Martin Fichter, acting president or HTC America makes a stimulating market observation as Chris Taylor at Mashable points out:

Speaking at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle, Fichter related a story about taking his daughter to Reed College in Portland, where he took an informal survey of her dormitory buddies. “None of them has an iPhone,” Fichter said, “because they told me: ‘My dad has an iPhone.’ There’s an interesting thing that’s going on in the market. The iPhone becomes a little less cool than it was. They were carrying HTCs. They were carrying Samsungs. They were even carrying some Chinese manufacturer’s devices.”

Now whilst it’s highly anecdotal, I think he’s got a point. You need money to own an iPhone. To have the right amount of disposable income to afford the iPhone, you are probably going to skew older than your average student who might not want to commit to say $60 a month for two years.

$60 buys a good amount of beer.

Mashable’s Chris reckons that portraying the iPhone as uncool is a rather risky strategy, given the iPhone 5 is en route.

I’m not sure if I agree.

I don’t think the iPhone is at all cool any more. Indeed the shine wore off pretty quickly last year when I got on the train and found a Vicky Pollard (see above) look-a-like with an iPhone 4. I was still using a 3GS that I hadn’t bothered to upgrade. (Read: “Vicky Pollard has an iPhone 4; You are not cool any more“)

iPhone is increasingly vulnerable when it comes to ‘coolness’ because, well, anyone can have one nowadays. Provided you pass the credit check you can have an iPhone 4 for zero cash up front here in the UK on a 24-month contract. It’s the tightrope any brand walks in this situation. I’m keen to see how Apple handle this with the next generation of devices.

Will the iPhone 4 16GB move to a much more accessible £249 up-front, whilst the iPhone 5 moves into the £500 slot? Or will we see a controlled price drop across the quarters? e.g. £349, £299, £249.

Bring it on…

Now then, I’ve had quite a few emails from readers hunting for the rather gorgeous HTC Evo 3D phone on Vodafone UK. The operator *was* going to range it, however plans have changed. You won’t get it in the UK via Vodafone.

However the company’s representatives point out that if you’re abroad, living somewhere with a Vodafone incumbent operator, you might still be lucky.

Public service announcement over…

This week we reminisce about the devices we’ve owned and loved over the years. We highlight a few we think were real ‘market changers’, a few lemons and speculate about who might make the next game-changer. Rafe also lets slip the secret of his magic drawers.

Amongst the devices we discuss this week are the:

• SonyEricsson P800
• Sony CMD Z5
• Nokia 6210
• O2 XDA (HTC)
• Nokia N95
• Nokia E61 and E61i
• Nokia N82
• Blackberry 7230
• iPhone 2G
• Orange SPV / HTC Canary
• Nokia 1011
• Motorola RAZR
• Nokia 5110 and 3210 with Xpress-on Covers
• Original Sidekick
• Treo 180

Episode 7 is also available on Soundcloud.

There are lots of ways to follow the podcast or you can subscribe using iTunes and other popular services.

Technical note: We’ve changed the way we serve downloads to podcast subscribers this week – this should address some recent feedback about tags and also improve audio quality. Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions or problems following the change.

Consumers don’t mind paying a little bit of cash up front, but ideally, they want the device free. Of course, the contracts get longer and longer when you’re after a top of the range device, free of charge.

It’s all about the handset. People still swap networks to get hold of a particular handset.

Which means that operators really need to work hard at pitching their ‘terminals’ (as many senior folk in the industry still refer to them).

Over the years we’ve seen some particularly compelling videos from the teams at Vodafone and Orange (Conor at Orange has been leading the way, especially with some of the higher end Android phones).

Three are no exception. Here’s a great example of a recent video highlighting HTC’s all new BlackBerry-like Android device. The presenter, Sedge, does a super job of delivering a watchable 4 minutes of social media recommendations interspersed with examples of how the HTC works with Facebook. (It’s one of the first to arrive complete with that famous Facebook button). Across the four minutes, Sedge points out the various features of the phone without getting too technical. It’s all filmed ‘on location’ at Windsor, so there’s plenty of nice scenery and backgrounds — the camera work is uber-smooth and it’s got the professional shine of something you might see on the likes of the Gadget show.

I think it does a good job of educating, converting and convincing for anyone who’s half interested in the phone. Nice work!

Here’s the accompanying blog post.

Steve Perlman, CEO of the company, was invited on to the Uplinq stage by HTC’s Peter Chou to showcase what they’re doing with the all new HTC Flyer tablet.

Essentially you’ll be able to experience phenomenal full-motion, fully-size, full-experience gaming on your HTC Flyer. The game will actually be run on a server in a remote data centre and piped through to your tablet over WiFi. The results are apparently virtually indistinguishable from playing the game on your own high-spec PC.

Steve didn’t actually demonstrate it all working on stage. I think this was a good idea. He pointed out that the WiFi is absolutely saturated here in San Diego so instead they showed off a video produced earlier.

See what you think. I reckon it looks rather smart. Here’s the video:

Look at that list there. That tells you something about the ecosystem that Qualcomm has created in recent years.

Uplinq is Qualcomm’s annual developer conference in San Diego and if my experience there last year was anything to go by, this year’s event (June 1st-2nd) is going to be fantastic.

The keynote speakers themselves are simply astonishing. First up you’ve got Qualcomm’s very own superstar, Dr Paul Jacobs. Youthful, engaged, highly watchable — the guy is brilliant. He’s going to be joined by:

- Jon Rubinstein, SVP & GM of Hewlett-Packard’s Palm Business Unit
- Peter Chou, Chief Executive of HTC
- Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia

When I read this, I did have to take a second glance. HP, HTC, Nokia and Qualcomm all playing together? Oh yes. It’s a brave new world. And what a coup for Qualcomm — the company has made a serious of brilliant moves placing its Snapdragon chipsets in the heart of the next generation of mobile technology. Almost any Android, WebOS and Windows Phone is sporting some kind of Qualcomm hardware.

Needless to say, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what each of these chaps has to say about the mobile marketplace.

There’s still time to register for the event and you can browse the full schedule here. If you’re into the business of mobile development, I recommend being there. Tickets are a pretty reasonable $375.

Here’s Conor from Orange UK showing off the latest HTC Mozart device that’s hitting the UK on the 21st of October. It’s a useful video overview of the basic Windows Phone user interface. See what you think:

Team HTC-Columbia are currently whizzing through Stage 6 of the Tour de France bicycle race and right now, one of the riders, Maxime Monfort (age 27) is traveling at 36km/h and is delivering 241 Watts of power on top of a 102bpm heart rate.

How do I know this? Well his HTC Legend phone is using SRM and a modified version of the Android application, My Tracks, to deliver this information to the Google My Tracks Tour tracking portal in almost real time. Very neat indeed.

If you’re a racing fan, I think you’ll really enjoy watching the telemetry. And if you’re a serious cyclist like Adam from messaging firm, Esendex, and you’re an Android user, then you’ll probably want to get hold of My Tracks.

There’s more information on what they’re doing on http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/?p=18411 HTC Evo 4G WiMax Android Phone (Sprint) – Unboxing

A reader emailed me this morning to point out that having returned to the UK from the Google I/O conference, he’s got an HTC EVO 4G device that’s utterly useless in the United Kingdom since it’s CMDA only.

Ergo he’s wondering if someone else can make use of it.

The box is entirely unopened and he’s looking to sell it for £550 or nearest offer.

The phone is useless in GSM-UK so if you’re quick, you could make him a rather good offer. And get to use the phone before everybody else.

Drop me a note if you’re interested and I’ll connect you both by email. As always I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

For more info on the EVO, check out the PhoneDog HTC Evo 4G WiMax Android phone unboxing:

Good news for Qualcomm and HTC as they continue their race across the simply stupendously large development marketplace. To India, then — Bharti Airtel have announced that they will launch the HTC Smart in 30 Indian cities. The ‘market operating price’ will be 9,990 Rupees — or approximately 148 Pounds Sterling ($222).

Now in a country where the average income per head is just over $1,000, spending a quarter of that income on a phone is not necessarily a sensible decision.

But there’s an emerging middle class in India, thirsting for the latest and greatest handsets — so I’m looking forward to seeing how they react to the HTC Smart. Of course the Smart, at the £148 price point, is a heck of a lot more reasonable than some of the other HTC Devices — e.g. the HTC Legend will top out at around $660. Three times the cost of the Smart.

The Smart is a handsome phone. It boasts HTC’s rather swish Sense UI and it looked like quite a capable device when I played with it at Mobile World Congress. You’ve also got HTC’s Friendstream integration too — which puts Facebook, Twitter and Flickr into one stream of updates. Compared to your bog standard Nokia 1600 series, the Smart is going to look pretty nifty.

Good luck to everyone. Get it right in India and the rewards could be massive.

And just to put this in context, the Indian Regulatory Authority reports that India added 19 million new subscribers in December or about 630,000 customers every day. That’s the equivalent of adding an o2 UK every month.

Every single customer will be looking for a handset, too.

Hardly a week goes by when I haven’t had a piece of news in from the nice ladies at Shine Communications telling me about yet another flippin’ cool handset launching on Big Red.

This morning they’ve announced the HTC Legend is heading their way. Here it is:

It’s a mighty nice looking Android device and it’ll be free on £25/month (on a 24/month contract). Order now and you’ll get it around April 6th — i.e. next Tuesday.

If you’re thinking of going Android, you might also check out the HTC Desire — another one heading to Vodafone in the coming weeks. And of course you’ve got the Vodafone Nexus One in the background too.

Or if you’d like a little more familiarity, check out the Sony Ericsson X10 — also running Android — sporting Sony’s excellent 8 megapixel camera. That’ll need £35/month on a 24-month deal but might be worth taking a look at if you’re been a long Sony Ericsson fan:

Lots of choice on Vodafone at the moment. Good work!

When I saw the above device, the HTC Smart, I did a double-take.

BREW?

I’d heard the rumblings of HTC’s latest foray into a new market segment (“the budget smartphone’) with Brew, but I’d never thought it would look as good as it does.

So. Meet the HTC Smart. This is the first in a new category of (quoting from today’s release) ‘easy-to-use, connected smartphones that are accessible by people all over the world.’

Accessible can be read in two ways: User interface (it looks pretty nice) and Price. There’s no word on actual cost but HTC are using the word ‘affordable’ often to describe the Smart. And that’s quite exciting. I’m not a massive fan of the Brew platform myself, particularly given most of the devices I’ve seen using it have had pretty shocking interfaces. But I am a big fan of bringing mobile to the masses. To do that you need devices to be affordable.

And easy. I haven’t managed to play with one yet but I’m hopeful that the HTC Sense user-interface (which is now setting HTC apart nicely from other manufacturers) will be implemented nicely in this device. With Sense, of course, you’ve got all the social networking goodness that will hopefully be right up the alley of the target audience.

The Smart has 256MB of RAM and ROM, a decent screen (2.8″ touch-sensitive), HSDPA support and a 3.0 megapixel camera. In fact, here’s the full spec list:

I could imagine mobile operators in the right markets shifting quite a lot of these.

I had a browse about the stand admiring the various Touch devices. Super engineering. I had a play with a few. I dragged my fingers across the interfaces and found them jerky and supremely annoying. If you switch EVERYTHING off on the handset and let the OS catch up, and if you do a proper flick of your finger so that the crippled UI can detect and process it properly, you MIGHT be lucky to get the UI to perform without having to repeat the flicks and without jerky animation. I don’t know why Microsoft can’t make it work as reliably as an iPhone touch screen.

All this thought went out the window when I caught up with the S743. It’s like a proper ‘phone’ with your normal mobile keys at the bottom — but with the now familiar HTC fold-out keyboard.

Have a look:

It’s quite thick:

But that’s because it’s hiding a nicely formed keyboard:

I was very taken with it — a normal handset, not tooooo big, but with a nice chunky decent and usable keyboard.

Using the device, the smaller screen seemed to make it a lot more reliable in terms of use — it’s not a touch screen, so you’re not having to rely on the hugely limited Windows Mobile OS to understand what you want to do.

It’s got some rather nifty features too. 3.2 megapixel camera, WiFi, HSDPA… Finally an HTC Windows Mobile handset I’d take a look at. Shocking.

Original post by Ewan and software by Elliott Back

We’ve taken a brief tour around the halls. Going back with the camera soon. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

We’ve taken a brief tour around the halls. Going back with the camera soon. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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AndrewGrill: RT @feebeyer: Rumor confirmed: Vodafone will launch own Android Phone with HTC at it’s press conference at #MWC on February 17th. Handelsblatt, page 17

Could very well be a rather exciting MWC…

Those ever so inventive guys over at Xda-developers.com have just walked out the door a ROM with features to be seen in the upcoming HTC Cruise.

Coming to our attention via a wmpoweruser.com post, is a not-so-legal update to the original HTC Touch with the new Footprints technology hopefully appearing in an O2 Xda handset soon. We say hopefully, as more times than not wonderments of ODM software is stripped away and a standard GUI and OS is just dropped on. Which from our point of view completely negates even writing about such joyous niceties, as they will never be appearing.

We first brought you news of the Footprints application, when we heralded in the HTC Cruise‘s arrival a week or so back. Just to refresh your memory, it’s a feature where an image taken not only uses geotagging functionality but also adds other multimedia material with the likes of an audio file being included. This turns a mundane picture into much more of a rich media experience. Hurrah!

This could very well be the next stage in development of enriching plain old boring photographs, which we hope could be included within the likes of Facebook pictures, ShoZu or even digital picture frames.

We contacted HTC to see if there were any news of Footprint ‘officially’ coming down the line when ROM updates are being dished out. Sadly the High Tech Computer Corporation line is no, they won’t be.

So, enjoy this update whilst it’s here as it looks like it will not feature in any older models. This is unless the company takes heed of their customers and bows to popular demand – stranger things have happened in the past.

Acer has sent an email to the press this week inviting them to their briefing at Mobile World Congress, whilst ever so subtly unveiling their Smartphone at the same time in the invite.

In a move that’s as subtle as opening an envelope by throwing a brick at it, they also announced their intentions to enter the Smartphone world by unveiling a new division.

This is seen in the wording of their invite that reads ‘Smartphones’, it’s all in the details. More than one handset we hear you say, yes, more than one handset.

Why go all the way to the largest gathering of likeminded telecoms type people and just bring one mobile phone to show off, two or more are always needed – with safety in numbers being paramount.

No real details are available as yet, nor have they offered any prebriefings on the latest of the late handsets. We’re assuming they’ll be very tight lipped from experience, until that very time and date shown. This is all a rather bold and uncharacteristic move and is very unlike them. We’re guessing with all the leaks happening of late and the coverage everyone’s getting, why not just leak something yourself.

With no specifics to hand all we can really do is speculate on what exactly makes up an Acer Smartphone. We’ll start the ball rolling, but feel free to add your comments at the base of this article with the phones details – you never know, one of us might be spot on.

Acer’s Smartphone: Wide touch screen display, virtual keyboard, Quadband, 3G, HSDPA, running Windows 6.5 and all looking rather like something HTC might turn out.

The high tech computing corporation has just updated its Cruise handset, for the likes of O2 to adopt in its Xda range *cough*

A few weeks back we brought you news of the online reseller Expansys leaking details of a new HTC mobile, by opening up its pre-ordering. This was even before the HTC had confirmed its very existence, let alone made public the phone themselves.

At the time we even noted the name of the product aired looked very much like an internal code name rather than an actual product branding, the HTC Iolite was just that.

We can now bring you the joyous and bountiful news, their HTC Cruise from 2007 has had a makeover and comes along with the very same product name as before.

The original Cruise mobile hit our shores early 2008, where it was commonly found in the disguise of the O2 Xda Orbit 2. Although we were told by an HTC spokey type person it also may have made an ever so brief appearance on the Orange network as itself.

Cruise 1.0, as we’re now calling it, came with a Qualcomm 7200 400Mhz chipset. A 2.8-inch QVGA screen, with a WIFI and was capable of the wonders of GSM, EDGE and UMTS/HSDPA.

How it stood out at the time was the bundling of TomTom’s mapping software, driven off the back of its built in GPS. They’ve enriched the latest model with a similar feature set, we’ve been informed. Although no details were available as to whom they’ve gone with now or even if they have included something of this nature again.

This time around HTC has stepped up a gear with adding their new Footprints technology, where an image is taken from its 3.2MB camera which not only uses geotagging functionality but also other multimedia material. This comes along with the likes of an audio file being including, turning a mundane picture into much more of a rich media experience than just something for the eyes to be bestowed upon.

There’s also a new processor onboard, seen in the Qualcomm MSM7225 528MHz monster running on the Windows 6.1 platform. It still has WIFI and all the same network options that will invariably differ from USA to Europe.

In the last ticking seconds of 2008, Germany’s O2 division pushed out details of a new Xda called the Guide. No information has been forthcoming in the UK yet on this model, but we’re almost positive the handset is the latest Cruise. As the spokey type person from HTC confirmed this phone will be with them, exclusively sometime soon.

That popular VoIP application for mobiles, Truphone Anywhere has just arrived on the HTC Google OS driven device the G1.

This Truphone release is now available in such far flung countries as the UK and the US of A, with Austria and Germany being on the cards next. The last one ties in nicely with the unveiling this week of the only Android *cough* handset to be releases in Germany for March. Coincidently it’s the exact same time the Truphone Anywhere application will be available, in that very countries language. Hurrah!

If you weren’t already aware and shame on you for not, Truphone offers far more than just VoIP. Instant messaging is an integral part of the software, with the likes of MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk and Twitter all taking pride of place within. With Skype access only being just around the corner too, although we’re not sure it’ll be here in time for CeBIT where it’s being rolled out.

On both Google Talk and Skye, it’s possible to speak to people for just the price of a local call. Although if they’re local, why not just pop around instead – food for thought there.

It’s now downloadable from Google’s OS app store, the Android Market – which still sounds far too close for our liking to a place in a Philip K. Dick novel.

With this announcement, Truphone for the G1 has now joined the illustrious ranks of being supported on devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry and Nokia handsets. All that’s missing now from their line up is a version for Widows Mobile devices and stretching further afield, PC and the Mac.

Who knows, we might have just pre-empted the next few unveilings of Truphone. But for the time being, let’s just say Anywhere for Android is now in good company.

In nearly a month from now, Mobile World Congress will be over, done and dusted, put to bed, an ex-event, acabado – finished.

What are we expecting to see, what are we likely to experience, what will astound us and what will we all be talking about five weeks from now?

From what we’ve already seen aired at CES and the meeting requests with various companies – the following is what we believe will be the main themes from the event. Along with the topics that could be addressed, and the avenues of discussion that we suspect will be throughout the event.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room, the very large grey beast that is the OS. We doubt the whole event will be taken up by talk of platforms, but they will have a significant presence at this year’s MWC.

With the inclusion of Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer as a keynote speaker, the attention will turn to the next generation of Windows Mobile on phones. At least we’re assuming he’ll be there to announce a product, as we doubt he’s just going along to increase his air miles.

Rumours have been around for a while now as to what Windows Mobile 6.5 will most likely contain, from the likes of multi-touch to the known IE version 6 being included. All that anyone can really wish for is that the new OS will fix the issues that plagued 6.1. Saving us all the bother of downloading cooked ROMs from the xda-developers website to resolve them.

Motorola has already spoken publically about their new handsets running this OS, due in the second half of this year which realistically means Q4. We’re wishing good things for that company too, as they need all the luck they can get right now.

We’re assuming, as most will be, 6.5 will be more of a service pack than a long term OS that will be with us for many years to come. As we’re hoping the attention will be on Windows Mobile 7 at MWC. If we’re all led to believe the hype, this will include the likes of Zune-esque features and an integrated live mesh mobile version.

With the world’s economy being what it is right now, the cost of Windows Mobile will be undoubtedly drawn in to the argument this year. As the alternatives around will be surely weighed up as a comparison, now they’re all here and phones around running them all. At the end of last year, a slide was shown at Orange Partner Camp just highlighting the cost associated with WM as compared to the others. To quote a tweet from Rafe Bladford “in open platform session – cost of platform – Symbian, Limo, Android = $0; Windows Mobile $14 (est). not often you see that slide comparison”. Seeing this in black and white just hammers home what Windows Mobile will have to achieve, if it wants to survive in these times.

There’s bound to be a heated, intense discussion of this nature, which we’ll enjoy and throw some spanners in to the works in order to get some decent feedback. Arguments will be made from all corners, which will be interesting to say the least on what everyone will say. Some will be diplomatic on the costs, although we’re hoping to hear from the European against the North American perspective. As it’s no secret the Americans love their Windows Mobile handsets, so we’re unsure if they can give a balanced opinion.

It’s been a year since Android was first shown off on a few phones at last year’s MWC, and only a few months since the HTC manufactured G1 came out. Since then there’s been a lot of rumours as to who will have the next Google OS powered device, who will be the first to market, who will be known as leader with these handsets in the future and not tied solely to a network.

CES saw a few models of not all that well known companies doing the rounds, with a few whispers of who really will be next. With leaks of late coming from HTC, Asus and others all showing they supposedly have Android phones in the mix. Perhaps one of those will show up with a ready-to-market model. Let’s not forget that only two months ago 48 of the biggest players in the mobile world all signed up to the Open Handset Alliance, so we’re all expecting good things from everyone soon.

We have it on good authority, the next one will be around very soon so keep your eyes peeled and stay reading MIR. We are expecting everyone and their dog, to be making some noise over their Android handsets either publically, or behind closed doors. Our money goes with HTC and we’re taking good odds on that spread right now.

They’ll also be talk of the next Android version or the updates, in the form of ‘cup cake’ and possibly how this will be rolled out. If not that, then at the very least what it will possibly contain, if not how the development is going. Although most of what’s what is already known, there’s bound to be some news to be aired as they’ve been rather quiet of late.

Not to be out done, and in the realm of keeping up with the Joneses, there’s bound to be news from Nokia’s Symbian platform. This time last year the world was completely unaware of the grand scheming going on. As far as we all knew Symbian was just a good OS running phones, which included Nokia and that was that. A few months later, the landscape of the platform world would change forever, with Nokia announcing its intentions.

We doubt we’ll hear anything great from Symbian at the event, perhaps some minor announcements but nothing too much. We do however expect to hear rumblings from Nokia, perhaps leading with an update on the N97 and when it’s actually due. Perhaps more on location based services, along with how well Ovi mail is doing on the Series 40 handsets, plus how that service will be expanded.

Some other rumours we’re hearing are that nVidia possibly, maybe, could be, might have something to say at MWC this year. This is all to do with them entering the mobile graphics world on phones, with a possible association with HTC being in the pipeline or so we hear. Whether or not this holds any water is yet to be seen, but it sounds like an interesting concept and partnership.

There’s bound to be noise over LTE, WiMAX and HSPA+ with some networks, carriers and handsets being spoken about. Don’t hold your breath in seeing any of this on the horizon anytime soon, just watch and read with glee and think of flying cars.

We’re even hearing completely unsubstantiated mutterings that even DELL will be making an appearance. This is with a view to be showing up with a Smartphone in tow, of all things. This rumour is picking up even more and more worth in the last week, as more and more sites have begun reporting on it. Why not have a phone; DELL seems to have everything else. They’re turning out to be like a large Sainsbury’s, a one stop shop for everything you need.

Other keynotes that have been booked in already come from large companies such as Vodafone, to even MySpace’s CEO and its co-founder. With the latter obviously appearing to let everyone know MySpace is still around, despite the fact Facebook jas stolen all its limelight and people have completely forgotten about them.

Many CES delights will surely make an appearance, there’s no getting away from that. The LG watch phone and the palm pre will be shown off to the coos and the wonderment of the Europeans. It’ll be interesting to see if the Palm phone and webOS will have the same reception as it did in Las Vegas, also if they’ll be tougher questions to answer now the dust has settled on the announcement.

It’s bound to be a veritable smorgasbord of mobile delights and treats, we’ll undoubtedly bring you as much information as your eyes can handle.

Mobile Industry Review has it exclusively from a well placed source, the prē was not manufactured by HTC for Palm.

It has been rumoured the HTC Touch looking device by Palm was said to be of an original design manufacturer (ODM) model, by the High Tech Computer Corporation.

Only now, despite all the evidence in hand, speculation, gossip and what turns out to be completely the wrong assumption, this was all just idle banter.

There is already a precedence set in place and a well establish partnership between HTC and Palm, with the likes of the Treo 650 and others already falling into this ODM relationship.

It wouldn’t have been so much of a stretch then to have seen them as the true authors of the prÄ“. Especially seeing as someone has just traced around the outside of the original HTC Touch and used that as the template for this new Palm handset.

More recently the Inventec company has made a number of devices for Palm, which means they are now the most likely candidate next on the list for the rumours to start chasing.

We were looking for a prē pre-briefing before Mobile World Congress by Palm; we were told by them the handset will be there and shown off in all its glory. Sadly, this will be the very first time it will be seen outside of the US of A and we were denied access.

No doubt, by then, we’ll have discovered who the designer of the palm prÄ“ was.

Until that time, feel free to speculate amongst yourselves, just as we will be doing as well.

After our posts about the HTC Tungsten the other day, we’ve heard from various knowing sources that it will most certainly be the next generation T-Mobile G2.

Just from the pictures the Tungsten looks a lot more SOLID than the pop-out-and-wobble-about G1.

Interesting.

I am, actually, quite enjoying my G1 at the moment. As long as I switch off the device and only switch it on when I want to use it. Otherwise the battery wears down pretty swiftly.

(Photo via PPC Geeks).

I don’t know why HTC bothers to keep these things secret. We want to know.

Provided it’s good news.

And it looks like it may well be.

Rob pulled out the Tungsten handset in his overview earlier today and, I have to say, if this is anything like the reality — and if it’s engineered to HTC’s TouchPro-style devices, the future for Android is looking pretty sexy:

(Photos & leak via PPC Geeks — check the link for a whole RAFT of upcoming HTC devices – tons!).

As Rob pointed out, if you can get an HTC Touch HD Pro — that DOESN’T run Windows Mobile (which really does hamper the experience, unless you screw your eyes up tightly) — HTC’s Android equivalent will definitely set hearts-a-flutter.

It’s going to be interesting comparing this Tungsten Android with Nokia’s new N97.

In what appears to be the first major leak of the year, HTC’s full product road map for 2009 and possibly many other years to come has just tipped up.

Their unofficial, official, nonofficial line up first came to our attention via Engadget, with the actual leak stemming from PPC Geeks. Kudos to them!

All that’s really on show are photographic images of the High Tech Computer Corporation supposed new products, and their internal product code names. Nonetheless, it’s still a mighty bounty of pictures showing possibly everything coming out from HTC in the near future.

There are a few notable handsets that caught our eye, the first being their next Android phone seen at the top of the page.

Another mobile that grabbed our worthy attention is the HTC Touch HD Pro – their HD phone, only with a keyboard.

Dave Weinstein over at Gizmag mentioned to us about its existence at Nokia World last year, where we dropped an email to HTC only to be chuckled at. It looks like the codenamed Tungsten is a reality after all, who’s sniggering now.

Perhaps we’re being spoilt by the amount of information being sprung by various companies of late, with the likes of Nokia having their possible full line up leaked including every detail known to man.

We’re getting to the stage that we’re now all very blasé about the lack of details being leaked out these days. We want more!

Come on Smoking Guns, show us the goods.

It’s no longer good enough anymore just to show us images and data sheets; we need the actual delivery of the handsets, market trends, focus group studies and 101 faults with the phone – or nothing at all.

It wouldn’t be entirely fair to just repost all the PPC Geeks images, seeing as they’ve gotten the scoop after all.

We don’t really want to rob them of the credit either, nor do we wish to take away any notoriety from PPC Geek – so please visit their site for all the product line up.

And for the Smoking Guns, come on, buck up your ideas or we won’t pay any attention!