Verizon confirm HTC Droid Incredible for April

Good news for US Android fans! Verizon have officially announced the HTC Droid Incredible, their latest Android-based smartphone, based on the Nexus One. You’ll be able to get your hands on it on April 29th, for $199 on a two year contract.

The HTC Droid Incredible is essentially a remixed version of the Nexus One, sporting HTC’s Sense UI (like the HTC Desire), an optical trackpad and an upgraded 8 megapixel camera. Like the Nexus One, it sports a 3.7 inch 480×800 AMOLED display with a 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU under the hood.

It’s very nice. Just like the HTC Desire really.

Microsoft unveils new Kin phones

Microsoft have just unveiled their new Kin phones, a series of mobiles based on Windows Phone 7, with a custom “social” UI. A slightly different concept, with hardware reminiscent of the Palm Pre.

So far two phones have been displayed, the Kin One and the Kin Two, one a small round square device, the other a more traditional style, both with slide-out keyboards. The Kin One features a 5 megapixel camera, QVGA screen, QWERTY keyboard and 4Gb storage, whilst the larger Kin Two packs in an 8 megapixel camera, HVGA display, larger QWERTY keyboard and 8Gb storage. Though both phones store all of their contents online, “on the cloud”, so internal storage isn’t supposed to be too much of an issue.

The Kin’s social interface is supposed to be the unique part, aggregating all of your content and social media jazz. If that sounds like your thing, you’ll probably like it! Engadget have a hands-on with the new phones, and seem quite positive so far.

Sharp unveil Asian lady next to 3D TV

Yay, another bunch of 3D TVs, this time from Sharp. To celebrate, Sharp asked a nice Japanese lady to stand next to their RGBY 3D LCD panels (the Y stands for yelllow). The screens are supposed to be the brightest available, and come in a variety of sizes up to 60 inches.

Perhaps more interestingly, Sharp is also developing a small 3D screen for tablet PCs and the like, which doesn’t require glasses. Frankly the prospect of sitting on the couch wearing special 3D glasses sounds like a load of pish, so the sooner decent glasses-free 3D screens are available the better.

Sunday Girl

It’s Sunday, you know what that means? Sunday Girl. This week it’s “a Chinese girl in cute white leg warmers”. Unfortunately we were too busy staring to remember her name. But plus one for China then!

A Korean girl holding a thing

This week it’s Korean lady Seo You Jin, holding what appears to be a Western Digital hard drive. Her enthusiasm for the product certainly makes us want to drive her hard.

iPhone OS 4 unveiled

Apple held a brief press conference today to unveil the new features of their iPhone OS 4. Thousands of Apple fans were waiting eagerly in anticipation for Mr Steve Jobs to demonstrate some amazing new features. So, let’s reveal those new features!

There are 7 main updates (“tentpole” features as Jobs described them) in iPhone OS 4, and those are:

• Multitasking (more like saved states and fast app switching though, not true multitasking)
• App folders (to organise the apps on your iPhone’s ‘desktop’)
• Enhanced Mail app
• iBooks (the same as the iPad, with a free copy of Winnie the Pooh!)
• Enterprise support (encrypting emails and other dull stuff)
• Game Center (online game matchmaking and achievements like Xbox Live)
• iAds (adverts in your iPhone apps. Yep. Seriously)

The new OS is due to be released on the iPhone and iPod Touch this summer, with an iPad version following in autumn. Colour us underwhelmed.

Stuff get hands-on with the ICD Gemini

While it was only announced a couple of days ago, tech blog Stuff.tv have already had a hands-on with the Gemini, the new Nvidia Tegra 2-powered 11″ tablet PC from ICD. As it happens, they think it’s rather good.

The Gemini uses Android OS with the same web browser as the latest Android phones, which Stuff.tv really like, saying it has “blisteringly fast page renders, smooth scrolling, speedy rotation and full Flash support. Take that, Mr Jobs.”

They also say the Gemini has enough oomph for proper multitasking, a “lovely, sharp widescreen display”, “superb” speakers, and twice the battery capacity of the iPad. They did note some bugs and rough edges, but expect the kinks to be worked out for the actual release model. It’s expected to be released in August (for the UK at least) at a price similar to the entry-level iPad (£300-350, about $500).

It looks very promising so far.

The month of many pads

It’s a busy month for tablet computers. As every geek knows, the iPad launched over the weekend, selling over 300,000 systems on the first day. Quite impressive, though below the 700,000 analysts had predicted. We’ll have to wait and see how well the average consumer responds to the iPad.

At the same time time, Fusion Garage started shipping the JooJoo, an iPad-style Intel Atom-powered tablet PC running a custom version of Linux. There’s a bit of a backstory to that one (it was originally a collaboration between tech news website TechCrunch.com and Fusion Garage, going under the name CrunchPad, until there was something of a split between those two companies and other bad allegations). Engadget have just reviewed the JooJoo, and weren’t overly positive about the user interface or crummy 2.5 hour battery life.

Now another sexy pad (or tablet/slate PC) has been announced – ICD’s Gemini (pictured above), an Nvidia Tegra 2 powered 11″ device running Android OS, with Flash support and enough horsepower to decode full 1080p HD video. The spec list should make a lot of nerds giddy: 1Ghz Nvidia Tegra 2, 11.2″ 1366×768 multitouch screen, WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, FM Radio, GSP, SD card slot, Micro USB, two cameras (5MP back, 2MP front), and hopefully a battery that can cope with all that.

No word on any price or release date yet, though we expect the world will be flooded with tablet PCs by the end of the year.

Better Saturday

Well, it’s the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, which means Jesus is dead but hasn’t quite eaten enough chocolate to resurrect himself yet. It’s also the day of the US iPad launch, although frankly you probably know that already.

A bunch of sites who got their iPad’s early have already started posting their reviews of the giant iPod Touch – Boingboing like it a lot and the NYTimes seem rather fond of it too. We can certainly see the appeal of the iPad, although admit it, it’s really just a giant iPod Touch, isn’t it? This particular reporter’s main gripe with the iPad is lack of Flash support, meaning the one-handed toilet-friendly device has no access to video content from all those porntube sites… kind of defeats the point of a web content ‘consumption’ computer.

Good Friday

Seeing as it’s Easter, news might be a bit thin on the ground (although there is the US iPad launch tomorrow). So here’s a picture of a pretty Chinese girl, with a PSP. The inclusion of the PSP makes this highly relevant, because that sort of falls under the general banner of technology.

HTC Desire compared and reviewed

Engadget posted a rather comprehensive review of the HTC Desire today and stacked HTC’s new Android phone up against the very similarly specced Nexus One.

There’s very little to differentiate the HTC Desire and the Nexus One, though the Desire comes with HTC’s glossy Sense UI. The Nexus One is a great phone, so unsurprisingly Engadget rate the Desire very highly too, slightly preferring it due to its optical trackpad and in-built social networking services. Really the only thing going against the HTC Desire is the fact that the HTC Evo 4G and new iPhone are potentially a few months away.