Another photo of HTC Bravo in the wild, this time from Poland

The Nexus One is already out in the open market, but its HTC cousin - the HTC Bravo - is still very much a rumor. Yet another photo popped up and this might be the best one yet - you can get another look at what has changed between the HTC Bravo and the Nexus One.

The HTC Bravo matches pretty much all of the specs of the Nexus One, but there are exceptions - the trackball has been replaced by an optical trackpad and the phone's Android OS 2.0 (or possibly 2.1) is dressed in the pretty, multi-touch enabled Sense UI clothes.

The HTC Bravo also sports a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, a 3.7" AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with WVGA resolution (480 x 800), a 5MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, HSDPA and HSUPA all crammed into a shell only 11.7mm thick. The RAM was originally listed as 256MB, then we heard 320MB, but in the end it might turn up to be even more - the Nexus One has 512MB RAM.

A week ago there was a rumor that the HTC Bravo will be available at T-Mobile UK by the end of January, free on a 35 pounds a month contract. But the end of January is approaching fast and there's still no official word from T-Mobile. A different rumor says that the HTC Bravo will be in Europe in March, but again there's no confirmation.

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T-Mobile USA gets HTC HD2 with 576 MB RAM

It must have been annoying for the T-Mobile USA subscribers to have to wait three months longer than everybody else to get the HTC HD2. Well it seems their patience will be rewarded with an upgraded version of the device packing 576MB RAM and 1GB ROM. This definitely looks like a good spot for landing Windows Mobile 7 when it eventually becomes available.

And the good news doesn't end there. The T-Mobile USA will receive a 16GB microSD cards in their HTC HD2 retail boxes, instead of the 2GB available in the European/Asia packages.

The rest of the HD2 specs remain intact, but it doesn't change the fact T-Mobile will offer the most powerful HTC HD2 ever made. The rumored requirements for Windows Mobile 7 include 1GB ROM, so it might turn out that the T-Mobile's units will be the only ones to get the OS upgrade when available.

HTC USA

HTC HD2 gets optional extended battery and kickstand

If the battery life was your only concern about the omnipresent HTC HD2 we have some great news coming your way. HTC has just come up with an extended battery that packs twice the juice of the original one. And to make things even sweeter it throws in a kickstand as well, which should be a major boost to the video watching experience.

The bad (though perfectly expected) news is that those come with a replacement battery cover that adds a few millimeters to the HTC HD2 waistline. This however shouldn’t be too much of a concern, since the device is only 11mm thick with its original casing and even with the saucier battery it will still remain among the slimmest smartphones available on the market.

Our dedicated battery test indicated that the HTC HD2 in-box battery performance was pretty decent indeed so we guess the extended one should be able to take you through a day even if you don’t let it rest for a second. Just think about it – 9 hours of video playback sounds almost insane, considering the 1GHz CPU and the 4.3” WVGA screen.

The HTC HD2 extended battery will be available starting next month for 60 euro (85 US dollars). If you are still interested, you can preorder yours fClove UK.

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It didn’t really take long: the HTC Google Nexus One can already be unlocked and rooted

p>Five short days was all it took the Android community to enable Google Nexus One unlocking and rooting. Read on to find how to gain administrative rights on your shiny new Android 2.1 device.

And the best part is that you don’t need to be a genius to do it on your own. There is even a video which leads you through the whole process. So, all you need are 8-9 minutes of spare time to watch it. Well that and a Nexus One phone, of course.

Along with the video the guys from the Android and Me blog have posted an extensive step-by-step guide for rooting and unlocking the Nexus One so you might want to do the reading first and then proceed with the whole thing. Bear in mind that this might (and most probably will) void your warranty. Also if you find the instructions not quite clear you might want to stop right there before you have damaged the device.

Right now, the list of available custom ROMs is quite short but given enough time it will grow to a more acceptable size. And, as you know, once you’ve rooted your Android smartphone you’ll be able to get lots of new goodies for it. You know, enabling tethering, getting some apps that only work on rooted devices… that kind of stuff.

Only 20 000 HTC Google Nexus One Android smartphones sold a whole week after its market launch

HTC Google Nexus One is a superphone, indeed. And it seemed to have all it takes to become a market hit as well. But apperently something went wrong, because the start of its sales is seriously short of impressive? As it turns out only around 20 000 Nexus One Android smartphones have been sold during the first week after the official market launch of the device.

So, if this trend keeps up, the Google’s first smartphone might just fail to set the world alight. Let me remind you that analysts expected 5 to 6 million Nexus Ones to be sold by the end of the year.

The first week sales of the Nexus One seem miserable when put next to the 250 000 units of Motorola DROID or the 1.5 million units of Apple iPhone 3GS in their first weeks of existence.

But let’s not forget that the HTC Google Nexus One is currently only shipping SIM-free to USA, UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. As this list grows we might expect the sales speed to increase.

Best seller or not, one thing is for sure – the Nexus One made the beginning of this year far more exciting than I could have ever expected.

Capacitive screens test round 1 – iPhone, HTC Droid Eris, Motorola Milestone and Google Nexus One

Now you know having a capacitive touchscreen is cool but have you ever wondered which one is the coolest of them non-stylus lot? MOTO developed very simple and yet effective test for comparing different capacitive touchscreens. The first four handsets to be tested are four of the top-end smartphones available on the market – iPhone, HTC Droid Eris, Motorola Milestone and Google Nexus One.
The test is rather simple – drawing lines on the screen with a finger – the first time barely touching the screen and applying some force on the second go. Now there are several outside factors that can affect the performance of each device (moisture of the finger or how steady the hand of the tester is to name the two most obvious) but hopefully the guys from MOTO took them into consideration and did their best so the test remains as objective as possible.


The results are here for everyone to see – the iPhone gives the most accurate response to touch in the center but has some problems around the edges. The Milestone scored worst of the four, with quite a lot of inaccuracies all over the screen. Unsurprisingly the HTC-manufactured Nexus One and Droid Eris perform identically – fairly linear tracks with some waviness.
The main reason why people prefer the capacitive technology is that only a gentle touch is required for a click to be registered. Yet the accuracy is also quite important when dealing with smaller UI elements, so it’s good to know that when all comes to the screen there will be an easy tool for comparing and choosing the best.
Here is a video of the actual test:

And just to be clear, MOTO have nothing in common with Motorola. You can find the full test article and explanations here.