AT&T’s own on-contract pricing for their HTC PURE (AT&T (NYSE: T)’s branded Touch Diamond2) wasn’t too bad, but it’s got nothing on Amazon’s asking price. Amazon is now offering the just-launched AT&T PURE for just a penny, when purchased with a new 2-year contract through AT&T. Leave it to Amazon to undercut AT&T on a spanking brand-new Windows Phone.
What can you expect for your penny? Expect to get a 3.2-inch WVGA resistive touchscreen, GPS, WiFi, 3G data, Bluetooth, 5-megapixel (autofocus) camera and microSD card slot with your penny’s worth of PURE. Of course, with Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional already installed, the new PURE is noticeably more usable and responsive than the Touch Diamond2 with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional installed. The WM6.5 update makes a significant difference.
Find the 1¢ HTC PURE here. Remember, you’re going to have to sign your life away for a couple year of AT&T-servitude to get the price. Or, as msmobiles puts it, “24 months of misery.”
HTC has released Windows Mobile 6.5 firmware updates for two of its devices – Snap and Touch Pro2. At the moment it’s a Europe thing only, but I’m sure updates for devices sold elsewhere are coming in the near future, as well. This is not to say you can’t download the latest firmware and try it out for yourself no matter where you bought the device – it’s only that you will be doing that on your own hand with an option to brick your phone, and you don’t want to do that, right?
Anyway, if you live in Europe and have one of the devices mentioned, hop over to HTC’s support page and click on the appropriate link.
Sure, the HTC HD2 packs a 5-megapixel camera. But, is it any good? Compared to the rest of the HD2’s features, the camera has a lot to live up to. We can’t speak to HD2 camera image quality until we can put our own HD2 through its paces, but from the looks of newly posted image samples, the camera looks like a winner.
The images you see here were taken in Fine and SuperFine mode. Can you tell which is which?
The baddest Windows Phone of the year may just be coming to Stateside on T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) USA’s network! A newly discovered T-Mobile slide suggests that the HTC HD2’s (Leo) will soon be available on T-Mobile USA. The slide highlights the HTC HD2’s massive 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen, 1Ghz Snapdragon processor and multimedia capabilities in a push to bring T-Mo customers “mobile entertainment like you’ve never seen (engaged with) before.” If that’s not enough to believe that HTC sold T-Mobile on the HD2, we don’t know what is.
If you haven’t yet checked out our hands-on coverage of the HTC HD2 (Leo), you might want to brush up on what we consider to be the hands-down best Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone of the year. The HD2’s gigantic capacitive touchscreen and pencil-thin silhouette make for a sexy handset, but there’s more to the HD2 than just a pretty face. Underneath, the HD2 packs a 1Ghz Snapdragon chipset, 5-megapixel camera (with dual-LED flash), integrated GPS, WiFi, microSD slot, FM radio, digital compass and a 3.5mm headphone jack. And with HTC’s HTC’s “>TouchFLO 3D (which has been tweaked to reflect HTC’s Sense design philosophy) making up for much of Windows Mobile 6.5’s downfalls, the HD2 is one helluva Windows Phone.
The T-Mobile slide makes no mention of when we should expect to see the HD2 hitting the US, but it can’t be too far behind the Nov. 11 European launch. Oh, and it’s probably a good idea to start scrounging for couch change. This bad-boy isn’t going to be cheap!
Can’t wait to get your hands on the HTC HD2 after seeing our bitchin’ hands-on video? Well, British retailer Clove will begin shipping the 4.3″ Windows Mobile monster on November 11 unlocked for £469. Both T-Mobile and O2 will be offering the HD2 as well, if you’re looking to save a few pennies through subsidies. If you’re slobbering for this one in North America, however, you’re going to have to wait until Q1 2010. We’re really looking forward to seeing the HD2 out in the wild, since it’s clear that it’s going to be HTC’s top-of-the-line mediacentric smartphone; with a nice UI update through Windows Mobile 6.5 and TouchFlo, it’s a pretty smooth ride.
HTC promised that its HTC Tattoo would be available with custom-made covers to make the smartphone as unique as its user. Well, HTC just launched their TattooMyHTC website, offering pre-designed covers for €11.99. You can also “design your own” custom covers for for €14.99.
The Android-powered Tattoo should soon be popping up in custom outfits all around Europe.
The Motorola MOTOBLUR service/UI is about to give HTC G1 fans a taste what Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is cooking up for their Android-powered CLIQ. Thanks to a clever Android hacker with access to the CLIQ’s firmware, the MOTOBLUR UI has been ported to the G1- the CLIQ’s keyboard-wielding Android cousin.
Motorola launched their Motorola CLIQ Android phone last month with a unique user interface, called MOTOBLUR, as a new way to keep tabs on your social media. Using Motorola’s servers, MOTOBLUR automatically pulls information from your social networks and RSS feeds and splashes that data onto the CLIQ’s homescreen. MOTOBLUR also keeps your contacts’ status updates and photos up to date.
What you see here is the HTC G1 running MOTOBLUR. You may remember Google (NSDQ: GOOG) throwing a bit of a fit over Cyanogen’s distribution of Google’s licensed Android apps. We have to wonder what Motorola thinks about their entire MOTOBLUR getting the “mod” treatment.
That’s it. Game over. After spending some quality one-on-one time with the HTC HD2 (Leo) today, we’re convinced that the HTC HD2 is the “baddest Windows Phone” of the year. In fact, the HD2 might be strong enough to carry that title through much of next year. The powerful-yet-slim HD2 packs a 1Ghz Snapdragon chipset into a shell no thicker than your standard yellow No. 2 pencil, basically killing any hint of the lag we’re used to seeing with Windows Mobile.
What makes this new Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone so great? Well, aside from its power-packed chipset and sexy design aesthetic, the HD2 is the only Windows Phone (so far) to sport a capacitance-based touchscreen (like on the iPhone and Android smartphones) that throws out pixels at WVGA resolutions across a whopping 4.3-inches of real estate. Then, add in the fact that the HD2 features a 5-megapixel camera (with dual-LED flash), integrated GPS, WiFi, microSD slot, FM radio, digital compass and a 3.5mm headphone jack, and it’s easy to see how the HD2 dominates the competition.
HTC also baked in some of their Sense design philosophy into the HD2’s TouchFLO 3D UI, focusing on personalization/customization, intuitive finger-based interface and media consumption. That all translates into a user experience that we’d frankly never expected from a Windows Phone.
We’re expecting to see the HTC HD2 make its US debut in Q1 of 2010. As for the US price, we’re not sure. But, we’re still willing to offer a kidney in trade.
[Update]
Photos color corrected and updated. Apologies for making your eyes freak out.
It’s been a long time coming, and they’ve had to trudge through a veritable gauntlet of bad press related to Global Verge and Buzzirk Mobile, but Zer01 Mobile is finally ready to show that they’re not just full of hot air. Zer01 CEO Ben Piilani was on hand at the Fall CTIA WITE 2009 conference to prove to the media that Zer01 service is indeed real and does work.
For those of you not aware, Zer01 hit the scene earlier this year with a revolutionary new wireless calling service that used some sort of patented VoIP technology to provide unlimited voice and data service for just $70 per month, sans contract. It’s an intriguing offer, to be sure.
Piilani explains the Zer01 service as a “VoIP carrier” of sorts that treats all network traffic as data. Zer01 says that their service piggybacks on partner GSM networks in the US, but stops short of mentioning just who those partner carriers are. Getting started with Zer01 service is as easy as popping in a Zer01 SIM card into a Windows Mobile smartphone. The handset will automatically download a Zer01 VoIP dialer that is required to place voice calls. Once that’s all setup, you can talk and surf without limits.
The Zer01 service was demonstrated on a T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) HTC Touch Pro2, and the service works on the 1700Mhz 3G frequency. Even our feeble minds can make the logical connection that T-Mobile may very well be Zer01’s partner GSM carrier. But, we could be wrong.
As for retail availability, Zer01 says they will have their retail channel setup through established retailers in about a month. For their sake, we hope this launch window holds.
We’re expecting our own Zer01 SIM in about a week, so keep an eye out for a more in-depth look at Zer01 Mobile’s service.
Big-screen lovers, capacitive touchscreen fans and smartphone users “in the know” will be happy to hear that the HTC HD2 (aka Leo) is almost here. HTC has today announced that their HTC HD2 will be launching later this month in select European markets. Boasting a class-leading 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen (a first for Windows Mobile smartphones!), blazing fast 1Ghz Snapdragon chipset (a first for HTC) and a 5-megapixel autofocusing camera, the HD2 packs some serious processing and multimedia power under its slim 11mm thick shell. And, as HTC’s first Windows Phone to sport the smartphone maker’s custom Sense UI, the HTC HD2 isn’t just a pretty face, it’s also easy to get along with.
The HTC Sense UI rose to fame as the Android-powered Hero’s slick homescreen interface. And, this is the first time we’re seeing aspects of the multi-pane Sense UI making its way to Windows Mobile, and it looks promising. The new Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional interface has been re-worked to play nice with finger inputs, but it took HTC’s Sense UI to polish it to a touch-optimized shine.
The HD2’s Windows Mobile-based Sense UI also brings along a couple additional features from its Android roots. For one, HTC’s Peep Twitter app makes the jump from Android to Windows Mobile. Another new feature is integrated support for photo uploads to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook also syncs up with the address book.
As for hardware, the HD2 is the first HTC smartphone to take advantage of the powerful Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) 1Ghz Snapdragon chipset. Paired with generous RAM stores, the HD2 should make quick work of anything you can throw at it. Hopefully, that also spells the death of the dreaded UI lag that WinMo users have been gritting through all these years. The 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen is as big as they come in the mobile space, and the 5-megapixel camera takes impressive photos. The feature-set rounds out with a heaping portion of smartphone trimmings – 3G, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD slot, FM radio and a digital compass.
An optional car mount kit turns your HTC HD2 into a fully functional turn-by-turn GPS navigation system. We can see a dash of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s design aesthetic in the HD2’s car mount, but that’s just fine by us.
Suffice it to say that the HTC HD2 is going to turn heads on the street. Unfortunately, those streets will only be in Europe for the time being. Launch is expected later this month in the EU, with O2 in the UK possibly launching on October 12 and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Spain aiming for a November launch window. Additional markets should go live shortly after. Price? €649, but it’s not like it even matters. We’ll trade a kidney for an HD2. What about it, HTC?
AT&T’s own on-contract pricing for their HTC PURE (AT&T (NYSE: T)’s branded Touch Diamond2) wasn’t too bad, but it’s got nothing on Amazon’s asking price. Amazon is now offering the just-launched AT&T PURE for just a penny, when purchased with a new 2-year contract through AT&T. Leave it to Amazon to undercut AT&T on a spanking brand-new Windows Phone.
Can’t wait to get your hands on the HTC HD2 after seeing our 
It’s been a long time coming, and they’ve had to trudge through a 
Big-screen lovers, capacitive touchscreen fans and smartphone users “in the know” will be happy to hear that the HTC HD2 (aka 
