Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

A couple of weeks have passed since the T-Mobile/Google event and my uneasy silence hasn’t dissipated.  Sure, I am impressed that beloved Google is involved, the apps are cool and don’t even get me started about compass mode in maps.  Very cool stuff.  But it doesn’t matter.  Here are the top 7 reasons Android will fail.

Headed to Vegas?  Don’t bet on the G1 just yet.

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Ecorio was one of the Android applications shown off at the T-Mobile G1 event.  The app tracks “your mobile carbon footprint” and is one of the winners in the Google Android Developer Challenge.

Interface

Ecorio has a very easy and simple interface.  The home screen shows your travel carbon footprint, displays some shortcuts and the four main features at the bottom of the screen (Start, Reduce, Inspire, and Offset).  The application runs in the background and tracks your trips.  There are no features hidden in a submenu of a menu.  The entire application is laid out cleanly.

Inspire: Ecorio’s social network

“Inspire” is the cool social networking feature of Ecorio.  This is the kind of thing where a social network makes a lot of sense.  You can see how others are reducing their carbon footprint and put together a carpool using the Inspire feature.

Find out more about Ecorio after the jump!

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With a few weeks left until the official launch, it seems that HTC is feeling pretty confident in terms of just how many of the G1s they are going to sell.  There have already been reports coming from “industry insiders” that T-Mobile is planning to order somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million units.

Of those units being manufactured, HTC is expecting to sell around 400,000 to 500,000 within this quarter alone.  In terms of financials, this could prove very profitable for HTC and could net them somewhere around $7 billion for this quarter and $18 billion during next year.

All things considered, I guess this does not come as all that surprising.  Considering the low $179 price tag coupled with T-Mobile’s advertising plans, I think I would be more surprised if they did not exceed their goals.

Via [emsnow]

As much as this pains me to say, it appears as if Best Buy is becoming the place to go for popular handsets.  It was not that long ago that they added the iPhone 3G and HTC Touch Diamond. 

Now, it looks like customers will soon be able to grab a few more smartphones and it seems that October 26 is the day to look forward to.  On that day Best Buy will make the unlocked Palm Treo Pro available.  Of course, that is perhaps the least exciting of the bunch as the Pearl Flip 8220 and HTC G1 will also be made available that same day. 

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T-Mobile’s new Android phone, the G1, was available for pre-order after it had been announced. Three days later, T-Mobile has announced that there aren’t any more G1’s left in stock, and thus, the pre-order craze ends. In fact, so many people wanted to pre-order a G1, that T-Mobile’s site went down for a few hours. 

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ShopSavvy, formerly known as GoKart, is a comparison-shopping application that runs on Google Android.  It is one of the winners in the Google Android Developer Challenge.  A press release can only explain so much.  Big In Japan, makers of ShopSavvy, gave me a personal demonstration of this new app.  I then got a chance to speak to Rylan Barnes, “Tech Shogun,” who gave Gadgetell a behind the scenes look at how the software works and where they want to take the app in the future.

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HTC has recently introduced a new color for their existing Touch Diamond—Ice White. The new shade will join the current black and, of course, will remain the same feature wise. Overall, the new Ice White color is just a nice refresh, and perhaps a way to spur some renewed interest in a current product.

Now, potential Touch Diamond users can experience the same decisions as those looking to purchase an iPhone 3G. The choice to go with the black that may show more smudges, or go with the white that may be more smudge free but will most likely show some more dirt. Of course, it sounds like a personal choice to me, but I kind of like the white.

As a refresher, the Touch Diamond features a 2.8-inch VGA touch screen, 3.2-megapixel camera, 4GB of internal storage, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, GPS and is powered by a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM 7201A processor running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.

Via [TechRadar]

The latest information about the upcoming release of Android has T-Mobile making an official announcement on September 23. The Android-powered HTC Dream is expected to be available in late-October, however that is still unconfirmed at this point. This release information goes against the earlier rumored availability on October 13, but I suspect we will get a better idea come the 23rd.

As for the expected sales, analysts are calling for HTC to sell anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 units. However, HTC is, at least “according to a person close to the situation,” expecting to top that and ship somewhere between 600,000 to 700,000 units this year.

So, we have an announcement date, now we just have to wait a little while longer before we can actually walk in and make a purchase. Now lets just hope that Android will live up to all the hype it has built up.

Read [Wall Street Journal]

HTC has announced the successor to the HTC Touch, and although the recently rumored HTC Opal was pretty close on specs and design, the handset has officially been dubbed the HTC Viva.

Overall the Viva is a decent handset, that according to HTC will be affordable, of course a price has not yet been announced, so time will tell just how accurate that statement will prove to be. Otherwise the HTC Viva will feature HTC’s TouchFLO and be running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. 

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As expected, Sprint has officially added the HTC Touch Diamond to its lineup. As of this posting, the Diamond is just available online, but retail availability is expected to begin soon, possibly as early as later today. All things considered, it is kind of nice to order online and have it shipped to your door anyway. The phone features are the same as we have come to love and expect, it even has that rumored red backside. Otherwise the Sprint branded Touch Diamond will have a “regular” price of $549.99, but that can be lowered to just $249.99 with a $200 instant savings and a $100 mail-in-rebate. Keep in mind that lowered price also requires a two-year agreement.

Product [Sprint]