Mobile World

Samsung Galaxy S3 Phone
The Galaxy S3 is Samsung’s newest flagship smartphone, running on Google’s latest Android 4.0 software. The device is designed for convenience, offering voice recognition that responds to spoken orders, like ‘wake up’ when its screen is turned off, or ’snooze’ to turn off the alarm.

Android 5.0 To Launch On Range Of Smartphones
Google are expected to offer a whole range of Android 5.0 smartphones at launch.

LG Optimus Vu
Following the Galaxy Note into the oversize smartphone (or undersized tablet) arena, the LG Optimus Vu is an LGE device heading initially to Korea only.

HTC talks the One X bootloader, blames AT&T
Today AT&T is launching its version of One X (internationally known as One XL). But those users hoping to unlock the bootloader will be disappointed – the smartphone isn't supported by the HTC bootloader unlocking program. HTC quickly released a statement shedding more light on the matter: “HTC is committed to listening to users and delivering customer satisfaction. Since announcing our…

Tween Girls: The Changing Face of Gaming
More tween girls are turning to the Web to take quizzes and play social role-playing games, illustrating how a key demographic is paving the way for future gameplay.A new report by tween gaming platform GirlsgoGames.com’s 7.6 million U.S. site visitors found nearly 50 percent of girls between the ages of 8 and 12 are turning to the Internet for entertainment and social gaming. They are also spending more time once they get there, with monthly playing times doubling from 38 minutes to one hour and 18 minutes.The news reflects something people have known for some time: girls typically focus on being creative, cultivating friendships and engaging with a community of fans, a trend that is carrying over into adulthood and influencing digital gaming.Tablets, laptops and mobile devices are replacing yesterday’s cardboard cut-outs and tween celebrity magazines. Girls are using the devices to take quizzes, formerly the domain of the teen beat magazines, and virtually dress up their favorite electronic “paper doll” celebrities in new clothes and makeup.Not surprisingly, the tween girls and their $260 billion in U.S spending are especially attracted to the social aspects of online gaming and to interactive games where they can share content. Games that involve cooking, dressing up and quizzes topped the list, followed by make-up/makeover and animal games.The report dovetails with news earlier this year from MocoSpace that more women than men play mobile games and underscores this gaming industry shift may be more substantial and enduring.The mobile social network’s survey reports more than a quarter of women age 30 and over play mobile games for more than three hours a day, compared to just under 19 percent of men in the same age group, challenging the notion of a “gamer” as a teenage boy hunched over a console controller in a dim basement.And women, like the girls they once were, are playing social games, fueled in part by the rise in social gaming on smartphones.Many popular mobile games like “Words With Friends” encourage people to play against others via social networking sites. The social aspect of these games may continue to draw in more women and girls, especially as developers take advantage of the trend and start creating more titles with female players in mind.The video game industry is taking note of the growth of social gaming reflected in Zynga’s popular Facebook games like “FarmVille” and “CityVille.” These gaming companies will likely continue developing increasingly social mobile games, especially to feed the growing appetites of the “pink” gamer who, as she ages, continues to demand creative and social titles.Tween Girls: The Changing Face of Gaming originally appeared at Mobiledia on Wed May 02, 2012 11:35 am.

Samsung and Apple Dominate Smartphone Market
Samsung and Apple are responsible for almost a 60% worldwide market share of smartphone shipments, according to recently released figures…

Review: HTC Desire
After unleashing the massively impressive HTC Legend, its bigger brother, the HTC Desire, is here – faster, bigger and more powerful and still packing the Android punch.It might be the Nexus One rebadged, but this is a behemoth of a phone in its own right; has HTC tried to do too much?We reviewed a Desire from T-Mobile, which is first in line to offer the phone on UK release, but we also checked out our findings from another Desire review unit straight from HTC, to really find out how it compared to the competition.While the Legend was all about style and functionality in one tidy package – the HTC Desire takes a slightly different approach. Instead of the gorgeous aluminium chassis, we’re given a slightly more low-key brown case and a huge 3.7-inch OLED capacitive touchscreen.Also read: 15 best mobile phones in the world todayBut while the screen certainly is massive, the phone itself doesn’t seem gargantuan. The screen reaches the edge of the chassis nicely, and the four buttons on the front of the HTC Desire are almost flush and set in attractive aluminium.If you’re looking for comparisons between this and the Nexus One, the first is highly obvious: the trackball is gone. HTC has given the phone the Terminator eye once more (head back to the HTC Legend review if you want to know why we’re glad it doesn’t glow red and threaten humanity) which is basically an optical trackpad that registers finger motion over the sensor.The phone is very slim indeed, with dimensions of 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm, and weighs in at just 133g. If you’re counting, that’s 2g heavier than the iPhone 3G and the exact same weight as the iPhone 3GS – and that makes it very pocket friendly indeed.It has a rubberised chassis, which is a little hard to grip at times. We’re not talking so slippy you’ll be dropping it all the time, but it still can be a little difficult to hold in one hand, especially if you have dinky digits.That said it sits very nicely in the hand, with a sumptuous curved chassis feeling very nice and making it easy to press the buttons on the front with the thumb.There’s actually very little button-wise on the HTC Desire, with only six in all. The front four buttons are standard HTC Android fare (Home, Menu, Back and Search) and the Terminator optical trackpad also clicks in as an enter key.The up/down button on the left-hand side of the phone is flush to the chassis, as is the power button on the top – which sits next to the 3.5mm headphone jack atop the HTC Desire. The power button also functions as the lock key, and is very nicely placed to press whenever necessary (and trust us, we’ve seen some horrors; we’re looking at you, Samsung Galaxy).That’s it button-wise, as there’s no camera key (instead the HTC Desire uses the trackpad to take a snap or two) which is a little sad – we still love a dedicated shutter button.The USB slot is hidden at the bottom – no cover to keep the dust out, but on the plus side it’s once again microUSB, banishing the memory of the horrid miniUSB port from HTC designs of old.There’s also a microSD card slot for extra memory – but that’s hidden below the battery, and can’t be taken out without turning off the phone.The screen is simply to die for – we mentioned it was an OLED capacitive effort earlier, but that brings such glorious colour reproduction and 3.7-inch is a great size for media and the internet on a phone. It’s a little tacky under the touch – the iPhone for instance feels a little smoother – but we’re being very, very picky with that, as it registers the slightest touch with ease.The design is sleek, and the Desire certainly looks the business – sleek and compact, while still showing off the power of the OLED screen. Yes, it lacks the style of the HTC Legend, but we think it more than makes up for that in function.In the boxHTC is excellent at keeping packaging minimal, and the Desire once again comes in a coffin-like box with the standard kit inside. This means a microUSB cable, which plugs into an adaptor to make a wall charger, and the standard headphones which double as a hands-free kit.HTC hasn’t seen fit to update these, but they’re functional and work well to use for calls and media, providing you don’t have the same odd-shaped ears as us. There’s not a lot more, but with the minimal space in packaging you can see why HTC has kept the components down. We would like to see some PC software on a CD or memory card, but it can be downloaded from the site with ease.The HTC Desire is rocking the latest Sense UI on top of Android 2.1, and if you’re looking for the best reason why this phone is, in our opinion, far and away better than its Google Nexus One clone, this is it.It simply works, and HTC has cooked in a few extra surprises as well (providing you haven’t played with the HTC Legend as well).The premise is simple – seven home screens (three each side of the default option) which can be customised with widgets, icons and apps as you see fit, to create a totally unique experience for each user.It’s the same principle Android 2.1 is built on, but HTC has added in a number of its own widgets and options to make things that little bit more special.The large-display clock is included as a default, and below that is the weather in your location (drawn from cellular triangulation data rather than the GPS chip). The weather will also flick across the screen too, which is also cool – if it’s sunny the screen will shine, rainy and a windscreen wiper clears the water drops, foggy and the screen goes cloudy. If you’re showing the phone to someone that’s never really seen a smartphone before, they’ll think they’ve seen a phone from Narnia when you whip this feature out. Android is a cool OS, because of the level of customisation on offer. If you want to add a widget, simply long-press the screen and a list of programs, widgets and folders will be presented to you.HTC’s widgets include Favourite friends (updated contact profiles from the phonebook and Facebook if enabled) and the Friendstream app, which draws in info from Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.These, like so many others, are offered in small, medium and full screen options, enabling you to keep space on your precious home screen allocation to a minimum.If you want to get rid of anything, then you simply long-press on the icon and the rubbish bin comes up, enabling you to drop it in there and get rid of it – we wish it was this easy on Nokia’s Symbian phones, like the Nokia X6.This method also allows you to re-arrange the icons in the places you want or shift them around too.Another desperately cool-but-pointless feature in Android 2.1 is the addition of Live Wallpapers. These are backgrounds to the home screen that react to a number of stimuli – be it your finger, music or simply the time of day.Our favourite is (humorously) called Nexus: basically, it’s a set of coloured lights running across a grid – tap the screen and dozens more explode out under your finger.Utterly, utterly pointless and probably a tiny bit battery-draining… but we still cleared a home screen of widgets just so we could play with it.Search throughout the phone be it music tracks, text messages from a friend, or any file type is available simply by hitting the search key twice to call up ‘Quick Search’.It’s very similar to the iPhone’s Spotlight option, but in our opinion it works faster and more comprehensively.And the final cool thing offered by the new Sense UI from HTC on the Desire – Leap View. Basically, pinch the screen in using multi-touch (yep, that’s supported too) and you’ll be able to see all seven screens at once. Very handy if you’re over on the far right screen and you want to check the weather on the far left – pinch and prod and you’re there.Leap View actually highlights the power of the HTC Desire really well – the processor chugging away under the hood.From the simple swipe to web page panning, the Desire will react to any touch you throw at it no matter how hard you push the OS. Heck, even the weather widget spins through the different cities on offer with speed – we’ve never seen that before from HTC.It’s not that different from other HTC phones, as the Taiwanese company is adept at making its processors work well – but it means there’s never a hint of slowdown.Basically, the interface on the HTC Desire is great because it just does what you want it to do. Combining the cool elements of Android (like being able to drag down from the top of the screen to see notifications) with widgets and changeable Scenes (the icons rearrange depending on what time of day or week it is so you can set Work or Home or whichever mode you want) the HTC Desire’s interface is simply tops.Often when we review a phone and we move to the calling section, it’s a very easy task to explain. You press a button, select a name and call. Hang up after, if you want. But the HTC Desire just blows that concept out the water. You get such a plethora of options for the contact information, and the call quality and reception is great.ContactsThe main thing to know about the phonebook on the HTC Desire is the sheer volume of information you can throw in there. You can link a name with their Google account, Facebook, Flickr, Exchange… oh and the phone number too.Basically, when you turn the Desire on for the first time, you’re asked to log into Google, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr (and T-Mobile’s email service on our test device).Not only does this give you access to your Gmail and populate Peep (the Desire’s inbuilt Twitter application) it adds all the names from Facebook and Google contacts into the address book.Now, here comes the science – you can then link the information all together. The phone will search for common phone numbers and email addresses, and link these profiles automatically – which is cool enough.But then you’re left with around 300 names that should go together, but aren’t – a very time consuming task ahead.Well, HTC has thought of this and while the problem isn’t completely solved, there’s help at hand.Basically, the Desire will search through names and addresses and look for common themes and offer them as suggested links in the top right-hand corner of the screen – making linking a very swift process 99% of the time.Yes, it takes around 30 minutes to set it up when you get the phone, but trust us – it’s worth it.From the linked profile, you get to see call history, Facebook updates, Flickr and Facebook photos, email conversations you’ve shared – simply by sliding your finger across the bottom of the screen along a different selection of icons.Again, we’re talking slick here – the HTC Desire never gives in and won’t judder at all during this process, even when it’s updating and populating.However, there are a couple of issues – when you’ve linked up all your contacts, for some reason they split into two alphabetised groups in the phonebook list – we have no idea why.And we’d like to be able to fire off a Facebook message directly from the profile – we can do it on the Motorola Dext and the INQ Chat 3G, why can’t we do it here?CallingThe HTC Desire was a little temperamental the first time we tried calling – it basically just hung there and then disconnected the call, which worried us a little bit.But after that, it was plain sailing – quick connections and easy dialling. The ‘Phone’ tab is prominent on all the home screens, and pulls up the most recently called contacts as well as the number pad.You can also use the dialler as a T9 dictionary to tap in a contact’s name and it will be pushed to the top of the list – a feature nabbed from HTC’s Windows Mobile days.Connection as we said was pretty flawless, although we did have trouble shaking the HTC Desire off roaming networks at times.Basically, it will sniff out an alternative network for data and voice at times – which is great for maintaining signal for calls.But if you want high speed 3G data, that’s not going to happen when roaming; but even when we knew we’d moved into a high 3G signal area, it struggled to jump back.Not a major problem, but slightly irritating nonetheless.The more important flipside of that is the HTC Desire is great when you suddenly pop back into signal – ie when you emerge from a tube. Within seconds you’re up and running again with a good few bars – we know that’s important to a number of users.Like calling, messaging can be a boring experience on some phones. But the HTC Desire offers a number of ways to stay in contact with your buddies, no matter which way you want to chat.First of all, let’s talk keyboards – the HTC touchscreen option is without par in our opinion (the same for the both the Legend and the Desire).It’s frighteningly intuitive, and it learns as it goes along – if you use a word often it will remember it and default to it when the relevant keystrokes come along.And if you’re taking your first worrying steps into button-less keyboards, we couldn’t recommend this option more highly. You can deviate miles from the intended buttons, and nine times out of 10 the Desire will work out the word you wanted by default.And thanks to a large and expansive screen, the Desire is even easier to type on than the Legend.Messaging is handled in a number of intuitive ways – from threaded conversations for SMS text messages to high end Exchange support.Your inbox is divided into conversations with contacts, and you can simply tap in to see what’s been said. If you want to convert a text into an MMS, you simply add in elements like pictures, sound or a contact card – light years ahead of having to remember a number and tap it into a text.Twitter is also well-used through the Peep application – one of the issues with the HTC Legend was the @replies took a long time to update and wouldn’t appear, even if you’re notified there is one.Thankfully the latter has been fixed with the HTC Desire, although it can take a while to find out someone has tried to Tweet at you.Google Talk is also included as standard, allowing you to chat to your buddies online. Sadly there’s no integration for Windows Messenger or similar out the box, and we’re sure we’re not alone in never having many of our friends on Google Talk at any one time.As we mentioned email is a big part of this phone too – be it Gmail, POP3/IMAP webmail accounts or Exchange.All three are easy to set up, with a few details all that’s necessary for the HTC Desire to sniff out the relevant settings.Exchange email is set up in the traditional inbox format, but sliding the finger along the icons at the bottom takes you to files with attachment and conversations, making it easy again to see what’s been said in the chat so far.Email addresses are highlighted within the mail itself so you can tap and use them – you can do the same with phone numbers, but these aren’t highlighted.Well, we say you can do the same, as it works for strings of numbers, but if there are spaces present the HTC Desire can’t work out the full number to use.You can choose the speed at which mail is pushed to the device from all these accounts, from Push email to timed downloading to only updating when manually forced to do so.There’s no lag at all with push email – and it just works well. We know we keep saying that, but it’s a constant theme with the HTC Desire.A couple of very minor issues with the Desire’s messaging system – you can’t save SMS messages to the microSD card (though you can to the SIM card) and you have to delete POP3 messages separately; you can’t do it all at once to clear an inbox.HTC has been working long and hard on its Android internet browser, and has continued to update it to keep it in line with the top level on offer with today’s smartphones.The LG Arena managed to have a full HTML browser with pinch and zoom navigation, but it was slow and clunky, so it’s not a given that chucking in multi-touch will sort everything out.But the HTC Desire’s browser is tip top – pinching and zooming takes you in and out at superb speeds, and the text reflow software on the Desire is brilliant, like its HTC brothers.Basically you can keep moving in further and further on the words, and the phone will keep reformatting the columns to fit the screen – it makes reading the longer articles very easy indeed.The WVGA, 3.7-inch screen also look immense – zoomed out, you can see a huge amount of the web page, and in high detail as well.The web browser also has copy and paste as standard too – simply long press on any bit of text and two little draggable pins will appear to select the text you want (with a little magnifying pane to help things out).Like we’ve said before – this is a little bit iPhone-like, and we wouldn’t be surprised if Apple included it in its current lawsuit against the Taiwanese firm.Flash video is also present and very much correct on the HTC Desire. We navigated to a number of different websites with embedded video, and the HTC Desire showed the content within the browser or via a dedicated Flash browser.We did encounter a slight issue – Flash video didn’t want to work properly on the higher end sites and content. It wouldn’t support iPlayer for example, and video on the BBC website was juddery.Channel 4 On Demand on YouTube wouldn’t work either – but other videos on the Google-owned video site functioned fine.Either way this will likely be fixed in the next couple of months – Flash 10.1 is on its way for Android and should make all Flash video fine to use.Bookmarking on the HTC Desire is also pretty darn cool – the visual thumbnails, based on the latest website content from your last visit, are a nice way of navigating through your favourites.And if you forget to tag a favourite site, slide your finger along the bottom to find your most visited sites and history – making it easy to find oft-visited sites.Other little titbits from the HTC Desire browser include easy downloading of images by simply long-pressing the image and selecting save.You can also share text you’ve copy and pasted to the likes of SMS and Facebook – or the whole web address of the page you’re looking at instead.This is also really helpful for the integrated Peep Twitter app – if you see something you want to tell your buddies about and you’re only three taps away from doing so.The HTC Desire shows another progression for Taiwanese company the camera is now streets ahead of previous models.Be it the poor efforts of the HTC Magic and G1, or the odd halo effect on the Hero, HTC has never been one for camera power.But the 5MP snapper on the HTC Desire will turn even the most mundane mo-pho (mobile photographer, of course) into a click-happy junkie.We’re not saying that the HTC Desire is the equal of anything like the Sony Ericsson Satio or the LG Viewty Smart, but the 5MP effort is easily as good as you’ll need on a mobile camera.The camera interface has been overhauled for the new version of Sense as well, with a number of options to tweak to improve your photos.Options for brightness, contrast, saturation and sharpness are all altered by spinning dials on the screen (brought out by a simple touch on the menu tab).You can also mess about with the ISO settings, geo-tagging, face detection and more as well as sepia, negative and posterise effects among others.And the thing is all these elements make a difference photos can genuinely be enhanced by playing with these settings.LIGHT AND BRIGHT: The HTC Desire performs well in sunshine, with lots of detail and minimal washing outForeground focus:Background focus:ALTERED VIEW: Simply pressing on separate sections of the screen to take a snap makes a big difference to the brightness of a photoWASHED OUT: Detail in brighter light can sometimes be a little washed out on the HTC DesireWIDELY ACCEPTED: The Desire does well at picking out the full gamut of detail in panorama viewsAUTO-MACRO: The Desire has no macro mode, but the auto focus more than makes up for it, with impressive clarityFLASH, AAAAAH: Even in near total darkness, the flash is brilliant on the HTC Desire, focusing and lighting evenlyWith high saturation:With low saturation:With high contrast:With low contrast:With high sharpness:With low sharpness:OBVIOUS EFFECTS: Messing around with the saturation, sharpness and contrast of the camera on the HTC Desire shows real differences in the snaps – these options aren’t just gimmicksWhile we’re still lamenting the loss of the dedicated shutter button, the optical trackball is a good secondary option for taking snaps.The camera automatically keeps refocusing on the scene in front of it, which negates the need for a half-press on the shutter key to bring the picture into sharpness.You can either take a snap by pressing the optical trackpad, or long pressing on the screen – focusing and adjusting the white balance depending on your chosen area.The latter option has been tweaked somewhat over recent versions, and a longer press is better as it means you don’t accidentally set the camera off when trying to point to a section for the camera to focus on.The video recorder comes in a variety of formats both resolution and recording codec.You can take video in QVGA (320 x 240), CIF (352 x 288), VGA (DVD quality, 640 x 480) or WVGA (800 x 480), and all four can be recorded to MP4 or H.263 formats, with the resulting file appearing as 3GP. We’re told that the HTC Desire records at 30fps, but as you’ll see from the test video that seems a little far reaching. It’s actually clocked at 15fps, but that’s dynamic – the phone will increase the rate to over 20fps in other lighting conditions.HTC is also only allowing audio recording to AMR, rather than the superior-quality AAC (which is supported by the Snapdragon processor). We’re thinking this is something that may be tweaked in future updates, but isn’t going to matter to most users in day to day action.Some people we’ve spoken to have lamented the fact the HTC Desire doesn’t have HD video recording as on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz we don’t think it’s necessary on a mobile phone, especially when you have to wedge it into a chassis the width of a pencil.It might improve resolution somewhat, but it’s not that noticeable on the phone screen or when ported out to a larger display, so we don’t think the Desire should be marked down for leaving it out.The HTC Desire is an upgrade in the media department over the HTC Legend for a number of reasons – the first being the fact it has an upgraded audio performance in the shape of Dolby Mobile enhancement.This isn’t mentioned in the settings or anything, which makes us wonder if it’s a big part of the audio experience – but in comparative tests, it seems to offer a richer bass sound and a nice mid range too.The music player is the same decent effort as seen on other HTC phones – it features large, easy-to-hit buttons on the main player and cover art that you can swipe through in both portrait and landscape modes.Navigating through tracks is segmented into Artists, Albums, Tracks, Genres and more, with the option to look at your purchased tracks as well – although we’re yet to find out which store you’re meant to purchase them from.You can select the different methods of track navigation by simply sliding your finger along the bottom of the screen, as is common throughout the Sense UI.The HTC Desire packs a 3.5mm headphone port as you might expect, but this is curved and not flush to the chassis – which leaves a section of the headphone jack uncovered. It doesn’t affect the performance of the phone, but it does leave your headphones exposed to possible damage.The main music player is easy to use and works quickly on the HTC Desire – the 1GHz processor powering things along nicely under the hood meant there was very little track stutter or skipping when trying to browse through the phone’s library.The video player is, once again, hidden in the photos section. We don’t know why, and HTC haven’t been able to furnish us with a decent reason either – but at least the icon hints at it with a little video picture.The photo and video gallery is easy enough to navigate too – you can see your files as images, camera shots and downloaded pictures, and the video is divided up into recorded movies and those you’ve slung onto the memory card.Swishing through your photos is a really pleasant experience too thanks to the processor – it renders the images snappily and without a hint of slowdown, so you’re not looking at a pixellated version of your mug for too long.VideoThe video is predictably sublime on the HTC Desire – you can imagine if you add widescreen VGA resolution to a 3.7-inch OLED display with a 1GHz processor the movies will look sumptuous.There’s sadly no dedicated GPU on board as far as we can tell, but that doesn’t seem to matter too much when it comes to watching videos.UPDATE: Apparently the HTC Desire does have a GPU, although we’re still trying to pin down which is is as HTC hasn’t released the full specs. But it does explain the great video and Google Earth performance (which we urge you to download).The screen is a perfect size for watching video, and if you add in a Bluetooth headset, it’s a great experience to wirelessly skim through some videos. Talking of which, you can slide your finger through the movie by simply dragging it along the bottom bar and it will jump instantly to the right point in the movie – just as you’d expect.However, there is a problem with the Bluetooth side of things, which worries us slightly. When using the new Jabra Clipper Bluetooth device (which allows you to use your own headphones wirelessly) the sound stuttered when using the music application. It wasn’t apparent when watching video, and it was a lot better than on the Legend, but it still niggled somewhat that we couldn’t have flawless Bluetooth performance.YouTube is also included in the Google stable of applications with the HTC Desire, and it works just fine, especially over Wi-Fi.Using this connection it automatically seeks out the highest quality video, and that looked great on the WVGA screen.It didn’t like connecting as well over 3G at times, despite having a couple of bars of signal – although this was a rare occurrence.The FM radio included was of average quality – it scanned and found all the major radio stations when first turned on, but sometimes struggled for clear signal. It also took an age to turn on, and there’s no RDS, meaning you have to name all the stations yourself, which is slightly irritating.We’d have also liked to see the option to record radio as well, as is present on the Samsung range (such as seen on the Samsung Jet).Overall though this is a powerful media device, and with an 8GB memory card in the box (expandable up to 32GB) it’s a phone that has a load of media potential.The battery in the HTC Desire was ‘only’ a 1400mAh effort – we’d have like to see a 1500mAh option there, as is the case with so many other smartphones at the moment.We’re also a little concerned about the battery life – it dropped rather quickly, and although you’ll get a day’s worth of use out of it under normal use (ie web browsing, calling etc) it can drop a little alarmingly fast at times.We had a little look at what was munching on the power so much (thanks to the Android battery meter) and it seems to be the widgets (in particular FriendStream) and synchronising that’s taking a lot of the power, along with the constant flicking to roaming networks and back to 3G.We found a big increase in battery life if we stopped updating Peep, Friendstream and emails all day long, and when set to ‘2G networks only’ the battery life also improved to three days’ use without problem.We’d also advise you download Advanced Task Killer from the App Market – it’s a great way of shutting down running programs and thus saving you a lot of battery life.We’re used to having to charge a smartphone every day, so we don’t see this as much of a problem, and it’s good there are options to extend the battery life if you want it to last longer.Google Maps, as you can imagine, is included as standard – we urge you to upgrade to GMaps 4.1 as soon as possible.Basically, this has overhauled the UI so you can swipe through categories when clicking on an address – you can see information and reviews much more easily than before.The GPS signal also locked on very fast with the HTC Desire, making finding yourself on a map very easy.The UK still isn’t deemed worthy enough to have the Google Navigation feature as yet, and we’re starting to doubt if we’ll ever have it, especially if it’s a legal issue for Google.It’s a shame, as this could be a great Sat Nav with the bright and clear screen to play with – and the Nexus One is clearly set up to be just that in the US.There’s one last cool surprise with Google Maps 4.1: a new live wallpaper.You set it up, and suddenly the background shifts to where you are, highlighted by a little dot.And if you’re friends are nearby and logged into Latitude, you can see that as well – creepy but handy if you don’t want to have keep logging into maps to see what’s going on in your area.The HTC Desire packs the usual range of Android connectivity – Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, aGPS, 7.2Mbps HSDPA – the works.The Wi-Fi is as good to set up as ever, and whenever you walk into range of a remembered network the HTC Desire will automatically connect.It’s better at maintaining signal than the HTC Legend, which as we mentioned before had a few issues connecting to Wi-Fi on the odd occasion.Bluetooth is similarly good, with both methods of connection offering the same easy to use UI – basically turn it on and a list of connections pops up.Simply tapping on these will link you in – no faffing about with separate screens for passwords or codes, it’s all done on the same screen and once connected, Bluetooth will also auto-connect with devices in range.GPS as we mentioned before is solid, allowing you to not only flick around Google Maps with ease but also geo-tag your photos in you’re into that kind of thing.The PC software was once again not present – downloading HTC Sync found the phone and registered it under the Desire name, but failed to synchronise or connect to actually back up the data.At least you can perform this function on the phone by backing up data to the memory card – that way if the phone crashes and loses all its data (or you delete something important in a drunken fug) you can back it up.AppsThere are a variety of applications offered on the phone from the start, such as Facebook, a desk clock, PDF and QuickOffice as well as a motion-sensitive game in Teeter (which is a lot like labyrinth).But the Application Store is becoming a real force in the mobile applications space – it may only have 25% of the applications that are present on the Apple App Store at the moment, but Google has promised that it will have 130,000 apps on its books by the end of 2010.This means it will have more than enough apps to keep you occupied – and means that most of the big brands will probably have brought an application to the Android as well.Considering that most will have this phone for two years, the fact the application Market might not be as well populated as the App Store isn’t as big a deal – there are a lot of applications missing at the moment, but that will likely change in the next few months.One of the problems is still not being able save applications to memory card – this means developers have to make games small, and therefore low function.This should change in a near-future update to Android, thus opening up the application Market to a wider range of developers, and making applications a lot more interesting.The HTC Desire is a feature-rammed phone with the hardware to support it. It’s got a huge screen with the 1GHz processor underneath, and the Sense UI is a system that keeps getting better with every iteration.Coming just after the HTC Legend, it improves on all the issues we saw with that (battery life, Peep and Friendstream slow to update etc) and adds in some decent extra hardware as well.We likedWe liked nearly every single thing on the HTC Desire – it just works as you want it to as a phone and an internet tablet at the same time.The Sense UI, Leap View and social network integration is all seamless and useful, the Live Wallpapers are super cool and the internet browser with pinch to zoom is fantastic.Music and video playback was rich and simple, the camera is probably the best we’ve seen from HTC, the overall experience was fast and intuitive – in short it’s easier to find things we didn’t like.We dislikedWe’ll level with you – there’s not a lot wrong with this phone. The Bluetooth music playback is a little patchy and the battery will drop a little easily if you leave everything updating in the background.Although the latter is a little annoying out the box (HTC wants you to use lots of updating widgets from the start) once you take some things down (or set them to manually update) the battery use is a lot better.VerdictIn short, this is a phenomenal phone – one of the best we’ve ever had on TechRadar. Usually when we like a phone on the first use, we end up horribly disappointed after a little time with it, but the HTC Desire kept on performing and achieving when we thought it wouldn’t.The screen is lovely, the design is slick and processor makes everything happen in a flash – all you’d want from a smartphone.Sure, some people will want slightly nicer design (we’d advise you check out the Legend) or a simpler home screen and richer app store at the moment (look at the iPhone 3GS) but as a piece of hardware it’s without par in the mobile world.A stunning phone, and one that will show the world that Android isn’t just for the hackers and phone geeks any more.Related LinksTechRadar’s Reviews GuaranteeMore mobile phone reviewsRelated StoriesReview: LG Chocolate BL20Review: Acer Liquid S100Review: Nokia E72Review: HTC HD MiniReview: Nokia 5230

Review: Samsung Genio Slide
Samsung has fused elements of both the Genio Touch and the Genio QWERTY to come up with a hybrid device the Genio Slide.The Samsung Genio Slide combines a 2.8-inch touchscreen display and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and sports the colourful swappable back panels and youth-targeted features with an emphasis on social networking that mark the previous Genio models. However, the Genio Slide packs a far more powerful feature punch than its Genio mates and consequently has much wider appeal. Unlike its predecessors, the Genio Slide is a 3G-enabled handset, with high-speed HSDPA mobile data support (up to 7.2Mbps) and Wi-Fi connectivity built in. It also has A-GPS satellite-based location finding onboard.Cranking up the downloading and uploading speeds opens up the Genio Slide’s potential for a quicker and more enjoyable online media experience than the EDGE/GPRS-only Genio Touch and Genio QWERTY. For instance, as well as faster applications such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, in the UK the Genio Slide comes with a BBC iPlayer app already installed, offering live and catch-up TV and radio programmes. It also has pre-loaded links to mobile TV streaming services.Onboard 3G also allows for video calling on this model, with a front-facing camera complementing the main 3.2-megapixel camera on the back of the phone.In addition, Samsung aims to keep mobile music listeners happy by providing a standard 3.5mm headphone socket on top of the bodywork.The review sample we tested also arrived with a 2GB MicroSD card included in the box, and memory cards up to 16GB are supported.Initially, the Samsung Genio Slide is debuting in the UK for free on contract deals and 120 on pay as you go, where it’s currently being offered by Vodafone and Tesco Mobile.Like the others in the Genio series, the Genio Slide has a smooth, curvy build, similar to recent Korean offerings, like the Samsung Jet and Samsung Blade. The Genio Slide has a broader girth, thanks to the sliding keyboard tucked away behind the screen, but the phone’s dimensions at 105(h) x 56.9(w) x 15.68(d) mm and 135g give it a compact and solid feel. It’s impressive that despite it bringing a full QWERTY keyboard, it’s no pocket bulger, so you won’t get anyone asking if you’re pleased to see them.Pitching for the youth vote, the Samsung Genio Slide comes with swappable ‘Fashion Jacket’ back panels, adding a bit of customisation potential for would-be buyers. Three of the clip-on covers are included in-box with our sample we got a business-like black cover, plus two white ones, one with a retro swirly pattern on it. It’s hardly a deal-maker, but some users may welcome the chance to get away from the normal black touchscreen look and go a bit funk-a-delic.From the front, though, the Samsung Genio Slide does have an archetypal Samsung touchscreen design it’s glossy black minimalist, with just Call, End and a central Menu button under the display. The 2.8-inch QVGA (240×320 pixels) touchscreen display is a resistive type rather than a higher-end iPhone 3GS-like capacitive one, so doesn’t have multi-touch and the smooth flowing action of Apple’s headliner. The 2.8-inch screen isn’t as lengthy as some we’ve seen and its wider dimensions are similar to those of the Samsung Blade.Around the sides is a familiar combination of camera, screen lock/unlock and volume/zoom controls, plus a Micro-USB port and that useful 3.5mm headphone socket on the top of the phone.The slide-out QWERTY keyboard is the real design eye-catcher though. While not exactly novel for a touchscreen phone, it’s still quite rare at this sort of price point. The sprung slider action is smooth and easy but feels firm in place ready for twin-thumb tapping. Slipping it out immediately switches the screen orientation from portrait to landscape. The metallic red keypad uses almost the length of the slider tray, so despite minimal gaps between them, the 42 buttons on the keypad have sufficient room. Keys are slightly contoured to differentiate between them as you’re typing away, and the key action is responsive. It’s possible for finger tapping messages while resting on a desk, though we expect thumb-typing in-hand will be the favoured input method for most people.We found the keypad accurate enough for brisk, fluent typing of messages, and generally we had no major gripes about its user-friendliness. Keys are sensibly arranged and labelled well enough, and the Samsung Genio Slide also contains a couple of keys for quickly opening up new messages or launching the browser.As with any phone keyboard, it takes a little getting used to if you want to improve your speed. Initially we didn’t find it quite as comfortable as the larger (and much more expensive) Nokia N97 Mini, for instance and the Samsung text input system occasionally doesn’t feel as intuitive when you’re adding punctuation. But very quickly we got decent thumb-typing speeds up on it. The Samsung Genio Slide uses a version of the TouchWiz user interface Samsung has rolled out on many of its touchscreen models, which incorporates onscreen widgets for the phone’s home screen. Brought up onscreen by a tap of the central menu button or one of three onscreen buttons at the foot of the display (marked Keypad, Phonebook and Menu), the main menu system is arranged in familiar grid formation. Rather than one menu screen, however, there are three main menu screens, with up to 12 icons on each screen representing applications and features (again similar to the Samsung Jet). Users can slide between screens with a sideways finger stroke, bringing a nicely usable spread of features to hand without having to delve too deeply into sub-menus to find useful apps. As well as being visually attractive, it’s more intuitive to see key apps laid out like this.The main menu icons can easily be rearranged to suit how you use the phone, so you can cluster certain applications together if you prefer. Four buttons remain consistently at the base of the display as you swipe through the main menu Keypad, Phonebook, Messages and Exit giving handy access to core functions. The resistive touchscreen responds well enough to finger action. The user interface allows enough room for fingers to select and scroll without any major mis-pressing issues. The screen isn’t as slick to the touch as the iPhone 3GS or the HTC Legend or other higher end models, and doesn’t gave the kinetic scrolling feel of such devices, but it isn’t noticeably laggy, and haptic feedback acknowledges presses. It feels comfortable enough to use without being particularly whizzy. We’d have preferred visible scroll bars in some sub-menu lists (these appear only when you’re scrolling) so that you don’t miss options as you flick through, but otherwise the menu system was straightforward to handle in a functional way.Users can choose whether to install widgets on the home screen or not. A variety of widgets can be selected from a pop-out toolbar on the side of the display (or bottom if the phone’s held sideways with the keyboard out). They can be dragged onto the main area of the screen, enabling users to open up and use plenty of applications and services directly from the home screen. As many widgets as are available can be placed on the home screen though practically, users will probably limit these to avoid clutter.Like other Samsung touchscreen phones, the home screen set-up actually comprises three linked home screen pages that can be flicked between using a simple swipe of the finger. This allows users enough screen space to arrange as many widgets as they fancy without the compact screen looking too busy and users can choose to arrange home screen widgets under the three pages as effectively separate ‘categories’. It adds a bit of flexibility, although you can’t copy the same widgets to more than one of the home screen pages at any one time. Out of the box, there are around 30 application widgets you can bring up onscreen. These range from functional features such as various clocks, calendar, memo and profile functions to music player, Wi-Fi, FM radio and photo viewer controls. In addition, there’s a range of widgets for online apps. These range from the BBC’s iPlayer service to a host of social network and content sharing services including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Bebo and so on. These provide fast access to services for uploading content, managing accounts and updating profiles. Other online services include an AccuWeather.com weather forecasting app, Bloomberg news, and a More Widgets app to help you find and download additional widgets for free directly from Samsung.The widget interface is very intuitive and easy to operate. A tap of the screen opens up the widgets toolbar, from which you can drag and drop any number of widgets with a finger stroke, swap them around in seconds and re-do any time you fancy. They can provide regular updates on the home screen from social networking sites and enable you to manage accounts and profiles quickly and easily using the native applications. Other widgets provide access to useful information and shortcuts to activate or control functions (such as music, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth activation) straight from the home screen, potentially reducing finger work for many functions you regularly use.From the home screen or main menu, it’s simple to make calls either by tapping the onscreen phonebook or keypad buttons, as appropriate, or selecting your recent call log by tapping the Call button beneath the display. You can dial using the slide-out keyboard too, tapping the top row number buttons in standby.The phonebook can be browsed with a speed-scrolling tab that enables you to jump through contacts by initial letter, or you can tap in names using the (real or soft) keyboard in a similar way to the LG Intouch Max GW620.There are multiple fields for contact details in the phonebook which provide for a variety of work and personal information to be added.Doing the basics of making and taking calls, the Samsung Genio Slide delivers an assured performance, providing good quality audio reception at a consistently high level. We had no issues or complaints from those receiving calls during our tests. Network reliability on our Vodafone-optimised sample was as good as we needed it connected when needed without problems.Naturally, with a sizeable QWERTY keyboard slipping out from the side, messaging ability is one of the key selling points of the Genio Slide. As mentioned previously, the smooth keyboard action and sensibly sized layout make it a comfortable, accurate and speedy text tapping experience. Directional arrow keys also aid corrections to text or inserting words rather than having to rely on accurate touchscreen pressing mid-word.You can type out messages without sliding out the keyboard. Instead, a soft phone-style numberpad appears onscreen, which works pretty efficiently. Unlike on some longer screen handsets, the number keys don’t spread the full width of the screen a row of control buttons are on the right of the 3, 6 and 9 keys but there is still adequate finger space to avoid mis-hitting buttons. We found it easy enough to operate. Predictive text guesses what you’re typing and presents options to complete words, though you can switch this off if you prefer. Samsung addresses the correction/word insertion issue for touchscreen phone by using a directional arrow option among the control keys so users can position the cursor quickly and accurately without requiring pinpoint finger pressing accuracy on the touchscreen. It’s a decent system maybe not as quick for speed texters as a regular phone, but it’s good for a touchscreen phone with this 2.8-inch screen size.Also included are two onscreen handwriting input options, which work reasonably well if not effortlessly smoothly; as usual, a bit of practice helps pin down accuracy.Email is supported on the phone, although the email wizard on our review sample didn’t provide fully automatic settings installation we still had to input POP3 and SMTP server details as well as email account name, password and username. We were also very impressed that Microsoft Exchange, via ActiveSync, was supported on the phone as well; work emails for 120 is a pretty good value offering.The email user interface is fairly standard issue for a mid-level Samsung touchscreen phone. It’s no replacement for a BlackBerry and isn’t as sophisticated as some smartphone offerings, but it does enable you to view emails, create your own and manage your account. Account and messaging options are mainly menu-based though there are onscreen buttons for the basics of operating the messaging system.Email attachments are supported, with onboard document viewer software enabling you to look at PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint and Excel documents. This viewer app also allows documents sideloaded to the phone or slipped in on a memory card to be viewed onscreen (although editing isn’t possible).The Genio Slide supports instant messaging too, with a Palringo IM software client pre-installed that works with all the major IM services, enabling you to keep contacts all on one list, get updates on status, share content and location information.The Genio Slide is stocked with a good helping of online applications, with its bundle of social networking applications complemented by some useful additional applications such as BBC iPlayer. The iPlayer works very tidily over Wi-Fi connections, enabling users to view live TV and listen to radio shows online, and to catch up with radio and TV shows via its streaming service, with decent quality video playback.The Genio Slide uses Samsung’s Webkit-based Dolfin Browser v1.5, and with both HSDPA 3G connectivity (up to 7.2Mbps) and Wi-Fi onboard, users can enjoy a swift browsing experience. The touchscreen control button presents an intuitive user interface for a mobile phone browser. It doesn’t match up to the iPhone in terms of slick usability, but it does better than most browsers of its budget touchscreen class, and it does support Flash Lite. Occasionally, however, we did get ‘memory full’ messages when loading larger webpages – irritating and harking back to the earlier, darker days of touchscreen phones when breathing on the device would send it into a RAM-crushing frenzy.Its controls include an address bar, forward and back buttons plus reload and bookmark buttons, while you can scroll with a finger movement or zoom in and out with a long finger press onscreen, then moving up or down. It’s not pinch-to-zoom smooth but does the job in an unfussy way. As you’d expect, the browser can be viewed in full landscape mode too, plus there’s an RSS reader function in the software (accessible by the menu).The Samsung Genio Slide’s 3.2-megapixel camera has a very user-friendly touchscreen user interface consistent with Samsung’s higher-grade cameraphones but its fixed focus shooter is a middle of the range shooter in terms of overall image quality.The camera takes only a couple of seconds to fire up from standby, with a press of the side-mounted camera button. The camera automatically switches into landscape view, with eight control icons dotted either side of the display.The camera has a reasonable set of function options for this grade of snapper it incorporates functions such as a Smile Shot (when engaged it waits to spot a smile before the snap is taken), multi-shot shooting, and a rather neat motion sensor accelerometer-aided panorama shooting mode that stitches together shots with barely any effort from the user.A bunch of modes are available for different kinds of lighting environments or shooting situations including a night mode and sports mode for fast moving objects. Timer and brightness controls are included, plus regular settings adjustments for white balance and a series of colour-tint effects.You can use image editing software to tweak snaps and add post-shooting effects, text, captions, clip art and so on, with easy to use onscreen toolsOUTDOORS: The Samsung Genio Slide has a fixed focus 3.2-megapixel camera that offers a decent user interface but limited shooting performance. Images are reasonable for this sort of camera but detail and quality are limitedTONES: Colour reproduction is rich for snaps, and it handles tones reasonably well, though the shot appears slightly softNATURAL LIGHT: Again, it produces colourful snaps with a decent tonal range, but it is somewhat soft where you may be expecting crisper detailCLOUDY DAY: It takes reasonable shots in murky conditions, dealing effectively with changing contrast and lighting conditionsFOLIAGE: The lack of focus control means you have to shoot and hope when it comes to getting objects in focus. Here, the colours look acceptably vivid, but it’s not capable of selecting the foreground branches to be in focusOVERCAST: Taken in subdued overcast conditions, colours look fine, though there is a bit of burn out of the trees against the sky in the background ARTIFICIAL LIGHT: Without any sort of flash or LED illumination shots taken inside in artificial light are soft and unsatisfactoryLOW LIGHT: In darker conditions, like this shot in the early evening, the camera is unable to produce more than a basic low quality shooting performance with grainy imagesPANORAMA: The panorama shooting mode works really well using the automatic motion sensor inside, the camera can quickly match up frames and stitch them together for easy panoramas. You can’t get full the highest quality images in this mode, howeverSPORTS MODE: There is a sports mode for capturing moving subjectsAs is common on mid-tier Samsungs, it’s also possible to upload images straight to online services and social networking sites all you have to do is select which you want from a pre-defined list of services.With a 3.2-megapixel camera with a fixed focus lens, you can’t expect superb shooting results, but for this grade of cameraphone, the Genio Slide puts in a respectable performance. Of course, with no focus control you can’t get beautifully focused compositions, but the camera is able to take decent snaps with naturally rich colour rendition, competent automatic handling of exposure and contrast plus a reasonable level of detail for this sort of camera.With no flash or photo light of any description, however, low light shooting isn’t great, and in dark environments results are poor.The Genio Slide can also capture video, although shooting at maximum QVGA quality (320×240 pixels) at 15 frames per second, it is limited in terms of playback quality. It’ll do for online uploads perhaps, but it’s pretty lacklustre low-grade phone level.Video playback on the Samsung Genio Slide’s large screen is acceptable. Of course, anyone who wants a richer media experience may prefer a larger, higher-grade touchscreen model, but it does an adequate job within its 2.8-inch QVGA limitations. It supports H.263, MPEG4, WMV, WAV and DivX file formats, and the media player user interface is very straightforward and simple to work.The BBC iPlayer application provides a pleasing entertainment extra too. It delivers radio and TV programmes from the BBC’s excellent online service direct to the handset via Wi-Fi (although sadly nothing from 3G). Streamed content from the online iPlayer service looks pretty good on the screen, although the Genio Slide’s screen ratio means the playback is slightly letterboxed. However, it’s another useful source of free online entertainment for Genio Slide buyers. Its user interface is simple to follow and operate, while a Widget option for the home screen allows you to access it quickly from standby.The music player’s controls are uncomplicated too. It supports MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WMA formats, and tracks can be downloaded over the air or sideloaded onto the phone, using supplied Samsung Kies software or synced with Windows Media Player on a PC using the in-box data cable. Alternatively, you can load tracks straight on to a MicroSD card and slip it in the music player software automatically adds tunes to its list of tracks. The 2GB MicroSD card supplied with the handset is particularly welcome, boosting the phone’s 100MB of onboard storage. MicroSDs of up to 16GB can be used with the handset. Bluetooth is also supported and can be used to transfer tracks.The music player doesn’t do anything particularly novel or eye-catching. Its UI is simple but is functional and works efficiently enough. Tracks are listed in familiar categories and the control includes large touch buttons plus a draggable timeline and cover art support for easy choon navigation.As with the Genio QWERTY and Genio Touch, Samsung has included a 3.5mm standard headphone socket on top of the phone, so users can easily plug in their own headphones if they want to upgrade the supplied earwear. Samsung has boxed a decent quality in-ear set of earphones with the Genio Slide, however, so you can get a very acceptable performance out of the box. Through the in-box ear-wear which comes as a two-piece headset with snug fitting plastic earbuds audio quality is pretty good, with a well-balanced range with good mid and high frequencies plus a substantial bass presence giving a decently rounded sound with plenty of dynamism.The phone also comes with a built in FM radio function; again it delivers a solid performance and is easy to tune and operate with an easy to follow touch user interface. It can also record sound clips from the radio as files you can listen back to later. A song identification application is also included which will sample tracks you hear on the radio and deliver details over the air back to the phone.This Find Music application can also be used with songs you hear around you, with the app slotted into one of the Main Menu screens.We got a decent battery performance out of the Genio Slide. It has plenty of functionality inside that can sap battery power, but it delivered an acceptable amount of juice during our tests. The 960mAh battery back is expected by Samsung to deliver up to 390 hours of standby time on 3G networks (or 560 hours in GSM-only coverage), or up to 230 minutes of talktime on 3G (490 minutes on GSM-only networks).We managed 2-3 days between charges with minimal Wi-Fi usage, though with more online activity we did find ourselves charging more frequently; how exactly you use the phone will determine what mileage you get before a refill is required.However, the Samsung Genio Slide outperformed much more expensive smartphones with nearly 40% larger batteries, so on that aspect alone it can’t be faulted.OrganiserThe Samsung Genio Slide packs a standard set of organiser tools for a Samsung mid-tier model. These include calendar, memo, voice recorder, task, calculator, convertor, world clock, calculator and world clock functions. There aren’t many gimmicky elements to the organiser tools; they’re generally functional and work effectively with the touchscreen interface, without much graphical eye-candy to distract.ConnectivityThe Samsung Genio Slide is a dual-band (900/2100 MHz) 3G handset, utilising HSDPA mobile data connectivity boasting data download of up to 7.2Mbps (although average real life speeds are always lower on any phone). Operating outside of 3G coverage, the phone is a quad-band GSM model (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), supporting lower speed EDGE and GPRS data connectivity.Higher speed 3G data connectivity may make the Genio Slide a much more attractive proposition than the Genio QWERTY or Genio Touch for those that want to use its online-focused services. But the addition of Wi-Fi really seals the deal on that score, providing high speed connectivity on home Wi-Fi networks, on office WLANs or via public Wi-Fi hotspots. It makes it a more versatile device than others in the Genio range, and can deliver a far more satisfactory experience and better services than those handsets.Bluetooth 2.1, featuring wireless stereo streaming A2DP for wireless headphones, speakers, etc., is included. The phone also supports USB 2.0 connectivity, using a microUSB port multi-connector socket and there’s a USB data cable packaged in-box.Exchange ActiveSync is supported for over the air syncing of contacts, calendar events, email, and tasks with a remote Microsoft Exchange server.Samsung Kies software suite is supplied on CD, enabling back up and transfer of personal information management data with a Windows PC plus content management and sharing of content. Over the air online backup using ActiveSync is supported too.For the price, Samsung Genio Slide users get a very attractive set of features. Among these is A-GPS satellite positioning technology built in. Google Maps v3.0.2 is pre-loaded as part of a suite of Google services which include Google Search and Google Mail applications. Google Maps provides the usual mapping information, over the air route planning and navigation, plus search options for local information on businesses and services. The software works effectively with the touchscreen interface and is intuitive to operate, while the A-GPS works smartly enough at locating positions. It’s an extremely useful app to have to hand, and you can get Street View and opt into Google Latitude from the handset. In addition, if you get a Vodafone-branded Genio Slide, it comes with Telmap application pre-loaded that enables you to get online Sat Nav capability on the handset. Unfortunately our review sample wasn’t recognised so we couldn’t trial it.In addition to the BBC iPlayer software mentioned previously, the Genio Slide’s array of native social networking services mention earlier give this device plenty of appeal for its target audience looking for a touchscreen experience on a budget.Other features include a raft of control options familiar to mid-tier Samsung handsets, including etiquette pause (you turn over the phone and the current sound of an incoming call alert or alarm is muted) and its quirky Fake Call feature (at the press of a button you can initiate a fake incoming call with a recorded message).Samsung’s Smart Unlock system, which uses pre-defined character strokes onscreen to unlock the display or launch specific features, is included too, while a batch of games mostly trial versions are pre-loaded.The Samsung Genio Slide is the most attractive of Samsung’s Genio clan to date, packed with the sort of features you wouldn’t normally expect of a phone at this price. With 3G HSDPA and Wi-Fi, its collection of social networking options are decent enough to use. A-GPS is a welcome bonus, while its entertainment options including a fine-sounding music player and native BBC iPlayer application add to the appeal. You also get a fair amount of in-box memory card storage and good earphones as standard.The slide-out QWERTY keyboard has a finger-friendly action that’s good enough for a device of this sort, while this touchscreen phone package is compact enough to carry around without overloading your pocket.Sure, its resistive touchscreen won’t give you the enjoyably slick finger-flicking pleasures of an iPhone or other capacitive screen-equipped high-enders. The control set-up is more functional than flash, although there are some useful touches like the TouchWiz home screen widgets. At this sort of price point, though, the Genio Slide offers a terrific amount of functionality.We likedThe amount of features you get for your money makes the Genio Slide stand out. The slide-out QWERTY keyboard combined with the touchscreen control are the immediate headline grabbers, and we were pretty happy with the keyboard action. But high-speed connectivity using Wi-Fi or HSDPA and the addition of A-GPS give this handset a significant edge over it range mates and other rivals in the price bracket. The online functionality of the handset including a reasonable touchscreen browser, Google Maps, a crop of social networking apps and an easy to use BBC iPlayer app provide the phone with plenty to entertain. It also sports a pleasing music player (and a 3.5mm headphone jack socket!), and comes with a 2GB memory card in-box… and let’s not forget you can swap back panels if customisation is your thing.We disliked It would have been good to have had a capacitive multi-touchscreen, but you can’t get everything at this sort of price point. The 2.8-inch screen isn’t the biggest either. The dimensions affect some control elements, such as the space available for widgets and the text numberpad layout although the QWERTY keyboard deals with the latter issue. Generally, though, there was a reasonable amount of space to work fingers onscreen.We occasionally found the multi-screen home screen swiping trying, as we attempted to avoid dabbing widgets as we stroked our way through the busy screens. We’d have preferred a better email wizard for automatic settings installation, too, on a messaging-centric device.The 3.2-megapixel camera has a decent interface, but image results were limited by its fixed focus lens and lack of additional flash illumination. Although we found the browser easy to operate, it felt underpowered sometimes when rendering large rich pages. VerdictPitched at the youth market, the Samsung Genio Slide certainly delivers a terrific feature package for a low-cost touchscreen handset, with a roll-call of functionality you’d expect of a higher-end model. It’s miles cheaper than the similarly-specified LG Intouch Max GW620 Android phone, and manages to offer similar functionality in most places.Its slide out QWERTY keypad and social apps mark it out as a messaging and social networking heavy-hitter but it also delivers plenty of entertainment and loads of useful gadgetry for your bucks.Related LinksMore mobile phone reviewsRelated StoriesReview: LG Chocolate BL20Review: Acer Liquid S100Review: Nokia E72Review: HTC HD MiniReview: Nokia 5230

iPhone more valuable to Nokia than Lumia range
It’s been revealed that Nokia makes more money from licensing its patents to Apple for use in the iPhone range, than it does from selling its own Lumia handsets.Nokia has recently released its figures for the last quarter and they don’t make for happy reading. The Finnish manufacturer made a loss on its mobile device sales, even after launching new handsets including the Lumia 900.It’s been a rough year for Nokia, as it took a gamble going down the Windows Phone route and it’s yet to see decent sales figures for its launch handsets the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710.All hope is not lostHowever it’s not all doom and gloom over in Finland. According to an AppleInsider source, Nokia has raked in around 370 million ($600 million) in royalties from Apple.Nokia licenses out a number of its patents to the Cupertino-based firm, to be used inside its devices such as the iPhone 4S, and this generates a lot of money for the cash-strapped Scandinavians.With the recent release of the Lumia 900 and the upcoming, budget-focussed Lumia 610, Nokia will be hoping to reverse its fortunes in 2012 and as we look towards Windows Phone 8 Apollo, could this spell a game changing moment for the firm?

How to buy an iPhone 4S for free (even in the middle of a contract)
Read the original article on MobileMentalism.com at How to buy an iPhone 4S for free (even in the middle of a contract)Is this you: Are you desperate for an iPhone 4S but you don’t want to pay 49 to buy it? Are you in the middle of a contract that won’t end for months, but you really want the iPhone 4S…Read the original article on MobileMentalism.com at How to buy an iPhone 4S for free (even in the middle of a contract) Related posts:Why does the iPhone get all the good apps?The iPhone 4S is not the fastest mobile device – but this is10 headline features of the iPhone 4SLet’s Talk iPhone 5 – Where and when to watch today’s iPhone announcementSuper deal: Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc for just 20 a month (12 month contract)