FreshPhoneNews.com

Getting your hopes up ain’t a wise thing to do when it comes to HTC Dream or Magic from Rogers Wireless. Both these gadgets won’t be receiving an official OS update past Android 1.5, according to HTC’s website (Rogers Wireless has confirmed this as well). Android 1.6 upgrades for Rogers HTC Dream or Magic haven’t been planned as it was made only for “Google”- branded devices such as the G1. It isn’t available for the above two HTC-branded handsets that run Android 1.5, being considered a stable and reliable platform delivering an outstanding user experience. Bragging about the device, calling it an open-sourced “Revolution” and then turning down the customers is just plain sad. Did we mention that rival carriers offering Google supported devices have managed to tweak it up with some software upgrades?

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While we expected that Dell’s offer to make smartphones for U.S. carriers would be nicely lapped up, it turned out that no U.S. carrier was interested and China Mobile got the Dell Mini 3i. The Wall Street Journal on the other hand has come out with a news piece claiming that AT&T has put Dell to work designing an Android handset for the carrier. Specifications about the handset are not known as yet, but it’s going to have a touchscreen in place of a keypad and a tiny little camera, just like the Mini 3i. Now let’s see how soon this baby materializes.

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Fresh images of the Motorola Calgary have hit the web. You may remember that the Calgary is Motorola’s Android treat for Verizon, something that’s a sure win with the tween crowd. The mouth-watering live shots are courtesy of a tester who’s had the Calgary for a while now, accompanying the shots are reports that the OS is amazing, smooth and responsive, as it should be. As for Hardware, the Calgary packs three touch-sensitive Android keys on the display, a pretty decent working optical joystick, a solid QWERTY keyboard, and decent phone abilities. Among the usuals is a 3 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack, GPS, digital magnetometer, Wi-Fi, microSD card slot, and spring-assisted slider. All in all, the Calgary will find a place in the hearts and pockets of Verizon users. No release date has been announced yet, but Q4 is looking to be very inviting.

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Best Buy Mobile’s Holiday Playbook got scooped recently and there’s not only some nice tidbits about what to expect in the coming holiday season, but also what a few clues as to how Best Buy will be working to broaden its bottom line, which means some customers are going to be slightly more pampered than others. For starters, Best Buy has found out;

1. The average store sees over 64,000 customers during October and November
2. Out of those customers, only 1% receive an upgrade eligibility check on their accounts
3. Of the 1% who get upgrade checks, around 30% are actually eligible for upgrades
4. If stores increase the amount of customers checked to 2% from 1%, Best Buy Mobile would see an increase in revenue of around $20,000 for those two months, just off upgrading individuals
5. After customers upgrade their handsets at Best Buy Mobile, around 16% of them come back and make other purchases later

Interesting. So this means all you existing customers can expect some extra Best Buy love. As for new releases for the holiday season, you can expect;

1. Nokia Booklet netbook — October 25th launch, and can be activated on AT&T
2. Sprint HTC Hero — launching October 11th with a presale going on now
3. Sprint Palm Pixi — launch date to be decided (TBD)
4. Verizon Storm II — launch date TBD
5. Verizon Android device — launch date TBD
6. T-Mobile CLIQ — launch date TBD (but you know that it will be shipping after October 19th up until general release November 2nd)
7. “New BlackBerry devices across multiple carriers” — launch date TBD
8. There will be a “host of devices launch in late October and November for all carriers.” Multiple Android launches across multiple carriers and “new technology which doesn’t exist today.”

So there you have it, an early gist of the coming holiday spirit from Best Buy mobile.

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Alright the news is in, not officially announced, but a pretty sound source has it that Verizon Wireless will feature the Motorola Sholes or Motorola Tao as its first straight-up Android handset. What this means is that, unlike the CLIQ, the Sholes or Tao will not feature the MOTOBLUR UI. Also, sources have it that the handset will most likely be called the Motorola Droid on Verizon. This will also be the first Google Experience handset to offer built-in Adobe Flash support. Other key features include;

• 3.7″ screen
• 854×480 WVGA capacitive screen
• 5 megapixel camera
• ARM Cortex 500MHz CPU
• Facial recognition using the built-in camera (apparently you take a photo of someone and Google will pull in search results based on the image)
• Custom Motorola Interface/UI, no MOTOBLUR, no Verizon UI
• Available in black and titanium colors

There’s also talk that a keyboard-less version is slated for 2010.

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The Motorola Tao, codenamed Sholes (you know, the handset that has been talked about endlessly) is now back in the picture. Literally. HowardForum member wnrussel has recently posted some device-on images of the Motorola’s Android device. What do we think of the images? Awesome, cool, amazing and all other adjectives falling in this category. Very good job done Moto. Very good indeed. Verizon customers will not be disappointed. The images sadly don’t show the Tao slide open, we miss that. But the rest of the interface is … awesome. Enjoy!

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Holding your breath for the Motorola CLIQ are you? Well, you can ease up as T-Mobile has announced pre-order details and pricing for Moto’s first Android handset. Existing customers can place pre-sale orders from October 19th through November 1st. The device will debut in stores the day following the end of pre-sales, which would be November 2nd. There had been some pretty strong rumors that T-Mobile would offer the first ever Android handset for free, and as much as we love rumors (they give us reason to hope after all), sometimes they turn out to be…rumors. If you want a CLIQ, you’ll have to break you piggy bank and count out exactly $199 worth of dimes and quarters boys and girls. That’s the price of a new two-year contract and a $24.99 data plan. The CLIQ features a 5 megapixel camera and snappy UI with memory expansion support for up to 32GB. Not a bad offering.

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Motorola has come out with its much awaited Android handset, the Motorola CLIQ for T-Mobile, and Motorola DEXT for the rest of the world. Pretty much goes without saying but Motorola needed this addition to its lineup, which was getting mundane by the hour. Anyhow, the customized Android platform is what we will now call MOTOBLUR. As for specs, thankfully, there is no disappointment.  We’re looking at a 5 megapixel camera with video recording, UMTS/HSDPA, Wi-Fi, QWERTY slide-out keyboard, 3.5mm headset jack and then some. Now if there is multi-touch support, we’ll be rolling in cute bunnies.

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A certain very official looking leaked document leaked from the halls of Sprint tells of good things to come this September. These good things include the HTC Touch Pro2 and Samsung Dash or Instinct s50. That’s right, if the leaked page is any consolation to the recent Sprint goof-ups and let downs about the Pre, September became the month to hail. While the Touch Pro2 has been spec’d and photographed to no end, the Instinct s50 has had no such official or unofficial appearances. Could this be an Android device since Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has said that Sprint is getting ready to embrace the matured Android. We’ll know soon enough.

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Sprint subscribers dying for some Android action are finally nearing victory. Rumor had it that Sprint (who by the way snubbed Google’s baby, Android, before) will bring the hot and happening new OS onboard through the HTC Hero. That’s right Hero. So what brings the Hero closer to the U.S. and Sprint? Merely approval from the FCC. The Hero is said to be bearing a full CDMA/EV-DO radio not to mention the awesome HTC Sense UI that makes Android the best to happen since electricity. So yes, Sprint subscribers are very lucky people.

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