The Optimus 2X, also known as the T-Mobile G2X in the United States, will be the first dual core smartphone to make it to release. The high powered Android handset will mark a big leap forward for LG, a company which has traditionally lagged behind in the smartphone industry. The Optimus 2X comes with a gorgeous 4" capacitive touchscreen that includes multitouch input and a sharp resolution of 480 x 800.

While featuring an accelerometer for auto-rotation of the interface, now a fairly standard feature on most smartphones, the Optimus 2X will also come with a new gyro sensor. This sensor, made popular on the iPhone 4, allows for three axis controls which can be put to good use with many innovative apps and games. These apps and games can be downloaded from Android Market, which is easily accessible from LG's latest handset.

Aside from the dual core processor the LG Optimus 2X is pretty impressive in other areas too. While the 4" screen is ideal for viewing high quality 1080p videos, the phone's 8 megapixel camera also comes with 1080p video recording. You can also record 720p videos at a higher frame rate, and the Optimus 2X comes with an HDMI port and DLNA enabled Wi-Fi, both of which allow you to stream videos through your home TV.

The Optimus 2X also comes with YouTube and Adobe Flash support so that you can enjoy streaming videos online, as well as enjoying videos contained on the phone's 8GB storage. This is expandable with microSD cards and the Optimus 2X can support an impressive 32GB microSD. As well as the excellent 8 megapixel rear camera, the 2X also comes with a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera that can be used for making video calls on services such as Google Talk.

The Optimus 2X does not just come with a great deal of entertainment features but also has a lot of excellent messaging features present. Threaded SMS is supported, as well as various email and instant messaging clients. The 2X also comes with fantastic integration for social networks such as Facebook, so that you can easily update your status or post on someone's wall.

The Optimus 2X is an outstanding phone in all areas that count and, being the first dual core handset on offer, it should prove to be a benchmark for all future dual core smartphone. The Optimus 2X comes with an impressive array of features to keep you entertained, as well as myriad methods for keeping in touch with your most important people.

HTC Announces HTC Sense and the new HTC Hero

So today's highly anticipated launch revealed the HTC Hero Android phone as everyone suspected. That in itself would have been a bit of a let down since we've known and speculated about the Hero for some time. Hardware wise it's not a million miles away from previous HTC Android phones. Yes, it has a 5 megapixel camera and finally a 3.5mm stereo headset jack but that's not much to get excited about.

But the real news was the announcement of HTC Sense, a customisable UI for Android. Now that's something I can get excited about. Rather than try to explain it, I think the official press release does a pretty good job so here goes:

LONDON – June 24, 2009 – HTC Corporation, a global designer of mobile phones, today debuted HTC Sense™, an intuitive and seamless experience that will be introduced across a portfolio of phones beginning with the new HTC Hero™. With its distinct design and powerful capabilities fully integrated with HTC Sense, Hero introduces a unique blend of form and function that takes Android to new heights.

HTC Sense is focused on putting people at the centre, by making your phone work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were designed by quietly observing and listening to how people live and communicate.

'HTC Hero introduces a more natural way for reaching out to people and accessing your important information, not by following the status quo of today's phones, but by following how you communicate and live your life,' said Peter Chou, Chief Executive Officer, HTC Corporation. 'HTC Sense is a distinct experience created to make HTC phones more simple for people to use, leaving them saying, "it just makes sense."'

HTC Hero
HTC Hero continues HTC's leadership in cutting-edge design that focuses on introducing a variety of distinct devices to represent your own individuality. Boasting bevelled edges and an angled bottom, the HTC Hero is contoured to fit comfortably in your hand and against your face while you’re on a call. The HTC Hero is built to last, beginning with an anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge-resistance and a longer-lasting, clearer display. The white HTC Hero includes an industry-first, Teflon coating, resulting in an improved, durable white surface that is soft to the touch.

With its 3.2-inch HVGA display, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content, while maintaining a small size and weight that fits comfortably in your hand. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including AGPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a five mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero.

HTC Sense
Built on a culture of innovation and a passion to enhance people's lives, HTC shapes the mobile experience around the individual. Debuting on the HTC Hero and available on all new HTC devices moving forward, Sense delivers on three basic principles: Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.

Make It Mine
Make It Mine is about feeling your HTC phone was created for and by you. To do this, HTC encourages you to dictate and organize how you want to access the people and content in your life in a way that fits best for you. For some, this means adding glance-view widgets that push content like twitter feeds, weather and other content to the surface while others may want quick access to business-focused information like email, calendar and world-times. HTC is also introducing a new profile feature called 'Scenes' that enables you to create different customized content profiles around specific functions or times in your life.

Stay Close
Today, staying in touch with the people in your life means managing a variety of communication channels and applications ranging from phone calls, emails, texts, photos, status updates and more. HTC Sense takes a different approach by integrating these communication channels and applications into one single view, enabling you to stay closer to your important people. With HTC Sense, friends' Facebook status updates and photos, along with their Flickr photos are included alongside their text messages, emails and call history in a single view.

Discover the Unexpected
Many of the most memorable moments in your life are experienced, not explained. HTC Sense is focused on providing a variety of these simple yet innovative experiences on your HTC phone that will sometimes bring you moments of joy and delight. It can be something as basic as turning the phone over to silence a ring or as simple as improving the smart dialler for making calls quicker. HTC Sense also includes 'Perspectives', a new way for viewing your content such as email, photos, Twitter, music and more in different ways.

Availability
The HTC Hero will be available to people across Europe in July and in Asia later in the summer. A distinct North American version will be available later in 2009.

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I know that I haven't been too complimentary in the past about the look of HTC's Android phones and their chins and I also know that I really prefer to have a physical keyboard but you know what? I'd give up my G1 in a heartbeat for the Hero just to have HTC Sense.

Huawei Officially Announces U8230 Android Smartphone

It's been a long time coming (we first got wind of a Huawei Android phone at this years Mobile World Congress) but finally Huawei has confirmed its long-awaited Android phone in the form of the U8230. It looks very similar to the mockup they had on display at MWC but with a bit of extra bling thanks to some silver edging.

Specs wise there's not much to go on. According to the press release it will sport a 3.5 inch touchscreen, allow users to switch between full and half QWERTY keyboards and has a 1500 mAh which they claim has "the longest battery capacity of any Android-powered handsets currently available." True, but then it doesn't take much to beat the G1's measly 1150 mAh or even the Magic's 1340 mAh. But hang on, doesn't Samsung's Galaxy have a 1500 mAh battery as well? Let's hope that Huawei's Android offering has a little more to brag about than increased battery life.

The Samsung Jet That Wasn't

So, the highly anticipated new Samsung phone we've been waiting for (and hoping it would run Android) has been revealed as the Samsung Jet and guess what? It runs Samsung's proprietary OS. It's a stunning looking phone with some impressive specs but doesn't it look familiar?

Back in April I posted an entry (Samsung Reveals Its Android Phone Again – Or Does It?) which, at the time, many speculated was a reveal of a Samsung Android phone. Even then I had my doubts and it looks like I was right. Oh well, at least we've still got Samsung's Galaxy to look forward to.

Acer Finally Shows Us Some Android Love

I may have gotten a bit ahead of myself when back at the end of January I speculated that Acer may be the next manufacturer to join the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). Since then we've had all kinds of rumours and speculation about a 2009 release of an Android phone by the company, the most recent being that an announcement was expected in September.

This may well prove to be true as it seems that Acer is gearing up for something Android-related as they officially confirm their membership of the OHA. This comes as they issue a formal press releasein which they demonstrate their "support for Android as an open mobile platform and its commitment to Android's commercial success." Well it's about time. Now can we have an Acer Android phone please?

That said, I am in two minds about an Acer phone. I've always been a fan of Acer – good value for money kit (I'm actually typing this on an Acer laptop now) but I'm beginning to wonder if the 'value' approach is a bit of a false economy. My current laptop (my second Acer) seems to exhibit some rather strange behaviour, occasionally shutting down as a result of what I suspect is overheating. Until recently I also had an Acer LCD TV which mysteriously died in what seemed like seconds after the 1 year warranty had expired. Let's just hope their phones perform better.

Why Android's Three Flavours Are Good News For Carriers And Manufacturers

It seems that Google Mobile Platforms director Andy Rubin really generated some buzz with his prediction at Google IO that there could be as many as 20 Android phones available by the end of this year. While this was interesting (but not really that surprising given Android's success and growth to date), what I found of more interest were his comments regarding Google's commitment to Android as an "open" platform as well as clarification of the various Android flavours available to carriers and handset manufacturers.

Google has taken some flack from critics who see the strongly Google-branded G1 and HTC Magicphones as cause for concern regarding the openness of the Android platform. Even manufacturers have expressed some concern, most notably Samsung which blamed its delay in announcing an Android phone on the fact that "some operators were concerned about the vision Google has". In an effort to allay these concerns, Google has actually released three different versions of Android as follows:

Option 1: Obligation free – manufacturers can install Android on their devices and provide access to as many apps as they want but cannot preload Google applications like Gmail or Google Calendar.

Option 2: Same as option 1 but manufacturers must sign a distribution agreement to preload Google applications on the device.

Option 3: Google Experience phones – includes Google branding and Google applications which cannot be removed from the phone. This option also provides uncensored access to the Android Market.

By offering these three flavours of Android, manufacturers and carriers are able to choose to what degree the phones integrate with Google so in the case of Samsung's I7500 (a.k.a. Samsung Galaxy), it looks like they’ve gone the Option 2 route as opposed to producing another HTC-like Google Experience Phone. Hopefully we’ll start to see more customisation of the interface and applications as manufacturers embrace the openness of the Android platform. This can only help to increase the number of new Android phones released this year as well as the number of carriers that offer these phones.

Via: The New York Times

HTC Hero Tipped For Orange UK Launch

There's good news for Android fans in the UK following speculation that the HTC Hero will be launched by Orange UK. Although unconfirmed, this does seem likely as back in March there was a fairly credible report that the Hero was going to be picked up by Orange France.

As yet there is no official confirmation and nothing mentioned on Orange UK's website as far as I can tell so I guess we'll just have to wait and see if this one pans out.

Source: Mobile Today

AT&T's Lancaster Looks Good But May Disappoint

There's no denying that AT&T has been particularly quiet about its plans for an Android phone release. Last month I speculated that the carrier may have picked up the HTC Hero but now, thanks to engadget, we have fairly credible confirmation that AT&T's first Android phone will actually be the HTC Lancaster.

At first look it seems to be quite a nice handset, an amalgamation of the G1 and Magic and had it been around sooner I would have chosen it over my G1 – or would I? I personally prefer a physical keyboard to the a touchscreen so the Lancaster seems to have everything going for it apart from the display. I'm really impressed by the G1's 3.2 inch HVGA (320 x 480) display but the Lancaster is let down by a smaller 2.8 inch QVGA (240 x 320) display which is a bit of a disappointment.

I'm also not sure about the MSM7225 processor (which the leaked Lancaster datasheet shows incorrectly as an MSN7225). Although, like the G1's MSM7201 the 7225 is a 528 MHz ARM processor, rumour is that it lacks a GPU. I can't seem to find any details on this processor on the Qualcomm website – maybe someone can shed some light on the differences between the MSM7201 and the MSM7225?

Source: engadget

Panasonic To Join The Android Party In 2010?

Panasonic is already known for producing high-end phones exclusively for the Japanese market but now it seems that the promise of Android may just tempt them into the global market. That's according to Tech On which recently quoted a Panasonic director as saying "We are seriously considering developing an Android-based handset and entering overseas mobile phone markets in fiscal 2010."

It looks like the company has finally been swayed by the success of open source and is keen to grab a share of a market which they predict "will reach 100 million units in three years." At this stage the company has declined to offer any further details although an official announcement of their plans for global expansion seem imminent.

Archos' Android Media Tablet Release Ahead Of Schedule?

Back in February we first got word of Archos' plans to release an IMT (Internet Media Tablet) which combined a 5" media player with 3G voice support via Android's telephony stack. This speculation was confirmed again in March when the company's 2008 financial results were published, making mention of the IMT with a Q3 release date.

This month the French site ArchosLounge published details of an event to be held in Paris next month (June) which many have speculated hints at a possible release of the Android IMT based on the colour of the event invite, what you may call Android-green. The connection seems a bit tenuous, but may prove true. The real question however is does anyone care? Traditional smartphone users are not going to be tempted to move to the new Archos for its media player capabilities and it remains to be seen whether or not existing Archos users will buy into the idea. Archos obviously hopes that they will