rumor - 14/16 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Feb

Motorola XOOM $799 + 1 Month Data And $749 Off-Contract Thunderbolt Now Confirmed By Best Buy Circular

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in HTC, Motorola, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), XOOM

If one thing can put an end to rumors, it's the official Best Buy weekly ad - the one you get in print from the store. Unfortunately, this time, all the rumors turned out to be correct. Namely:

As rumored, Motorola XOOM is indeed going to cost $799 and will require a 1-month data package to unlock WiFi. February 24th remains the go-live date. Anyone still up for picking it up? Oh, and the same spelling errors are still present (/sigh).
HTC Thunderbolt's regular, off-contract price is also confirmed at $749.99, just like we told you yesterday. Bummer. 2-year contract price is still $249.99.

Feb

HTC Thunderbolt Listed At $749.99 Off-Contract In Best Buy's System - That's Almost A Whole XOOM

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in HTC, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

The Thunderbolt just can't come soon enough, can it? It seems we've been talking about this beast forever, and Best Buy even officially announced pre-orders, but the uncertainty regarding the actual release date has been killing us. Is it the 14th, the 24th, or something else?

And now it's not the only thing killing us - a tip confirmed by 2 sources points to a whopping $749 full retail price of the Thunderbolt, at least judging by the information currently in Best Buy's systems.

Earlier today, Droid Attic posted a snap of what looked like an internal Best Buy Thunderbolt page, listing $749.99 as its full price.

Dec

[Update: Nope] Rumor: The Real Samsung Epic 4G Froyo Update To Roll Out December 26th

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Epic 4G, Froyo 2.2, News, Samsung, Sprint

Update 12/29/10: Nope, either the rumor was false or Samsung/Sprint decided to delay the update once again:

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Epic 4G users, remember the Froyo update (DK28) that we thought was final but turned out to be nothing but a leaked test build? Shortly after the leak, Sprint released a statement discouraging the download and reaffirming the official latest supported build was Android 2.1 with Sprint's software version DI18.

The wait resumed, but not for long, as an official-looking photo of what looks like some sort of a memo in Sprint's internal customer support system, showed up over at Phone Arena.

Dec

Photos Of A Tiny Xperia Phone Hint At An X10 Mini Pro Successor

Posted by Anuj Ahooja in Gingerbread 2.3, News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia X10 Mini / Mini Pro (Robyn / Mimmi)

Sony Ericsson has always had upgrade issues when it came to Android - with the X10, the X10 Mini, and the X10 Mini Pro just recently receiving the update to Éclair (2.1), the majority of Xperia users have been deprived of the numerous features available in Android 2.x. Recently, with leaks of the Playstation Phone (a.k.a. Xperia Play) and the Anzu (a.k.a. X12), it has been made clear that Sony is most likely coming with back with a storm of devices with up-to-date firmware and its usual competitive hardware.

Today, we have a couple of leaked photos of a smaller Xperia phone, similar to the X10 Mini series.

Dec

[Rumor] Playstation Phone To Be Called Xperia Play? Trademark Filing Says Maybe

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone)

It seems the blogosphere is abuzz with the news that an EU trademark for the name Xperia Play has been awarded to Sony Ericsson, filed the first of the month.

Companies file for trademarks a lot, so we'll see if this name pans out. If it does, it'll quite possibly be the worst marketing decision by Sony Ericsson yet, and may indicate that the Sony mother-ship wants to reserve the Playstation phone name for a later, cooler, probably proprietary-OS device. So, you may actually want this rumor not to be true.

Source: OMHI via Engadget

Nov

ADT (Android Dev Tools) Source Code Commits Suggesting Imminent Gingerbread SDK Release?

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News

Today, I was looking at the Android Development Tools (ADT) commit history, as I normally do on a Tuesday morning at 3am, and I noticed something that made my heart skip a few beats. But let me back up for a second.

Every Android SDK release is normally accompanied by an ADT release that adds support for the new functionality and fixes existing bugs. ADT, in turn, is an Eclipse plugin, which is essentially a set of developer tools for one of the best free open source editors out there (that's Eclipse), which also happens to be the IDE of choice of Android core developers.

Nov

Rumor: Best Buy Getting Ready To Set Up Samsung Nexus S Displays By November 14th

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung, T-Mobile

What a barrage of Nexus S news today! First, a brief appearance at Best Buy, then an actual picture of the new Nexus on BestBuy.com, confirming it will run Gingerbread, and now we have a supposed snap of the Best Buy internal Live Mock memo, showing, among other things, the Nexus S getting a dedicated endcap on the November 14th planogram. It doesn't look like it is going to be a live mock just yet, which means it will either contain a dummy unit or various Nexus S promotional material and information.

Let me break this down a bit:

an endcap is the area at the end of a store aisle dedicated to displaying highlighted and featured products
a live mock, from what I understand, is a real demo version of the device, as opposed to a dummy unit
a planogram is essentially a store product location diagram

The picture was taken by @anrblog, who claims he persuaded a Best Buy employee to allow him a quick glance at their system.

Nov

Rumored Nexus 2/S Rumored To Be Delayed By A Rumored Hardware Problem

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News, Samsung

The most widely rumored upcoming Android device without any physical evidence of its existence is, without a doubt, the Samsung Nexus 2 (which also goes by the name Nexus S) - even its picture presented above is fake.

Ever since the first time it was mentioned by Androidandme and shortly backed up by RadioAndroid, the whole Androidosphere has been abuzz with the next Google managed device for one simple reason: the Nexus One was and still remains the most open Android device on the market. Considering Google killed the crowd favorite earlier this year, any mention of a potential successor was capable of arousing geekdroids across the world even more than Gingerbread itself.

Oct

Android Gingerbread, Next Nexus, Information And Speculation Round-Up

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Android OS, Devices By Manufacturer, Gingerbread 2.3, Samsung

These last few days the Android blogosphere has been awash with excited spluttering, dubious rumours and hopeful conflation. Kicking things off was City A.M., a "London-based free daily newspaper that specialises in financial news". According to an article on their website, Google had struck a deal with the popular phone retailer Carphone Warehouse. CPW were to sell Google's next phone, the Nexus Two by any other name. Their position as a reseller of phones and contracts on most if not all networks in the UK and wider Europe makes them a logical choice, right? Nexus One sales online didn't exactly break records, so it makes sense to try the next carrier-agnostic option.

Oct

Rumor: T-Mobile's Samsung Galaxy Tab Launching November 10th

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Galaxy Tab, Samsung, T-Mobile

Seems like T-Mobile's looking to one-up Verizon on the Samsung Galaxy Tab, both when it comes to pricing and when it comes to the release date.

According to TmoNews' latest "dealer ninja" (the one who conjured the screenshot above), the Tab will be launching on November 10th, one day earlier than the date destined for Big Red's version of the tablet. While the screenie offers nothing in the way of price (other than "TBD"), the rumor mill's been there, done that, and pretty much confirmed that T-Mobile's Tab will be costing you $399 on contract and $649.99 off. Not too bad, but be sure to hit up our full comparison between this and the iPad here to make sure the Tab's pricing is right for you.