cases Google Nav does a great job.

Remember Mapquest? I rarely ever use Mapquest anymore, almost exclusively using Google Maps on my computer and phone for everything I do that is location based. Yet, when talking to friends, I often accidentally tell them to “Mapquest it” much like I would tell someone to “Google it” for a search term.

Mapquest has just launched a free Android Application – they’ve had an iPhone app for awhile – and the app takes advantage of many of Android’s core competencies including:

• Turn-by-turn navigation with voice guided directions
• Voice search
• Attraction/Destination guide to find restaurants and whatnot
• Walking and driving directions
• Live Traffic

Google has a huge advantage in the mapping and navigation world right now, but nothing that can’t be overcome or no reason a competitor can’t reclaim a boat load of market share. Mapquest’s SVP and GM said their iPhone app is used as much as Google Navigation on the iPhone, a claim I can’t verify and I’m not sure if Christian Dwyer can either. There are some advantages to Mapquest over Google Maps/Nav, including leveraging OpenStreetMap data so they can much more easily provide international data.
Download Mapquest, give it a whirl, and let us know how you like it!

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Build Your Dreams Show Their Androids at MWC

A company I’ve never heard of – BYD (Build Your Dreams) – was at Mobile World Congress showing off their wares and I thought I’d pass along the memo. Interestingly enough the company started in the battery industry, got into cell phones, then jumped into Automobiles – they sold 500,000 autos in Asia last year – and finally have been exploring renewable energy.
But since you’re interested in Android, take a look:

These aren’t very high powered handsets, but as you can see the only two “branded” devices they have are available in India where smartphone penetration is much lower than America and most of Europe. While you might not be amused, this is exactly what countries with developing telecommunications industries need – affordable access to smartphones.

As Eric Schmidt said in his keynote last night, the great thing about the growth of smartphones in the past couple years is that it’s giving people a voice who were never heard before. Whereas information was formerly only accessible to the elite, smartphones are forcing a shift. Android is certainly a catalyst in that movement and I’m sure BYD would like to help build that dream, too.

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HTC Wins Device Manufacturer of the Year at Annual Global Mobile Awards

HTC’s won big this year at Mobile World Congress where the GSMA hosted their Global Mobile Awards, an industry awards ceremony highlighting the finest companies in what they do. HTC was chosen for Device Manufacurer of the Year, unsurprisingly.
Peter Chou of HTC was on-hand to accept the award. I think it’s well-deserved for HTC, who was the first manufacturer to give Android a shot and is still leading the Android charge in many ways. They do BrewOS and Windows Phone 7 devices too, but it was Android throughout 2010 that got HTC into the hands of countless mobile phone users everywhere. Read on for full press details.

HTC AWARDED AS ‘2011 DEVICE MANUFACTURER OF THE YEAR’ BY THE GSMA
Device Manufacturer of the Year Award Is Industry’s Top Global Honour
BARCELONA, SPAIN - Mobile World Congress - 16 February, 2011 - HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, has been honoured this week with the highest industry honour as ‘Device Manufacturer of the Year’ by the GSMA at its Global Mobile Awards ceremony in Barcelona. The award follows a year of global momentum for HTC, which saw the launch of a large portfolio of industry leading smartphones such as the HTC Desire HTC was awarded from a list of three finalists that included Apple and Samsung.
"For HTC to be recognized by the industry in this way for the growth and success we have experienced in the last year is truly humbling. Thousands of people at HTC work tirelessly to create the intuitive and deeply personal smartphone experiences for which we have become known. This award is a measure of their passion and dedication," said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. "This award also belongs to the tens of millions of customers around the world who enjoy our phones and inspire us each day to create new innovative experiences. To those people, to our partners around the world and to the HTC family, you have my sincere thanks and congratulations."
The GSMA judges commented, "this company (HTC) has built its market presence from nowhere, with fresh branding and marketing and a strong portfolio of devices across many platforms. In particular, it has proven an exceptionally popular and enduring phone manufacturer. With great communication and good customer service, this is a well-deserved award."
HTC previously was awarded for the ‘Best Mobile Phone of 2010’ with the HTC Hero
A committee of judges that include industry analysts and consultants, mobile operators, educators and other industry leaders determines the GSMA Awards. For more information on the 2011 GSMA Global Mobile awards please visit – http://www.globalmobileawards.com
About GSMA
The GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media & entertainment organisations.
About HTC
HTC Corporation (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry. By putting people at the center of everything it does, HTC creates innovative smartphones that better serve the lives and needs of individuals. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

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Exynos and Tegra 2 Get Spanked In LG Optimus 3D’s OMAP 4 Benchmark Test

Alright, so I wouldn’t call it a “spanking” per say, but I would definitely call it…unexpected, sort of.  We all know that the OMAP 4430, housed in the LG Optimus 3D, boasts some pretty hefty dual-core action.  And when put to the test by AnandTech, along side Nvidia’s Tegra 2 and Samsung’s Exynos 4210, we can see it slightly shining through and coming out on top in the browser and graphical benchmark department.    Dual-core CPU’s are becoming quite the norm around these parts as the competition is expanding rapidly.  As I always say, choice is good and you can never have too much of it, I think.  Im looking forward to the day when a device is released with nothing less than dual-core CPU’s and performance is taken to a whole new level as a result.  A good CPU combined with a great GPU, a big screen, HDMI out yada yada yada, and it’s bon voyage for my PC.  How about you?  Do you favor one of these dual-core processors over another?  We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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720p Video Calling Over Skype Coming To Android By Way Of Pathpartner On OMAP4

At MWC, in the Texas Instruments booth, there could be found a cozy little shack up of the unlikeliest of partners.  Get your head out of the gutter man.  We’re talking about Pathpartner and Ittiam.  At the event, Pathpartner demoed 720p video calling over that famous VOIP app, oh what’s it called?  Oh yeah, Skype.  You may have heard of it?  As of today, Pathpartner is working with Skype in an attempt to get “Skype certified”.  The app makers hope to successfully secure a number of other vendors, besides Ittiam, to get their application arriving stock on mobile devices.
The company’s senior technical lead, Alexy Mathew Joseph performed the demo on the OMAP 4 chip set platform, an extremely powerful CPU touted by TI.  The OMAP 4 platform offers a number of powerful options such as 1080p video recording and playback, 20 megapixel imaging and approximately a week of audio play time.  And now we can add 720p video calls.  It’s no surprise why Pathpartner wants to develop the rich video application on a handset running this platform.  This is certainly promising for Android users as it opens up a slew of doors when it comes to communication over video.  The app is being reported as possibly hitting Android devices some time near the end of 2011.  Head back over to Talk Android as we keep a close eye on the company’s emerging product and don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments below.

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