05/25, 6:53am
AUO starts mass production of AMOLED panels
Taiwanese display giant AU Optronics is set to ship its first AMOLED mobile display panels to Sony and HTC in June, according to Digitimes. Currently, Samsung display division dominates the manufacture of AMOLED panels. However, AU Optronics yield rates are only at 20 percent on average at this early stage in its implementation of the technology, meaning that it will still be some time before it poses a serious competitive threat to Samsung.
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05/21, 6:44pm
US customs continue inspection of HTC handsets
Some HTC handsets, potentially including the One X and Evo 4G LTE, are slowly making their way through US Customs, the company reports. A recent update on the HTC corporate website notes that some handsets are passing Customs inspections, despite an International Trade Commission (ITC) ban on the devices entering the US.
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05/21, 2:39pm
Device makers to roll out handsets on fledgling OS
Tizen, the operating system developed as a partnership between Intel and Samsung, may finally debut on smartphones in the second half of this year. The scalable OS, sources tell Digitimes, will be appearing on smartphones, tablets, and notebooks from a number of different manufacturers.
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05/17, 7:00pm
Discussion order after HTC handset ban enforced
The US District Court of Delaware has ordered Apple and HTC to enter settlement discussions. Judge Sherry Fallon will be moderating the talks, which follow the import ban that has stalled HTC's Evo 4G LTE and One X from entering the US, reports Florian Mueller.
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05/16, 10:13am
HTC Ville C to be a cheaper version of HTC One S
The specs of an upcoming handset, the HTC Ville C, have been spotted by BriefMobile. They reveal a version of the HTC One S (shown) that is reported to be less costly, mainly thanks to its Snapdragon S3 processor rather than the S4 in the One S. It's being billed as ultra-slim, though exactly how thin isn't known.
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05/16, 8:54am
ICS comes to T-Mobile Sensation and Amaze 4G devices
T-Mobile has taken to Twitter to announce that its pair of HTC 4G smartphones will be upgraded to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). The first device to get the update will be the Sensation 4G, which gets an over-the-air update starting today. Amaze 4G users can expect to get their taste of ICS starting from May 21.
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05/16, 7:04am
Samsung and HTC shares suffer at the hands of Apple
Samsung and HTC stock have both taken a hit thanks to separate actions instigated by Apple. Samsung’s stock saw $10 billion wiped off its value following a report by DigiTimes indicating that Apple had placed a large order for DRAM from its struggling Japanese competitor Elpida. Separately, HTC’s shares also slumped by over 6 percent following an Apple initiated ITC injunction being enforced by US Customs, stopping the importation of its hotly anticipated One X and EVO 4G LTE handsets.
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05/16, 1:50am
ITC trade ban in place, no timetable for release
HTC has confirmed that US Customs is holding shipments of the HTC One X and EVO 4G LTE smartphones. An International Trade Commission (ITC) ban is in place, preventing the customs release while a review of the shipments for non-infringement of Apple patents is underway. HTC has protested the hold, saying it believes the phones are no longer in violation of the sales injunction applied by the ITC.
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05/15, 12:12pm
Sensation 4G Android 4.0 update will bring with it a $15 hotspot fee
When T-Mobile releases the Android 4.0 update for the HTC Sensation 4G tomorrow, it will bring with it a mandatory $15 per month charge for the wireless hotspot feature. According to PCMag, some users have thus far got the feature for free. Some other handsets due to get the latest OS soon at the carrier do not carry such a provision, however, including the Amaze 4G.
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05/15, 7:20am
HTC Desire C official, brings Beats and ICS
The HTC Desire C prematurely spoiled by Vodafone Portugal is now official. The entry-level Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) handset offers users similar styling to the HTC One X and Beats Audio processing for between $200 and $250 off-contract. The Wildfire S successor will be powered by a 600MHz processor and will also offer NFC capabilities.
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05/14, 11:40pm
Motorola faces 12 patent violations, may counter with six
Apple has won a scheduling victory over Motorola and HTC in the latest round of the giants' patent battles in Florida today. An exasperated judge consolidated the disparate trials, which consist of of patent infringement claims by Apple against both companies and counter-claims from them, in part because of a lack of cooperation between the parties. The new combined trial will take place in April 2014.
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05/14, 5:50pm
Vodafone Portugal outs HTC Desire C before official announcement
Vodafone Portugal appears to have leaked an official image of the HTC Desire C. The May catalog for the mobile carrier shows the handset before any official announcement has been made by HTC, with published specifications showing it to be more like a Wildfire S than its namesake yet running Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
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05/14, 10:30am
Galaxy S III places near top in two of three tests
The crew over at GSMarena have got their hands on Samsung's Galaxy S III smartphone and tested its battery performance. They came away impressed, comparing it to the performance of 31 other handsets in the process. The 2,100mAh battery managed to provide 10 hours and 20 minutes of 3G talk time on a single charge, placing fourth and behind the Motorola Droid Razr MAXX and Samsung's own Galaxy Note and Wave 3 S8600, in that order.
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05/09, 6:27pm
HTC Evo 4G LTE on Sprint can now be preordered
The HTC Evo 4G LTE has become available for preorder from Best Buy. The Sprint handset, which Electronista was able to try out last month, is being promoted by the electronics retailer with a $50 gift card for those that take up the offer ahead of the May 18 release date.
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05/09, 1:25pm
HTC One X at AT&T, Rogers, other carriers gets rooted
The developers over at the XDA Developer's Forum, and kennethpen in particular, have now released a one-click root for the HTC One X. This time around, however, the AT&T, Rogers and other carrier-locked versions got the attention, and users still need to plug it into their computers to copy the needed files, be they Linux-, Windows-, or OS X-powered. The bootloader on the handset remains locked, however.
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05/08, 6:32pm
Handset bucks the size trend
HTC has brought its latest handsets to CTIA's New Orleans expo, where Electronista had a chance to try out the new Droid Incredible 4G LTE phone that will be headed to Verizon. The handset pairs Android 4.0 with HTC's Sense 4.0 interface overlay, while retaining the classic form of the original Droid Incredible that has been discontinued for some time.
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05/07, 10:17am
Phone due in coming weeks, prices still to be announced
Verizon has made the Droid Incredible 4G LTE official, though this wasn't a surpsie, since the handset's product page was leaked last month. The 4-inch Super LCD qHD-equipped phone has Android 4.0 onboard with HTC's Sense 4.0 on top and it will connect to Verizon's 4G LTE network for some of the highest mobile broadband speeds available in the industry. The phone is powered by a dual-core, 1.2GHz Snapdragon S4 processor that's also used in the One S.
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05/04, 12:36pm
Bell now offeirn HTC One V for $0 on a three-year term
The HTC One V smartphone is now available in Canada at provider Bell. On a three-year contract, the phone won't require any up-front payment, though the required voice and data plan is at least $50 CAD ($50.30). Contract-free, the phone is priced at $300 CAD (about $302).
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05/03, 8:55am
Update finally set to arrive in US
Corroborating recent reports, T-Mobile has quietly announced that it has completed internal testing of the Android 4.0 update for HTC's Sensation 4G. The carrier already confirmed that the device would eventually receive the upgrade, however the release timing has now been narrowed to "very soon."
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05/01, 6:35am
Samsung retakes smartphone lead over Apple
Samsung has taken the lead as the world’s number one mobile phone maker according to the latest report from analytics firm IDC. The report says that Samsung has achieved the number one spot due to its booming smartphone sale in a global smartphone market that grew by 42.5 percent year over year in Q1 2012. Total smartphone shipments for the quarter were 144.9 million, which compared with 101.7 million sales for the same period last year.
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04/30, 6:55am
Cyanogenmod 9 variant out for quad-core HTC One X
A variant of the Cyanogenmod 9 for the NVIDIA Tegra 3-powered quad-core variant of the HTC One X has been released. The interface offers users a much more stock Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) experience with HTC’s Sense 4.0 UI all but swept away. In its place, the Cyanogenmod 9 variant will give the casual observer the impression that the HTC One X has been morphed into a Samsung Galaxy Nexus
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04/29, 6:55pm
Our look at HTC's 2012 Android 4 flagship phone
For HTC, 2011 was sometimes considered a write-off: what looked to be a promising year with an early 4G lead saw the company overwhelmed by Apple and Samsung, and even by its own at times confusing lineup with problematic phones like the Thunderbolt. The One series for 2012 is the reboot, a return to basics with an emphasis on high-end design and even stripping back the custom Sense interface layer. We'll determine in our review of the HTC One X in 4G LTE trim, and to some extent the Evo 4G LTE, whether HTC is back to being a fierce competitor for the iPhone and Galaxy roster.
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04/27, 7:10pm
Galaxy S II, Amaze 4G, Sensation 4G first for 4.0
An upgrade roadmap has given out tentative upgrade timing for Android 4.0 as well as T-Mobile's next myTouch smartphones. Although details are still in flux, TmoNews heard that the custom, upsized version of the Samsung Galaxy S II for the network would get its update on or near May 14. Those with the two most recent HTC phones for the carrier, the Amaze 4G and Sensation 4G, would get theirs over a month later, on June 16.
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04/27, 11:20am
Kodak still far from profit
Kodak saw mixed performance on Friday as it fought to get back to profitability. Although it now had a cash balance of $1.4 billion, up from $500 million in a pre-bankruptcy fall 2011, its losses widened from $246 million to $366 million. The deeper impact was pinned on restructuring costs as the company hoped to sell off money-losing divisions.
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04/26, 7:40pm
Verizon Android 4.0 updates pushes in short window
A telling leak has uncovered at least tentative dates for Verizon's long-in-waiting Android 4.0 updates. The HTC Rezound would go first, according to an anonymous Reddit user, with a test theoretically active now and wrapping up May 7. Customers would start getting the update over the air two days later, on May 9.
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04/25, 2:20pm
Samsung readies to ship AllShare Cast Hub
Once again, the FCC has offered a look at an upcoming piece of hardware, this time from Samsung. Called AllShare Cast Hub, it sports an HDMI connection and dual-band Wi-Fi radios, for what we assume is sharing media in a user's home. It may thus be similar to the likes of HTC's Media Link HD, which lets users stream content from smartphones to their TVs.
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04/25, 2:10pm
Pegatron agrees to Microsoft patent licensing
Pegatron on Wednesday became the latest company to reach a patent deal in Microsoft's Android licensing campaign. In a boilerplate statement, Microsoft said Pegatron would pay a royalty on every Android or Chrome OS device it manufactured. The two kept up Microsoft's typical request that the terms of the deal not be made public.
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04/25, 1:00pm
HTC One series gets first US launch
T-Mobile as promised has started selling the HTC One S. The first HTC One series phone in the US comes only in Gradient Blue and costs $200 on a contract, albeit only after a $50 rebate. Buyers can opt for it $600 contract-free.
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04/25, 8:45am
Sprint to speed up prepaid carriers with old 4G
Sprint confirmed during a call for its latest results that it was bringing 4G to Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile. CEO Dan Hesse expected both of the prepaid carriers to use the older WiMAX network before the end of 2012. More details would come as the launch got nearer, he said.
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04/25, 7:45am
Sprint sees only slight iPhone demand drop
Sprint on Wednesday reported steep losses for its winter quarter but had relatively strong iPhone results. The company's losses nearly doubled, from $439 million a year earlier to $863 million, owing largely to a $543 million depreciation from the Nextel iDEN network ramp-down. At 1.5 million iPhone sales, however, it saw only a slight drop from the fall in what's widely believed to be its primary smartphone platform.
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04/25, 7:05am
HTC and Facebook renew smartphone partnership
HTC is said to be co-developing a new smartphone with Facebook, according to Digitimes. The Taiwanese handset maker has previously launched handsets with tighter than usual Facebook integration with its Salsa and Chacha devices. The new smartphone is said to leverage Android, but develop a platform built exclusively around Facebook.
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04/24, 7:20am
HTC forecasts 55 percent jump in revenue
HTC has forecast a 55 percent jump in revenue for the second quarter of 2012. The upbeat outlook hints at a strong consumer response to its new line of One-series smartphones. The news is a positive sign that it has regained a competitive footing as it seeks to regain lost ground to Samsung and Apple over the past two quarters.
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04/23, 7:40pm
Rumors narrow possible date of launch
The coming months will see the arrival of at least one HTC smartphone on Virgin Mobile Canada, with the carrier's website now sporting a page advertising the coming of the HTC One S. Meanwhile, the HTC Evo 4G LTE may show up on Sprint's network in mid-May.
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04/23, 5:15pm
HTC One X with LTE gets our early test
Canada has slightly beaten the US to the punch and is getting the 4G LTE version of the HTC One X on Rogers ahead of AT&T's May 6 date. We have our test unit on hand and have been giving it an early shakedown in advance of a fuller review. Read ahead for our initial impressions.
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04/23, 4:20pm
HTC One X teardown reveals complex construction
Chinese site PCOnline has torn down the new HTC One X smartphone. More accurately, it's the Chinese variation of the flagship handset. The skinny phone was separated thanks to a narrow plastic tool.
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04/23, 3:30pm
Samsung i9300 given unofficial benchmarks
Samsung's GT-i9300, possibly the third-generation Galaxy, has had its performance leaked through inadvertent postings to GLBenchmark. The 3D tests caught by a Phone Arena reader show that the quad-core Exynos 4412 chip in the device looks to beat any existing Android phone, and likely the iPhone 4S, by a wide margin. In the common-use Egypt test, the i9300 would be roughly a third faster than the similarly quad-core Tegra 3 in the international HTC One X and three times faster than Samsung's own Galaxy S II.
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04/23, 11:30am
Droid Incredible 4G LTE to get rapid-fire camera
Verizon itself inadvertently confirmed the new Droid Incredible through a product page (since pulled) on its own Droid Does website. Now known to be called the Droid Incredible 4G LTE, the phone is now known to be a heavily modified take on the One S. While the shrink to a four-inch LCD and an underclocked 1.2GHz Snapdragon were known, it should have the dedicated ImageSense processing chip of the One series to get the burst shooting and faster response times.
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04/23, 10:15am
InMobi suggests iOS edge closer than it seems
The total mobile user base is significantly less oriented towards Android than phone market share would suggest, according to research. An InMobi study saw iOS extend a slight lead in North America based on ad impressions, going from an 0.6-point lead at 33.1 percent in the fall to a 2.7-point gap at 36.8 percent in the winter. It had Apple, not Google, growing faster for at least the past several months.
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04/23, 6:55am
HTC said to be developing chips with ST-Ericsson
HTC is reported to be partnering with ST-Ericsson in order to co-design mobile chips for its low-end devices. The China Times says that HTC and ST-Ericsson have signed a ‘memorandum of cooperation’ and that the first chips should start to ship in 2013. If accurate, the development would help to put HTC on a similar footing to Apple and Samsung which design their own mobile chips enabling better product differentiation.
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04/22, 12:00pm
Boost, Virgin would adopt WiMAX as Sprint goes LTE
Just as Sprint is getting its first LTE phones, its sub-brands Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile may be getting their first forms of 4G, according to a rumor. The two contract-free carriers were purported by TechnoBuffalo's contact to be inheriting the WiMAX network as Sprint moves its main customer base to the newer LTE standard. Accordingly, the just phased-out Evo 3D and other phones would go to Virgin, possibly under different names.
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04/21, 1:10pm
HTC Evo 3D ramps down on one-year anniversary
Sprint has quietly dropped the HTC Evo 3D near its one-year anniversary. The glasses-free 3D phone is no longer available online and now is in limited stock at retail stores. At present, the Evo Design 4G is the only as-new HTC Android phone on the carrier.
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04/20, 2:15pm
HTC thinks hardware keyboards hurt progress
HTC has kept itself in the limelight in the past day with both revelations of a shift in its attitude towards touch as well as shipping its first LTE-equipped One X. Speaking at the company's Freqs event in Seattle, creative lead Claude Zellweger told MobileBurn and others in attendance that HTC was backing away from hardware keyboards. Partly echoing what the late Steve Jobs said in 2007, he saw physical keyboards as still having some interest but ultimately being obstacles. Going all-touch let HTC have the freedom to design the way it wanted.
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04/20, 10:15am
Nokia shrugs off German patent lawsuit loss
Nokia isn't too concerned by losing a court case on Friday related to phone patents belonging to patent firm IPCom. The ruling affects only phones that are no longer sold by the company, so the damage is minimal, according to Nokia. A company spokesperson said the patent was granted in February of 2011 and current products use different technology.
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04/19, 7:55pm
Previous leaks detail specifications of new phone
The year-old HTC Incredible 2 phone is currently unavailable for purchase on Verizon's web store. While the inference is that the phone will return, as it is listed as "temporarily unavailable," previous leaks suggest an imminent release of the Incredible 4G phone, which has been previously seen listed on Verizon's internal databases.
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04/19, 6:45pm
HTC event talks dimensions and One X accessories
HTC's Freqs event in Seattle on Thursday saw it reveal a handful of surprise details that also saw it weigh in on phone technology. Product strategy VP Bjorn Kilburn revealed that customers in a study, when pressed, preferred having a thinner phone over getting more battery life. Battery life was still an issue, but it had led to phones like the 0.31-inch One S instead of a planned thicker phone with a 3,000mAh battery pack.
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04/19, 5:00pm
Chitika says Apple, Samsung hurting HTC use
HTC's market challenges have seen it lose more than half of its share of online usage, Chitika found in a new study. Its traffic on Chitika's relatively large ad network has dropped 60 percent in the space of five months, down to 7.3 percent of the total in March. While only representative of Chitika's share, it contrasted with Apple's gain in the same space of time, where it leapt from 46.8 percent in October to 76.9 percent in March.
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04/19, 2:00pm
Verizon Q1 call vows progress on plans, devices
As part of the call discussing its fiscal results, Verizon on Thursday both narrowed down its shared data plan schedule and reiterated that it was still interested in Windows Phone. The shared data would be coming in mid-summer, CFO Fran Shammo said. The tier is expected to significantly reduce the cost of having more than one smartphone in a family.
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04/19, 1:15pm
Says it phones use 'commonly known techniques'
Lawyers for HTC today defended the company in a London courtroom, insisting it isn't violating Apple patents, Bloomberg reports. At stake are four patents, covering multi-touch, slide-to-unlock, zooming and scrolling for photos, and the use of different character sets for text messages. "We are dealing with extremely simple implementations of commonly known techniques," read written statements by HTC's lawyers.
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04/19, 12:50pm
Android 4.0 update for Verizon Xoom, Rezound leak
A supposed Verizon employee has shared Android update dates for the HTC Rezound and Motorola Xoom tablet on Reddit. The Xoom tablet will supposedly get the update on April 23, while the Rezound's update will arrive on May 9. What makes the rumor more believable is the amount of detail in the leak.
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04/19, 10:35am
Spotify Android app remade
Spotify on Thursday addressed complaints over its Android app with a new preview version of its remake. The new version is completely remade and designed explicitly to support Android 4.0 phones like the Galaxy Nexus or One X. The UI change brings swipe-based navigation columns, extra-large artist artwork, and a Facebook-style slide-out menu.
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