Smartphones

Droid Incredible arrives early for few, impresses many

Thanks to a computer glitch, a handful of lucky Verizon Wireless customers found themselves getting the HTC Droid Incredible more than a week before its official launch date.

According to a few users in AndroidForums, their new Verizon handset arrived on Tuesday and Wednesday, days ahead of the scheduled April 29 date. After a little nay-saying and provocation, a user by the name of SoSmarmy decided to film himself powering up the phone. As I gather it, the number of users who have received their Droid Incredible was minimal and the glitch has since been fixed.

While many of us … Read more

Dell Lightning Windows Phone 7 device leaked

On Wednesday night, Engadget Mobile got its hands on some images and specs of what looks to be like Dell's first Windows Phone 7 smartphone, the Dell Lightning. And my oh my, we like what we see.

According to the leaked documents, the Lightning is a portrait slider phone rocking a 4.1-inch WVGA Samsung OLED multitouch screen with the three required Back, Start, and Search buttons. In addition, the smartphone will supposedly have a 1GHz Snapdragon QSD8250 processor and 1GB Flash ROM, 512MB RAM, and an 8GB microSD card.

Multimedia and entertainment features will be well represented by … Read more

Voice search comes to Google Maps for Symbian, Windows phones

Those of you who have become tired of typing addresses and search terms into Google Maps for Mobile now have a reprieve.

Version 4.1 of the standalone smartphone maps app brings voice search to Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile phones, a huge convenience feature that's already eased the typing pain in many an Android- and BlackBerry-carrying fingertip.

In addition to submitting to the usual voice queries, this version of Google Maps for Mobile subtly adds language choices to the settings page. The linguistically-sensitive developers have also slipped into the options Google's characteristic variety of accents that acknowledge … Read more

Google turns on Android maps voice navigation for Ireland, U.K.

This is a true story: Two weeks ago I'm zipping along in southern England in the back seat of a silver VW Golf, listening for the better part of an hour and a half while my sister reads aloud directions to the car's driver from the screen of an HTC Touch.

The instructions are specific ("Turn left in 100 feet") but fruitless; we flip a U on the muddy one-track road and head back toward the village to blindly pick our way to our obscure destination, a farmhouse that brews traditional cider, using just wits and … Read more

Are cell phone chargers juicing you?

Recently, AT&T announced an eco-friendly cell phone charger called the AT&T Zero Charger.

The allure of this device is it automatically shuts down when not in use, offering what AT&T claims is "zero vampire draw" from the wall outlet. Vampire draw is a term for the power that devices draw out of outlets they are plugged into while they are turned off. AT&T's charger will be USB-compatible, making it practical for many of the phones on the market today.

Sure, a zero-draw charger sounds helpful. With that said, we … Read more

Leaked: BlackBerry OS 6.0 images, details

It may not be as dramatic a discovery as the likely iPhone 4.0 prototype in the San Francisco Bay Area that inundated tech headlines this week, but RIM is getting a taste of the premature spotlight as details of the latest operating system for BlackBerry smartphones circulate around the blogosphere.

Boy Genius Report said it got its hands on a BlackBerry smartphone running the OS 6.0 from a secret source at AT&T and wasted little time detailing some of the features within. When asked, RIM's representatives declined to comment on the disclosed information.

The OS … Read more

Verizon releases software update for Moto Devour

Easy there, Motorola Devour owners. This isn't the Android 2.1 update you're probably hoping for but there is a software update in your future.

Verizon has begun rolling out software version CALAND_X_01.15.08P to the smartphone, which brings a number of fixes to improve performance and feature enhancements. These include:

Improved stability in the browser, contacts, and V Cast Music appsFaster response time when using the Menu, Home, and Back keys Better call performance Easier removal of POP3 e-mail account and enhanced Exchange Calendar view to include meeting titles.

You can find a full list of … Read more

HTC Desire coming to U.S. Cellular

We missed this little nugget earlier in the week, but we still think U.S. Cellular customers will find it of interest.

Using its Facebook page to announce the news, the carrier revealed that it will offer the HTC Desire this summer after the device has gone through testing. The Desire, which was introduced at Mobile World Congress 2010, is an Android 2.1 smartphone similar to the Nexus One but with HTC Sense.

In addition to the Desire, U.S. Cellular also teased that it would offer another yet-to-be-named Android device in the future. What could it be?

(Source: … Read more

Will Motorola usher in 3D handsets?

A handful of pictures arrived online early this week with what appears to be two new Motorola handsets. Looking very similar to the Motorola Krave ZN4 found on Verizon, these phones are yet another unique design from Motorola.

By all appearances, both models appear to be ready for production, however, we don't yet know how well the operating system works. On a related note, we can see that at least one design has MotoBlur and possibly Android 2.1 under the hood.

We haven't come across anything in terms of specs yet, so your guess is as good … Read more

Android-powered Garminfone navigating to T-Mobile this spring

On Tuesday night, T-Mobile revealed the identity of its newest Google Android device and it's not exactly the device we were expecting to see.

Instead of the rumored T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide, the carrier introduced the Garminfone, a rebranded version of the Garmin-Asus Nuvifone A50, which was first announced at Mobile World Congress 2010. At that time, Garmin said it did not know whether the GPS-enabled smartphone would make it to North America, but T-Mobile will, in fact, be the first to launch the device worldwide when it comes out later this spring.

With Garmin behind the wheel, obviously … Read more