It sounds like gamers are in for a real treat later this year as rumours surface of a Sony Ericsson and Google collaboration that will produce the PSP Phone. The handset is set to be on offer in a landscape slider form that incorporates the Playstation gaming buttons with the L&R buttons on the top left and right of the handsets shell.

Android v3.0 is expected to run the handset and will offer access to the Android Marketplace where popular gaming titles are expected to be available for download. On the phone side things the display should measure 3.7-inches or more and a 5-megapixel camera may also be on hand. The 1GHz processor should keep things moving without a hitch so this has to be one of the most exciting prospects of the year.

The month of October has been pencilled in but this may be a bit of a stretch, so maybe this one will be topping the charts in the most wanted Christmas gift list. Keep your eye on our Blog and we will keep you updated as the details and launch become official.

The powerful Galaxy S already had a pretty impressive spec but Samsung have decided to add a few more features onto this super smartphone to make it a real contender in the smart phone world including a full QWERTY keyboard in the form of the Galaxy Q.

Obviously putting a QWERTY keyboard on the bottom of this phone means that the screen size has been decreased a bit from 4 inches to 3 but it is still a super AMOLED touch screen, displaying the phones features superbly. Other impressive features to that are expected to come out of the Galaxy Q include an 8 megapixel camera with HD video recorder as well as a 1.3 megapixel video call camera. So far so good!

Other than that the Galaxy Q is fairly similar to the Galaxy S, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing with a 1GHz Processor, TouchWiz interface, full Google package, 3G HSDPA, media player and WiFi.

For people who like QWERTY phones the Galaxy Q could be a real hit for Samsung. No news on a release date yet but we are expecting it to hit the shelve before Christmas.

The latest figures to hit the news from GFK show that Android’s share of the contract phone market in the UK has more than quadrupled from 3% in Q1 of 2010 to over 13% in Q2.

To use nerdy Star Trek speak, Google look like they are going to translate their tactics in the online services sector to mobile phones and Borg us all.

To me, this battle for the smart phone operating system crown looks alot like the way the computer OS market went in the late eighties/ early nineties.

Back then there were a handful of serious players – Microsoft had DOS and the embrionic windows which were not tied to hardware, Apple were doing what they do now and selling hermetically sealed software/hardware combos, IBM had OS2 and Linus Torvalds was beavering away on Linux.

Ultimately Microsoft won, with Apple as runner up OS2 consigned to history and Linux finding a small niche with nerds.

The players in the phone OS game right now are Google with android,available free to any manufacturer who wants it, Apple again tying the hardware and software together, Microsoft with Windows Mobile and Samsung and Nokia with their proprietary Bada and Symbian systems.

So who’s going to win?

I’m not a betting man, but if I was I would be looking back at why MS won the PC operating system wars.  The bottom line is that there was more and better software available for windows than any of the others. It’s the same reason VHS won over Betamax and HD-DVD lost out to Blu Ray. Content.

Importantly in all these cases, the format’s fates were decided by third parties, the movie studios in the cases of VHS and Blu Ray, and software developers on the case of Windows.

Looking at the phone OS battle through this lens, it looks to me like a two horse race between Android and Apple. Microsoft are throwing money at developers and Samsung and Nokia have a small base of app developers too, but none of them compare to the numbers of  developers working on Android and iPhone apps.

Now, if you held a gun to my head and made me choose between them, I would have to say Android is going to win.

Apple have one product in the mobile phone sector, the iPhone, whereas every single major phone manufacturer aside from Nokia is rolling out Android phones. Developers go where the money is, would you write apps for one phone or apps that owners of many different handsets could use?

On top of that, many developers are growing concerned about the Orwellian level of control that Apple exert on their App Store, by contrast Android Marketplace is a wild west style free for all.

Apple will always have a place in the hearts of style concious buyers, unkindly dubbed” fanbois” by the less charitable commentators, they will always have a significant share of the market, but I can’t help feeling that Android has the edge.

HTC hero owners the world over had a long wait for android 2.1 to be released to them.  HTC postponed the release for several months and stayed remarkably tight lipped about why, although industry speculation was that the challenge of bolting their HTC sense interface on to android 2.1 took longer than expected.

Once it was complete, the 2.1 upgrade was available over the air to owners with unlocked Heros,  but those on contract had to wait until their networks rolled out the release.

Most of the networks in the UK were slow to react and vague about when the release would be made, largely due to testing and making sure their branding worked on branded handsets.

But several weeks on from HTC’s release, Orange customers in the UK and Europe are still waiting, and some have started a facebook group to highlight what they say is a poor performance from Orange. Oddly, the main issue people are complaining about isn’t that they haven’t got the update,  they seem to be more upset that Orange is not giving them any idea of the likely release date. Users on the facebook page are reporting wildly different and contradictory responses to their question from Orange customer services.

Some of the Facebook group users have resorted to taking matters in to their own hands by ‘rooting’ their phones.  Rooting is a method of wiping the network branded android operating system from a phone and replacing it with copy of HTC’s default version of android 2.1 for the Hero, it’s a bit like wiping windows from your PC and re-installing it or putting on another OS like Ubuntu.

Are you an HTC Hero owner? Have you got android 2.1 yet? Let us know

With all the bad press lingering around Apple at the moment we just spotted another cool app to remind us how handy they can actually be. Phones like Apples iPhone and the HTC Desire offer a great range of apps to help make life easier. Flight Tickets are constantly advancing their technology and the latest to appear is the British Airways app which lets users check in and board with their phones. A barcode is sent to the app which can be read by a scanner and used as a boarding pass to get you on board quickly.

When it is launched on Monday it will be available to Executive club users and will cut out paper tickets making it a much simpler process. The app also provides details such as check in times, flight updates and boarding gate information.

Chris Davies, head of digital marketing, said: ‘Mobility and convenience is key for our customers, so that no matter where they are, they can turn to their mobile phones to find the very latest information…The Mobile Boarding Pass feature for Executive Club iPhone users will be especially welcome for those customers unable to print off their own boarding cards when returning from overseas. We’re committed to putting our customers in charge, making the British Airways’ travel experience even easier.’

The app will be free for anyone in the Executive Club on Android, Blackberry and iPhone devices…who knows, one day you can just get your phone to go on holiday for you!

A few weeks ago google announced that google account users with the @googlemail.com suffix could have a new @gmail.com address.

I got the message and immediately clicked on the button for a shiny new @gmail.com address and everything went fine.  Until I started to notice problems with my phone.

My HTC Hero wouldn’t download from android marketplace anymore, my calendar stopped synching and the gmail app wouldn’t work anymore.

After a bit of researchI figured it out, changing your @googlemail.com to @gmail.com effects all your google services, mail, calendar, talk, etc AND YOUR PHONE IF IT’S LINKED TO THE ACCOUNT.

When you make the change, your phone continues to try and connect using the old @googlemail.com account and certain services will no longer connect including calendar and marketplace. This issue seems to be effecting most if not all android handsets including the HTC Desire, Hero and the like.

Unfortunately you can’t add a second account to your android phone, so you have a few options:

1. Don’t Change to @gmail.com
2. Change back to @googlemail.com
3. Backup and factory reset your phone, then start again with @gmail.com

I didn’t fancy 3, and it was too late for 1 so I changed my email back to @googlemail.com and everything worked perfectly again after a quick restart of my phone.

From what I’ve read it seems google know about the problem and are working on a fix, knowing google it won’t take long but in the mean time, just say no, there’s no real advantage other than @gmail.com is cooler (yes, I’m a nerd).

From next week travellers in the EU will be protected from running up massive bills for mobile data.

If you are abroad and using a mobile broadband dongle or one of the many smart phones with an always-on data connection, your data connection will be cut off if you hit a 50 Euro limit.  As soon as you reach 40 Euros you will be notified by your network, and given the option to lift the cap if you want to.

This new EU regulation comes in the wake of several recent stories of unwary travellers running up truly staggering bills whilst abroad. Last year, a student from Nottingham managed to run up a bill of nearly £8000 in a single month. William Harrison took a mobile broadband dongle to Paris with him for a summer internship and was clobbered by the monster bill after using skype to keep in touch with family and friends in the UK.

Even with the new regulations most of us will not want to run up a 50 Euro bill, so what can you do to protect yourself?

First and foremost, check what your network will charge you for data roaming, some networks will allow you to add a pre-paid data roaming bundle to your tariff.

Smartphones with always on data connections can catch you by surprise, they can connect to the internet automatically to check emails etc without you doing anything. Most smartphones will allow you to disable data roaming, so make sure you do this before you set off. The method varies from handset to handset so you may have to research a little.

Here’s an example of what you need to do with an HTC Desire, it’s similar on most Android based phones:

Go to Settings, choose Wireless Controls, then Mobile Network Settings. Next make sure the check box marked ‘Data Roaming‘ in un-checked and you’re good to go.

Happy Holidays.

The beautifully stylish HTC Legend has been named the coolest phone of 2010.  Beating the likes of Google’s Nexus One and the iPhone the Legend won by being ‘HTC’s stylish super-soldier for Android’s increasingly rapid march into iPhone territory.’  Apple fans fear not as the Cool list includes an iPod dock, an iPhone application and the super cool iPad.

So what’s so special about the HTC Legend? Well there was once a time when a mobile phone could either have looks or an impressive spec. The HTC Legend brings the two together for one super cool phone.  Looks wise the Legend is a sleek and stylish phone with HTC’s trademark chin. An alloy casing surrounds a super sharp 3.2 inch AMOLED touchscreen which displays web pages and photos beautifully.

Behind the display is the Sense user interface and multi-touch support which provides a fantastic user experience. The powerful Legend runs on the Android 2.1 operating system which allows users to run applications quickly and easily as well as customise the homescreen with their favourite apps.

The Friend Stream application is perfect for social networking fans, allowing you to keep up to date with all your contacts across various social networks putting all updates, photo uploads and messages into one application. Not only is it a brilliant Internet device with HSDPA and WiFi support it also comes with a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash to let users snap excellent photos on the go.

The Legend really is an impressive device that comes on some great contracts starting at just £20 a month.

Formerly known as the Dell Mini 5, the Dell Streak is a superb 5 inch tablet that combines a mobile phone with a netbook; great for business users or people who love to stay entertained on the go.

With a huge 1GHz processor the Dell Streak will not let you down if you need to send an important email or access the internet on the move. Although it has a larger than average screen it is only 10mm deep making it super slim and compact.

So why do I need such a huge phone?

The large screen offers brilliant resolution of 800×480 pixels making video playback a dream not to mention browsing the web and social networking. There is a 5 megapixel camera with a host of other features to take pretty decent snaps and a secondary video call camera for handy conference calling from the device. Other business friendly features include a GPS receiver with Google Maps, 3G and WiFi support for super fast internet.

For those who want a bit more fun in their lives, the Dell Streak boasts a multitude of media support to listen to your favourite tunes and enjoy movies away from your laptop as well as social networking integration to quick and easy access to the latest gossip and news from friends.

The device features 4 customisable home screens to split the phone into work and play and the capacitive touch screen makes the Dell Streak incredibly easy to use. The quad band device offers up to 32GB of expandable memory making it  a superb device to own.

Motorola’s Flipout is the oddest looking Android handset to date, with a square touchscreen which flips out to reveal a five row QWERTY keyboard. Although it looks like the kind of social networking phone aimed at teenagers it is actually a very powerful smartphone device with a great user interface and superb range if features.

The 2.8 inch touchscreen displays Motorola’s MOTOBLUR service which can be customised with widgets to suit you and displays live updates from your friends on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter straight to your phone.

Being an Android smartphone means that the Flipout comes with a full range of Google apps including Maps, Gmail and Search and also has access to the Android Market to download a huge range of apps. The Flipout also includes a 3 megapixel camera which comes integrated with Kodak technology to capture more enhanced images, FM radio and digital compass as well as a decent web browser with Wi-Fi support.

Although it has an unusual shape which might take a bit of getting used to, the Flipout comes in an array of fab colours including Rebel Pink, Dark Sapphire, Fairway Green and Poppy Red and is sure to get people talking.

The Flipout is set to be released any time soon but if you simply can’t wait for an Android phone check out our smartphone section at www.mobilesplease.co.uk