3UK have confirmed (through a tweet) that they are currently putting a Gingerbread update for the HTC Desire through their mobile operator testing.  This can take a while, and often finds problems causing the firmware to be rejected until the bugs are fixed. 3UK stated that it’s likely the firmware will finish testing and be released late April / early May, which would indicate a mid to late April release of the same firmware for unbranded and unlocked devices direct from HTC.

For a phone now replaced (both the HTC Desire HD and the HTC Desire S could be said to follow on from it) it’s good to see updates still being released, and although the native Gingerbread is not a major update, it does bring a range of useful features to all Android devices out of the box (SIP calling, slightly better keyboard, slightly better UI, and better battery power management) so it’s still a welcome update.

It seems a large range of devices will be able to update from v2.2 to v2.3, and for those that don’t, there’s always the custom ROM scene, which as devices move out of warranty becomes a sensible option if the original manufacturer isn’t offering these updates (if the hardware is up to it).

Although brief (as most tweets are!) 3UK‘s statement can be found here.

Although I’m not sure it’s actually available today, 3UK are now selling the HTC Desire HD, with orders due to be delivered by the end of next week.  The HTC Desire HD builds on the success of the HTC Desire and adds a 4.3″ touchscreen as well as an 8 megapixel camera supporting HD video recording, plus it’s one of the devices supported at the new HTCsense.com portal.  3UK are selling the HTC Desire HD on the One Plan for £40 per month (24 month contract), bringing 200 cross network minutes, 5000 texts, 5000 3UK-3UK minutes and 1GB of Internet, free Voicemail, and an impressive 6 months free Spotify Premium subscription (although the data usage will need to come out of your 1GB allowance if you use it on 3G).

The HTC Desire HD is also available on lesser plans, eg the Internet Texter 500 plan for £35 per month (24 month contract) giving you 500 cross network minutes, 5000 texts, 5000 3UK-3UK minutes, 1GB of Internet, free Voicemail, and just 2 months Spotify Premium subscription.

Of course, if you can’t afford this, the HTC Desire is still good value from 3UK for about a fiver less per month, or you can even get the HTC Desire on the One Plan for £25 per month (24 month contract) if you go for a refurbished stock item.

As always, head to the 3Store for more details.

Of course, if you are a 3UK customer, you’ve may have had access to their Skype on 3 application for some while, and although this works well, and performs many useful functions, it does miss out a few features that the main Skype app features (of course, the Skype on 3 app is free of data charges under the 3UK Skype Free Calls Forever campaign, so should not be overlooked).

However, for those on other networks, or those wanting those few missing functions (like UK SkypeOut calls), but are happy to use up some data allowance instead, then last week Skype finally released their official Skype for Android app.  You need Android v2.1, and there’s a rather large list of compatibility issues and known issues (depending on your phone), but generally, something like the HTC Desire seems to have the best Skype support.

Although it will work on either Wi-Fi or 3G connections, it will only work on Wi-Fi in the US, and head to this page to read more about the compatibility issues.

Either pick it up from the Android Market, or head to Skype‘s Android page here.

HTC have released a couple of different variants of their current Android favourites; they have released an all black variant of the HTC Legend, and probably more popular (though because of the device, not the colour in my opinion), an all white HTC Desire.  For those that want to stand out from the crowd, but want to stick to tried and tested stable products, then either of these may well suit.  They should be available this month from some mobile operators.

Personally, although white phones do seem to command a premium, I prefer the standard HTC Desire, although the new all black HTC Legend does look a nice option.

I can’t decide if this is a really cool gadget, or completely misses the point.  The new Sony Ericsson LiveView allows you to connect the device to your mobile phone, and access key functions of the phone without actually using the phone itself.

It comes with a wrist strap, so I guess Sony Ericsson’s plan is for you to wear this instead of a watch, and have the ability to access information on your phone as well as having a clock.  It has a 1.3″ 128×128 pixel OLED screen, 4 touch buttons (on the edges of the screen) and 2 real buttons (power & menu), and supports a wide variety of phone functions:

However, instead of the usual “tied to their proprietary OS” nonsense, it appears this device is designed for Sony Ericsson’s Android phones (and more specifically their X10 Android phones); it also needs Android v2.2 or above, so is currently limited to the X10, X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro.

Interestingly, Sony Ericsson will release the LiveView Android App, and have already announced the API which would allow other developers to link into the device via your phone (in fact Sony Ericsson has said the application will be able to notify you of other applications that take advantage of the LiveView APIs).  As a starting point, it will be able to control your music, read texts, see incoming calls, and allow you read your latest Facebook and Twitter news.

Don’t have a Sony Ericsson phone? Sony Ericsson have also stated that the device will also be compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC Desire, making it even more interesting…

Due in Q4 (so just in time for Christmas), although with no pricing, it’s not yet clear whether this is a must have gadget or not.

What a week last week was!  On top of the Nokia phone announcements, and the LG Optimus One phone we covered this morning, HTC also launched 2 new Android v2.2 phones last week.  Now, both of these look very interesting devices, so read on for more information on the devices…

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After a good few weeks of using an Android phone for the majority of tasks I perform (except receiving calls), how have I found the phone? Thanks to 3MobileBuzz, I’ve had an HTC Hero on loan, and although not the newest of phones, it’s still interesting to see whether it can handle all my needs.  In fact, just before the phone I wrote down the 30 most important tasks I currently use my Symbian for just to remind me the sorts of applications and tasks I needed the phone to perform.

So, a small caveat; as the phone came preconfigured with a SIM, Google Account and Spotify Premium account, I haven’t used the phone with my Google Acount (ie Mail, Calendar etc.) and I haven’t used it for receiving calls (as none of my friends know this phone’s number). Finally, as a loan phone, I have limited myself to *free* Android apps.

The Good – In nearly every task I’ve thrown at it (including a few extra ones), it’s excelled, and the phone has worked well.  Applications have been available to help with the task at hand.  Spotify (in both online and offline mode) proved to be a useful application (although quite why, when you have a track in the local cache, it continues to consume online data I don’t know).  In the majority of tasks I wanted to perform, there was a free app to help out (something that’s not true of Symbian, although it’s close), and in many cases, the best app appeared to be the free app too.  Apps were available to integrate into the phone; although it’s against the T&Cs to export phone numbers from the Facebook site, the Facebook widget was at least able to offer to dial numbers direct for you.  The phone was not too heavy, and easy to use one-handed as well as with two (and not suffering from the way I held the phone   Many options were configurable, or 3rd party tools are available to help achieve a little tweak here or there.

The Bad – Not every app though performed well; a few have crashed regularly, making it feel a little like when you beta test software; some of the apps that crashed had 1 or 2 updates during the time, yet still continued to crash.  Whether or not this is a result of the phone still being on Android v1.5 I don’t know, but this is at least being fixed (hopefully) this month.  Another thing missing (not that Symbian is any better, but the iPhone is) was that there was little consistency in the UI between the different programs from different authors, and little consistency between the widgets available too.  Also, although everyone berates Symbian for constantly asking you which connection you want to use, there were a few times when I actively wanted to use 3G over Wi-Fi (accessing 3UK‘s Planet 3 website or knowing that I was too far from the Wi-Fi for it to work reliably), and this level of control is not available.

So, overall, I enjoyed the phone, and the Capacitive screen made me realise what an impact this has on the whole UI, and whether even the newest phones from Nokia which continue with Resistive screens can be as much as a success (of course, the new Nokia N8 is Capacitive).  Having said I enjoyed it, the third party apps crashing regularly did put me off a little.

The ugly? It may have been this particular phone, but it struggled to hold a connection to my Wi-Fi.  Whenever it lost it (even when in the same room), it brought home that the 3G radio signal was equally awful (The HTC Hero seems to have a reputation for having a poor 3G antenna design especially in poor signal areas), meaning I was often left without net access at home (although in many other areas where the 3G was stronger it performed well).

Would I buy an Android phone? Yes, but more likely the HTC Desire (also available from 3UK), which offers a later OS version and is more powerful, but I would like to see some improvements in the overall experience.

Thanks again to 3MobileBuzz for the loan of the phone.

3UK have announced this week that they now have two new Android smartphones that you can purchase on 3UK, and not just that, but you can get them on the new One Plan we covered here which offers fantastic value for money if you are a heavy mobile user.

Firstly, they are now offering the HTC Wildfire, which is a cut down version of the HTC Desire.  Although cut down might imply “cheap”, and it’s fair to say it doesn’t have the spec (or the price) of the HTC Desire, but it’s actually still a very capable Android device; in fact the only compliant I’ve heard about it is that moving forward over the next year or two, the screen maybe too small to allow major OS upgrades, as Google has now specified a minimum spec (including display resolution) for the future, and the HTC Wildfire falls a little short.

Having said that, it still rivals many other phones, and is still a better display than many other phones of last year! The 3.2″ screen is still a good size, and the 5 megapixel camera is still better than many, and it offers Android v2.1 with HTC’s Sense UI too.  All the usual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. are there too.  Also interestingly, although it’s available now in “Metal Mocha” colour, it will also be available on 3UK in Red from August, and the Red colour will be exclusive to 3UK.

If you aren’t an HTC fan, then there’s always the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro, which again, is a smaller smartphone (the “X10 Mini” part), but features quite a key differentiator; the “Pro” means it also features a QWERTY keyboard!  This is a slide out keyboard (in the same way as the Nokia E75, Nokia C6 or Nokia N900), and although it blatantly doesn’t feature the HTC Sense UI, it does feature some key Sony Ericsson UI customisations instead.  These include the ability to specify 4 corner navigation and 3 homescreens, and it also features Sony Ericsson’s Timescape, which brings together your Facebook, Twitter, email, text messages and calls into one place.  This sounds an interesting feature, although with many of these manufacturer applications, it may be a little limiting to the “serious” social networker, especially if it can’t be expanded to support other social networks.

The Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro is available in Black from 3UK, and also in White, which will (like the Red HTC Wildfire) be a colour exclusive to 3UK.

If you want either of these phones on the new One Plan, they are available for £30 per month (24-month contract), and remember that comes with 2000 cross network minutes, 5000 3UK-3UK minutes, 5000 texts and 1GB data; if you want to buy them on PAYG, the HTC Wildfire is £199 and the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro is £249, both very competitive prices in their own right!

I like the way that whilst historically 3UK were not able to arrange model exclusivity agreements, they are now sufficiently recognised by the manufacturers to at least able to negotiate colour exclusives, and you never know, maybe this time next year, we’ll see a worthy smartphone launch exclusively on 3UK…

3UK have launched a new phone tariff, The One Plan.  This is a very interesting move by 3UK.  It’s available on all their phones, and they claim it should be big enough for everyone!

The plan (a 24-month contract) comprises:

• 2000 cross network minutes
• 5000 3UK-3UK minutes
• 5000 texts
• 1GB Internet access

Having 2000 cross network minutes was something we first saw on the Apple iPhone 4 plans launched last week, and although none of these values are being stated as “unlimited” (for which we are very supportive), it’s also fair to say that most people will actually have a challenge getting through any of this limits, except maybe the 1GB Internet data, but even that is more generous that many of their competitors (Vodafone offer 500MB with most phones, as does Orange).

This plan will cost from £25 per month (*), depending which phone you get it with, so, for example, the iPhone 4 will be between £35 and £45 depending on the model and how much you pay upfront for the phone.

3UK have also announced that as from July, they will no longer use the word “unlimited”, something Vodafone announced last year (but only for data), and let’s hope this is the catalyst to encourage all networks to remove this misleading term from their marketing and actually compete with each other on quality and measurable quantity.

On top of that, they have massively clarified their old Internet tariffs too.  Since the introduction of the 24month contracts, they offered “unlimited” internet, which was really “only” 500MB.  To start, they will be converting that 500MB into 1GB for all existing customers on Internet Texter 500 or 900 plans and the Internet Talker 900 plan (over the next few months; you’ll get a text telling you what’s happening).  For elder contracts, although occasionally bundled into a deal, the majority of people pay £5 per month to get 2GB of data (at times it was sold as “unlimted” or 1GB, but in most cases it was actually 2GB); now this option still exists today, so people who were on 2GB per month will remain on that; no sly reductions here, and even better, 3UK have confirmed that the customers who are getting 500MB or 1GB free with their new contracts can still pay the £5 per month to add an additional 2GB of data to their contract.

So, it would appear you could take the new One Plan, and for £30, get all those minutes listed above and have a total of 3GB Internet allowance per month too!

Yet again, 3UK are leading on their tariff options, and these internet options make 3UK a very realistic option for many.

(*) We should point out that at the time of writing, the One Plan seems to cost at least £28 buying the cheapest phone, so although in time it will be offered for £25 with certain mobiles, it seems to cost a little more right now. The £25 per month option is for the SIM only 12 month option, offering the same level of contract, but for just £25 per month, and only on a 12-month contract.

So, looking at some popular phones right now, these are all free on a 24-month One Plan contract, with a monthly cost:

• INQ Chat 3G – £28 per month
• Nokia E63 – £28 per month
• Nokia 5230 – £30 per month
• HTC Wildfire – £31 per month
• HTC Hero – £34 per month
• Nokia E72 – £35 per month
• HTC Desire – £35 per month

Given the phone is free, these are all very good value, especially given the amount of service you are buying.  The Internet Texter and Internet Talker plans still exist for those who don’t need this amount of minutes / texts.

As always, these offers are available from the 3Store.

Here’s an interesting article on the author’s 30 best Android apps over at Tech Radar.  A lot of people are now picking up Android phones and for many, getting some hints and tips on the sorts of applications out there is very useful, and this list certain has a few of the favourites on it.  It’s also just long enough to possibly offer existing users something new to try as well.  Once nice thing is that it’s UK-centric, so covers a couple of UK apps too.

The list can be accessed here.