Huawei Vision: Premium Android goodness from Huawei

In Beijing earlier this week, Huawei unveiled its latest Android device and it promises to be one of their 'sexiest' smartphones yet. The Vision is a stylish droid that fits in at the upper end of the Huawei's smartphone portfolio and has a promising spec sheet that matches its sophisticated image.

The Vision will come running Gingerbread 2.3 and totes a 3D carousel UI, which is in fact a modified version of SPB's Shell 3D launcher. The device's construction consists of an aluminum alloy uni-body which measures just 9.9mm thick at its thinnest point and weighs in at a reasonable 121g. It uses a 3.7" capacitive display on the front and a 5MP camera with a single LED flash on the back, capable of 720p HD video recording.

Hardware is certainly capable with a single-core 1GHz MSM 8255-1 Snapdragon chipset, 512MB of RAM, 2GB of ROM, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, a microSD slot that can take cards up to 32GB, a microUSB 2.0 port, a 1400mAh battery, A-GPS, an FM radio, a proximity and brightness sensor and customisable back covers available in charcoal, silver or rose gold.

So there are a few omissions that need to be cleared up like 3G connectivity and screen resolution, but all in all it's a device not to be sniffed at with looks akin to an HTC Legend crossed with a Nexus S and hardware similar to that of the Samsung Galaxy S, a competent device that aims higher than some of it's brand siblings for sure. If you're interested by the Huawei Vision it's coming to 'selected markets' in September of this year.

Orange Switzerland to unleash the Nokia N9 on September 15th

As you may be aware, the N9 is the swan-song device that represents the end of the Nokia/MeeGo marriage. A fitting end but still a sad one to be sure.

The N9 has received plenty of praise during its pre-release life from reviewers and industry types to boot. Even we have had the pleasure of being charmed by its unique user experience and its wonderful design.

But of course despite all the buzz surrounding its existence and its lifespan, it still hasn't actually been unleashed on the general public. One of a small handful to put a time to the release of the N9 however has been Orange Switzerland. Their online store quotes the N9's expected arrival from September 15. Wonderful news, especially to those who are MeeGo fans.

In case you're not fully clued up, the Nokia N9 is the latest and last MeeGo device from Nokia as they plan to turn their efforts into pushing Windows Phone 7 in a big way. This device will be coming to a host of territories but missing out on some pretty big markets, including the US and the UK, this news correlating with likely launch locations of Nokia's first WP7 device, an effective doppelgänger of the N9, the Nokia W9 Sea Ray.

With only hints of pricing, there's nothing more we can confirm at this time, but if you want to know more about the device there are a host of articles (linked throughout this post) on the N9 along with our hands-on which you can read here, some camera samples you can admire here and the full spec list which you can read here.
So are you one of the lucky Swiss citizens who plans on picking up an N9 or are you in the unenviable position of being stuck in a part of the globe where the N9 won't be showing its face, let us know in the comments.

LG promises OTA updates to smartphones, new customer care

The LG OTA updates app and remote assistance services got their debut in Korea and now LG is making it clear it will offer the same services widely to Europe, the Asia Pacific region and South and Central America throughout the second half of the year to its premium line of Optimus smartphones - the Black, 2X and 3D.

First off, customers will get the FOTA app - "firmware over-the-air" so they can get the most current updates for their phones wirelessly (as other makes offer them). This way LG Optimus owners will get software updates directly to their phones without the need to connect to a PC.

The remote call service will be region and operator-dependent and will connect users to a member of customer service through 3G or Wi-Fi, should a problem occur with their phones. Thus users won't have the need to necessarily visit an LG Customer Information Center or a service-station. This will be done through the pre-loaded "Remote Call" application.

Once the user is registered, LG's remote customer care assistants will get wireless access to the smartphone in order to quickly see what the problem is. Customer Information Center assistants won't get access to private information like emails, messages, pictures and calendars unless the customer has consented to it.

Both services will be made available in the second half of this year.

Apple and Samsung outstrip Nokia as top smartphone vendors in Q2

Q2 of 2011 is now almost over and the results are in for the smartphone shipments volumes. Just a week ago it became certain that Apple has surpassed Nokia in smartphone shipments for Q2 but now Samsung and HTC have released their numbers. Strategy Analytics confirm that Apple has come out on top with 20.3M shipped iPhones, Samsung is a whisker away with 19.2M in second place, while Nokia is the only Top 3 manufacturer to report a decline in year-to-year numbers with 16.7M (Q2 of 2010 - 23.8). Interestingly enough, HTC is probably at the fourth place with 12.1M smartphones shipped between April and June.

The only thing that stands between a certain fourth spot and HTC are the LG smartphone shipments results for Q2 2011. Since the manufacturer decided not to disclose the numbers and went with total phone shipments all we're left with is a guessing game. Still, some estimates point that LG plans to ship little over that 20M smartphones for the whole year so it couldn't have shipped more than HTC this quarter alone. We can't know for sure though. You can find HTC's detailed report here.

With the way the tides have turned in the last year, the smartphone market share has grown by 76.3%, which was reported by Alex Spektor, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics. The trend is that year after year smartphones will carve themselves a more important role in our lives.

Judging by the intense rumors of a 6 September iPhone announcement we could be looking at even more impressive Q3 Apple results.

Facebook Messenger now available for iPhone and Android – gives iMessage and Skype a run for their money

Facebook released today a brand new (separate) app, called Facebook Messenger for the iPhone and Android devices. It combines all of your messages into a single app and can be used to text your Facebook buddies via your profile or text message, via your carrier.

Also 9to5Mac have uncovered that the app (both for the iPhone and Android) has a top-secret video component to it, which would mean that the Palo Alto-based company is on route to rub shoulders with Skype (among others) by bringing cross-platform video calls.

Facebook Messenger aims to give you a better way of reaching your friends and contacts by unifying your entire correspondence with everyone (social network friends, email and phone contacts) into one single app. The Facebook Messenger is an extension of the Facebook messages service and you can send messages to your online friends, but you can also send texts to your acquaintances the regular SMS way.

Starting up the app brings you to a list, consisting of all your Facebook messages. To write a message to someone you just tap the compose icon in the top right corner and start typing the person’s name. If a person has more than one number to his/hers contact details the app prompts you to select which number to use. You can, naturally, just select Facebook messages and send an online message.

There’s added support for group conversations and a geo-tag option so you could let people know where you are.

This all looks swell and okay, but I just have to ask – iMessage anyone? It does look similar to the Facebook Messenger and add all the other details to the lot and it could easily step on Viber, WhatsApp, Tango and other services’ shoes. It seems a little underhandedly done by the big blue social network leader. But I guess in today’s technologically social times competition is tough, ruthless and has no regard for integrity.

Have any thoughts on the matter? Share them in the comments – we’d love to get your inputs.

Here are some direct download links to the apps – iTunes and Android. So far only the iPhone is listed as an iOS-supported device so iPad and iPod Touch users will have to wait a while longer. Facebook has put up an official page for the new service – check it out here.