The Downloadsquad website has published an article claiming that google plans to release a tablet based on it’s Chrome operating system before the end of november in the USA.  If it’s true, this tablet is going to be aimed squarely at the Ipad, the article claims that the tablet will be available at a heavily subsidised price on Verizon data tariffs.

That would be an interesting change of tactic for google who attempted to bypass the networks when it released the Nexus One mobile phone. The Nexus One was initially only available via google’s own online shop, unlocked and un subsidised. Although the Nexus One was a great phone, sales were disappointing because punters were not as willing to stump up the full cost of the handset as google hoped. By the time the Nexus One was made available at a subsidised price thorough the networks there were bigger and better devices available and google recently stopped manufacturing the device.

So back to the rumoured tablet. The article says that it will most likely be made by HTC and based on NVidia’s Tegra 2 “PC on a Chip”, this would make it roughly equivalent to an reasonably good netbook in terms of performance.

The Chrome OS is where it gets interesting for me, I’ve played around with development builds of Chrome OS on my netbook and I rather like it.

It’s basically just google’s Chrome browser on top of a very stripped down linux Kernel, which makes it very, very fast. Running Chrome from a usb stick on my Samsung NC10 results in boot times of less than 30 seconds, so expect the tablet to go from off to surfing the web in a very short time indeed.

Will this do any harm to the iPad’s sales? I don’t know, it depends on the price and how well non-nerds get on with the Chrome OS.  The Tablet is likely to have flash support right out of the box so you’ll be able to watch videos on You Tube (in your face iPad owners) – which let’s remember google owns and serves up ads on.

Of course this whole thing could just be a rumour put about to upset Steve Jobs. Tee Hee.

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 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

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).

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

Yesterday Google gave us a look at the latest version of the Android OS, the Android 2.2 Froyo (strange name for an operating system but so is Eclair!). Froyo is bringing a number of significant updates to Android phones including performance upgrades, improved camera capabilities and better app management.

The most anticipated improvement from Android fans is the addition of Flash 10.1 giving users access to every video on the web. There is also a new web browser V8 JavaScript engine to load JavaScript-heavy pages faster than ever before and improved memory management to switch between apps with ease.  Apps can also be adjusted for ‘car mode’ and ‘night mode’ to control them easier in these situations.

For those who love to snap away on their Android phones like our boss Bobbie, Froyo has added onscreen camera keys to control zoom, flash, focus etc and the LED flash can now be used when recording videos. There are also a plethora of other features to make the running of your Android phone and overall better experience.

So who will it affect I hear you ask?

According to HTC most of their Android phones that were released in 2010 will receive the Froyo update including the Desire, Evo 4G, MyTouch Slide and the Incredible. Of course the Nexus One is on the list and will probably be the first to receive the update and we hope the beautiful Legend and Hero get the upgrade to make these devices even better!

Which parts of the upgrade are you looking forward to the most and which is your favourite Android device? For all the latest Android phones Compare HTC mobile phones at Mobiles Please.co.uk

HTC have now introduced the popular Desire in a black casing. This new look makes the Desire look ultra chic and stylish making it a truly ‘desirable’ phone.

The black Desire is currently only available on Orange from £25 a month with 400 minutes and unlimited texts as well as all the great Orange extras including Orange Wednesdays.

The Desire from HTC is one of the most advanced handsets on the market. Similar to Google’s Nexus One the Desire has a soft curved design and a fantastic 3.7 inch AMOLED display. There is an optical trackpad to navigate through the phones many features and with Android 2.1 sitting above a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU the Desire really does give you an incredible user experience. The Desire has a fully customisable home screen using HTC widgets including weather, photo album, music and messages. There is a 5 megapixel camera on board with autofocus and LED flash and with expandable memory up to 32GB there is plenty of storage for all your favourite music and photos. Users can browse the web with 3G connectivity and make sure they are always in the right place with GPS and Google Maps. The HTC Desire weighs 135g and measures 60 x 119 x 11.9mm, with it superb design and excellent user interface it is one excellent smart phone.

Click here to see all HTC Desire deals.

Today Vodafone announced that their customers can get the Google Nexus One from the 30^th April from at £35 a month. Google fans can pre-order the Nexus One over the next four days on the Vodafone website (not google.com/phone). We expect that in-store availability will be around the 5^th May.

Being such a hot phone, the Nexus One will keep customers in 18 or 24 month contracts with tariffs starting at £25 with a £99 charge for the phone. The £35 a month plan offers the Nexus One for free over a 2 year contract.

Last month, Goldman Sachs downgraded its estimate for Nexus One sales this year from 3.5m units to just 1m worldwide. This is probably due to the amount of competition on offer from manufacturers such as HTC and Apple.  The HTC Desire (the Nexus One’s big brother) offers the same spec as the Nexus One but is available on a number of networks pushing it into the limelight and making a lot of sales! Apple are also brewing up a storm with the iPhone 4.0/HD giving customers even more to think about when purchasing ‘the coolest phone on the market’.

This is exciting news for Google fans if they couldn’t get their hands on a Nexus One before, but it feels like Google have left it a bit too late to launch their device in the UK, as the mobile phone world moves quickly on to the latest ‘hot’ device, casting many decent phones into the shadows.

To compare all the latest smart phone deals go to Mobiles Please.co.uk

With most new mobiles offering app stores and the demand for making mobile phones fully customisable to the users needs, more and more apps are appearing and taking over the mobile world!

Currently Apple are the top dog’s with their App Store for the iPhone but Google’s Android Market store is trying it’s best to catch up with an estimated 30,000 apps.

Android fans don’t get too excited as there is still a pretty large gap of around 115,000 apps. The Android Market store has increased it’s apps from 10,000 to 30,000 in just 6 months so is expected to expand rapidly with the growth of the Android OS. Android has changed the way mobile users work and with Google selling 60,000 smartphones a day the snowball effect is sure to take off.

The brand the Motorola Milestone is one of the many phones to host the Android OS. It is a great alternative to the iPhone, N900 or Google’s recent Nexus One and is the first smartphone to host the new Google Android 2.0 OS. Similar to the Motorola Droid, the Milestone has a fantastic 3.7 inch screen – perfect for viewing web pages and a slide out QWERTY keyboard which is ideal for messaging. The Milestone is not just a business phone, for those who want to stay entertained on the move there is a decent media player and handy 3.5mm audio jack as well as expandable memory up to 32GB. If you are interested in taking great photos on your favourite device then the Milestone has a great 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, dual LED flash, image stabilizer and impressive camera software.