The mysterious HTC supersonic, rumored to be headed to Sprint and running on their 4G WiMax network was caught on film briefly. Slim details are known other than that it’s running Android, it will be blazing fast, and sports a 4.3 inch display. Check out the video clip and start drooling.
This is one of the first pictures of the rumored HTC device for Sprint’s 4G network. Codenamed the HTC Supersonic, it features a 4.3-inch touchscreen and 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Sense UI like the HTC Hero, and of course Sprint’s WiMax 4G bands. It’s unclear if this is supposed to be a prototype or a production model, but we can only hope an official announcement is around the corner soon.
Sprint users, you excited to trade in your Hero or Moment for this baby?
Remember the excitement when the G1 was first rooted? Now there’s the same for owners of the Sprint Hero and Samsung Behold 2. For the Hero, there’s a thread over at xda-developers with clear instructions on how to Root your Sprint Hero. Not much yet in the way of custom ROMS or other goodies, but you can run applications that require superuser such as wireless tethering.
For Samsung Behold 2 owners, head over to All Droid for your rooting instructions.
I don’t have either of these handsets, so I can test myself, but if anyone successfully roots (or doesn’t), let us know in the comments how it went. And as always with hacking and modifying your phone, do so at your own risk.
[Thanks Ted for the tip on the Behold 2]
Samsung and Sprint announced the latest Android offering from both companies, the Samsung Moment. Available November 1st for $179.99 on a two year contract, undercutting Samsung’s latest offering from T-Mobile, the Behold 2, by $20. This is the device previously thought to be called the InstinctQ, but obviously they wanted to differentiate it from the Instinct lineup. Featuring a 3.2-inch AMOLED touch screen, slideout 4-row QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, 3.5MP camera with a flash, proximity sensor and accelerometer. But one of the most important specs is the 800Mhz processor, which makes this one of the best spec’d Android handsets to date. At least until the rumored 1Ghz HTC Dragon or the Sony Xperia X3 come onto the scene.
Anyone planning on passing on the HTC Hero to get the Samsung Moment?
I had a little chuckle and a little frown at this unboxing video. Unboxing videos are generally crap, but this one is worth a look. It’s a bit long, but skip ahead to about the 1 minute mark for the action. Nobody likes to see a brand new phone destroyed, especially if it’s an Android phone.
Just another tidbit of great news for Sprint users that are fans of Android. The HTC Hero just passed FCC approval with CDMA/EVDO, which Sprint and Verizon use. Along with all the other evidence, we’re now just waiting for an announcement from Sprint or HTC. The rumored release date is still October 11th, along with the Samsung InstinctQ. With this, the HTC Hero may be the most widespread Android phone, with at least 4 carriers as of right now. We’re still waiting to hear more about the Hero with AT&T 3G bands that skated through the FCC nearly 2 months ago.
So far, little is known about the Samsung InstinctQ, but the guys over at Phandroid got their hands on some pictures. We know it is rumored to be coming to Sprint on or around October 11th, the same rumored release date of the HTC Hero on Sprint. The looks are more like the Instinct S30 or S50 than the original Instinct but with the addition of a D-pad and the Home and End keys found on other Android hardware. And we’re guessing the Q stands for that 4-row QWERTY sliding keyboard underneath. Overall thickness doesn’t seem to be too much greater, but it’s hard to tell from the pictures. Unless by some odd chance, the Motorola Morrison comes out first, this would be the second Android phone with a full QWERTY since the T-Mobile G1 was released. Now that the spy pictures are out, it’s only a matter of time before the specs start surfacing.
[via Phandroid]
As the story goes, way back in April, a post over at xda-developers claimed the HTC Hero would be launching in the US on Oct 11th and everyone pretty much brushed it aside. Now we have a bit of photo “proof” from the same poster, which backs up what sounded like quite a wild claim back in April. Even though the HTC Hero has already cleared the FCC with AT&T 3G bands, it’s still not a far stretch that Sprint would carry HTC most advanced Android phone yet.
We also can see that something called the Samsung Q is set to launch the same day. But there’s no solid evidence at the moment exactly what that handset may be. Although some are speculating it could be the CDMA version of the Samsung Galaxy.
[via Engadget]
The HTC Hero was approved by the FCC for the US, and it’s carrying AT&T’s 850/1900 MHz 3G bands. This doesn’t rule out the rumor of Sprint being a carrier of the Hero, but it seems more than likely AT&T will be the first to release the hot new handset. We’ll keep you posted once we start seeing leaked internal memos.
If you’re having trouble sleeping, head over to the FCC’s website for some really dry reading PDFs on the Hero.
Here’s an interesting little app for the Samsung Instinct. It’s an Android simulator of sorts, with functionality for shortcuts, changing backgrounds, launching apps. While the developer clearly states this is not the full OS, it would be enough to fool some people into thinking you installed Android on your Instinct. Shown at the right is an actual screenshot.
We already looked at an Android theme for Blackberry, but this looks a little more functional.
If you own an Instinct and have $1.99 burning a hole in your pocket, give it a try and let us know how it works. That is, until we actually see a Samsung Android handset from Sprint.
**UPDATE**
Found a video of this app on being shown off on the Instinct. Looks a little slow, but still pretty cool if you crave the Android.