HTC phones

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWTJvjLbPEc]

HTC at a New York presser yesterday introduced the Rhyme smartphone, a Verizon network exclusive in the United States and coming next month to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. This Android phone sports a 3.7-inch WVGA display and a five-megapixel camera with auto focus, power LED flash, face detection, action burst scene, panoramic mode and other image-taking features. The Rhyme being the ladies’ phone means one thing – accessories. These include a docking station, sports armband, headphone, Bluetooth headset and car speaker. The high point? The HTC Charm, a tiny pager-like accessory designed to alerts you of incoming calls or messages. Check it out in a promo video above and notice the luxury Apple-like packaging.

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Handset maker HTC issued an intriguing invitation to its followers on Facebook, inviting them to attend a public event due September 1 in London, just in time for the IFA trade show where giants like Samsung are expected to make major product announcements. The invite simply reads, “Join us to see what’s next” and promises “a few phone treats for you to enjoy”.

HTC will almost certainly pull a series of product updates and announcements at the public event and we expect some new phones to be revealed. First and foremost, we’re keeping our fingers crossed for more information about the Ruby, which is rumored to sport impressive specs and hopefully run Ice Cream Sandwich. The company may also play the safe card with new Windows Phone ‘Mango’ phones, like Samsung, and we’re certainly looking to put our hands on the forthcoming Puccini tablet, which is apparently scheduled to hit the market later that month. Full text of the invitation below the fold.

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Research firm Nielsen chimed in today with a survey that puts Apple as the leading handset maker in the United States whilst Android is portrayed as the top mobile operating system in the country. Those findings follow a recent analysis which had Apple overtaking Nokia to become the world’s leading smartphone vendor in July, also corroborated  by IDC figures. According to Nielsen’s June data, Google’s Android remains the nation’s top phone platform with a 39 percent of the country’s consumer smartphone market. Apple’s iOS follows with 28 percent and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion continues to bleed share, down to 20 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined grabbed nine percent, webOS and Palm OS were barely a blip with two percent, as was Nokia’s dying Symbian OS.

Apple on the other hand is the top smartphone maker in the United States that controls 28 percent of the market (excluding iPods and iPads). That’s partly “because Apple is the only company manufacturing smartphones with the iOS operating system”, Nielsen argues. HTC shares second spot with Research In Motion with a fourteen percent share of Android devices and six percent of Windows Phones for a total of 20 percent share of the whole market, same as the BlackBerry maker. HTC is also the nation’s leading Android and Windows Phone vendor with 14 percent and six percent share, respectively. No wonder Apple is suing HTC and seeking to ban import of their phones into the US…

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Of course, it ain’t the first phone to be called a Facebook phone. But if you’re fan of Zuckerberg’s social network, you should give this one a chance. What’s the number one thing for Facebook (excluding photos)? Yes, status updates. That’s what guided HTC to put a dedicated Facebook share button on the aptly named Status handset, to cater to the Facebook generation that cannot fathom letting an hour go by without firing up a couple of status updates.

Apart from the button and the BlackBerry-style physical QWERTY keyboard that sits below the screen, the Status packs in an 800MHz chip, a five-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera out the front, a 1,250 mAh battery and a 2.6-inch touchscreen with a 480-by-320 pixel resolution – all driven by Android 2.3 Gingerbread. AT&T wouldn’t say when the phone would be available. Full release and t he complete front shot of the device right below.

via BGR

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Our European readers will be delighted to learn that HTC’s Evo 3D “will be broadly available in Europe from July”. We reviewed the handset on the Sprint network in the US and walked away pretty impressed with its glasses-free 3D display and 3D cameras which, however, compromise battery life, among other things. You may also like the big camera shutter button, a 4.3-inch display with a 540-by-960 pixel resolution and two five megapixel cameras with auto focus on the back for snapping 3D shots. The device is powered by a decent 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon chip and runs the latest Android 2.3 Gibgerbread release for smartphones. Full release below.

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This is my next reports HTC has changed its mind and will bring Android 2.3 Gingerbread to the Desire after all. HTC’s UK office posted on their Facebook page two hours ago:

Contrary to what we said earlier, we are going to bring Gingerbread to HTC Desire

Just a day ago, HTC argued via Facebook that the Desire wouldn’t be getting Gingerbread because they “can’t shovel Sense on it as well” due to constrained RAM. Interesting how they fixed that limitation just 24 hours later. HTC also announced last month it would unlock all of its phones’ bootloaders.

HTC London Meetup in April of 2011: You know, Apple fans aren’t the only ones lining up for product launches

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