Cell Phones

Good news for UK mobile addicts: HD Voice service has officially made it to the Land of Hope and Glory. Starting today, British customers can pick up a HD Voice-enabled handset — including the Nokia 5230, X6, E5 and Samsung Omnia Pro at launch — from Orange, and start buttering their ears with “crystal clear” phone calls while within the carrier’s 3G coverage. Prior to the launch, we were fortunate enough to try out the new service on a couple of Nokia E5 prototypes, and boy, that was some pretty impressive stuff there — the wider speech bandwidth really added a lot of clarity to the caller’s voice, and additionally, the noisy traffic from the caller’s end was well suppressed at where it’d otherwise crackle over a normal call. Perhaps the easiest way to put it is that this is much like jumping from a bad FM radio broadcast to some sweet CD audio, thus making conversations a lot easier to interpret, even if the recipient is in a noisy environment or has hearing problem (as proven by Orange’s public trial). As always, hearing is believing, so do check out our sample audio clips after the break.

While Orange remains a dominant driving force behind this mobile revolution, the carrier assured us that it expects other companies to pick up this open standard. That said, it’s rather disappointing that current owners of the aforementioned handsets won’t be getitng a software patch for the HD upgrade (we were told that no extra hardware is involved), but we can understand — the manufacturers do need to sell new phones to stay alive in this rapidly changing market. Anyhow, here’s hoping that the forthcoming flagship Android and Windows Phone 7 devices will also get a taste of this crystal clear call quality.

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CRYSTAL CLEAR CALLING AS ORANGE REVOLUTIONISES MOBILE PHONE CALLS IN THE UK WITH THE LAUNCH OF HIGH DEFINITION VOICE

· Orange becomes first operator to launch mobile HD Voice in the UK, signalling the dawn of a new era in mobile communications for customers

· HD Voice reduces background noise and decreases perceived distance between callers by providing crystal clear calls

· HD Voice is available from today nationwide at no extra cost for all Orange customers with an HD voice enabled handset

London, 1st September, 2010: Orange today announced the first major advancement in UK mobile voice calling for 20 years with the launch of mobile High Definition (HD) Voice. Providing crystal clear sound quality for calls, mobile users will see the service set a new consumer benchmark, with today’s move testament to Orange’s continuing focus on innovation.

HD Voice offers a proven improvement in the sound quality of traditional mobile voice calls. The service eliminates the distance between friends, relatives and colleagues to make callers voices sound like they do when communicating face to face. Reducing the background noise, hisses and crackles of normal mobile calls, HD Voice also excels in noisy environments, so whether you’re at a football match or concert, on a building site or next to heavy traffic – HD Voice gives louder, clearer, sharper mobile calls. This will come as a relief for a third (32%) of Brits who blame background noise including road works or noisy chatty friends as the biggest disturbance in conversations*.

Orange HD Voice is available at no extra cost to all Orange mobile customers who take a HD Voice enabled handset. From launch, the Nokia 5230, Nokia X6, Nokia E5 and Samsung Omnia Pro will be HD Voice enabled with further manufactures expected to offer HD handsets in the coming months. All HD Voice enabled handsets will be labelled with the Orange HD Voice logo, helping customers to easily recognise those devices that support the new Orange HD Voice service. HD Voice demonstration units will also be available in Orange shops.

Tom Alexander, Chief Executive of Everything Everywhere, the company which runs Orange UK, said: “Although what we use our mobile handsets for has evolved significantly in the past few years – the way we make mobile calls hasn’t changed a great deal since the 1990s. So we’re proud to be the first telecommunications brand in the UK to change this and offer customers a revolutionary new calling experience. With mobile HD Voice – hearing really is believing”.

HD Voice also opens up new opportunities for better ways of working in business. The arrival of HD Voice is hotly anticipated by the broadcasting industry, which believes that the service could reduce its reliance on expensive ISDN lines and the need to ferry guests to studios for interviews. Other industries that will benefit significantly from HD Voice include those with significant background noise like the construction and manufacturing industries.

For more information on HD Voice from Orange, please visit: www.orange.co.uk/HDVoice.

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Sure, there are any number of phones with dual SIM card slots, most of them built for Asian markets, but the iPhone 4 is about the furthest thing from dual SIM: in fact, it doesn’t even have one Big Person SIM to call its own. Luckily, USBFever has a hacktastic solution to this problem (a followup to their iPhone 3G version), with a new $30 case that can host dual full size SIM cards on the back of an iPhone 4 (entombed in some classy clear plastic, naturally), while running an adapter to the iPhone 4′s micro SIM slot. You can then switch between the two SIMs from the iPhone’s own settings menu, though unfortunately you can’t rock both SIMs simultaneously. Looking for a more DIY approach? Bust out your X-Acto and check out our SIM resizing guide!
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SOURCE:USBFever

Well, it looks like you can finally get rid of that less-than-stable pre-alpha release of continuous experience as you move between devices. Hit up the link below for the download link, and for a quick video overview of what’s in store.
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SOURCE:The Mozilla Blog

Hey — what’s this? Well, from the looks of it, it’s a new, as-yet-unnamed HTC device. There is perilously little info available about the mystery mobile, but it appears to boast an 8 megapixel camera with a flash plus a front-facing camera, a 4.3-inch screen, a headphone jack and a kickstand. It also appears that it’s going to boast HTC’s own Sense UI. This falls in line with what we’ve heard about Verizon’s Android-heavy fall launch this year, so we would not be surprised to see this device make an appearance. Furthermore, we could go out on a limb and guess that it’s possible this is the Merge mentioned in that lineup, which supposedly boasts a 1GHz processor. That’s all there is to the story right now but we’re going to stay up late tonight to be on the lookout for further information on this one. One more photo below and hit up the source for the rest.

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SOURCE:Boy Genius Report

Looks like that fake Pre with the iOS / BlackBerry OS split personality is a little ahead of its time, but ARM — supplier of the architecture that underpins most of the world’s smartphones — likes the idea. In a recent talk at Stanford, ARM program manager David Brash talked up some of the highlights of new “extensions” to the existing ARMv7-A platform, and though he apparently never mentioned Eagle by name, it seems safe to assume that he was referring to the capabilities that Eagle would bring to the table when it launches in the next couple years. Notably, the extensions will break through ARM’s current 4GB RAM limit by mapping 4GB windows of memory to each virtualized operating system, which dovetails nicely — suspiciously nicely, in fact — with VMware’s recent talk of wanting virtualized phones capable of seamlessly switching between multiple platforms without any hacky bootloader solutions. We’re definitely game for that, but considering that Eagle is still years away from retail reality, we’re not bothering to clear space on our credit limit just yet.
VIA:Phone Arena
SOURCE:Linux for Devices

We know, half of you aren’t even going to read past the headline before you start angrily banging away about Apple’s admitted antenna gaff and the still-not-totally-fixed proximity sensor, but we’re urging you to look deeper. Think harder. Critique your criticisms. In all seriousness, Apple’s iPhone 4 garnered more attention (negative or otherwise) than any other phone released this calendar year, and for good reason — in fact, Apple itself had to hold an emergency press event just to announce what could’ve been announced in a PR blast: everyone’s getting a free case. That said, Cupertino has still managed to move millions of units in just a few months, and that demand doesn’t seem to be dropping off at any significant rate. If you’re one of the lucky (or unlucky) ones that have managed to procure Apple’s latest iPhone, we’re overly anxious to hear your thoughts on changing it. How would you have addressed the antenna issue? Would you have preferred a less drastic departure from the 3GS form factor? Would you have offered more colors than white and black? Thrown in Bluetooth 3.0 for kicks? Go ahead, the floor’s yours — just don’t abuse it, cool?
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We’ve already published a pretty exhaustive review of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 some five months ago, but it’s taken until this month for it to reach AT&T’s network and retail chain. A lot’s changed in the mobile phone market since then — the iPhone 4, the EVO 4G, Dell Streak, numerous Verizon Droids, and so on. Does the X10 still compete? Read on to find out.

Same as it ever was

By and large, we’re looking at identical hardware (and mostly identical software) as our review unit from back in March, so we’ll be brief. The phone feels lighter than you might expect for a 4-inch smartphone, and while we like the matte backing, the glossy front has just as much of an affinity for fingerprints and smudges as we’ve (unfortunately) come to expect. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack next to the power button and micro-USB port, a dedicated camera button and volume rockers on the side, and just below the screen there’s the familiar Android menu, home screen, and back buttons. For a split second, we forgot that the magnifying glass next to volume down actually means “zoom out,” and as such we are still lacking a dedicated search button. And it’s still annoying.

Going through the box, aside from various leaflets and informational papers, we find a Sony Ericsson-branded headset, a micro-USB cable, and an USB charging dongle for home power outlets. Our favorite part of the this bright orange-and-white package, though, has to be the screen film with “TXTNG & DRIVING… IT CAN WAIT” written on it. Words to live by, sure, but we’ve been known to leave the film on for a few days while we find an alternate screen protector, and ain’t gonna cut it.

Wrap-up

When we first reviewed the X10, it had a lot more going for it. But now we have to look at it from the context in which it was released: a smartphone arguably over the hill before it even set ground in Ma Bell, retailing for $150 on contract. For just $50 more you can get the Samsung Captivate, arguably an improved version of this form factor in almost every way (screen, Android OS version, hardware). For $50 less, there’s the iPhone 3GS equipped with iOS 4 — and that’s all assuming you’re committed to AT&T. The camera is its bright point, but even that gets knocks for surprisingly low-quality video capture. If that really matters, do yourself and pick up a point-and-shoot camera instead; save that upgrade discount for something you won’t try to strangle before the two-year commitment is up. For all the things that make the X10 Mini Pro enjoyable — size, snappiness, physical keyboard — they’re just not here, but the limitations seem to have stuck.
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The rich landscape of Android versioning just got a bit richer, with word of an official Froyo update for the Droid Incredible being launched tomorrow (based on the screencap pictured above), while the EVO 4G’s recent Froyo software just got rooted. If you’re crazily impatient, an Android 2.2 ROM for the Incredible just leaked out into the wild, and can be installed with a bit of work, but from the official-looking-ness of this leak from Droid Life, a painless official update is not far off. Meanwhile, in Sprint land, the xda-devs have a rather complicated, rather scary method posted for rooting 2.2 on the EVO 4G — you’ll have to ask yourself how much that freedom is worth to you, or just wait for the inevitably easier methods to come along and hold your hand.
VIA:Android Police
SOURCE:xda-developers, Droid Life

We feel your pain: you love your BlackBerry at work and your iPhone for personal use, but as hardware goes, nothing gets your motor running quite like the Pre’s pebble-esque shell. Trust us, we’ve all been there! Well, a new clone out of China seeks solve all your technological woes by combining an iOS-inspired user interface and the Pre’s body — with an iPhone home button thrown in for good measure, of course — and when the time comes to throw on the suit and tie and head to work, you can switch the UI over to BlackBerry mode. As far as we can tell, it still functions like an iOS clone here, but at least the skin will remind you of the good ol’ Bold days. Looks like you can’t buy this thing online, but considering how well the software works in most of these things, it’s probably for the best.
VIA:MIC Gadget
SOURCE:m8cool

We’d reported before our belief that the rumored Droid Pro is nothing more than the dual-mode version of the Droid 2, but the question remained: knowing that the Droid 2 has a model code of A955, what the heck is the difference between the model codes A956 and A957 that have been showing up in Verizon’s systems? Looks like we might have some clarification on that question this afternoon thanks to a new shot clearly calling out the A957 as the R2-D2 version of the Droid 2 that’s launching late next month. What does that mean? Well, it means that if the Droid Pro is a separate product with insane specs, it hasn’t shown up in any screen shots and we don’t have a model code for it. Our original tipster was pretty insistent that Verizon didn’t have any product on its 2010 phone roadmap with crazier specs than the Droid X — and besting it inside of six months would seem like an awful business move anyway — so now, the only question seems to be whether Big Red will go with the “Droid 2 World Edition” or “Droid Pro” branding when this thing launches in the coming weeks.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]
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