HTC Announce the ChaCha

Also announced at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is the ChaCha, an Android-powered, full-Qwerty, Facebook-integrated device.

The official product page is available here - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/chacha/overview.html

Features

• Be the first with the news

  

  HTC ChaCha has a Facebook button that lets you share just about anything with just one touch. Take a photo - straight to Facebook. Make a video - straight to Facebook. Show whatever, whenever, at the touch of a button.

• Chat room with all your friends
  Chat with all your friends on the world's biggest social networking site. HTC ChaCha's Facebook chat widget means you can group all your friends together, and see when anyone is online. Start a live instant chat, and juggle between as many private conversations as you want. The conversation never ends with HTC ChaCha.
• Type like a demon
  Heaps of friends, heaps of things you want to say. HTC ChaCha comes with a QWERTY keyboard, so you can knock out your messages fast. Whether it's an email, a new Facebook posting, or instant message chat, you can now knock 'em out like a champ.
• Surf the web in style
  Surf from one website to another with multiple browsing windows, zoom in and out of a page, and watch the text resize automatically on screen so you don't waste time panning left and right. You can even highlight text and quickly look up what you're reading about on Google, Wikipedia or YouTube.
• Beats on the go
  Whether it's Bieber or the Beatles, your HTC ChaCha lets you listen to all your favourite tunes straight from your in-built music player. No need to bring a separate MP3 player, with the support for microSD cards, there's enough space to store heaps of your favourite tunes. Now you're free to sing along to your heart's content.
• Snap and share in an instant
  Whether it's evidence of a night out with friends, a lucky shot of some rare wildlife, or a funny picture you've just been sent, it's easier to snap and share with HTC ChaCha. Just grab it, upload it and tag it for all your friends to see.
• Facebook your entire phone
  Your friends are your life, so you want to be close to them. That's why HTC ChaCha comes with a load of Facebook widgets that bring you closer to them. Like a clock with a Facebook stream of updates as a ticker, and a Calendar widget so you never miss your friends' birthdays and events. You can also follow your special favourites and all their news with the Friend Stream widget. With HTC ChaCha, you're no longer a friend – you're a super-friend.
• All your email accounts in one inbox
  If you've got a work email and a private one, your HTC ChaCha helps keep you on top of things by merging the accounts together into one inbox. All the emails are color coded, so you know what's what, and you can sort them by importance, groups or content.
• Check in and chill out
  With just one press, share where you are, what you're doing and the friends you're with right from your mobile. Get your friends into it and you'll never miss another chance to connect when you happen to be nearby at the same time.

Specifications

• Size - 114.4mm (4.5in) x 64.6mm (2.54in) x 10.7mm (0.42in)
• Weight - 120 grams (4.2 ounces) with battery
• Display - 2.6 inch touch-sensitive screen with 480 x 320 resolution
• CPU Speed - 600 MHz
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Memory
  • ROM - 512MB
  • RAM - 512MB
    
  • Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Camera
  • 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus and LED flash
  • VGA front camera
• Sensors
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital Compass
  • Proximity Sensor
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Multimedia
  • Audio supported formats
    Playback: AAC, AMR, OGG, MID, MP3, WAV, WMA (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: AMR
  • Video supported formats
    Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, WMV (Windows Media Video 9)
    Recording: 3GP
• Battery
  • Capacity - 1250mAh
  • Talk Time - WCDMA: up to 420 minutes, GSM: up to 450 minutes
  • Standby Time - WCDMA: up to 660 hours, GSM: up to 430 hours
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: Europe/Asia - 900/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Internet - WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP/OPP for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna

HTC ChaCha - A Closer Look [Video]

The HTC ChaCha lets you share music, photos, your location and status updates in just one touch via a dedicated Facebook® share button. With integrated Facebook chat, catch-up with your friends whenever you like. With a dedicated QWERTY keyboard featuring well balanced raised keys the HTC ChaCha lets send out your messages superfast.

HTC ChaCha How To videos available

Quickly share just about anything with the Facebook share button

Want a faster way to share just about anything on Facebook? This video will show you how you can use the Facebook share button to instantly post links, photos, music, status updates, and even your location on your wall.

Take a photo, tag it and upload straight to Facebook

Want a quicker way to upload your photos to Facebook? This video will teach you how to use the Facebook share button to take a photo, tag it, and then upload it straight to your Facebook album.

Call your contacts faster with Smart Dial

Tired of searching through your entire contact list just to make a call? This video will show you how Smart Dial helps you easily find the right person. In seconds.

Get your laptop online with the Wi-Fi hotspot app

For those times when there's no Wi-Fi available for your other wireless devices (say, your laptop), you can use your phone's Wi-Fi hotspot application. This video will show you how to easily set up the connection, and get your laptop online.

Personalize your Home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? This video will show you how to personalize everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

Introducing the HTC ChaCha

The ChaCha is HTC's Android-powered Smartphone featuring a dedicated Facebook button, enabling you to share virtually anything with just one touch, be it a photo, video or a wall post typed out at lightning speed thanks to the device's full-Qwerty hardware keyboard. Running the latest version of Android 2.3.3 and a new version of HTC Sense, the ChaCha provides a wealth of features and functionality in an attractive and portable package.

Features

• Be the first with the news

  HTC ChaCha has a Facebook button that lets you share just about anything with just one touch. Take a photo - straight to Facebook. Make a video - straight to Facebook. Show whatever, whenever, at the touch of a button.

• Chat room with all your friends
  Chat with all your friends on the world's biggest social networking site. HTC ChaCha's Facebook chat widget means you can group all your friends together, and see when anyone is online. Start a live instant chat, and juggle between as many private conversations as you want. The conversation never ends with HTC ChaCha.
• Type like a demon
  Heaps of friends, heaps of things you want to say. HTC ChaCha comes with a QWERTY keyboard, so you can knock out your messages fast. Whether it's an email, a new Facebook posting, or instant message chat, you can now knock 'em out like a champ.
• Surf the web in style
  Surf from one website to another with multiple browsing windows, zoom in and out of a page, and watch the text resize automatically on screen so you don't waste time panning left and right. You can even highlight text and quickly look up what you're reading about on Google, Wikipedia or YouTube.
• Beats on the go
  Whether it's Bieber or the Beatles, your HTC ChaCha lets you listen to all your favourite tunes straight from your in-built music player. No need to bring a separate MP3 player, with the support for microSD cards, there's enough space to store heaps of your favourite tunes. Now you're free to sing along to your heart's content.
• Snap and share in an instant
  Whether it's evidence of a night out with friends, a lucky shot of some rare wildlife, or a funny picture you've just been sent, it's easier to snap and share with HTC ChaCha. Just grab it, upload it and tag it for all your friends to see.
• Facebook your entire phone
  Your friends are your life, so you want to be close to them. That's why HTC ChaCha comes with a load of Facebook widgets that bring you closer to them. Like a clock with a Facebook stream of updates as a ticker, and a Calendar widget so you never miss your friends' birthdays and events. You can also follow your special favourites and all their news with the Friend Stream widget. With HTC ChaCha, you're no longer a friend – you're a super-friend.
• All your email accounts in one inbox
  If you've got a work email and a private one, your HTC ChaCha helps keep you on top of things by merging the accounts together into one inbox. All the emails are color coded, so you know what's what, and you can sort them by importance, groups or content.
• Check in and chill out
  With just one press, share where you are, what you're doing and the friends you're with right from your mobile. Get your friends into it and you'll never miss another chance to connect when you happen to be nearby at the same time.

Specifications

• Size - 114.4mm (4.5in) x 64.6mm (2.54in) x 10.7mm (0.42in)
• Weight - 120 grams (4.2 ounces) with battery
• Display - 2.6 inch touch-sensitive screen with 480 x 320 resolution
• CPU Speed - 600 MHz
• Platform - Android 2.3.3 with HTC Sense

  

• Memory
  • ROM - 512MB
  • RAM - 512MB
    
  • Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Camera
  • 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus and LED flash
  • VGA front camera
• Sensors
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital Compass
  • Proximity Sensor
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Multimedia
  • Audio supported formats
    Playback: AAC, AMR, OGG, MID, MP3, WAV, WMA (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: AMR
  • Video supported formats
    Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, WMV (Windows Media Video 9)
    Recording: 3GP
• Battery
  • Capacity - 1250mAh
  • Talk Time - WCDMA: up to 420 minutes, GSM: up to 450 minutes
  • Standby Time - WCDMA: up to 660 hours, GSM: up to 430 hours
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: Europe/Asia - 900/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Internet - WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP/OPP for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna

The official product page is available here - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/chacha/overview.html

The below video shows the device in action:

Home Screen

The ChaCha features a new version of HTC Sense designed specifically to suit the size of the screen on the device. With 4 home screens rather than the customary Android 7, the ChaCha has all the usual widgets you've come to expect from HTC Android devices, providing at a glance access to social networking and messaging updates as well as the ability to add application shortcuts and hardware toggles to the homescreen to best suit your requirements.

Applications

The list of applications that ship on the ChaCha as standard is as follows:

• Books
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock
• Downloads
• Facebook
• FB Chat
• FM Radio
• Friendstream
• Gallery
• GMail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Likes
• Internet
• Latitude
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Mirror
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• News & Weather
• Peep
• People
• Phone
• Places
• Quick Lookup
• Settings
• Setup
• Stocks
• Talk
• Transfer
• Videos
• Video Recorder
• Voice Search
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

Facebook

With its dedicated Facebook button, your social network updates can be accessed literally with a single touch on the ChaCha. Running the latest version of Facebook for Android as well as a separate Facebook Chat application, all the Facebook functionality you require from a mobile device is available as standard. HTC's Peep client for Twitter provides full access to the instant messaging and micro-blogging service too.

Exchange Email

The ChaCha features HTC's own Exchange ActiveSync client providing push-based bi-directional synchronisation of email, contacts and calendar data with Microsoft Exchange 2003 SP2 or later.

Setting up your Exchange email account requires that you know 4 pieces of information:

• Server address - this is usually the same address as that used to access your email via a web browser, in the form "mail.compant.com"
• Username
• Password
• Domain - this information will be the same as that used on your desktop or laptop PC when you log in: the contents of the "Log Into" field below the username and password fields

Support for HTML-formatted emails is available. Multiple Exchange email accounts (as well as POP and IMAP email accounts) can be configured and displayed in a single unified Inbox view

Mail can be pushed to devices as soon as it arrives on the server, or optionally can be synchronised on a schedule:

Email delivery can also be turned on and off automatically between specfic hours of the day, and days of the week:

Mails can be arranged in a number of ways, including by read status, by attachment size, from favourite contacts and more:

All email folders are available:

Meeting invitations can be sent not to mention the ability to set and edit your out of office status and message:

When composing a new email message, contacts can be searched for in the company global address book:

Connectivity

Including high-speed cellular data, WiFi USB and Bluetooth connectivity options, the ChaCha can always be connected to the Internet, can share its connection to the Internet with other devices, or can also share other devices' Internet connections.

WiFi Hotspot

The ChaCha, as with all HTC Android models since the Desire before it, features the ability to share its cellular connection to the Internet with other devices via WiFi: in effect to act as a wireless hotspot for any other device with WiFi capability:

When connecting to the Internet via WiFi from the ChaCha, it is also possible to enter proxy server information:

USB

The ChaCha can also share its cellular connection to the Internet via USB, on both Windows and MacOS

The ChaCha can equally connect to the Internet via USB when connected to a Windows-based PC using that PCs connection to the Internet thanks to its Internet Passthrough mode:

Bluetooth

Featuring Bluetooth connectivity, the ChaCha can't be used to share its connection to the Internet via Bluetooth, but can be used to share files using its built-in FTP server:

VoIP

Boasting Android 2.3.3, the ChaCha can be used as a wireless extension of your corporate SIP VoIP telephone system, enabling you to make and receive calls for "free" when in the office, and also receive calls made to your desk phone when in your office but not necessarily at your desk. Read this article for more information - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-htc-desire-s-wireless-extension-...

Camera

The camera software on the ChaCha features a number of image processing effects, facial recognition and geo-tagging capabilities:

Miscellaneous

The ChaCha comes with Google's ebook reading client built-in, providing access to a huge range of both free and paid electronic publications:

The ChaCha also comes with Google's Maps and Navigation software pre-loaded, providing turn-by-turn navigation and directions:

HTC's own RSS news feed and weather application provides at a glance access to up-to-date news updates and meteorological forecasts:

The ChaCha's battery saver technology allows you to automatically disable power-consuming elements on your device should a certain battery level be reached, to help further preserve the battery life of your device when in it drops to a certain level should you not be able to recharge it immediately:

The Quick Lookup software on the ChaCha allows you to search for, define and translate any phrase or text from a variety of Internet sources at the touch of a button:

The ChaCha also features a built-in YouTube client:

When combined with the power of the HTCSense.com cloud-based service, the ChaCha can be backed up, remotely located, locked, wiped and more.

Summary

The ChaCha is a fully-featured, social network-integrated, full hardware keyboard, fully-connectable, portable Android-powered Smartphone. The screen size may not suit all tastes, but for those of you who rue the demise of a device with the form factor of the Snap then this device may be for you. The lack of a document editing application such as that featured on the Desire HD and Incredible S may not make the ChaCha a true business phone, but then the ChaCha is arguably not principally aimed at that market.

Contact Brightpoint GB today on 0870 849 0225 for more information and to reserve yours.

HTC Desire HD - a closer look

HTC Desire HD How To Videos

A number of videos have been posted on the HTC Show Me YouTube channel running through how to perform common tasks on the Desire HD...

Get in touch with people quickly using the People widget

Put the group of people you contact the most right on the Home screen by adding them as the People widget. Using the People widget, you can instantly place a call, send a message, or view details of a favorite contact with a single tap.

Get all your friends' updates in Friend Stream

Friend Stream connects you to your social networks. Share and get updates from friends in popular networks like Facebook and Twitter in a single feed.

Get all emails in one inbox

View emails from all your accounts in one place without having to switch to different accounts.

Just dial. Smart Dial gets it right.

Enter the phone number or first few letters of the person's name you want to call, Smart Dial will search your contacts and the phone numbers from the call history.

Turn your phone into a Camcorder!

Record life's special moments in HD, then share them on your favorite social network -- YouTube, Facebook, or Flickr.

Locations shows you where to eat, drink, and play

Search for places of interest, get directions to places you want to go to, and drive using turn-by-turn navigation with Locations. You can also download maps to your phone before you start your journey.

Wi-Fi Hotspot (portable wireless router)

Share your data connection with other devices by turning your phone into a wireless router.

Use My shelf and Reader to read ebooks

Use the Reader app and My shelf widget to read and download eBooks from Kobo, an online bookstore.

Personalizing the Home screen using widgets

Widgets put important information and media content up front on your Home screen. You can select from the available list of widgets, or download more from HTC Hub that connects to HTCSense.com.

Shuffle the tabs on your app

You can rearrange the tabs at the bottom of some of your phone's apps to prioritize the types of information you frequently use.

Transfer the contacts from the old phone

Transfer the contacts, calendars and text messages from your old phone to your new HTC phone using Transfer Data.

Search your phone and the Web

Find all types of information on your phone and the Web, including videos, how-tos, apps, contacts, messages, and so on.

Merge duplicated contacts from various accounts

Merge similar contact information such as name, email address, or mobile phone number in your phone and online accounts.

Use camera effects to virtually swap lenses or filters

Use camera effects to virtually swap lenses or filters for your phone's Camera

Connect a Bluetooth headset or car kit

Listen to music over a Bluetooth stereo headset, or have hands-free conversations using a compatible headset or car kit.

Get alerts with the Notifications panel

When you get a new notification, you can open the Notifications panel to see the message, reminder or event notification. It also lets you switch between recently-opened apps as quickly as possible.

Share what you found on the Web

When browsing the web, you can copy text, share it on Friend Stream, or do a Quick Lookup.

Trim a song and use it as your ringtone

Get your phone ringing to your favorite tune -- trim a song and use it as your ringtone.

HTC release introductory video to Desire HD and Desire Z

HTC Desire S - A Closer Look [Video]

The HTC Desire S gives you a sleek and stylish design crafted from a single piece of aluminum. Enjoy fast web browsing powered by the superfast 1GHz processor. Capture life's moments in vivid detail with the built-in HD camcorder. The HTC Desire S lets you tailor your phone to suit your needs with the seven customizable panels. Make live video calls with the front facing camera, so you can see your loved ones whenever, wherever!

HTC Desire S How To Videos available

HTC have posted a number of videos on their Show Me youtube channel providing visual instructions on how to perform common tasks

Call your contacts faster with Smart Dial

Tired of searching through your entire contact list just to make a call? This video will show you how Smart Dial helps you easily find the right person. In seconds.

Personalize your Home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? This video will show you how to personalize everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

See what's going on in all your social networks

Want a single place to check all your friends' updates? Learn to use Friend Stream to keep up with your circle of friends. This video will also demonstrate how to send out your updates simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter.

Record in HD and share it on YouTube

Learn to capture video in HD and share it on YouTube. This video will also teach you how to apply an effect to your video.

Reflow and look up text, share a web page, and more

Learn how text reflow makes reading web pages a breeze. This video will also show you Quick Lookup, a feature you can use to find more information about a word or phrase you encountered on a page that's new to you.

HTC announce the Desire S

The Desire S is the successor to the hugely impressive and popular Desire. In their own words HTC have taken a good idea... and made it better.

The official product page is available here - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/desires/overview.html

Features

• The phone of the year has evolved
  What happens when you take a multi award-winning smartphone like HTC Desire and improve it? You end up with HTC Desire S, showcasing a spacious 3.7 inch screen, a stronger and slimmer unibody design, with a heightened sense of intelligence, speed and clarity. It's reliability on a whole new level
• Evolved browsing, smarter and faster
  Visit all your favourite websites from the palm of your hand. Need to see something more up close? Simply pinch the screen to zoom in or out of a page, and watch the text reflow automatically to perfectly fit your screen. Run into something that sparks your curiosity? Just press on the screen to highlight text and quickly look it up on Google, Wikipedia, YouTube or the dictionary.
• Memories, now in HD
  You can now capture any moment wherever you are because your phone is now a quality camera. The improved HTC Desire S comes with an impressive, all-in-one camera and HD video recorder to capture and replay all your moments in crystal clear clarity.
• Face to face conversations
  You can be in two places at once with your HTC Desire S. Even if you're miles away, you can be there in an instant with live video calls straight from your phone.
• All the news in one place
  There's no need to wait for the latest news bulletin, because the HTC Desire S syncs with Google Reader. This means you instantly view all the news and commentary from your favourite websites and blogs in one place. Find a website you like? Add it to your reader with one single tap on the RSS icon. With HTC Desire S, you'll never miss a beat.
• Share it to a big screen
  HTC Desire S has a large 3.7 inch screen but when you want to share your photos or videos to a bigger audience, HTC Desire S allows you to wirelessly stream them straight to your TV via a DLNA connection.
• Maps that never keep you waiting
  Maps are stored on your HTC Desire S so you can access them instantly – with zero wait time and zero data roaming fees. Pan left, right, up or down, the details display straight away. And there's more - the maps are integrated with a compass so they always point you in the right direction.
• All your email accounts in one place
  Like most people you probably have more than one email account, which isn't easy to manage on a phone. HTC Desire S merges them all together into one inbox so you can see everything on the one screen. They're color coded so you know what's what, and you can sort them by importance, groups or content. Super organized and super efficient

Specifications

• Size - 115mm (4.53in) x 59.8mm (2.35in) x 11.63mm (0.46in)
• Weight - 130 grams (4.59 ounces) with battery
• Display - 3.7 inch touch-sensitive screen with 480 x 800 resolution
• CPU Speed - 1 GHz
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Memory
  • ROM - 5.1GB
  • RAM - 768MB
    
  • Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Camera
  • 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus and power LEDflash
  • VGA colour fixed focus front camera
  • 720p HD video recording
• Sensors
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital Compass
  • Proximity Sensor
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Multimedia
  • Audio supported formats
    Playback: AAC, AMR, OGG, MID, M4A, MP3, WAV, WMA (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: AMR
  • Video supported formats
    Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, WMV (Windows Media Video 9), AVI (MP4, ASP and MP3), XVID (MP4, ASP and MP3)
    Recording: 3GP
• Battery
  • Capacity - 1450mAh
  • Talk Time - WCDMA: up to 435 minutes, GSM: up to 590 minutes
  • Standby Time - WCDMA: up to 455 hours, GSM: up to 430 hours
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: Europe/Asia - 900/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Internet
  • WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
  • 3G: up to 14.4Mbps download speed, up to 5.76Mbps upload speed
  • GPRS: up to 114kbps downloading
  • EDGE: up to 560kbps downloading
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP/OPP for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna

HTC Desire Z - a closer look

HTC Desire Z How To Videos

A number of videos have been posted on the HTC Show Me YouTube channel running through how to perform common tasks on the Desire Z...

Focus with Face detection, then share

Focus on who's important in your snapshots with Face Detection, then share on Facebook or Flickr

Get emails in one unified inbox

View emails from all your accounts in one place without having to switch to different accounts.

Connect a Bluetooth headset or car kit

Listen to music over a Bluetooth stereo headset, or have hands-free conversations using a compatible headset or car kit.

Share what you found on the Web

When browsing the web, you can copy text, share it on Friend Stream, or do a Quick Lookup.

Move old contacts into your new phone

Transfer the contacts, calendars and text messages from your old phone to your new HTC phone using Transfer Data.

Search your phone and the Web

Find all types of information on your phone and the Web, including videos, how-tos, apps, contacts, messages, and so on.

Get alerts with the Notifications panel

When you get a new notification, you can open the Notifications panel to see the message, reminder or event notification. It also lets you switch between recently-opened apps as quickly as possible.

Merge duplicated contacts

Merge similar contact information such as name, email address, or mobile phone number in your phone and online accounts.

Trim a song and use it as your ringtone

Get your phone ringing to your favorite tune -- trim a song and use it as your ringtone.

Apply an effect before you take a photo

Use camera effects to virtually swap lenses or filters for your phone's Camera

Get in touch with friends using the People widget

Put the group of people you contact the most right on the Home screen by adding them as the People widget. Using the People widget, you can instantly place a call, send a message, or view details of a favorite contact with a single tap.

Know where to go with Locations

Search for places of interest, get directions to places you want to go to, and drive using turn-by-turn navigation with Locations. You can also download maps to your phone before you start your journey.

Camcorder captures life's moments in HD

To record life's special moments in HD, then share them on your favorite social network -- YouTube, Facebook, or Flickr.

Get updates with Friend Stream

Friend Stream connects you to your social networks. Share and get updates from friends in popular networks like Facebook and Twitter in a single feed.

Personalizing your Home screen with widgets

Widgets put important information and media content up front on your Home screen. You can select from the available list of widgets, or download more from HTC Hub.

Call with Smart dial

Enter the phone number or first few letters of the person's name you want to call, Smart Dial will search your contacts and the phone numbers from the call history.

Change the tab order in apps

You can rearrange the tabs at the bottom of some of your phone's apps to prioritize the types of information you frequently use.

Turn your phone into a wireless router

Share your data connection with other devices by turning your phone into a wireless router (Wi-Fi hotspot).

Introducing the HTC Desire Z

The new HTC Android 2.2 full-QWERTY "SuperPhone" is now available to order from Brightpoint. Featuring support for multiple email accounts, a unified email inbox, DLNA-certification, Adobe Flash 10.1, HTC Sense as well as a free online device tracking and security management system, the Desire Z is literally bursting with functionality, striking the balance between work and fun.

Highlights

• The Best of both worlds. Touch screens are brilliant for surfing the web and watching videos. Keyboards are brilliant for typing. Now you get the best of both wrapped into one phone - the Desire Z with a 3.7-inch screen and Qwerty keyboard.
• Your emails, prioritised. Busy people have busy inboxes, but the Desire Z makes sure nothing slips through the net by prioritising your emails for you. Like your personal PA, it puts all the important emails at the top of your inbox - keeping you on top of business.
• All your email accounts in one inbox. We all have different email accounts - work, home, social - but now you don't have to keep jumping between them. The Desire Z grabs emails from each of your different accounts and puts them all into one inbox. So you can sit back and let the Desire Z do all of the running around.
• Your business partner. When you have to do lots of things at once, you want a phone that can do the same. With its quick processor, the Desire Z lets you access work emails and calendars with Microsoft Exchange, view Microsoft Office documents and research online, all at the same time.
  When used with applications such as Dropbox you can extend your device's storage capabilities and synchronise your important documents and files across all your devices, ensuring that you always have the latest versions of all your stuff. Dataviz Documents To Go provides you with the ability to not only view Office documents, but also create and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
• A phone that's good for your brain. Of course, the Desire Z brings you whatever you're looking for on the web in seconds. But on top of that, you can add tonnes of apps to make expanding your grey matter quicker and more fun than ever.
  The built-in Quick Lookup tool satisfies your thirst for knowledge by letting you highlight any text you're reading on the Desire Z and search that selection in Wikipedia, Google, YouTube or the dictionary.
  With Google Goggles, if you want to know more about a logo, landmark or word, just take a photo using the Desire Z's on-board camera and Google instantly gives you results based on that image. It's just like Google, only with pictures.
• You don't have to call to talk. Calling and texting are great, but with the Desire Z there are so many other ways to stay in touch. Chat on Google Buzz, Facebook and Twitter. Update your blog wherever you are. Or if you are feeling adventurous, video yourself in HD, upload it to YouTube and send your friends the link.
  Foursquare provides a new way to explore your city, wherever in the world you may be. Using the Desire Z's built-in GPS capability, you can see all the cool recommended locations in your area and even see where your friends have been.
  With HTC Peep, HTC's own Twitter application, you can find out what is happening right now and let the world know what you're up to, no matter where you are.
• Explore you world and beyond. The Desire Z is made for exploration. With built-in GPS and awe-inspiring apps that keep track of everything from the stars in outer space to the route you took to the local park, there's no limit to what you can discover.
  With Google Sky Map your Desire Z becomes a window into outer space. Day or night, simply point it up to see a map of the exact stars, constellations and planets in that part of the sky.
  Wherever you run, cycle, hike or just explore, record the route you took with My Tracks. With live speed, time, distance and elevation statistics, you can see exactly how healthy you've been too.
• Never get lost again. With maps you can download for free, there's no more waiting for sections to load. The Desire Z even turns the map to face the same way you're facing. But if you still can't find your way, the friendly voice in Google Maps Navigation will give you turn-by-turn directions.
  Use the built-in locations widget to find places to eat, things to see and how to get around the area. Leave the guidebooks at home - the Desire Z is your ideal travelling companion.
  Been to a great place and want to remember it for next time? Seen an interesting location while browsing the web and want to visit it soon? Footprints is your answer. You can easily manage your Footprints using either the widget on your phone or htcsense.com
• Keep a cinema in your pocket. With its vivid 3.7-inch screen, the Desire Z makes every day epic. Watch a Hollywood blockbuster on the bus. Premiere your home movies on your lunch break. Because with the Desire Z, wherever you are, you're at the movies.
  With YouTube Player, the word's favourite video site is available at the touch of a button. You'll never be short of something to watch again.
• htcsense.com. HTCSense is the first place to turn if you lose your phone: whether you've misplaced it at home and simply wish to make it ring loudly, or whether you've lost it while out and about and wish to remotely lock the device and display contact information on the screen - all of this is possible directly from your web browser by browsing to htcsense.com
  You can even see where your phone is in real time on a map using the automatic tracking capability of htcsense and your device's GPS feature. In the worst case scenario you can also remotely erase all personal information from the device and restore it to an out-of-the-box state, keeping your data safe from prying eyes.
  Besides providing security for your device itself, HTCSense also provides security for your memories by automatically backing up all of your contacts, text messages and footprints making them accessible online from any web browser.
  With HTCSense you can also access a wealth of applications, wallpapers, sounds as well as recommend stuff to friends and colleagues.

Contact Brightpoint GB today on +44 (0)870 879 0225 to order yours.

Specifications

• CPU Speed - 800MHz
• Platform - Android 2.2 (Froyo) with HTC Sense
• Memory
  • Internal Phone Storage - 1.5GB
  • RAM: 512MB
    (The actual available internal phone storage may differ depending on the software configuration of your phone)
• Dimensions (LxWxT) - 119 x 60.4 x 14.16 mm (4.69 x 2.38 x 0.56 inches)
• Weight - 180 grams (6.35 ounces) with battery
• Display - 3.7-inch touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA:
    Europe/Asia - 900 / 2100 MHz
    Upload speed of up to 5.76 Mbps and download speed of up to 14.4 Mbps
  • Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE:
    850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz

  (Band frequency, HSPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent)

• Onscreen navigation - Trackpad
• Keyboard - Z slider QWERTY keyboard
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna
• Sensors
  • G-Sensor
  • Digitial compass
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Connectivity
  • Bluetooth 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • WiFi IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard microUSB (5-pin micro USB 2.0)
• Camera - 5.0 megapixel colour camera with auto focus and flash. 720p HD video recording
• Audio supported formats - Playback: AAC, AMR, OGG, M4A, MID, MP3, WAV, WMA / Recording: AMR
• Video supported formats - Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, WMV / Recording: 3GP
• Battery - Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1300 mAh
  • Talk Time: Up to 400 minutes for WCDMA / Up to 590 minutes for GSM
  • Standby Time: Up to 430 hours for WCDMA / Up to 430 hours for GSM

  The above are subject to network and phone usage

• Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• AC Adapter - Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240 V AC, 50/60 Hz. DC Output: 5V and 1A
• Special Feature - Support sharing pictures, video or music to your big screen TV or PC display via DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance)

You can read more on the official HTC product page here - http://www.htc.com/www/product/desirez/overview.html

Home Screen

As with all HTC Android devices before it, the Desire Z offers not 1 but 7 home screens, accessible by swiping your finger to the left or right of the main landing screen:

Home Screens can be customised to your preference by adding shortcuts to applications as well as a range of Internet-enabled widgets providing at a glance access to Facebook, Twitter, Stocks, email, text messages, you name it:

Also available in the Notification area at the top of screen is an application task switcher, enabling you to quickly access running programs:

You can also quickly switch between home screens by pinching on any home screen to see a representation of all screens, similar to Expose on the Mac:

Applications

The complete list of applications on the HTC Desire Z is as follows:

• Adobe Reader
• Amazon MP3
• Blocked Callers
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Car Panel
• Clock
• Connected Media
• Desk Clock
• Facebook
• Flashlight
• FM Radio
• Friend Stream
• Gallery
• Google Mail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Likes
• Internet
• Java
• Latitude
• Learn More
• Locations
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• News and Weather
• Peep
• People
• Phone
• Places
• Quick Lookup
• Quickoffice
• Search Anywhere
• Search People
• Settings
• Setup
• Soundhorn
• Stocks
• Talk
• Teeter
• Transfer Data
• Twitter
• Videos
• Voice Recorder
• Voice Search
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

But naturally a whole world of applications is at your fingertips within the Android Market and HTCSense.com
For a selection of some of the applications I have used and enjoyed in the past visit the Android section of the blog.

Email

The email client on the Desire Z has had a number of new features added not present on the Desire before it (also available on the Desire HD).
Unlimited email accounts can be added, be they IMAP, POP or even Microsoft Exchange accounts. Also included is a unified Inbox, meaning that no matter how many different email accounts you configure on the device, you only need to access one Inbox to view and manage your messages from all accounts. Messages can also be displayed based on priority, so that work emails will always appear above personal messages if desired.

For full instructions on how to configure an Exchange email account on the Desire Z read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-exchange-email-htc-desire-hd

The Exchange email client on the Desire Z (and Desire HD) offers the ability to set peak and off-peak synchronisation schedules as well as edit out of office status, as well as providing support for remote device wipe and password usage enforcement from the Exchange server.

Subfolders can also be accessed.

A separate Google Mail client is also available for access to GMail accounts, although it is possible to access GMail via Exchange ActiveSync if desired by entering in an Exchange server address of "m.google.com" meaning that you can use the HTC unified email client.

Camera

The Desire Z features the same 5 Megapixel camera as found on the Desire, including autofocus and flash. The Desire Z does feature, however, a dedicated shutter button making the device that bit easier to use. The optical navigation key and the on-screen keys can also be used. A number of image effects are available to help give your snaps that extra something, including (yes, I really should have cleaned my mug first!):

• Distortion

  

• Vignette

  

• Depth of field

  

• Vintage

  

• Vintage warm

  

• Vintage cold

  

• Grayscale

  

• Sepia

  

• Negative

  

• Solarize

  

• Posterize

  

• Aqua

  

The same features are also available in the Camcorder application, which supports 720p HD video recording.

Web Browsing

Boasting a WebKit 3.1-based browser, the Desire Z supports common web standards including Flash 10.1
Pop-up windows can be blocked, multiple browsing windows can be opened simultaneously and web sites offering a mobile view can be viewed in either the mobile or the full version.

Content and links can be shared quickly and easily via Twitter, Facebook, SMS, Email and more:

Web sites that offer an RSS feed can be added automatically to the Desire Z's built-in RSS feed reader simply by tapping on the RSS icon next to the address bar:

News and Weather

Included with the Desire Z is HTC's own RSS aggregator and weather application:

Distinct from the News application which allows you to add and manage your own RSS feeds, this application downloads content from a wide variety of news sources for you and displays them on swipeable tabs grouped by subject: Top Stories, World, UK, Sport, Entertainment, Science, etc. You can select which areas you are interested in and have content delivered automatically:

And move between tabs by swiping to the left or right:

Custom areas of interest can be added by defining new keywords, which will be searched for on your behalf:

Navigation

Satellite navigation and GPS location-based services are closely integrated throughout the Desire Z, enabling you to quickly locate nearby services and facilities from any application.
Featuring Google's own turn-by-turn navigation solution, the Desire Z is your perfect travelling companion providing spoken and written directions as well as the ability to compare multiple routes and avoid tolls and traffic works:

A number of views are also available, including simple road layout or full satellite imagery:

The Google Places application allows you to quickly locate nearby services based on your GPS location, as well as compare prices:

HTC's own Locations application performs a similar function, which is also integrated with the HTC Footprints application:

Footprints is HTC's own application that enables you to record moments and store GPS location information as well as images and notes into a single "footprint" - similar to starring a location in Google Maps, but with the added benefit of attaching media files to the location as well as syncing that footprint to your online account with HTCSense, enabling you to view that footprint from any web browser.

The Car Panel application provides access to all of this functionality from one handy, large-icon interface, ideal for when your device is attached to its car stand:

HTC Sense

HTCSense.com is HTC's free-to-use cloud-based app store, storage and security management system, and is arguably worth purchasing the Desire Z for alone.

Once your account is created, which is free to do online and takes a few moments, and you have logged in from your phone, the solution provides the ability to remotely lock or wipe your phone in the event that it is lost or stolen, and also display a message on the lock screen with your contact information should the phone be found by a good samaritan

The site also backs up your Text Messages, Contacts and Footprints, enabling you to manage your data online via your web browser and also compose new text messages directly from the browser and have them sent from your phone

You can also track your phone's location online using the phone's GPS capability:

HTC Sense also provides access to a collection of useful applications, wallpaper images and sound files to help you further customise your device's look and feel

The Desire Z is configured within the HTC Hub application on the device, which will prompt you to sign in with the same account details you used to create the account online, or you can create an account directly from the device itself when run for the first time:

Multimedia

The Desire Z features a Music Player, access to the Amazon MP3 store, a Video player as well as an FM Radio

Featuring DLNA certification, the Desire Z can also stream media (images, music, video) via its WiFi connection to any suitable PC or media server connected to the same network.

For details on how to connect the Desire Z and Desire HD to both Windows and MacOS, read these articles:

Windows - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/sharing-media-dlna-htc-desire-z-and-desi...
MacOS - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/sharing-media-dlna-mac-os-x-htc-desire-h...

SoundHorn is a bundled application, similar to Shazam, which enables you to use the device's microphone to recognise pieces of music and provide information on the track you've been wracking your brain for the last few minutes to remember the name for:

Also included is a YouTube application providing access to video clips as well as the ability to upload your own recordings:

Reference

The Desire Z has a number of search utilities built-in. Using Google's own search application you can verbally issue phrases to search for or type entries in manually to have search results returned in the browser.
HTC's own Quick Lookup utility allows you to search for entries in Wikipedia, Google Translate or an online Dictionary from an easy-to-use interface:

This feature is also available in all applications - from within an email or the browser, highlight text to be searched and access the lookup menu.

The Desire Z also features an in-built utility to allow you to search for data on the device itself:

Connectivity

Featuring Bluetooth file transfer capability, as well as the ability to use the Desire Z as a wireless access point, your PDA can become the centre of a mobile office quickly and easily, enabling laptop users to share your Desire Z's high-speed connection to the 3G Internet via WiFi

Should you be upgrading to the Desire Z from an older phone, you can also quickly and easily transfer your contacts from your old phone via Bluetooth to the Desire Z using the Data Transfer tool:

The Desire Z can also be used as a cellular modem via USB, or alternately can share your PCs connection to the Internet via USB to save on 3G data costs if desired:

Miscellaneous

Included on the Desire Z is an application process monitor, enabling you to keep track of the device's memory usage and close down unwanted or unneeded applications:

Not to mention a Flashlight utility that uses the device's camera flash bulb to act as an adjustable torch:

And finally, the Desire Z also includes the ability to assign keyboard shortcuts to launch commonly-accessed applications and operations:

Summary

The HTC Desire Z is arguably HTC's most impressive Android offering to date. Featuring the best of both worlds in terms of touch-screen access as well as a full-Qwerty hardware keyboard all in a lightweight, robust and attractive package, the Desire Z combines superior Enterprise messaging and calendaring access with social networking, multimedia and lifestyle applications.

Contact Brightpoint GB today on +44 (0)870 849 0225 to order yours!

The HTC Desire family - video teaser

HTC Evo 3D - A Closer Look [Video]

Now your photos can have as much depth as the moment itself. HTC EVO 3D captures your photos and videos in 3D, plus you can view them without the glasses. The stunning 4.3-inch QHD display gives you crisp websites, vivid images and incredibly fluid videos.

HTC Evo 3D How To videos available

Capture photos and videos in 3D

Want to get in on the 3D craze? This video will show how you can capture photos and videos in 3D, and then share them on YouTube or a 3D TV.

Watch your favorite movies with HTC Watch

Want to view the latest Hollywood blockbusters or favorite local movies right on your phone? This video will show you how to rent or purchase them with HTC Watch.

Call your contacts faster with Smart Dial

Tired of searching through your entire contact list just to make a call? This video will show you how Smart Dial helps you easily find the right person. In seconds.

Read books on your phone with HTC Reader

Interested in reading books right on your phone? This video will introduce you HTC Reader some of its cool features like downloading publications from the bookstore, highlighting text, adding notes, and more.

Personalize your Home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? This video will show you how to personalize everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

Keep in touch with the People widget

This video will show you how you can contact someone with a single tap, send a message to a group, and create groups with the People widget.

Create music playlists for your every mood

Lots of songs on your phone? This video will show you how to make music playlists to fit every occasion, from party to romantic dinner.

Get your laptop online with the Wi-Fi hotspot app

For those times when there's no Wi-Fi available for your other wireless devices (say, your laptop), you can use your phone's Wi-Fi hotspot application. This video will show you how to easily set up the connection, and get your laptop online.

Manage all your email accounts in one place

With several email accounts, email can get lost in the shuffle. Unified Inbox takes care of it for you by putting all your emails in one inbox. This video will teach you how to add email accounts, call a number or look up an address in an email, and more.

Record in HD and watch it on the big screen

Learn to capture video in Full HD and share it with your friends on your TV via DLNA. This video will also teach you how to trim the video and share it right away on Facebook.

Take crisp pictures and share them on Facebook

This video will show you how to take great self portraits, show where you took the photo on a map, and share your photos on Facebook.

See what's going on in all your social networks

Want a single place to check all your friends' updates? Learn to use Friend Stream to keep up with your circle of friends. This video will also demonstrate how to send out your updates simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter.

Access info and apps right from the lock screen

Need to see the weather or your stock portfolio right away? This video will explain to you how to transform the lock screen into a window of information. You'll also learn to answer a call and respond to a reminder on the lock screen.

Talk and listen hands-free with a Bluetooth headset

Would you like to listen to music or make calls without getting tangled up in headset wires? This video will show you how to connect your Bluetooth headset to your phone.

Create a custom ringtone for each of your friends

Want to know who's calling just by hearing the ringtone? This video will teach you how to trim a song and then set it as a ringtone associated with your friend.

Reflow and look up text, share a web page, and more

Learn how text reflow makes reading web pages a breeze. This video will also show you Quick Lookup, a feature you can use to find more information about a word or phrase you encountered on a page that's new to you.

HTC Evo 3D Specifications

A phone that sees the world like you do, in 3D
Now your photos can have as much depth as the moment itself. HTC EVO 3D captures your photos and videos in 3D, plus you can view them without the glasses. The stunning 4.3-inch qHD display gives you crisp websites, vivid images and incredibly fluid videos.

A more detailed video is available here - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/htc-evo-3d-closer-look-video

Features

• A new and improved camera and full HD camcorder with zero shutter lag and stereo sound recording so you can always capture that timeless moment.
• Stream photos or videos to your big screen TV via DLNA so you can share easily with a bigger audience.
• A personal Wi-Fi hotspot anytime, anywhere lets you share your Internet connection with multiple devices wirelessly.
• Find more information about anything you read with a quick lookup tool that lets jump to Wikipedia, YouTube or Google Dictionary.
• Zero-wait, zero-cost maps. Download maps to your phone for instant loading and no data roaming charges when you’re travelling.

Specifications

• Platform - Android™ with HTC Sense™
• Size - 126mm x 65mm x 12.05mm (4.96" x 2.56" x 0.47")
• Weight - 170 grams (6.0 ounces) with battery
• Display - 4.3-inch 3D touch screen
• Screen - 109 mm (4.3") 540 x 960 qHD resolution
• Processor - 1.2GHz, dual core Qualcomm MSM8260
• Storage
  • Internal phone storage: 1GB
  • RAM: 1GB
  • Expansion Slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Connectors
  • 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
  • micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI connection
• Sensors
  • Gyro sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital compass
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Camera
  Dual 5 megapixel color camera:
  • f/2.2 apperture lense
  • Capture 2D photos with up to 5 megapixel resolution
  • Capture 3D photos with up to 2 megapixel resolution
  • Auto focus and dual power LED flash

  Front camera:

  • 1.3 megapixel fixed focus color camera

  HD video recording:

  • Record 2D/3D videos with up to 720p resolution
• Internet
  3G:
  • Up to 14.4 Mbps download speed
  • Up to 5.76 Mbps upload speed

  GPRS:

  • Up to 114 kbps downloading

  EDGE:

  • Up to 560 kbps downloading

  Wi-Fi®:

  • IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Multimedia
  • Gallery, Music, and FM Radio
  • SRS virtual surround sound for wired headphone
  • DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to your TV or computer
  • Audio supported formats:
    Playback:.aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording:.amr
  • Video supported formats:
    Playback:.3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3)
    Recording:.3gp
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth® 3.0 with with Enhanced Data Rate
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HID, HSP, MAP, SPP, SDAP
• Social Networking
  • Facebook® and Twitter™ for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Share photos/videos on Facebook®, Flickr®, Twitter™, or YouTube™
• Power & Battery
  Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  Capacity: 1730 mAh
  Talk time:
  • WCDMA: Up to 465 minutes
  • GSM: Up to 560 minutes

  Standby time:

  • WCDMA: Up to 420 hours
  • WCDMA: Up to 358 hours
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDMA:
    Europe/Asia: 900/1700/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
    850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Location
  • Internal GPS antenna
  • With Locations, explore maps with zero wait, zero dead spots, and zero data roaming fees
• Tethering - USB and Wi-Fi® tethering

You can read more on the HTC web site - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/evo3d/overview.html

Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information or to reserve yours.

HTC Explorer First Look [Video]

With HTC Explorer find what's most important to you right at your fingertips. The lockscreen lets you access your contacts, mail, camera, and messages in one swipe even when your phone is locked. And to make things convenient for you, HTC Explorer offers an intuitive, clean homescreen design that focuses on the most frequently used features and notifies you when you've received an email or text message or have a calendar event.

HTC Explorer How To videos available

Create a custom ringone for each of your friends

Want to know who's calling just by hearing the ringtone? This video will teach you how to set a song as a ringtone associated with your friend.

Call your contacts faster with Smart Dial

Tired of searching through your entire contact list just to make a call? This video will show you how Smart Dial helps you easily find the right person. In seconds.

Manage all your email accounts in one place

With several email accounts, email can get lost in the shuffle. Unified Inbox takes care of it for you by putting all your emails in one inbox. This video will teach you how to add email accounts, call a number or look up an address in an email, and more.

Personalise your home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? This video will show you how to personalize everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

Keep in touch with the People widget

This video will show you how you can contact someone with a single tap, send a message to a group, and create groups with the People widget.

HTC Explorer product videos

A design that fits your lifestyle

The HTC Explorer lets you jump right into what's most important to you. The lockscreen design focuses on the most frequently used features like your mail, text messages, contacts, and camera.

A simply smarter phone

The HTC Explorer gives you shortcuts that really do save time and make your life less complicated. With the HTC Explorer, you decide what appears on your home-screen panel...it's all at your fingertips.

Keep in touch more easily

For text messages and email, HTC Explorer lets you group up your friends, family, whoever. Select the group from your contacts and send the same text message or email to the entire group in a one step.

Giving you peace of mind

HTC Explorer helps you track your data, messages and minutes used. It also remembers any Wi-Fi connections you use regularly and reconnects automatically when they're available.

HTC announce the Explorer

The Explorer is HTC's entry-level Android model aimed at the budget end of the Smartphone market. Running the latest version of HTC's Sense Android "skin" it provides a streamlined user interface with all of your important updates and applications available directly from the lock screen, but featuring only limited hardware specs. The Explorer could be ideal as a "second" phone for holidays, camping trips, sporting events, etc.

Features

• Smart dial
  Look up phone contacts quickly and make calls easily from either stored contacts or call history by simply entering the contact’s first or last name, or just the initials. Whoever you’ve called most recently is prioritised.
• Group text messaging
  Group up your favourite people and view all your communication options on one screen for simple access.
• An icebreaker for your calls
  Now when you look to see who’s calling, you get to see their latest social status updates or if they have a birthday coming up. The conversation starts before you say hello!
• Immersive experience
  Have you ever held a thunderstorm in your hand? When checking the weather – feel the sun's rays or wipe away the droplets of water.
• A simply intuitive phone
  The HTC Explorer lets you jump right into what’s most important to you. The lockscreen design focuses on the most frequently used features like your mail, text messages, contacts, and camera.
• A simply smarter phone
  The HTC Explorer gives you shortcuts that really do save time and make your life less complicated. With the HTC Explorer, you decide what appears on your home-screen panel…it’s all at your fingertips.
• Keep in touch more easily
  For text messages and email, HTC Explorer lets you group up your friends, family, whoever. Select the group from your contacts and send the same text message or email to the entire group in a one step.
• Giving you peace of mind
  HTC Explorer helps you track your data, messages and minutes used. It also remembers any Wi-Fi connections you use regularly and reconnects automatically when they’re available.

Technical Specifications

• Size - 102.8mm x 57.2mm x 12.9mm (4.05" x 2.25" x 0.51")
• Weight - 108 grams (3.81 ounces) with battery
• Display - 3.2-inch touch screen with 320 x 480 resolution
• Screen - 81.3mm (3.2")
• Processor - 600 MHz
• Storage
  • Total storage: 512 MB
  • Available storage: up to 90 MB
  • RAM: 512 MB
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Camera - 3 megapixel colour camera
• Connectors
  • 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Internet
  • 3G: Up to 14.4 Mbps download speed, Up to 5.76 Mbps upload speed
  • GPRS: Up to 80 kbps downloading
  • EDGE: Up to 236.8 kbps downloading
  • Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Sensors
  • G-Sensor
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth® 3.0
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, HFP, HSP, SPP, SDAP
• Social Networking
  • Facebook® for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Share photos/videos on Facebook® or YouTube™
• Multimedia
  • Gallery, Music, and FM Radio
  • SRS virtual surround sound enhancement
  • Audio supported formats:
    • Playback:.aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
    • Recording:.amr
  • Video supported formats:
    • Playback:.3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3)
    • Recording:.mp4
• Location - Internal GPS antenna
• Tethering - USB tethering
• Power & Battery
  • Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1230 mAh
  • Talk time: WCDMA: Up to 453 minutes, GSM: Up to 460 minutes
  • Standby time: WCDMA: Up to 445 hours, GSM: Up to 485 hours
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

View this article for a number of product videos showcasing the Explorer's key features.


Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information or to reserve yours.

Introducing the HTC Explorer

The Explorer is HTC's entry-level Android model aimed at the budget end of the Smartphone market. Running the latest version of HTC's Sense Android "skin" it provides a streamlined user interface with all of your important updates and applications available directly from the lock screen, but featuring only limited hardware specs. The Explorer could be ideal as a "second" phone for holidays, camping trips, sporting events, etc.

Features

• Smart dial
  Look up phone contacts quickly and make calls easily from either stored contacts or call history by simply entering the contact’s first or last name, or just the initials. Whoever you’ve called most recently is prioritised.
• Group text messaging
  Group up your favourite people and view all your communication options on one screen for simple access.
• An icebreaker for your calls
  Now when you look to see who’s calling, you get to see their latest social status updates or if they have a birthday coming up. The conversation starts before you say hello!
• Immersive experience
  Have you ever held a thunderstorm in your hand? When checking the weather – feel the sun's rays or wipe away the droplets of water.
• A simply intuitive phone
  The HTC Explorer lets you jump right into what’s most important to you. The lockscreen design focuses on the most frequently used features like your mail, text messages, contacts, and camera.
• A simply smarter phone
  The HTC Explorer gives you shortcuts that really do save time and make your life less complicated. With the HTC Explorer, you decide what appears on your home-screen panel…it’s all at your fingertips.
• Keep in touch more easily
  For text messages and email, HTC Explorer lets you group up your friends, family, whoever. Select the group from your contacts and send the same text message or email to the entire group in a one step.
• Giving you peace of mind
  HTC Explorer helps you track your data, messages and minutes used. It also remembers any Wi-Fi connections you use regularly and reconnects automatically when they’re available.

View this article for a number of product videos showcasing the Explorer's key features.

Technical Specifications

• Size - 102.8mm x 57.2mm x 12.9mm (4.05" x 2.25" x 0.51")
• Weight - 108 grams (3.81 ounces) with battery
• Display - 3.2-inch touch screen with 320 x 480 resolution
• Screen - 81.3mm (3.2")
• Processor - 600 MHz
• Storage
  • Total storage: 512 MB
  • Available storage: up to 90 MB
  • RAM: 512 MB
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Camera - 3 megapixel colour camera
• Connectors
  • 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Internet
  • 3G: Up to 14.4 Mbps download speed, Up to 5.76 Mbps upload speed
  • GPRS: Up to 80 kbps downloading
  • EDGE: Up to 236.8 kbps downloading
  • Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Sensors
  • G-Sensor
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth® 3.0
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, HFP, HSP, SPP, SDAP
• Social Networking
  • Facebook® for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Share photos/videos on Facebook® or YouTube™
• Multimedia
  • Gallery, Music, and FM Radio
  • SRS virtual surround sound enhancement
  • Audio supported formats:
    • Playback:.aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
    • Recording:.amr
  • Video supported formats:
    • Playback:.3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3)
    • Recording:.mp4
• Location - Internal GPS antenna
• Tethering - USB tethering
• Power & Battery
  • Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1230 mAh
  • Talk time: WCDMA: Up to 453 minutes, GSM: Up to 460 minutes
  • Standby time: WCDMA: Up to 445 hours, GSM: Up to 485 hours
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

User Interface

Running HTC Sense 3.5, the Explorer allows you to keep all of your messages, social networking updates, music controls and more all on your home screen and right at your fingertips.
Swiping to the left or right of the main home screen provides additional home screens on which you can add a wide range of application shortcuts, hardware controls, contacts, widgets for easy access

Additional widgets can be downloaded from the Internet

Notifications, running programs and hardware controls can all be accessed by swiping down from the top of the screen within any application:

Applications

The list of applications that comes preinstalled on the Explorer is as follows:

• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock
• Downloads
• FM Radio
• Friend Stream
• Gallery
• Gmail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Likes
• Internet
• Latitude
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Music
• Navigation
• People
• Phone
• Places
• Quick Lookup
• Settings
• Setup
• SIM Toolkit
• Talk
• Task Manager
• Transfer
• Usage Monitor
• Videos
• Voice Recorder
• Voice Search
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

Email

The Explorer supports the POP and IMAP email standards, recognising a number of common email providers automatically making setting up your email a simple matter of just entering your email address and password.
Exchange email accounts are also supported, enabling you to synchronise email, contacts and calendar with a Microsoft Exchange server:

Multiple email accounts can be configured, and displayed at a glance in a single unified Inbox, coded by colour. All mailbox folders can also be viewed:

Addresses in the Global Address List will be returned automatically as you compose new email messages:

Out of office status and response message can also be set from the device:

Message and attachment size limits can be defined for the data conscious, and synchronisation schedules can be defined so that updates are not pushed to the device outside of peak hours:

Connectivity

The Explorer can be used as a portable WiFi hotspot, enabling you to connect up to 5 WiFi-capable devices simultaneously and share the device's high-speed 3G cellular connection to the Internet. Connections can be encrypted for security.

The Explorer can further be used as a USB modem on Windows and Mac, or can share the Internet connection of a Windows or Mac PC when connected via USB in Internet Passthrough mode.

Additionally the Explorer can also be set up as a wireless extension of your office SIP-based IP telephone system, so you can make calls to members of the office while on site for free without racking up call charges or needing to be at your desk - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-htc-desire-s-wireless-extension-...

Miscellaneous

The Quick Lookup tool allows you to search a number of online resources simultaneously, including Google, YouTube, Wikipedia and Translate

The Task Manager provides at-a-glance information on how much memory is currently free on your device as well as what programs are running, and the ability to quickly close down unneeded programs:

The Usage Monitor provides information on how much data has been sent and received by the unit, time spent on voice calls and text messages sent, enabling you to keep track of charges incurred:

Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information or to reserve yours.

HTC Announce the Flyer

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011 in Barcelona HTC have announced a whopping 6 new devices, one of which is the tablet form-factor Android-based Flyer.

The official product page is available here - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/flyer/overview.html

Features

• Fly through the web wherever you go

  Conveniently compact and light for travel, yet amazingly powerful, the HTC Flyer tablet with a 7" display and a superfast 1.5 GHz processor is perfect for web browsing at home, in the car or on a business trip. To make it even better, it features Adobe Flash support, multi-window browsing with pinch to zoom, and a clever quick look-up that lets you tap into Wikipedia, Youtube and other web resources.

• 3D fun at every turn

  No more hunting around for stuff, anything you want will come to you on a cool 3D carousel. Photos, entertainment, weather, calendar, mail, friends smoothly roll around at your fingertips, front and centre, while giving you a sneak peak of what's to come.

• Be in two places at once

  Whether you're stuck in traffic, working late, or halfway around the world, you can make live video calls to those closest to you on your HTC Flyer straight from your contact list. So you can say it in person as if you're face to face, no matter if they're on their PC at home, on their office computer or on the other side of the world using their HTC Flyer.

• A pen that's quite magic

  

  HTC Flyer's magic pen transforms anything. It can draw, paint, write, and even retouch pictures. It can be a highlighter for the reader (and by the way all your highlights will be collated when you're done). The HTC Flyer can link audio to the notes you take for work, and it can add voiceover to a storybook you're drawing up at home. Work or play, it's magic for the whole family.

• A games room wherever you go

  The HTC Flyer has pushed the frontiers of hardcore play with the integration of the OnLive gaming service. So as of today, you can forget about having to invest in gaming consoles. All you need is the OnLive game controller and you can instantly play the best games in the world anywhere you have a fast Internet connection.

• Hollywood on-demand

  With HTC Watch, HTC Flyer transforms into a portable cinema featuring a wide selection of the latest Hollywood blockbusters for on-demand viewing. And with an expansive 7" screen and superb SRS virtual surround sound, you can immerse yourself in the cinematic experience whether it's on a short break or a long drive.

• Amplify your audio experience

  It's not just the visuals that are impressive. HTC Flyer comes with dual speakers for a much richer listening and entertainment experience. Enjoy high fidelity sound with SRS WOW HD™ virtual surround sound.

  

• Zoodles of fun with Kid Mode

  Transform your HTC Flyer into a fun, safe and secure playground for your kids. Kid Mode opens up a world of brainy games, story books – that let you tell a bedtime story even when you're not there and art mode that incorporates the magic pen and lets their artistic side run wild.

• A library in your pocket

  There's no need to carry epic novels around with you anymore with a built-in library of classics at your fingertips. Flick through titles, and even highlight and explore a word or phrase through Wikipedia, Google, YouTube or the dictionary. Go ahead, kids and you can now download your favourite books straight to your HTC Flyer and take them anywhere.

• Capture life in HD
  Have you ever had a camera with a 7-inch viewfinder? It's an eye opening experience! Take great shots with the 5MP camera and capture life in HD with the 720p HD camcorder.
• More fun with photos

  Take family photos to another level with our new Snapbooth. You can change lenses or add effects to make moments more memorable. And when you're done taking the photo - use the pen to re-touch it, name it or turn your picture into a birthday card.

• Stay on top of your schedule

  View all of your calendar appointments on the big 7" screen. Every appointment, birthday, event and holiday gets plenty of space, so you'll never have to squint. It will even sync up with your email account, so everything that happens on your computer, happens on your HTC Flyer.

• One access point for all your mail

  If you've got a work email account and a private one, your HTC Flyer helps you by merging them all together into one inbox so you're always organised. They're colour coded, so you know what's what, and you can sort them by importance, groups or content. Super organised, just like you.

• All the details, all at your fingertips

  Life gets busy, so your HTC Flyer also becomes your personal organiser – always ready to jot anything down at a moment's notice. Use Evernote to keep notes, add pictures, take a voice recording, whatever you need to help keep on schedule. Evernote syncs up instantly to a secure online server, so you can access your notes either from your HTC Flyer, your phone or your home or work computer.

• Office on the go

  The HTC Flyer is small enough to take anywhere and powerful enough to get the job done. View and edit Office documents wherever you find yourself. And if the need for a hard copy arises - send it via Wi-Fi to a nearby printer.

Specifications

• Size - 195.4mm (7.7in) x 122mm (4.8in) x 13.2mm (0.52in)
• Weight - 420 grams (14.82 ounces) with battery
• Display - 7 inch touch-sensitive screen with 1024 x 600 resolution
• CPU Speed - 1.5 GHz
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Memory
  • Internal Storage - 32GB
  • RAM - 1GB
    
    The actual available internal phone storage may differ depending on the software configuration of your phone
  • Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Camera
  • 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus
  • 1.3 megapixel front camera
• Sensors
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital Compass
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (12-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Multimedia
  • Audio supported formats
    Playback: AAC, AMR, OGG, M4A, MID, MP3, WAV, WMA (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: AMR, AAC
  • Video supported formats
    Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, WMV (Windows Media Video 9), AVI (MP4, ASP and MP3), XVID (MP4, ASP and MP3)
    Recording: 3GP
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: Europe/Asia - 900/AWS/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Internet - WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth - Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna

HTC Flyer - A Closer Look [Video]

HTC Flyer How To videos available

Over on HTC's "Show Me" YouTube channel they have posted a number of How To video guides detailing how to use some of the cooler features of their Android-based tablet, including:

Jot down notes complete with voice recording:

Surf the we in style:

Download eBooks and enjoy reading them on the big screen:

Personalising the home screen:

Take fun self-portaits with Snapbooth:

For more information on the Fyler including technical specifications and screenshots, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/introducing-htc-flyer

Introducing the HTC Flyer

The Flyer is HTC's first Android-powered tablet device. Entering a market already populated by the iPad, iPad 2, BlackBerry PlayBook and the Motorola Xoom among other also rans at a time when that market still isn't convinced (or sufficiently educated) as to the need for such devices...how does it stack up?

Features

• Fly through the web wherever you go

  Conveniently compact and light for travel, yet amazingly powerful, the HTC Flyer tablet with a 7" display and a superfast 1.5 GHz processor is perfect for web browsing at home, in the car or on a business trip. To make it even better, it features Adobe Flash support, multi-window browsing with pinch to zoom, and a clever quick look-up that lets you tap into Wikipedia, Youtube and other web resources.

• 3D fun at every turn

  No more hunting around for stuff, anything you want will come to you on a cool 3D carousel. Photos, entertainment, weather, calendar, mail, friends smoothly roll around at your fingertips, front and centre, while giving you a sneak peak of what's to come.

• Be in two places at once

  Whether you're stuck in traffic, working late, or halfway around the world, you can make live video calls to those closest to you on your HTC Flyer straight from your contact list. So you can say it in person as if you're face to face, no matter if they're on their PC at home, on their office computer or on the other side of the world using their HTC Flyer.

• A pen that's quite magic

  

  HTC Flyer's magic pen transforms anything. It can draw, paint, write, and even retouch pictures. It can be a highlighter for the reader (and by the way all your highlights will be collated when you're done). The HTC Flyer can link audio to the notes you take for work, and it can add voiceover to a storybook you're drawing up at home. Work or play, it's magic for the whole family.

• A games room wherever you go

  The HTC Flyer has pushed the frontiers of hardcore play with the integration of the OnLive gaming service. So as of today, you can forget about having to invest in gaming consoles. All you need is the OnLive game controller and you can instantly play the best games in the world anywhere you have a fast Internet connection.

• Hollywood on-demand

  With HTC Watch, HTC Flyer transforms into a portable cinema featuring a wide selection of the latest Hollywood blockbusters for on-demand viewing. And with an expansive 7" screen and superb SRS virtual surround sound, you can immerse yourself in the cinematic experience whether it's on a short break or a long drive.

• Amplify your audio experience

  It's not just the visuals that are impressive. HTC Flyer comes with dual speakers for a much richer listening and entertainment experience. Enjoy high fidelity sound with SRS WOW HD™ virtual surround sound.

  

• Zoodles of fun with Kid Mode

  Transform your HTC Flyer into a fun, safe and secure playground for your kids. Kid Mode opens up a world of brainy games, story books – that let you tell a bedtime story even when you're not there and art mode that incorporates the magic pen and lets their artistic side run wild.

• A library in your pocket

  There's no need to carry epic novels around with you anymore with a built-in library of classics at your fingertips. Flick through titles, and even highlight and explore a word or phrase through Wikipedia, Google, YouTube or the dictionary. Go ahead, kids and you can now download your favourite books straight to your HTC Flyer and take them anywhere.

• Capture life in HD

  Have you ever had a camera with a 7-inch viewfinder? It's an eye opening experience! Take great shots with the 5MP camera and capture life in HD with the 720p HD camcorder.

• More fun with photos

  Take family photos to another level with our new Snapbooth. You can change lenses or add effects to make moments more memorable. And when you're done taking the photo - use the pen to re-touch it, name it or turn your picture into a birthday card.

• Stay on top of your schedule

  View all of your calendar appointments on the big 7" screen. Every appointment, birthday, event and holiday gets plenty of space, so you'll never have to squint. It will even sync up with your email account, so everything that happens on your computer, happens on your HTC Flyer.

• One access point for all your mail

  If you've got a work email account and a private one, your HTC Flyer helps you by merging them all together into one inbox so you're always organised. They're colour coded, so you know what's what, and you can sort them by importance, groups or content. Super organised, just like you.

• All the details, all at your fingertips

  Life gets busy, so your HTC Flyer also becomes your personal organiser – always ready to jot anything down at a moment's notice. Use Evernote to keep notes, add pictures, take a voice recording, whatever you need to help keep on schedule. Evernote syncs up instantly to a secure online server, so you can access your notes either from your HTC Flyer, your phone or your home or work computer.

• Office on the go

  The HTC Flyer is small enough to take anywhere and powerful enough to get the job done. View and edit Office documents wherever you find yourself. And if the need for a hard copy arises - send it via Wi-Fi to a nearby printer.

The official product page is available here - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/flyer/overview.html

Specifications

• Size - 195.4mm (7.7in) x 122mm (4.8in) x 13.2mm (0.52in)
• Weight - 420 grams (14.82 ounces) with battery
• Display - 7 inch touch-sensitive screen with 1024 x 600 resolution
• CPU Speed - 1.5 GHz
• Platform - Android 2.3.3 with HTC Sense 2.1 for Tablet
• Memory
  • Internal Storage - 32GB
  • RAM - 1GB
    
    The actual available internal phone storage may differ depending on the software configuration of your phone
  • Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Camera
  • 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus
  • 1.3 megapixel front camera
• Sensors
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital Compass
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (12-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Multimedia
  • Audio supported formats
    Playback: AAC, AMR, OGG, M4A, MID, MP3, WAV, WMA (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: AMR, AAC
  • Video supported formats
    Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, WMV (Windows Media Video 9), AVI (MP4, ASP and MP3), XVID (MP4, ASP and MP3)
    Recording: 3GP
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: Europe/Asia - 900/AWS/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Internet - WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth - Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna

Promotional Video

Home Screen

The 7-fold Android home screen is now familiar to most, the Flyer adds a new twist to this interface by introducing a carousel effect so that should you be on the left-most screen there is no need to scroll back to the right again to return to centre - all screens are available in a circular arrangement, with a preview of the next screen displayed at the edge of the current view.
The same widgets you have come to expect from HTC Sense's skin are available, as well as some new ones:

People - access to your contacts list

Google Reader - RSS and ATOM news feeds

HTC Reader - access your eBooks directly from your homescreen

Email

Friend Stream - access your Facebook and Twitter updates

As we've come to expect from the Android platform widgets can be added, removed and rearranged to best suit your requirements, be they application shortcuts, hardware controls or links to web pages as well as a wide range of additional widgets available from the Android Market. With Android 3.1 possibly available as an update to the Flyer in the future, these widgets will be resizeable in the future to free up or occupy as much screen real estate as suits your needs.

Applications

Running Android 2.3.3, the Flyer packs all the features you have come to expect from Google's mobile operating system, and supports the latest versions all of the groovy apps available in the Android Market (Google Goggles, Google Docs, Google Translate, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Places, Google Latitude, etc) that make Android the truly versatile platform it is.

The application list is as follows:

• Amazon MP3
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Car Panel
• Clock
• Connected Media
• Dock Mode
• Downloads
• Facebook
• FriendStream
• Gallery
• GMail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Likes
• Internet
• Kid Mode
• Latitude
• Learn More
• Locations
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• News & Weather
• Notes
• PDF Viewer
• People
• Places
• Polaris Office
• Press Reader
• Quick Lookup
• Reader
• Settings
• Setup
• Snapbooth
• Soundhorn
• Stocks
• Talk
• Task Manager
• Teeter
• Transfer
• Twitter
• Voice Recorder
• Voice Search
• Watch
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

The Flyer Pen

By definition the Flyer, and any tablet, will be compared at some point to the iPad, and arguably rightly so as, love it or hate it, Apple did do it first and have pretty much defined a whole market.
HTC's first foray into this arena with the Flyer is a respectfully powered Android 2.3.3 device bundled with a number of apps we have seen above and which I'll go into further detail about later, but it really is the pen that makes this device so much greater than the sum of its parts. This is not just a capacitive stylus, do not be fooled. This simple AAA battery-powered stick, which fits conveniently in the supplied carry pouch as part of the sales package, adds a wealth of functionality that makes the Flyer a truly impressive portable business and entertainment device: imagine being able to annotate an electronically received fax or PDF document and send your comments back to the office or original sender, no matter where you are, on a device that is always and instantly-on; to create handwritten, typed or dictated notes with attached documents, images, calendar events, sound recordings and more to create a truly interactive personal journal all of which can be synced online and accessed from a wide variety of devices (see the Notes section below). The future is now, and it's "flying"! (Excuse the pun, seemed like a good idea at the time).

At a simple level, the pen can be used to draw on the screen no matter what application you are currently viewing.

Alongside the usual Android hardware buttons (home, menu, back, search) is a new button for the pen. Tapping on this button will bring up an additional menu:

allowing you to select from a number of different pen "styles" (pen, highlighter, brush, etc)

not to mention a range of colours. Two hardware buttons on the pen turn it from an adding to deleting mode, so you can add notes and then remove them, or draw on screen and touch up your artistic creation:

The pen can also be used to select text or areas of the screen:

an image of the screen can be saved at any point by simply tapping the pen on the screen

Email

The Flyer boasts the same email client as used on HTC's other Android 2.3.3 devices including the Desire S and the Wildfire S and at the time of writing soon the Desire HD and the Incredible S, providing support for the ubiquitous POP and IMAP protocols as well as multiple Exchange ActiveSync accounts. For corporate users the Exchange ActiveSync client provides arguably the best and most feature-rich experience of all currently available platforms (with the possible exception of Windows Mobile [not Windows Phone]) including such niceties as the ability to define peak and off-peak synchronisation schedules, out of office and conversation view

The procedure to set up an Exchange email account is the same as on those other devices listed above and is available here. Once synchronised, email accounts can be managed with a nice preview pane as with Outlook on the desktop:

or in full-screen mode

Messages can be arranged in a number of views, including by conversation, by attachment size, by sender and more.

With the addition of the included Polaris Office application, Microsoft Office attachments can be viewed at the tap of a button:

and more importantly EDITED:

Connectivity

Thanks to its wealth of connectivity options, the Flyer can become your portable wireless hotspot providing Internet access to any other WiFi-capable device via its high-speed 3G cellular interface, can share this same Internet link via USB on both Windows and Mac, or can similarly share your PC's connection to the Internet via USB on Windows.

Reader

Besides all of this functionality, your Flyer also becomes an ebook reader thanks to HTC's Reader application:

which naturally can be used to annotate and highlight using the magic pen!

Notes

The Notes application, when combined with the magic pen, is another killer feature compatible with the popular Evernote cloud-based note-taking, saving and sharing platform. With this app you can create simple notes, journal or storyboard records, either typed or handwritten, with optional attached voice recordings, images and documents and calendar entries. A feature called Timemark enables you to capture the audio of a meeting in line with your written notes, so tapping on a word in your notes instantly takes you to that exact place in time in the audio recording of the meeting. Notes are also integrated with the calendar so when there is an appointment reminder you are automatically prompted with an opportunity to begin a new note or in the case of recurring meetings, to continue where the last meeting left off.

Mobile Cloud Gaming with OnLive

HTC takes mobile gaming to an entirely new level by being the first mobile device in the world to integrate OnLive Inc.’s revolutionary cloud-based gaming service. OnLive is leading in the home gaming market by letting people play top video games on their televisions and computers without the need to buy expensive gaming hardware or software. When integrated fully, the OnLive service will enable customers to pipe the OnLive service through the HTC Flyer tablet’s broadband wireless to their television sets, or let them play directly on the tablet. When integrated on the HTC Flyer tablet, people can play a variety of games, including hits like Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood™, NBA 2K11 and Lego Harry Potter™.

HTC Watch

The HTC Watch service enables low-cost on-demand progressive downloading of hundreds of High-Definition movies from major studios. The intuitive, natural design of the HTC Watch service makes it easy to find the latest movie and video content, while advanced technology on the back-end enables instant playback over the HTC Flyer tablet’s high-speed wireless connection.

Miscellaneous

The Flyer features the same HTC Quick Lookup utility as included on their other devices enabling you to quickly enter the same search phrase into a number of online resources including Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, Dictionary and Thesaurus:

The Task Manager application allows you to quickly and easily manage your running applications to ensure your device is always running at peak efficiency:

The Power Saver feature allows you to set usage schedules so that the device automatically powers off non-essential components at night to preserver battery life and data usage:

Contact Brightpoint GB today on +44 (0)870 849 0225 to check availability.

You can download the User Guide for the Flyer here

HTC Incredible S - A Closer Look [Video]

The HTC Incredible S offers a unique contoured design for stunning looks and a more secure grip. Capture life's moments in vivid detail with the built-in HD camcorder. Immerse yourself in videos on the cinematic 4-inch display and virtual surround sound by SRS™. Go from big to bigger and share videos, photos or music wirelessly from your phone to your TV via DLNA. The Incredible S includes a powerful 1GHz processor for super fast web browsing.

HTC Incredible S First Look [Video]

HTC Incredible S How To Videos available

HTC have posted a number of videos on their Show Me youtube channel providing visual instructions on how to perform common tasks

Call your contacts faster with Smart Dial

Tired of searching through your entire contact list just to make a call? This video will show you how Smart Dial helps you easily find the right person. In seconds.

Personalize your Home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? This video will show you how to personalize everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

See what's going on in all your social networks

Want a single place to check all your friends' updates? Learn to use Friend Stream to keep up with your circle of friends. This video will also demonstrate how to send out your updates simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter.

Record in HD and share it on YouTube

Learn to capture video in HD and share it on YouTube. This video will also teach you how to apply an effect to your video.

Reflow and look up text, share a web page, and more

Learn how text reflow makes reading web pages a breeze. This video will also show you Quick Lookup, a feature you can use to find more information about a word or phrase you encountered on a page that's new to you.

HTC Rhyme "How To" Videos

Capture video in slow-mo, then share it on TV

Want to add a little dramatic flair to your videos? Use the slow motion feature to get that dramatic feel for your movie masterpieces. This video will also show you how to trim your video and share it on the big screen.

Take pictures, enhance them, and then share

Pictures not coming out the way you want? This video will clue you in on what our camera can do. This video will also show you how you can apply effects, enhance your pictures, and then share them with your family and friends online.

Take clear and crisp pictures every time

Can't seem to get that perfect action shot? Have a friend who doesn't want to have his or her face photographed? Want to capture that great landscape view? This video will show you how to get that perfect picture every time.

Personalise your Home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? This video will show you how to personalise everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

Access info and apps right from the lock screen

Need to see the weather or your stock portfolio right away? This video will explain to you how to transform the lock screen into a window of information. You'll also learn to answer a call and respond to a reminder on the lock screen.

Call your contacts faster with Smart Dial

Tired of searching through your entire contact list just to make a call? This video will show you how Smart Dial helps you easily find the right person. In seconds.

Create a custom ringtone for each of your friends

Want to know who's calling just by hearing the ringtone? This video will teach you how to trim a song and then set it as a ringtone associated with your friend.

Keep in touch with the People widget

This video will show you how you can contact someone with a single tap, send a message to a group, and create groups with the People widget.

See what's going on in all your social networks

Want a single place to check all your friends' updates? Learn to use Friend Stream to keep up with your circle of friends. This video will also demonstrate how to send out your updates simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter.

Manage all your email accounts in one place

With several email accounts, email can get lost in the shuffle. Unified Inbox takes care of it for you by putting all your emails in one inbox. This video will teach you how to add email accounts, call a number or look up an address in an email, and more.

Watch your favourite movies with HTC Watch

Want to view the latest Hollywood blockbusters or favourite local movies right on your phone? This video will show you how to rent or purchase them with HTC Watch.

HTC Rhyme First Look [Video]

With an exquisite unibody design, the HTC Rhyme is more than a phone -- it is a total offering. Accessories like the stylish wired headset, a docking station that transforms into an alarm clock and music center, and a charm that notifies you of an incoming call or text message add nice finishing touches to your look. And HTC Rhyme also offers a premium camera with instant shutter that takes great shots with no delay and lets you touch up your photos so that everyone looks great. HTC Rhyme is the phone that fits perfectly with your life.

Introducing the HTC Rhyme

The Rhyme (codename: Bliss) is HTC's elegantly-designed Android Smartphone with a range of equally elegant accessories. Designed to provide all the functionality of the Android platform, whilst making this functionality easy to use and immediately accessible to the user.

Key Features

• Accessories to fit your life

  With an exquisite unibody design, the HTC Rhyme is more than a phone – it is a total offering. Accessories like the stylish wired headset, a docking station that transforms into an alarm clock and music centre, and a charm that notifies you of an incoming call or text message add nice finishing touches to your look. And HTC Rhyme also offers a premium camera with instant shutter that takes great shots with no delay and lets you touch up your photos so that everyone looks great. HTC Rhyme is the phone that fits perfectly with your life.

• Sleek and slender unibody design makes the stylish seem effortless

  Simplicity is true luxury. HTC Rhyme offers a smart, elegant design. Every detail has been carefully crafted to deliver a unique and seamless experience. Its exquisite unibody design is truly different from other phones. HTC Rhyme is light, sleek, and slender making the stylish seem effortless. Keeping with current colour trends that draw inspiration from nature, HTC Rhyme adds style and class to your look whether you're dressed up or down.

• Accessorise to an easier life

  HTC Rhyme offers a range of in-box and optional accessories that add an elegant simplicity to your whole experience. Listen to your favourite music with the stylish wired headset. When you need to charge your phone, do it in style by placing your phone into the docking station, where it transforms into an alarm clock and music centre. Never miss a call with the HTC Rhyme Charm, which attaches to your phone and emits a soft glow when you receive a call or text message.

  

• Memorable moments captured perfectly. Every time.

  Inspiration can occur at any time. HTC Rhyme offers a unique camera with instant shutter and a great lens to capture those memorable moments whenever they arise even under low light conditions. The Action Burst Scene automatically takes five shots of a scene, so you can choose the best one or even all of them before you share online. And Portrait mode adds a beautify skin effect that makes your skin appear smoother when you take the shot.

• Stay connected with those closest to you

  In one step, HTC Rhyme lets you share music, photos, even your location. Right from the web page. For easy communication, group up your contacts and send the same text to the entire group in one step.

Technical Specifications

• Size - 119 x 60.8 x 10.85 mm (4.68 x 2.39 x 0.43 inches)
• Weight - 130 grams (4.58 ounces) with battery
• Display - 3.7-inch touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution
• Screen - 94mm (3.7")
• Processor - 1GHz
• Storage
  • Total storage: 4 GB
  • Available storage: up to 1 GB
  • RAM: 768 MB
  • Expansion slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 850/900/2100 MHz
    Upload speed of up to 5.76 Mbps and download speed of up to 14.4 Mbps
  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
    (Band frequency, HSPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)
• Connectivity
  • 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
  • Bluetooth® 3.0 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
  • DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to your TV or computer
• Camera
  • 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and LED flash
  • 720p HD video recording
  • VGA front-facing camera
• Location - Internal GPS antenna
• Sensors
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital compass
  • Proximity sensor
• Power & Battery
  • Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1600 mAh
  • Talk time: Up to 480 minutes for WCDMA, Up to 620 minutes for GSM
  • Standby time: Up to 340 hours for WCDMA, Up to 295 hours for GSM
    (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
• Multimedia
  • Audio supported formats:
    • Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
    • Recording: .amr, .m4a, .aac
  • Video supported formats:
    • Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3)
    • Recording: .3gp, .mp4

You can read more on the HTC web site - http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-rhyme/

The below video provides an overview of the device and the range of accessories:

User Interface

The Rhyme runs version 3.5 of HTC's Sense "skin" for Android, which features a revised home screen layout, putting your most-frequently accessed applications within reach of your thumb and providing at-a-glance access to updates and messages.

You get the same 7 homescreens accessed by sliding to the left or right of the main landing screen, and screens rotate on a carousel effect so there is no need to scroll from the left-most screen back to the right-most

As with all HTC devices, a wide range of attractive and useful widgets are provided, with more available from the Android Market, each of which can be placed on any of the homescreens to suit your preference, as can shortcuts to applications, contacts, web pages, hardware controls and more.

Running programs, hardware controls and notifications can all be accessed and managed quickly and easily by sliding down the notification bar at the top of the screen:

Applications

The applications pre-loaded on the Rhyme are as follows:

• Adobe Reader
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock
• Connected Media
• Dock Mode
• Downloads
• Dropbox
• Endo-mondo
• Facebook
• Family
• Fb Chat
• Flashlight
• FM Radio
• Friend Stream
• Gallery
• Gmail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Likes
• Internet
• Latitude
• Locations
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Mirror
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• News & Weather
• Notes
• People
• Phone
• Places
• Polaris Office
• Quick Lookup
• Reader
• Scan
• Settings
• Setup
• Show Me
• SIM Toolkit
• Stocks
• Talk
• Tango
• Task Manager
• Tasks
• Teeter
• Transfer
• Twitter
• Voice Dialler
• Voice Recorder
• Voice Search
• Watch
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

That's an impressive collection of apps, meaning that you can do virtually everything you need to on the Rhyme out of the box with no need to access the Android Market except for Angry Birds!

Endo-mondo

Endo-mondo is a workout and personal fitness trainer that allows you to keep track of workout sessions, allows you to compete against friends online and select music tracks to play during your workout.

Tango

Tango is an Internet telephone and video calling service provider, similar to Skype or Google Voice, allowing you to place calls to friends and family.

Voice Dialler

As its name suggests allows you to verbally place calls to people in your contacts list, dial numbers or launch applications all with the power of your voice.

Scan

This application can scan all manner of barcodes and QR codes using the device camera, allowing you quickly collect product information, web links, contact details and more.

Notes

The Notes application, as its name suggests, allows you to create notes on the fly, but in addition to simple text-based aide-memoires, you can attach images, documents, calendar events and create sound recordings:

Watch

Watch is HTC's movie rental service that allows you to purchase and stream film content to your device and share that content between up to 5 other devices

Polaris Office

This office suite allows you to view Microsoft Office format documents, and also create and edit Word and Excel documents on the fly

HTC Family

Family is a new service from HTC that allows family members to group their HTC Sense accounts and share events, contacts, send messages and "check in" to locations via GPS so other members can see where that person is.

Email

The Rhyme can automatically configure accounts for a number of common email service providers simply by entering your email address and password, from which it will determine the correct settings to use, including Hotmail, GMail and Yahoo

Of note is the updated HTC email client for Microsoft Exchange, which now supports Task synchronisation as well as email, contacts and calendar:

Multiple email accounts, including Exchange email accounts, can be configured on the Rhyme, all which can be viewed individually or combined in a single unified Inbox view, colour coded

Messages can also be grouped by conversation if desired, and messages received from your "Favourite" contacts can also be viewed separately.

All mailbox folders can be viewed:

Out of Office status and message can be set from the device:

and a synchronisation schedule can be defined so that messages are only pushed to your device on certain days during certain hours. Outside of those hours, messages can optionally be checked on a schedule or not at all

Tasks are synchronised with the Tasks application on the device:

Messaging and Social Networking integration

The below video provides a overview of the group messaging and also-on, instant-share capabilities of the Rhyme:

Connectivity

The Rhyme can be used to share its own high-speed 3G Internet connection with other devices via WiFi, turning the device into a portable wireless hotspot. Up to 5 devices can be connected concurrently, and the link can be secured with encryption to prevent unauthorised access

The Rhyme can also be used as a USB modem on Windows and Mac, or can share the Internet connection of a Windows or Mac PC when connected via USB in Internet Passthrough mode.

Additionally the Rhyme can also be set up as a wireless extension of your office SIP-based IP telephone system, so you can make calls to members of the office while on site for free without racking up call charges or needing to be at your desk - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-htc-desire-s-wireless-extension-...

Multimedia

The below video provides an overview of the camera capabilities of the Rhyme:

Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information or to reserve yours.

HTC Sensation - A closer look [Video]

HTC Sensation First Look [Video]

HTC Sensation How To Videos available

Reflow and Lookup

Reflow and look up text, share a web page, and more. Learn how text reflow makes reading web pages a breeze. We'll also show you Quick Lookup, a feature you can use to find more information about a word or phrase you encountered on a page that's new to you.

See what's going on in all your social networks

Want a single place to check all your friends' updates? Learn to use Friend Stream to keep up with your circle of friends. We'll also demonstrate how to send out your updates simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter.

Create a custom ringtone for each of your friends

Want to know who's calling just by hearing the ringtone? We'll teach you how to trim a song and then set it as a ringtone associated with your friend.

Talk and listen hands-free with a Bluetooth headset

Would you like to listen to music or make calls without getting tangled up in headset wires? We'll show you how to connect your Bluetooth headset to your phone.

Access info and apps right from the lock screen

Need to see the weather or your stock portfolio right away? We'll explain to you how to transform the lock screen into a window of information. You'll also learn to answer a call and respond to a reminder on the lock screen.

Take crisp pictures and share them on facebook

We'll show you how to take great self portraits, show where you took the photo on a map, and share your photos on Facebook.

Record in HD and watch it on the big screen

Learn to capture video in Full HD and share it with your friends on your TV via DLNA. We'll also teach you how to trim the video and share it right away on Facebook.

Manage all your email accounts in one place

With several email accounts, email can get lost in the shuffle. Unified Inbox takes care of it for you by putting all your emails in one inbox. We'll teach you how to add email accounts, call a number or look up an address in an email, and more.

Get your laptop online with the WiFi hotspot app

For those times when there's no Wi-Fi available for your other wireless devices (say, your laptop), you can use your phone's Wi-Fi hotspot application. We'll show you how to easily set up the connection, and get your laptop online.

Create music playlists for your every mood

Lots of songs on your phone? We'll show you how to make music playlists to fit every occasion, from party to romantic dinner.

Keep in touch with the People widget

We'll show you how you can contact someone with a single tap, send a message to a group, and create groups with the People widget.

Personalize your Home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? We'll show you how to personalize everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

Read books on your phone with HTC Reader

Interested in reading books right on your phone? We'll introduce you HTC Reader some of its cool features like downloading publications from the bookstore, highlighting text, adding notes, and more.

Call your contacts faster with Smart Dial

Tired of searching through your entire contact list just to make a call? We'll show you how Smart Dial helps you easily find the right person. In seconds.

Watch your favorite movies with HTC Watch

Want to view the latest Hollywood blockbusters or favorite local movies right on your phone? We'll show you how to rent or purchase them with HTC Watch.

Introducing the HTC Sensation

The HTC Sensation is a multimedia Superphone. Featuring premium components throughout from the blisteringly fast processor to the contoured glass and high-resolution screen and speakers the device provides arguably the best video and music playback experience available of any Android device in its range. It is quite simply beautiful and powerful.

Features

A multimedia superphone in the palm of your hand
Want to be entertained like never before? On-demand movies look great with a stunning qHD display, and they sound crystal clear with Hi-Fi audio technology. The HTC Sensation also includes an immersive HTC Sense experience making this phone easy-to-use and a top entertainer. The premium design, complete with contoured glass edging, feels great in your hand. The HTC Sensation is a multimedia superphone.

Instant capture camera Remember that time you pressed the shutter button and had to wait while your camera phone finished taking the picture? With the instant capture camera, the moment you press the button is the same moment the photo is captured. Never let a great shot slip away.

Richer Internet experience Surf the web in style with multi-window browsing, a quick lookup tool for jumping to Wikipedia or YouTube and the latest Flash support for smooth video playback.

Active lockscreen HTC have transformed the lockscreen into a window to the good stuff on your phone - you can check up on your portfolio, view your friends status, and more.

Immersive experience Have you ever held a thunderstorm in your hand? When checking the weather – feel the suns rays or wipe away the droplets of water.

Specifications

• Size - 126.1mm x 65.4mm x 11.3mm (4.96" x 2.57" x 0.44")
• Weight - 148 grams (5.22 ounces) with battery
• Display - 4.3-inch touch screen
• Screen - 109 mm (4.3") with qHD (540 X 960) resolution
• Platform - Android 2.3.3 with HTC Sense 3.0

  

• Processor - 1.2GHz, dual core
• Storage - Internal memory: 1GB, RAM: 768MB
• Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Camera
  • 8 megapixel colour camera with auto focus and dual LED flash
  • Front camera: VGA fixed focus colour camera
  • HD video recording: 1080p HD video recording
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • microUSB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI connection
• Sensors
  • Gyro Sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital compass
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Internet
  • 3G: Up to 14.4 Mbps download, Up to 5.76 Mbps upload
  • GPRS: Up to 114 Kbps downloading
  • EDGE: Up to 560Kbps downloading
  • WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth 3.0
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HID, HSP, MAP, SPP, SDAP
• Multimedia
  • Gallery, Music, and FM Radio
  • SRS virtual surround sound for wired headphone
  • DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to your TV or computer
  • Audio supported formats:
    Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: .amr
  • Video supported formats:
    Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3)
    Recording: .3gp
• Social Networking
  • Facebook® and Twitter™ for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Share photos/videos on Facebook®, Flickr®, Twitter™, or YouTube™
• Location
  • Internal GPS antenna
  • With Locations, explore maps with zero wait, zero dead spots, and zero data roaming fees
• Tethering - USB and WiFi tethering
• Power & Battery
  Battery type: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1520 mAh
  • Talk time:
    WCDMA: Up to 400 minutes
    GSM: Up to 495 minutes
  • Standby time:
    WCDMA: Up to 400 hours
    GSM: Up to 350 hours
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDMA:
    Europe/Asia/T-Mobile US: 900/AWS/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
    850/900/1800/1900 MHz

The below video provides a close look at the device in action:

Construction

The Sensation features a unibody construction that feels strong yet despite its large 4.3-inch screen (the same screen size as the Desire HD and Incredible S) does not feel big in your hand, thanks to a smaller bezel and rounded corners. The slightly concave display also means that the screen will not become scratched if placed upside down on a flat surface. The left hand side of the device houses the volume rocker and USB connector. The top contains the headset socket and the power/lock button. The right hand side is smooth and the bottom features only the case release.

User Interface

The Sensation features a new version of Sense, HTC's overlay skin for Android. Among the new features in this version is an active lock-screen that allows you to choose four frequently-accessed applications and place them as icons at the bottom of the lock-screen. When locked, moving the unlock circle over the icon for that app will unlock the phone and take you straight to that application - no menu navigation required.

The 7 homescreens are now displayed on a rotating carousel, so that should you be on the left-hand homescreen, it no longer necessarily to scroll all the way to the right to access the right-hand screen: you can access all screens on a rotating basis. This is the same interface as used on the Flyer tablet.

As always a huge number of widgets and hardware controls are available as well as shortcuts to all apps and settings:

Running programs can be quickly toggled between by dropping down the notification area, where you can also find quick access to hardware controls:

It is the superb screen on the Sensation that makes this new interface really come to life. The higher resolution gives you access to more information at a single glance: more of your emails are displayed either in GMail or the Exchange email client; more Twitter and Facebook updates are available; more RSS feeds are visible; more upcoming events are shown in your calendar and more of your favourite web page is on display.

Applications

The list of applications that come bundled on the Sensation as standard is as follows:

• Adobe Reader
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock
• Connected Media
• Dice
• Dock Mode
• Downloads
• Facebook
• Flashlight
• FM Radio
• Friend Stream
• Gallery
• Gmail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Likes
• Internet
• Latitude
• Locations
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Mirror
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• News & Weather
• Peep
• People
• Phone
• Places
• Polaris Office
• Quick Lookup
• Reader
• Settings
• Setup
• Show Me
• SIM Toolkit
• Soundhorn
• Stocks
• Talk
• Task Manager
• Teeter
• Transfer
• Twitter
• Voice Recorder
• Voice Search
• Watch
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

Email

The Email client on the Sensation supports Microsoft Exchange as well as POP and IMAP protocols, and has wizard for the more common consumer email services built in, including Windows Live and Gmail.

When used with a Microsoft Exchange email account, email, contacts and calendar information is synchronised to your device and can be set to push updates automatically or optionally synchronise on a schedule. You can also choose to have data pushed to the device only between certain hours of the day.

Emails can be arranged by importance, by date, by attachment size and more simply by moving your finger across the selection bar at the bottom of the screen - those of you familiar with Sense will recognise it. All email subfolders are also available:

When composing new email messages, suggestions from both local contacts and the Exchange Global Address List are displayed automatically and refined as you type:

Out of office status and message can be set directly from the device:

Email attachments can be viewed on the device using the bundled Polaris Office application, providing support for Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The Polaris Office application also allows you to create new documents and edit existing files.

Connectivity

The Sensation can be used as your portable Internet connection device: be it as a wireless hotspot or a USB dongle. The built-in WiFi hotspot feature allows you to share the Sensation's high-speed cellular connection to the Internet with any other device with WiFi capability. The wireless connection can optionally be secured to prevent unauthorised access. Unlike other devices with WiFi hotspot capability, for those advanced users who need access to those settings, the IP addresses assigned to wireless clients can also be configured:

The Sensation can also be tethered with both Windows and MacOS to share its Internet connection via USB.

Alternatively, should you want to use your Windows PC's Internet connection from the Sensation via USB, you can do so using the device's Internet Passthrough mode.

The Sensation also features a SIP-based Voice over IP client meaning that it can be used as a wireless extension of your company telephone system when in the office, meaning you can still use your mobile without the need to generate call charges on your SIM - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-htc-desire-s-wireless-extension-...

Multimedia

The Sensation features HTC's new film and TV streaming service Watch, providing on-demand access to a limited (at the moment) selection of recent and classic films and television episodes, which can be shared across up to 5 devices using the same account login

Movies are, for want of a better word, sensational on the high-resolution display and if used with a decent set of headphones, the surround sound makes watching films on a mobile device a much more realistic proposition than ever before

The Music Player application, which can be synchronised with either iTunes or Windows Media Player on a Windows PC using the HTC Sync software (contained on the SD card that ships with the unit), supports playlists and album art as well as a number of preset equalizers (for use with headphones only)

The 8MP camera with autofocus and dual LED flash supports full HD video recording and provides a number of image adjustment features for sharpness, contracts, saturation, etc but the biggest improvement is the instant shutter feature: no more do you have to wait between pressing the shutter butter and the device actually taking the picture - ideal for wildlife and action shots.

The inclusion of DLNA-capability means that any of your snaps and videos can be shared wirelessly with any DLNA-capable equipment, be it your television or Windows Media Player on your PC.

Miscellaneous

The Reader application on the Sensation allows you to download and view ebooks and comes with a number of classic titles preloaded

The Quick Lookup feature allows you to search common online resources simultaneously including Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and Dictionary

A dedicated YouTube client is also preloaded as standard

The Task Manager application lets you see what applications are running on your device and how much system resource they are consuming, enabling you to quickly shut down unrequired apps to ensure the device runs at peak efficiency

The Power Saver feature allows you to define which hardware elements should be shut down automatically when the battery reaches a certain level to further extend its life in the event that you can't get to a charger immediately. Although unless you are watching movies and capturing video recordings for a prolonged period, for normal day-to-day usage the battery life on the Sensation really is very impressive for such a powerful device - you can expect to charge it only every other day rather than morning, noon and night.

The Sensation also features the usual HTC goodies including Quiet Ring on Pickup, Pocket Mode and Flip for Speaker:

Summary

The HTC Sensation is a powerhouse, loading apps quickly and responsively thanks to its fast dual core processor, and a multimedia marvel thanks to its impressive display and audio capabilities (if used with a decent set of headphones). All of this functionality comes in a sleek housing that feels smaller than it is. Using this multimedia capability will take its toll on the battery, but for "regular" use even with email and social networking accounts set to push updates the Sensation will go a long time between charges.
For business users the ability to work on office documents as standard will be attractive, and the standard Android applications will all be of use including Google Maps, Navigation, Translate, Goggles and more. Any functionality that isn't included as standard will more than likely be available from the huge number of applications in the Android Market.

Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information or to reserve yours.

HTC Announce the Sensation XE with Beats Audio

Features

Designed to impress
HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio™ comes inbox with custom made Beats headsets, engineered to deliver extraordinary sound. The specially tuned software and user interface delivers the ultimate mobile audio experience we know you’ll appreciate. Featuring an aluminium unibody construction and designed with touches of red, the phone feels premium and looks beautiful inside and out.

Blazing fast performance
HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio™ is powered by a blazing fast 1.5 GHz dual core processor. Now, you can easily multitask and surf the most visually rich websites at blazing speeds. Your apps will start up instantly and switching between multiple apps has never been easier.

Uncompromised viewing and audio experience
HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio™’s 4.3 inch expansive qHD display brings you an unprecedented movie watching experience when you are on the go. The audio experience is just as immersive. The phone automatically detects your Beats headset and optimises the output so your audio experience sounds extraordinary, just like the artist intended.

Instant capture camera
Remember that time you pressed the shutter button and had to wait while your camera phone finished taking the picture? With the instant capture camera, the moment you press the button is the same moment the photo is captured. Never let a great shot slip away.

Richer Internet experience
Surf the web in style with multi-window browsing, a quick lookup tool for jumping to Wikipedia or YouTube and the latest Flash support for smooth video playback.

Active lockscreen
We've transformed the lockscreen into a window to the good stuff on your phone - you can check up on your portfolio, view your friend's status, and more.

Immersive experience
Have you ever held a thunderstorm in your hand? When checking the weather – feel the sun's rays or wipe away the droplets of water.

• Immerse yourself in richer movie watching and music listening experience with virtual surround sound.
• Capture life in vivid detail on the full HD camcorder with stereo sound recording.
• Easily trim your videos down to the best frames and share them on your favourite social network.
• Share movies and photos to your big screen TV wirelessly via DLNA.
• Connect to a Wi-Fi printer to easily print your photos, documents and web pages.

Technical Specifications

• Size - 126.1mm x 65.4mm x 11.3mm (4.96" x 2.57" x 0.44")
• Weight - 151 grams (5.33 ounces) with battery
• Display - 4.3-inch touch screen
• Screen - 109 mm (4.3") with qHD (540 X 960) resolution
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Processor - 1.5GHz, dual core
• Storage
  • Total storage: 4 GB
  • Available storage: up to 1 GB
  • RAM: 768 MB
• Camera
  • 8 megapixel color camera: Auto focus and dual LED flash
  • Front camera: VGA fixed focus color camera
  • HD video recording: 1080p HD video recording
• Connectors
  • 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
  • micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI connection
    (Special cable required for HDMI connection.)
• Sensors
  • Gyro sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital compass
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Multimedia
  • Gallery, Music, and FM Radio
  • Beats Audio™
  • DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to your TV or computer
  • Audio supported formats: Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: .amr
    Video supported formats: Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3)
    Recording: .3gp
• Internet
  • 3G: Up to 14.4 Mbps download speed, Up to 5.76 Mbps upload speed
  • GPRS: Up to 80 kbps downloading
  • EDGE: Up to 236.8 kbps downloading
  • Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth® 3.0
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HID, HSP, MAP, SPP, SDAP
• Social Networking
  • Facebook® and Twitter™ for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Share photos/videos on Facebook®, Flickr®, Twitter™, or YouTube™
• Location
  • Internal GPS antenna
  • With Locations, explore maps with zero wait, zero dead spots, and zero data roaming fees
• Tethering - USB and WiFi tethering
• Power & Battery
  • Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1730 mAh
  • Talk time: WCDMA: Up to 445 minutes, GSM: Up to 550 minutes
    Standby time: WCDMA: Up to 540 hours, GSM: Up to 310 hours
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/AWS/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information and to reserve yours.

Introducing the HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio

Features

Designed to impress
HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio™ comes inbox with custom made Beats headsets, engineered to deliver extraordinary sound. The specially tuned software and user interface delivers the ultimate mobile audio experience we know you’ll appreciate. Featuring an aluminium unibody construction and designed with touches of red, the phone feels premium and looks beautiful inside and out.

Blazing fast performance
HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio™ is powered by a blazing fast 1.5 GHz dual core processor. Now, you can easily multitask and surf the most visually rich websites at blazing speeds. Your apps will start up instantly and switching between multiple apps has never been easier.

Uncompromised viewing and audio experience
HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio™’s 4.3 inch expansive qHD display brings you an unprecedented movie watching experience when you are on the go. The audio experience is just as immersive. The phone automatically detects your Beats headset and optimises the output so your audio experience sounds extraordinary, just like the artist intended.

Instant capture camera
Remember that time you pressed the shutter button and had to wait while your camera phone finished taking the picture? With the instant capture camera, the moment you press the button is the same moment the photo is captured. Never let a great shot slip away.

Richer Internet experience
Surf the web in style with multi-window browsing, a quick lookup tool for jumping to Wikipedia or YouTube and the latest Flash support for smooth video playback.

Active lockscreen
We've transformed the lockscreen into a window to the good stuff on your phone - you can check up on your portfolio, view your friend's status, and more.

Immersive experience
Have you ever held a thunderstorm in your hand? When checking the weather – feel the sun's rays or wipe away the droplets of water.

• Immerse yourself in richer movie watching and music listening experience with virtual surround sound.
• Capture life in vivid detail on the full HD camcorder with stereo sound recording.
• Easily trim your videos down to the best frames and share them on your favourite social network.
• Share movies and photos to your big screen TV wirelessly via DLNA.
• Connect to a Wi-Fi printer to easily print your photos, documents and web pages.

Technical Specifications

• Size - 126.1mm x 65.4mm x 11.3mm (4.96" x 2.57" x 0.44")
• Weight - 151 grams (5.33 ounces) with battery
• Display - 4.3-inch touch screen
• Screen - 109 mm (4.3") with qHD (540 X 960) resolution
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Processor - 1.5GHz, dual core
• Storage
  • Total storage: 4 GB
  • Available storage: up to 1 GB
  • RAM: 768 MB
• Camera
  • 8 megapixel color camera: Auto focus and dual LED flash
  • Front camera: VGA fixed focus color camera
  • HD video recording: 1080p HD video recording
• Connectors
  • 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
  • micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI connection
    (Special cable required for HDMI connection.)
• Sensors
  • Gyro sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital compass
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Multimedia
  • Gallery, Music, and FM Radio
  • Beats Audio™
  • DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to your TV or computer
  • Audio supported formats: Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: .amr
    Video supported formats: Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3)
    Recording: .3gp
• Internet
  • 3G: Up to 14.4 Mbps download speed, Up to 5.76 Mbps upload speed
  • GPRS: Up to 80 kbps downloading
  • EDGE: Up to 236.8 kbps downloading
  • Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth® 3.0
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HID, HSP, MAP, SPP, SDAP
• Social Networking
  • Facebook® and Twitter™ for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Share photos/videos on Facebook®, Flickr®, Twitter™, or YouTube™
• Location
  • Internal GPS antenna
  • With Locations, explore maps with zero wait, zero dead spots, and zero data roaming fees
• Tethering - USB and WiFi tethering
• Power & Battery
  • Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1730 mAh
  • Talk time: WCDMA: Up to 445 minutes, GSM: Up to 550 minutes
    Standby time: WCDMA: Up to 540 hours, GSM: Up to 310 hours
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/AWS/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

User Interface

As we have come to expect from the Android platform, the Sensation XE offers up to 7 homescreens, available by swiping to the left and right of the landing screen, and as with the Sensation before it, screens rotate on a carousel.

All manner of application shortcuts, Internet-enabled widgets, contacts, bookmarks and hardware controls can be added to any of the homescreens, and additional widgets can be downloaded from the Android Market.

Applications

The applications that come preloaded onto the Sensation XE are as follows:

• Adobe Reader
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock
• Connected Media
• Dock Mode
• Downloads
• Facebook
• Flashlight
• FM Radio
• FriendStream
• Gallery
• Gmail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Likes
• Internet
• Latitude
• Locations
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Mirror
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• News & Weather
• Peep
• People
• Phone
• Places
• Polaris Office
• Quick Lookup
• Reader
• Settings
• Setup
• SIM Toolkit
• SoundHound
• Stocks
• Talk
• Task Manager
• Teeter
• Transfer
• Twitter
• Voice Recorder
• Voice Search
• Watch
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

Music

As the Sensation XE is HTC's first device to come with Beats Audio included, I should probably start by looking at the music playing capability. The music player that ships as standard on the Sensation XE is the same as that on other HTC Android models, but it is the inclusion of the Beats Audio soundstage and earphones that really sets this device apart. I'm a bit of an audiophile and like to think I know a little bit about hifi, and the Beats Audio in-ear 'phones certainly gave my very expensive Sennheisers some stiff competition. You can use other headphones with the Sensation XE if you want to, naturally, and can turn off the Beats Audio sound processing also should you wish...but I can't think why you'd want to - the playback quality really is very good indeed for a portable music device, let alone a Smartphone.

Email

As with the Sensation, the XE supports a wide range of email accounts and can automatically configure common email providers based on the email address entered, or can support any POP/IMAP service if the settings are entered manually.
Exchange email, contacts and calendar can also be synced over the air using HTC's own Exchange ActiveSync client built in.

Synchronisation can be set up on a schedule so that on specific days of the week and during certain hours updates are pushed to the device in real time, and outside of those hours mail is synced on a set schedule, manually or not at all to preserve data band battery power.

Multiple email accounts can be configured and displayed in a single unified inbox, colour coded. All mailbox folders are also available.

Your email signature can be set and edited as can your out of office message and status.

Access to the Exchange Global Address List is also available, and matching addresses will autocomplete as you compose a new email.

Connectivity

The Sensation XE can be used as a portable WiFi hotspot, enabling you to connect up to 5 WiFi-capable devices simultaneously and share the XE's high-speed 3G cellular connection to the Internet. Connections can be encrypted for security.

The XE can further be used as a USB modem on Windows and Mac, or can share the Internet connection of a Windows or Mac PC when connected via USB in Internet Passthrough mode.

Additionally the XE can also be set up as a wireless extension of your office SIP-based IP telephone system, so you can make calls to members of the office while on site for free without racking up call charges or needing to be at your desk - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-htc-desire-s-wireless-extension-...

Miscellaneous

Polaris Office enables you to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, and create and edit Word and Excel documents.

HTC Watch allows you to download and view movies from HTC's online movie service.

The Quick Lookup feature enables you to concurrently search a number of popular reference sources including Google, Wikipedia and YouTube.

Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information and to reserve yours.

HTC Sensation XL "How To" videos available

Create music playlists for your every mood

Lots of songs on your phone? This video will show you how to make music playlists to fit every occasion, from party to romantic dinner.

Watch your favourite movies with HTC Watch

Want to view the latest Hollywood blockbusters or favourite local movies right on your phone? This video will show you how to rent or purchase them with HTC Watch.

Personalise your home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? This video will show you how to personalise everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

Take pictures, enhance them, and then share

Pictures not coming out the way you want? This video will clue you in on what our camera can do. The video will also show you how you can apply effects, enhance your pictures, and then share them with your family and friends online.

Take clear and crisp pictures every time

Can't seem to get that perfect action shot? Have a friend who doesn't want to have his or her face photographed? Want to capture that great landscape view? This video will show you how to get that perfect picture every time.

Capture video in slow-mo, then share it on TV

Want to add a little dramatic flair to your videos? Use the slow motion feature to get that dramatic feel for your movie masterpieces. This video will also show you how to trim your video and share it on the big screen.

HTC Sensation XL Product Videos

HTC Sensation XL First Look

When it comes to doing music justice, you're way ahead of the crowd with the HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ and its superb, in-box customised Beats headset. Now your audio experience sounds just like the artist intended. You'll also enjoy the large 4.7 inch screen and 9.9mm sleek premium design. And record amazing HD quality video to complement your audio experience with this incredible superphone. It's the BEST sound and sight you can get on any mobile device.

Capture broad vistas with the wide angle lens

You know it takes a wide angle lens to capture beautiful city skylines and natural features. The BSI CMOS camera with F2.2, 28mm lens lets you take sharp, great looking wide angle shots.

The 4.7 inch screen, coupled with SRS surround sound, gives you the ultimate multimedia experience. When you want to catch movies on the go, check out the latest and hottest films with HTC Watch.

Specially made headsets offer unparalleled audio experience

HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ delivers you a superior mobile and audio experience. The tailor-made headset is specially engineered to deliver extraordinary sound. Finally, hear what you've been missing.

HTC announce the Sensation XL with Beats Audio

"Feel every single beat."

When it comes to doing music justice, you’re way ahead of the crowd with the HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ (codename: Runnymede) and its superb, in-box customised Beats headset. Now your audio experience sounds just like the artist intended. You’ll also enjoy the large 4.7 inch screen and 9.9mm sleek premium design. And record amazing HD quality video to complement your audio experience with this incredible superphone. It’s the BEST sound and sight you can get on any mobile device.

Key Features

• Customized, bundled headset lets you feel every beat
  HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ automatically detects your bundled, tailor-made Beats headset and optimizes the audio output so you’ll hear sound just the way the artist intended. It’s an ultimate audio experience we know you’ll appreciate. Voices come through crisply and the bass is deeper, fuller, rounder. You don’t just hear your music, you feel it deep inside yourself.
• It’s not just big on sound
  HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ offers a 4.7 inch screen, premium design. Coupled with SRS surround sound, HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ gives you the ultimate multimedia experience. And with the huge screen, surfing the web is a richer and more rewarding mobile experience. HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ may have a huge screen, but it’s not a huge phone. In fact, it’s a sleek 9.9mm thin smartphone that feels just right.
• Perfection in every frame
  You never know when inspiration can hit. HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ offers a great 8MP camera with amazing HD video recording capabilities to capture those moments of inspiration. To give your recordings more depth and clearer sound, HTC have built in two microphones that enable you to record with surround sound and cancel out unwanted noises.
• Instant capture camera
  Remember that time you pressed the shutter button and had to wait while your camera phone finished taking the picture? With the instant capture camera, the moment you press the button is the same moment the photo is captured. Never let a great shot slip away.
• Active lockscreen
  HTC have transformed the lockscreen into a window to the good stuff on your phone - you can check up on your portfolio, view your friend's status, and more.
• Richer Internet experience
  Surf the web in style with multi-window browsing, a quick lookup tool for jumping to Wikipedia or YouTube and the latest Flash support for smooth video playback.
• Immersive experience
  Have you ever held a thunderstorm in your hand? When checking the weather – feel the sun's rays or wipe away the droplets of water.

Technical Specifications

• Size - 70.7 x 9.9 x 132.5mm (2.78 x 0.39 x 5.22")
• Weight - 162.5 grams (5.73 ounces) with battery
• Display - 4.7-inch touchscreen with 480x800 resolution
• Screen - 119mm (4.7")
• Processor - 1.5GHz
• Storage
  • Total Storage - 16GB
  • Available Storage - up to 12.64GB
  • RAM - 768MB
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • microUSB 2.0 (5-pin) port
• Sensors
  • Gyro sensor
  • Digital compass
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Multimedia
  • Gallery, Music and FM Radio
  • SRS virtual surround sound for wired headphones
  • DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to a compatible TV or computer
  • Audio supported formats
    • PlayBack - .m4a, .mp3, .mid, .ogg, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
  • Video supported formats
    • PlayBack - .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m4v, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9 and VC-1)
    • Recording - .mp4, .3gp
      (You can only playback a .3gp or .3g2 video if the video is an email attachment or is part of an MMS message.)
• Power & Battery
  • Battery Type - Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity - 1600 mAh
  • Talk Time - WCDMA: Up to 410 minutes, GSM: Up to 710 minutes
  • Standby Time - WCDMA: Up to 460 hours, GSM: Up to 360 hours
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: 850/900/2100 MHz, GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Camera
  • 8 megapixel camera with F2.2 lens, dual LED flash, and BSI sensor (for better low-light captures)
  • 1.3 megapixel front camera
  • 720p HD video recording
• Internet
  • 3G: Up to 14.4Mbps download speed, Up to 5.76Mbps upload speed
  • GPRS: Up to 80kbps download speed
  • EDGE: Up to 236.8kbps download speed
  • WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth® 2.1
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, HFP, HSP
• Social Networking
  • Facebook® and Twitter™ for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Share photos/videos on Facebook®, Flickr®, Twitter™, or YouTube™
• Location
  • Internal GPS antenna
  • HTC Locations
• Tethering - USB and WiFi tethering

Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information and to reserve yours.

Introducing the HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio

"Feel every single beat."

When it comes to doing music justice, you’re way ahead of the crowd with the HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ (codename: Runnymede) and its superb, in-box customised Beats headset. Now your audio experience sounds just like the artist intended. You’ll also enjoy the large 4.7 inch screen and 9.9mm sleek premium design. And record amazing HD quality video to complement your audio experience with this incredible superphone. It’s the BEST sound and sight you can get on any mobile device.

Key Features

• Customized, bundled headset lets you feel every beat
  HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ automatically detects your bundled, tailor-made Beats headset and optimizes the audio output so you’ll hear sound just the way the artist intended. It’s an ultimate audio experience we know you’ll appreciate. Voices come through crisply and the bass is deeper, fuller, rounder. You don’t just hear your music, you feel it deep inside yourself.
• It’s not just big on sound
  HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ offers a 4.7 inch screen, premium design. Coupled with SRS surround sound, HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ gives you the ultimate multimedia experience. And with the huge screen, surfing the web is a richer and more rewarding mobile experience. HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ may have a huge screen, but it’s not a huge phone. In fact, it’s a sleek 9.9mm thin smartphone that feels just right.
• Perfection in every frame
  You never know when inspiration can hit. HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio™ offers a great 8MP camera with amazing HD video recording capabilities to capture those moments of inspiration. To give your recordings more depth and clearer sound, HTC have built in two microphones that enable you to record with surround sound and cancel out unwanted noises.
• Instant capture camera
  Remember that time you pressed the shutter button and had to wait while your camera phone finished taking the picture? With the instant capture camera, the moment you press the button is the same moment the photo is captured. Never let a great shot slip away.
• Active lockscreen
  HTC have transformed the lockscreen into a window to the good stuff on your phone - you can check up on your portfolio, view your friend's status, and more.
• Richer Internet experience
  Surf the web in style with multi-window browsing, a quick lookup tool for jumping to Wikipedia or YouTube and the latest Flash support for smooth video playback.
• Immersive experience
  Have you ever held a thunderstorm in your hand? When checking the weather – feel the sun's rays or wipe away the droplets of water.

View this article for a number of product videos showcasing the key features of the Sensation XL.

Technical Specifications

• Size - 70.7 x 9.9 x 132.5mm (2.78 x 0.39 x 5.22")
• Weight - 162.5 grams (5.73 ounces) with battery
• Display - 4.7-inch touchscreen with 480x800 resolution
• Screen - 119mm (4.7")
• Processor - 1.5GHz
• Storage
  • Total Storage - 16GB
  • Available Storage - up to 12.64GB
  • RAM - 768MB
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • microUSB 2.0 (5-pin) port
• Sensors
  • Gyro sensor
  • Digital compass
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Multimedia
  • Gallery, Music and FM Radio
  • SRS virtual surround sound for wired headphones
  • DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to a compatible TV or computer
  • Audio supported formats
    • PlayBack - .m4a, .mp3, .mid, .ogg, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
  • Video supported formats
    • PlayBack - .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m4v, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9 and VC-1)
    • Recording - .mp4, .3gp
      (You can only playback a .3gp or .3g2 video if the video is an email attachment or is part of an MMS message.)
• Power & Battery
  • Battery Type - Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity - 1600 mAh
  • Talk Time - WCDMA: Up to 410 minutes, GSM: Up to 710 minutes
  • Standby Time - WCDMA: Up to 460 hours, GSM: Up to 360 hours
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: 850/900/2100 MHz, GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Camera
  • 8 megapixel camera with F2.2 lens, dual LED flash, and BSI sensor (for better low-light captures)
  • 1.3 megapixel front camera
  • 720p HD video recording
• Internet
  • 3G: Up to 14.4Mbps download speed, Up to 5.76Mbps upload speed
  • GPRS: Up to 80kbps download speed
  • EDGE: Up to 236.8kbps download speed
  • WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth® 2.1
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, HFP, HSP
• Social Networking
  • Facebook® and Twitter™ for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Share photos/videos on Facebook®, Flickr®, Twitter™, or YouTube™
• Location
  • Internal GPS antenna
  • HTC Locations
• Tethering - USB and WiFi tethering

User Interface

The Sensation XL features the wide range of homescreens and widgets we have to expect from HTC, enabling you to add all of your favourite applications, bookmarks, contacts, Internet-enabled tools and hardware controls to your homescreen for immediate at-a-glance access, all arranged on a spinning carousel for convenience

A wide range of additional widgets can be downloaded both from the Android Market and the HTC Hub

Applications

The list of applications preinstalled on the Sensation XL as standard is as follows:

• Adobe Reader
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock
• Connected Media
• Downloads
• Dropbox
• Facebook
• Fb Chat
• Flashlight
• FM Radio
• Friend Stream
• Gallery
• GMail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Likes
• Internet
• Latitude
• Locations
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Mirror
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• News & Weather
• Notes
• People
• Phone
• Places
• Polaris Office
• Quick Lookup
• Reader
• Settings
• Setup
• Show Me
• SIM Toolkit
• SoundHound
• Stocks
• Talk
• Tango
• Task Manager
• Tasks
• Teeter
• Transfer
• Twitter
• Usage Monitor
• Voice Dialler
• Voice Recorder
• Voice Search
• Watch
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

Multimedia

The Sensation XE features the same Beats Audio soundstage as the Sensation XE, which when used with the bundled Beats in ear 'phones provides a superior immersive aural experience.
The HTC Music Player software provides all you could require from a portable music device, including the ability to create and organise playlists as well as set tracks as your ringtone

The HTC Watch software allows you to purchase and stream a wide range of movies, from the latest releases to classics, all of which are rendered beautifully on the XL's hugely impressive screen and Beats audio sound, meaning that you truly can carry the cinema in your pocket.

Movies can also be streamed wirelessly to a DLNA-capable television using the XL's media streaming feature.

The 8 megapixel rear camera with auto focus and dual LED flash allows you to capture life's moments on the fly and share your pictures online, geo-tagged for reference. A wide range of image processing effects and capture modes are available, including the ability to capture a burst of photographs in rapid succession for action shots, or panoramas

Email

The Sensation XL supports a wide range of email services. The settings for a number of common email providers are already programmed, meaning that setting up your Google or Hotmail email is simply a matter of entering your email address and password: the XL will do the rest.

Multiple email accounts can be configured and displayed in a single view, coded by colour.
Microsoft Exchange-based email accounts can also be configured, enabling you to receive push-based updates to your email, contacts, calendar and tasks folders

All mailbox folders are available

and entries from the Global Address List will be suggested automatically when you start to compose a new email message:

Out of Office status and reply message can be set and edited directly from the device

and synchronisation can be scheduled separately during and outside peak working hours, to preserve battery life and data usage outside those hours when updates need not necessarily be pushed to the device

Tasks are managed via the separate Tasks application

Connectivity

The Sensation XL can be used as a portable WiFi access point, enabling you to share the XL's high-speed cellular connection to the Internet from up to 5 wireless clients, be it a laptop, another mobile phone, or whatever. The wireless connection can be encrypted for additional security.

The networking settings used by the wireless hotspot can be defined if desired by advanced users

Files can also be exchanged with the Sensation XL via Bluetooth

Via USB, the Sensation XL can share its Internet connection (it can be "tethered") on both Windows and MacOS

and on Windows can be used in "Internet Passthrough" mode, allowing you to use your PC's Internet connection from the Sensation XL.

Music, Photos, Contacts, Calendars, Documents and Bookmarks can also be synchronised with both Windows and MacOS using the HTC Sync software.

Simply select which USB mode you want the Sensation XL to use when you connect it:

Miscellaneous

The Polaris Office software on the Sensation XL allows you to view, edit and create both Word and Excel documents, as well as view PowerPoint presentations

The Usage Monitor allows you to keep approximate track of the amount of data used as well as voice minutes and text messages, to help you stay on top of your mobile charges

The Sensation XL also features a SIP Voice over IP (VoIP) client built in, allowing you to use the device with a SIP provider and place calls over WiFi, or even set up the device as a wireless extension of your company telephone system so you can use your mobile when i the office to call deskbound colleagues free of charge. Read this article for more information.

Contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225 for more information and to reserve yours.

HTC Wildfire S - A Closer Look [Video]

Surf the web in style with multi-window browsing, pinch to zoom with auto text reflow, and Flash video support. The HTC Wildfire S lets you take great shots with the 5 MP camera with flash, tag your friends in the pics and instantly post them to social networks for all to enjoy. Explore thousands of apps on Android Market™ and send your favorite ones to friends - so everyone can get in on the fun.

HTC Wildfire S How To Videos available

HTC have posted a number of videos on their Show Me youtube channel providing visual instructions on how to perform common tasks

Call your contacts faster with Smart Dial

Tired of searching through your entire contact list just to make a call? This video will show you how Smart Dial helps you easily find the right person. In seconds.

Personalize your Home screen

Want quick and easy access to your most important information and applications? This video will show you how to personalize everything on your phone -- just the way you like it.

See what's going on in all your social networks

Want a single place to check all your friends' updates? Learn to use Friend Stream to keep up with your circle of friends. This video will also demonstrate how to send out your updates simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter.

Reflow and look up text, share a web page, and more

Learn how text reflow makes reading web pages a breeze. This video will also show you Quick Lookup, a feature you can use to find more information about a word or phrase you encountered on a page that's new to you.

HTC announce the Wildfire S

Official product page - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/wildfires/overview.html

Features

• Surf in style
  Your HTC Wildfire S knows that the online world, is your world. Being offline is not an option. With the HTC Wildfire S, surfing the web is easy. Enjoy multi-window browsing, watch text resize automatically on screen as you zoom in and out, and simply highlight text to quickly look up what you're reading about on Google, Wikipedia or YouTube. You're as connected on the move as you are at home.
• Snap, tag and share
  Whether it's a photo you've snapped with your HTC Wildfire S camera, or one you've received, it's easy to share it on Facebook and other social networks. Select any photo you want on your phone, upload it and tag it for all your friends to see.
• Share apps in a snap
  The Android market has over 100 thousand of the latest applications, games and tools that you can download straight to your phone and easily share with your friends. So you can fill your phone and your life with everything you love.
• Express yourself
  Make the HTC Wildfire S your very own. Express your personality and customise it with colourful skins, soundsets and widgets – all available to download directly from your phone. Along with inspiring scenes to match your social, entertainment or more serious side, for those that have one.
• All your friends' updates in one place
  Friend Stream groups all your friends' social network updates together, so you never miss what's most important to you. Whether they're on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr, you can keep tab of all your friends' tweets and photos, all at once and on the same screen. Plus a single update from you can be sent to each of your networks all in one go.
• An icebreaker for your calls
  Wouldn't it be handy if your Caller ID not only displayed a name and number, but also vital stuff like their Facebook status and birthday? HTC Wildfire S does just that, so when you look to see who's calling, you know to say "Happy Birthday" the moment you answer the phone.
• All your email accounts in one inbox
  If you juggle more than one email account, the HTC Wildfire S will merge them together so you never miss a thing. They're color coded so you know what's what, and you can sort them by importance, groups or content. It's one easy access point for all your incoming and outgoing mail.

Specifications

• Size - 101.3mm (3.99in) x 59.4mm (2.34in) x 12.4mm (0.49in)
• Weight - 105 grams (3.7 ounces) with battery
• Display - 3.2 inch touch-sensitive screen with 320 x 480 resolution
• CPU Speed - 600 MHz
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Memory
  • ROM - 512MB
  • RAM - 512MB
    
  • Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Camera - 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus and flash
• Sensors
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital Compass
  • Proximity Sensor
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Multimedia
  • Audio supported formats
    Playback: AAC, AMR, OGG, MID, M4A, MP3, WAV, WMA (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: AMR
  • Video supported formats
    Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, WMV (Windows Media Video 9)
    Recording: 3GP
• Battery
  • Capacity - 1230mAh
  • Talk Time - WCDMA: up to 350 minutes, GSM: up to 430 minutes
  • Standby Time - WCDMA: up to 570 hours, GSM: up to 360 hours
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: Europe/Asia - 900/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Internet
  • WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
  • 3G: up to 7.2Mbps download speed, up to 384kbps upload speed
  • GPRS: up to 114kbps downloading
  • EDGE: up to 560kbps downloading
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP/OPP for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna

Introducing the HTC Wildfire S

The HTC Wildfire S is now in stock at Brightpoint GB, call us today on 0870 849 0225 to reserve yours!

Running Android 2.3.3 and HTC Sense 2.1 in a case measuring just 10 cms by 6 cms (precise specs below), the Wildfire S is a powerhouse of features and functionality to suit both work and social environments in a convenient and portable package.

The official product page is available here - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/wildfires/overview.html

Features

• Surf in style
  Your HTC Wildfire S knows that the online world, is your world. Being offline is not an option. With the HTC Wildfire S, surfing the web is easy. Enjoy multi-window browsing, watch text resize automatically on screen as you zoom in and out, and simply highlight text to quickly look up what you're reading about on Google, Wikipedia or YouTube. You're as connected on the move as you are at home.
• Snap, tag and share
  Whether it's a photo you've snapped with your HTC Wildfire S camera, or one you've received, it's easy to share it on Facebook and other social networks. Select any photo you want on your phone, upload it and tag it for all your friends to see.
• Share apps in a snap
  The Android market has over 100 thousand of the latest applications, games and tools that you can download straight to your phone and easily share with your friends. So you can fill your phone and your life with everything you love.
• Express yourself
  Make the HTC Wildfire S your very own. Express your personality and customise it with colourful skins, soundsets and widgets – all available to download directly from your phone. Along with inspiring scenes to match your social, entertainment or more serious side, for those that have one.
• All your friends' updates in one place
  Friend Stream groups all your friends' social network updates together, so you never miss what's most important to you. Whether they're on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr, you can keep tab of all your friends' tweets and photos, all at once and on the same screen. Plus a single update from you can be sent to each of your networks all in one go.
• An icebreaker for your calls
  Wouldn't it be handy if your Caller ID not only displayed a name and number, but also vital stuff like their Facebook status and birthday? HTC Wildfire S does just that, so when you look to see who's calling, you know to say "Happy Birthday" the moment you answer the phone.
• All your email accounts in one inbox
  If you juggle more than one email account, the HTC Wildfire S will merge them together so you never miss a thing. They're color coded so you know what's what, and you can sort them by importance, groups or content. It's one easy access point for all your incoming and outgoing mail.

Promotional Video

Specifications

• Size - 101.3mm (3.99in) x 59.4mm (2.34in) x 12.4mm (0.49in)
• Weight - 105 grams (3.7 ounces) with battery
• Display - 3.2 inch touch-sensitive screen with 320 x 480 resolution
• CPU Speed - 600 MHz
• Platform - Android with HTC Sense
• Memory
  • ROM - 512MB
  • RAM - 512MB
    
  • Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Camera - 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus and flash
• Sensors
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital Compass
  • Proximity Sensor
• Connectors
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Multimedia
  • Audio supported formats
    Playback: AAC, AMR, OGG, MID, M4A, MP3, WAV, WMA (Windows Media Audio 9)
    Recording: AMR
  • Video supported formats
    Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, WMV (Windows Media Video 9)
    Recording: 3GP
• Battery
  • Capacity - 1230mAh
  • Talk Time - WCDMA: up to 350 minutes, GSM: up to 430 minutes
  • Standby Time - WCDMA: up to 570 hours, GSM: up to 360 hours
• Network
  • HSPA / WCDMA: Europe/Asia - 900/2100 MHz
  • Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Internet
  • WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
  • 3G: up to 7.2Mbps download speed, up to 384kbps upload speed
  • GPRS: up to 114kbps downloading
  • EDGE: up to 560kbps downloading
• Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP/OPP for file transfer
  • PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna

Home Screen

The Wildfire features the usual 7 homescreens that we have become familiar with on the Android platform, accessed by swiping to the left or right to reach commonly-accessed applications, widgets or hardware controls that you can customise to your heart's content to best suit your needs, be it a live social networking feed of your Twitter and Facebook messages:

SMS, email messages and contacts
:

Or weather reports and music player controls:

Additional widgets can be downloaded either from the HTC Hub or from the Android Market.

The notification area at the top of the screen can be pulled down to access a list of recently accessed and running applications, not to mention a quick-toggle control for the unit's WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and cellular controls:

Applications

The applications available as standard on the Wildfire are as follows:

• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock
• Downloads
• Facebook
• FM Radio
• Friendstream
• Gallery
• Gmail
• Google Search
• HTC Hub
• HTC Hub
• Internet
• Latitude
• Learn More
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• News & Weather
• Peep
• People
• Phone
• Places
• Quick Lookup
• Settings
• Setup
• Stocks
• Talk
• Transfer
• Videos
• Voice Recorder
• Voice Search
• Weather
• WiFi Hotspot
• YouTube

The application launcher itself can display all applications, your favourite applications, or applications that have been downloaded:

Navigating through the launcher screens is now more user-friendly thanks to the fact that swiping your finger up or down the screen will display the next page of apps and then stopping, rather than scrolling on based on the vigour of your finger swipe.

Email

Besides supporting POP and IMAP email accounts, the Wildfire S features Exchange ActiveSync out of the box, providing push email over the air with your corporate email server.
Using HTC's own proprietary email client rather than the native Android client, full mailbox access is provided to all mailbox folders and email synchronisation schedules can be defined avoiding the need to check for mail during the night, for example, saving both on data charges and battery power:

Out of Office and email signatures can be set and edited directly from the device, and contacts in the Global Address List can be searched for with no need for any additional configuration:

Email messages can further be grouped by conversation for ease of inbox management:

Connectivity

Featuring a high-speed 3G modem, Bluetooth and WiFi, with the Wildfire S you need never be offline, and neither should your laptop with the Smartphone's ability to be used as a USB tethered modem on both Windows and Mac

Or indeed any device that features WiFi thanks to the Wildfire S' ability to act as a 3G wireless access point for up to 5 devices simultaneously:

Alternately, should your laptop have Internet access and you want to preserve your phone's cellular data connection, you can share your PCs' Internet connection via the same USB connection using the device's Internet Passthrough feature.

Voice over IP

New to Android 2.3.3 is a built-in SIP client making it possible to set up your Smartphone as an extension of your corporate telephone system via WiFi, whether in the office or not, allowing you to call, and be called by, staff in the office free of charge by dialling your internal extension number. For more information on how to configure this feature, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-htc-desire-s-wireless-extension-...

Summary

This article has provided an overview of the features available with the Wildfire S, focussing on those technical details that you might not otherwise be aware of, for more information visit the HTC web site or contact our sales staff on 0870 849 0225 today.

A sneak peak of the HTC Tattoo

The Tattoo is HTC's second SIM-free Android-based device following in the footsteps of the Hero (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/introducing-htc-hero). Aimed more at the consumer market than the Hero, the Tattoo is smaller, fitting any pocket thanks to the removal of the Google 'chin', including an FM Radio and also boasting a range of replaceable covers, reminiscent of Nokia's Xpress-On covers from yester-year.

This article is intended as a 'preview' only: the unit I am using being a prototype only rather than the final release. The hardware specs are the same, only the software revision is not the version that will ship to customers. Still, if you consider that this unit will offer a similar feature set to the Hero (perhaps minus the QuickOffice viewers), but running the newer Android 'Donut' operating system, you will now be able to enjoy support for VPN access as well as text to speech functionality....read on!

Specifications

• Processor - Qualcomm MSM7225, 528MHz
• Platform - Android
• Memory - ROM:512MB, RAM:256MB
• Dimensions (LxWxT) - 106 x 55.2 x 14mm (4.17 x 2.17 x 0.55 inches)
• Weight - 113 grams (3.99 ounces) with battery
• Display - 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 240x320 QVGA resolution
• Network
  • HSDPA/WCDMA
    • Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
    • Up to 384 kbps uplink and 7.2 Mbps downlink speeds
  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
    • 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

  Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent

• Device Control - 4-way navigation control with Enter button
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna
• Connectivity
  • Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate ad A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • WiFi IEEE 802.11 b/g
  • HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0)
  • 3.5 mm audio jack
• Camera - 3.2 megapixel colour camera
• Audio supported formats - MP3, AAC (AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media Audio 9
• Video supported format - MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media Video 9
• Battery
  • Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1100 mAh
  • Talk time:
    • Up to 342 minutes for WCDMA
    • Up to 390 minutes for GSM
  • Standby time:
    • Up to 520 hours for WCDMA
    • Up to 340 hours for GSM

  (The above are subject to network and phone usage)

• Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• AC Adapter - Voltage range / frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz. DC Output: 5V and 1A
• Special Features
  • G-sensor
  • Digital Compass
  • FM Radio

Getting Started

As with the Hero before it, the setup procedure is simple. You will be prompted to select your desired language:

calibrate the keyboard and set up wireless network access:

allow applications to access the GPS module and configure email accounts:

as well as configuring Social Networking applications and time zone information:

Once complete the Home screen will be displayed:

which, as with the Hero before it, features not one, but 7 screens, accessed by simply scrolling left and right with the thumb:

And in addition to 7 home screens, multiple profiles (or "moods") are available, including Play:

Work and Social:

and Travel:

Additional home screens can be configured from scratch too, if you wish.

Widgets

Widgets are Internet-enabled applications that can run on the Home Screen, providing at-a-glance access to weather reports, stock information, sports results, email, calendar appointments - you name it, you can put it in a widget.
Applications can also provide access to local information such as your Contacts list, Photos albums or just a search box. Android comes with a number of pre-defined Widgets and HTC have bundled a load more meaning that virtually any aspect of the device's functionality can be accessed directly from the Home screen if you wish.
As well as Widgets, you can of course add shortcuts to your favourite applications so they can be launched directly by tapping the icon rather than first accessing the Programs menu and then scrolling to the program's entry location.
Application shortcuts can be added to the Home Screen simply tapping and holding on the icon for the application. As soon as you hold, the program view will fade away and the home screen will be displayed. Release the icon to add a shortcut to the home screen.

When you take the sheer variety of screens, themes and widgets available, this platform offers an unparalleled ability to customise your device to how you want to use it.

Keyboard / Input

As with the Hero, the touch-screen keyboard is capacitive rather than resistive, meaning that the unit does not ship with a stylus, rather you use your finger or thumb to select keys.

Applications

As I mentioned earlier, this unit is not running the final shipping version so I won't give a list of installed applications, but you can rest assured that the unit will include at the very least:

• Albums - browse and sort your photographs and images, upload to FaceBook or Flickr
• Browser - access the world wide web in stunning multi-touch quality
• Calculator - number crunching
• Calendar - never forget Gran's birthday again
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock - featuring a world clock, timer, stopwatch and several individually-configurable alarms
• FM Radio - radio gaga
• Mail - POP, IMAP and Exchange Server ActiveSync Exchange email accounts
• Messages - SMS/MMS client
• Music - audio file player
  
• Peep - Twitter client
• People - address book
• Voice Recorder - record voice notes and use the device as a dictaphone

The Albums feature allows you to browse and organise your photographs, both taken with the built-in 3.2 megapixel camera or saved to the SD memory card. Pictures can be set as the home screen wallpaper or uploaded to Facebook or Flickr.
Indeed, as with the Hero, Once logged in, you can access any social networking services from within any other 'socially-networked' application - be it uploading a photo to Flickr directly from within the Albums application, replying to a contact via Twitter directly from the People (Contacts) application, or viewing a contact's Facebook updates directly from your contacts list.

The Music player allows you to organise your audio files into playlists, shuffle songs, set files as your default ringtone, or as the ringtone for a specific contact.

The FM Radio, provided that you have a set of headphones connected to act as an aerial, can be used to access any FM radio station and save it as a Preset:

Email

The Tattoo supports both POP and IMAP email accounts as well as featuring a Server ActiveSync client enabling bi-directional push-based synchronisation of Contacts, Calendar and Email with Microsoft Exchange (2003 SP2 or later).

When adding a POP or IMAP-based email account, provided that your account is with a 'popular' provider such as Hotmail, Tiscali, Virgin or whoever, then the setup procedure is simply a matter of entering your full email address and password and the Hero will do the rest for you - even getting the correct outgoing mail server settings for your mobile operator, something that trips up a lot of users when having to enter the settings manually.
Alternatively you can complete the settings yourself should you want to set up a private server.

Setting up an Exchange account is not much more difficult - if you enter your Exchange email address and password the Hero will attempt to determine the server settings to use automatically, using the Microsoft AutoDiscover service.

Should the client not be able to determine the settings automatically, you will be prompted to enter the address of the server manually, as well as your domain, username and password - as you would have to on any Server ActiveSync client.
There are a number of 'little touches' on the Tattoo, as with the Hero, that make using it that much more intuitive and shows that the developers have clearly put some thought into. For example, when running through the Exchange manual setup, by entering in your email address of 'name@domain.com', the server address is automatically completed with 'domain.com' and the cursor placed at the beginning of the line, so that all you need to enter is the server name, ie 'mail.domain.com'.

Once you have entered all of the required information, the device will verify that it is able to connect to the server using the supplied credentials. If your Exchange server is using a self-issued, or non-root-trusted certificate, you will be warned to that effect and be prompted to accept the connection:

Once the connection has been established, you will the be prompted to select which mailbox folders you wish to synchronise:

and then be taken to your Inbox:

As with other ActiveSync clients you can specify a schedule for your mail delivery - having mail pushed as it arrives or every xx minutes:

VPN Access

Running the "Donut" version of the Android operating system, the Tattoo includes support for PPTP, L2TP and IPSec-based VPN connections:

Camera

The overall response time of the camera and camcorder has been improved in Android 1.6, and it is possible to switch between camera modes without the need to close one application and open another, simply by selecting the switch in the corner of the screen:

As with the Hero, photos can be uploaded to FaceBook or Flickr directly from the Albums application.

Miscellaneous

Also present in Donut is the inclusion of Text-to-Speech at the operating system level, meaning in theory that any application can be configured to "speak" to you:

Another feature not present in earlier models is support for MacOS: when connected to my Snow Leopard machine the SD card inserted in the Tattoo was mounted automatically as a USB drive:

Which also means that as soon as I took a picture with the camera, connecting the Tattoo caused iPhoto to launch on the Mac (as that is how I have the mac configured, you don't need to have this happen)

Summary

As I mentioned earlier, this article is intended as a "sneak peak" only. I will be blogging about the Tattoo in full once I get my hands on the final release version of the handset, but you can see from this prototype that the handset is going to provide unparalleled customisation options as well as all the power of the Android platform.

How to hard reset the HTC Hero

NOTE - performing a hard reset on the Hero will erase all user data and applications on the device and return the unit to a factory-default state.

• Power the unit off (removing the battery if necessary)
• Hold down the Home and Back keys
• Press the power button whilst still holding down the Home and Back keys
• After a few seconds a message will be displayed on the screen prompting you to press the Menu button to confirm the reset process.
• Release all buttons, then press the Menu button to hard reset the device

After a few moments your device will boot and display the welcome wizard.

Installing the HTC Tattoo as a USB Modem on Windows 7

In order to use the HTC tattoo as a USB modem with your Windows 7-based PC to connect to the Internet, firstly set the Tattoo to Disk Drive Mode before connecting it to your PC for the first time.
Within the menu tap on the USB to PC icon:

Set the option to Disk Drive and tap done:

Connect the Tattoo to your Windows 7 PC. The device will be detected as a USB disk drive and the contents will be displayed. Install the HTC Sync application.

Once complete, return to the USB to PC setting on the Tattoo and adjust it to Mobile Network Sharing mode:

Windows will detect new hardware and attempt to install a new Network Adapter. The installation procedure will fail. Don't Panic.

Click on the Start Menu and right click on the entry for My Computer. Select Properties. Open the Device Manager:

The Tattoo will be listed as an Android device in the Other Devices section. Right click on the entry and select the option to Update Driver.

Select the option to Browse the computer for driver software.

Browse to C:\Program Files \ HTC \ HTC Driver \ Driver Files \ Vista_x86

Click OK. Windows will now install the correct driver for the new network adapter:

Once installed, you will be prompted to enter a location for the new Network Connection.

You will now be connected to the Internet (assuming that the Tattoo is successfully connected to your mobile operator's Internet service)

NOTE - I found I had to disable my internal network adapter before the Tattoo's connection would work successfully, but that may have been due to an IP address range conflict between my local network and the addressing scheme used by the mobile operator.

Introducing the HTC Desire

The Desire is HTC's latest Android offering, which they themselves have modestly dubbed a "SuperPhone" rather than a regular "SmartPhone", and even after only a few hours with the device I have to say it is worthy of the title.
Running the latest version of the Android operating system (version 2.1, or "Eclair"), the Desire packs a number of new features over older HTC Android models including an updated Exchange email client, support for Bluetooth file transfer, support for VPN connections, Version 3.1 of the WebKit browser as well as HTC's new "Friend Stream" social networking client. I will look at all of these features in more detail.

HTC's own marketing blurb summarises the key features of the Desire as follows:

Highlights

• Enjoy a vivid visual experience on the large 3.7 inch AMOLED display
• Surf the web in style with pinch to zoom controls and Adobe flash support that opens up the vast world of video and games of the Internet
• Experience super-fast response when jumping between applications, enjoying multimedia or playing games with the 1GHz Snapdragon processor
• Keep in tune with all your friends across multiple social networks with all of their updates, shared photos, links and tweets in a single, easy to view flow with Friend Stream.
• Tap into an online library of content-rich widgets that help you personalise your phone experience.

Specifications

• Model - A8181
• CPU Speed - 1GHz
• Platform - Android 2.1 (Eclair) with HTC Sense
• Memory - 512 MB ROM and 576 MB RAM
• Size and Weight - 119 x 60 x 11.9mm, 135 grams
• Display - 3.7-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDMA (900/2100 MHz)
  • GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• GPS - Internal GPS antenna
• Connectivity
  • Bluetooth 2.1, A2DP, FTP, OPP and PBAP
  • WiFi IEEE 802.11b/g
  • 3.5mm stereo audio jack
  • Standard Micro-USB
• Camera - 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus and flash
• Expansion Slot - microSD card

More detailed specifications can be found on the HTC web site - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/desire/specification.html

But what is the phone really like to use?

Setting up the phone initially was characteristically simple of the Android platform - the unit correctly detected what mobile network I was on from my SIM card and automatically configured the appropriate 3G connection settings to use without any further interaction. I was prompted to set up my WiFi, Email and Social Networking accounts (Facebook, Twitter and Flickr) and then I was in.

Home Screen

Like the Hero and the Tattoo before it, the Desire offers 7 home screens, all of which can be accessed simply by sliding your finger to the left or right, and all of which can be customised to your preference to contain shortcuts to applications, or any of the wide range of HTC "Widgets" to conveniently and quickly provide access to email, text and picture messages as well as updates to "Friend Stream", not to mention weather updates, stock reports, RSS feeds and more.

Similar to "Expose" on Mac OS X, all home screens can be viewed at a glance by 'pinching' whichever home screen you're on, enabling you to jump to the screen you want.

On the subject of the screen itself, at 480 x 800 pixels (WVGA), the 3.7-inch AMOLED screen looks superb both inside and outdoors (although to prolong the battery life you may consider adjusting the brightness manually). Combined with the metal navigation buttons and metal optical navigation key, the overall build quality of the Desire is of a very high standard and the device feels robust in the hand without being overly heavy or chunky. The lack of the Android 'chin' is also a welcome omission for me personally.

Applications

The complete list of application menu items on the Desire is as follows:

• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Clock
• Desk Clock
• Facebook
• FM Radio
• Footprints
• Friend Stream
• Google Mail
• Internet
• Learn More
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Music
• News
• PDF Viewer
• Peep
• People
• Phone
• Photos
• Quickoffice
• Search People
• Settings
• Setup
• SIM Toolkit
• Stocks
• Google Talk
• Teeter
• Voice Recorder
• Weather
• You Tube

But naturally a whole universe of applications is at your fingertips within the Android Market! For a selection of some of the applications I have used and enjoyed in the past visit the Android section of the blog.
If you're new to Android and the Android Market and are unsure how applications can be installed, this article is a good starting point - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/what-applications-will-you-install-your-...

Some applications you might want to look at include Dropbox, Shazam, GDocs, DataViz Documents To Go and Layar

Email

The Desire can host an unlimited number of email accounts - provided that they're POP or IMAP-based. Only one Microsoft Exchange email account can be configured on the Desire, but HTC's Exchange ActiveSync client is updated on the Desire providing the ability to set and edit out of office status and message and specify mail delivery peak and off-peak delivery schedules, as well as providing support for remote device wipe from the Exchange server and the ability to enforce password usage via ActiveSync mailbox policy.

The Desire also has a separate Google Mail client for use with a GMail service.

Setting up an Exchange email account is relatively painless provided that you know the settings to enter: the Desire can attempt to determine the settings to use automatically but this requires that the AutoDiscovery service is configured correctly on the Exchange Server by the administrator. Exchange 2003 SP2 or later is supported (older versions of Exchange can still be accessed via POP or IMAP).

When launching the Mail application for the first time, you will be prompted to select what type of email account you want to configure:

Selecting Exchange will allow you to enter your email address and password for automatic detection, or you can tap on Manual Setup to enter the required information by hand:

As with all Exchange ActiveSync clients, you will need to know the address of the Exchange server to use, your username, password and domain.

The Exchange Server address will be the same address used to access WebMail (Outlook Web Access), if this feature is available in your company, normally in the form 'mail.company.com'
The username will be in the same form used to log into your Windows PC, and the domain will also be the same used to access your Windows PC (normally the contents of the third field when logging in, below the password field).
Specify whether your mail server uses SSL (one way to tell is whether your WebMail address has 'https' at the beginning rather than just 'http').

Once all of the fields have been completed, the wizard will then attempt to authenticate against the Exchange server. Provided that all has gone well, you will be prompted to select which mailbox folders you want to synchronise - note that the HTC Exchange client DOES support Exchange calendar synchronisation:

Your mailbox data will then be synchronised to the device automatically (by default the last 3 days' worth of email will be synced, which can be adjusted).
All mailbox folders can be accessed:

And your OOF status can be set:

Mail and Event notification settings can be configured, and mail delivery schedules and times can also be set - this is a new feature to the Desire: previous Android models allowed you to define a mail delivery delivery (ie 'as items arrive', every 15 minutes, etc) but that setting was either on or off; it was not possible to say 'as items arrive' BETWEEN 9am and 6pm Monday to Friday - now you can.

Calendar entries will be synced (if this option was selected) and can then be added to the Home Screen as a Widget for quick 'at a glance' access:

Contacts will be synced to the device (again if this option was selected), and contacts can be searched in the company Global Address List:

Camera

The Desire features a 5 Megapixel auto focus camera with flash. There is no dedicated shutter button on the device, rather the auto focus is operated by touching the optical navigation key once lightly, then again to take the picture. Alternatively there is also an on-screen button to take the picture.
A number of image processing effects are available:

Images can be quickly and easily shared with others, either by uploading them to Facebook or Flickr, via Email or now via Bluetooth.

Web Browser

The Browser works well, rendering the blog faithfully and providing support for JavaScript and Flash plugins:

Pop-up windows can be blocked, web sites offering a 'mobile view' can be viewed in either mobile or full versions, and links can be shared quickly and easily via email, facebook, twitter, or SMS text message.
Multiple web pages can be opened simultaneously and jumped between using the Windows feature.

Productivity

The Desire comes bundled with QuickOffice, a Microsoft Office document viewer supporting Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats. To edit and create documents a separate application will need to be purchased, such as DataViz's Documents To Go application.
A PDF viewer is also included as standard.
The Desire can be synchronised with Microsoft Outlook on the desktop (if you're not using an Exchange email account) as with the Hero and Tattoo before it (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/synchronise-htc-hero-microsoft-outlook).
Using a free utility such as Dropbox or GDocs you can keep your device synchronised with your online documents quickly and easily so you need never be without that crucial presentation ever again.

Other Stuff

The Desire also ships with HTC's own Music Player application which provides playlist and shuffle functionality as you'd expect as well as the ability to set tracks as your ringtone at the touch of a button:

With its built-in GPS antenna, the Desire can be sued with the excellent Google Maps software providing satellite navigation (with voice assistance) in a variety of views:

Tethering

The Desire can be used as a USB modem with both Windows and Mac platforms (ie it can be "tethered" as its sometimes referred to). Windows "Internet Sharing" is built in, for Mac users a third party application will need to be downloaded, free:

Windows instructions
Mac instructions

Summary

This has only been a cursory examination of the Desire - I've only had it for a couple of hours! I'll be sure to post new features as I discover (and swoon) over them. On a personal note I've always maintained that I'm not the best person to review Android devices - huge a geek as I am I prefer working from a laptop and consider my phone a tool rather than a toy. But I must admit that even after an hour I do like the Desire: with its enhanced Exchange email capabilities, fast processor, impressive screen resolution, 'one-click' system-wide integration with online services and the sheer wealth of applications available in the Android Market (over 70% of which are free, even if they do come with adverts) I think it could strike the "life / work" balance just right.....ask me gain in a week if I'm still using it....I strongly suspect I will be!

Do let us know what applications you'll be installing on your new HTC Desire!

Addendum

I have previously asked the question Is Android ready for the Enterprise. The updated Exchange ActiveSync client on the HTC Desire should satisfy IT admins' requirement that devices have the ability to be remotely 'killed' directly from the Exchange server, and the announcement that leading device management solution providers are now offering Android as part of their supported client range means that the Android platform is rapidly 'growing up'. Watch this space for more information or use the Contact Form to discuss specific requirements.

Introducing the HTC Hero

Working for one of the key players in the mobile data industry and getting advance samples of devices before they reach the market is definitely one of the big plus points of my job, but it is easy to become 'de-sensitised' to new products and be distinctly under-whelmed by the big announcements that others get excited about.

This is not one of those times.

I have been looking forward to reviewing the Hero ever since it was first announced that HTC were working on it and the advance units we have been provided with have been the subject of a lot of attention - but naturally the readers of the blog take priority and I have the device in my hands and have screen-shotted it to within an inch of its life!

But seriously though, the Hero is HTC's much-publicised and long-awaited Android-based PDA, Android being the Linux-based operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance.
Offering unparalleled levels of personalisation and customisation, and already boasting a wide range of applications available for download from the Android Marketplace, this new platform could prove to be a serious challenger to the more 'entrenched' operating systems offered by Microsoft and RIM, among others, although HTC have made it clear that they will continue to develop handsets on the Windows Mobile platform.
There has been much conjecture in the press as to whether this could finally be the 'iphone-killer', I'll let you decide...

I should point out at this stage that prior to reviewing the Hero I had not used an Android handset before, therefore if anything I say in this or subsequent posts seems a little 'obvious' to users more familiar with the Android platform, then indulge me.

What's in the box

The Hero comes with the following accessories:

• Quick Start Guide
• Screen protector
• Travel charger
• Mini-USB data cable
• Standard battery
• Wired stereo headset with 3.5mm connector
• Accessory leaflet
• 2GB miscroSD card

Specifications

• Processor - Qualcomm MSM7200A, 528MHz
• Operating System - Android
• Memory - ROM: 512MB, RAM: 288MB
• Dimensions (LxWxT) - 112 x 56.2 x 14.35mm (4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches)
• Weight - 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery
• Display - 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320x480 HVGA resolution
• Network
  • HSPA/WCDA: 900/2100MHz, up to 2Mbps uplink and 7.2Mbps downlink speeds
  • Quand-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900MHz (Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent)
• Device Control - Trackball with enter button
• GPSInternal GPS antenna
• Connectivity
  • Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • WiFi IEEE 802.11b/g
  • HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
  • 3.5mm audio jack
• Camera - 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus
• Audio supported formats - MP3, AAC (AAC,AAC+,AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media Audio 9
• Video supported formats - MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media Video 9
• Battery
  • Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1350 mAh
  • Talk time:
    • Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA
    • Up to 470 minutes for GSM
  • Standby time:
    • Up to 750 hours for WCDMA
    • Up to 440 hours for GSM

    (The above are subject to network and phone usage)

• Expansion Slot - microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• AC Adapter - Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz DC output: 5V and 1A
• Special Features
  • G-sensor
  • Digital Compass

Getting Started

When powered on for the first time, the Hero startup wizard prompts you to confirm your desired language:

You are then taken through a quick introduction on how to use the on-screen keyboard:

Should the device be able to detect any WiFi networks, at this stage you will be prompted to select whether you wish the device to connect to any of them:

You will then be prompted to configure any email or social networking accounts you wish to:

I will look at how to configure these accounts later. You can then verify the date and time and you're all set:

The default Home Screen will then be displayed:

The device I used automatically configured itself for use on Vodafone UK, provisioning the correct settings for Internet access, SMS and MMS with no user interaction required at all:

The Home Screen / HTC Sense

The home screen on the Hero is not a single screen, it is in fact 32 screens.
By pressing the navigation key to the left or the right when viewing the main page of the home screen, you can move to a second, third or fourth screen - in either direction, giving 7 screens in total:

By pressing the menu button and selecting the Scenes option, you can select from up to a further 5 pre-configured Scenes, or a sixth blank scene which you can configure from scratch should you so desire:

The pre-configured Scenes have been designed to address the different usage styles, or 'moods', that the Hero might be put to and the features available on the screens correspond to that usage type. For example, the social scene has a Twitter and SMS 'widget' available:

Whereas the Work scene provides access to stock information and favourite web browser bookmarks:

And those are just the built-in scenes, naturally you can create your own as well, giving a massive range of customisation options. I currently have the following set up:

Widgets

Widgets are Internet-enabled applications that can run on the Home Screen, providing at-a-glance access to weather reports, stock information, sports results, email, calendar appointments - you name it, you can put it in a widget.
Applications can also provide access to local information such as your Contacts list, Photos albums or just a search box. Android comes with a number of pre-defined Widgets and HTC have bundled a load more meaning that virtually any aspect of the device's functionality can be accessed directly from the Home screen if you wish.
As well as Widgets, you can of course add shortcuts to your favourite applications so they can be launched directly by tapping the icon rather than first accessing the Programs menu and then scrolling to the program's entry location.
Application shortcuts can be added to the Home Screen simply tapping and holding on the icon for the application. As soon as you hold, the program view will fade away and the home screen will be displayed. Release the icon to add a shortcut to the home screen.

Keyboard / Input

As you are taught during the initial introductory wizard, the Hero features an on-screen touchscreen keyboard. No stylus is supplied with the unit: this being a 'capacitive' screen rather than a 'resistive' screen - the screen does not respond to the impact of a stylus, rather your finger completes a very weak electrical circuit to create input.

It did take me a while to get used to I must admit, but once you stop paying too much attention to what you're typing it is surprisingly accurate. The keyboard can be calibrated to your specific requirements by running through the calibration wizard within the settings menu.
Tapping and holding a single key will display all of the characters available on that key and allows you to select the one you want by sliding over to it. The text suggestions that pop up as you are typing are all sensible as well, and when not typing, controlling applications and menus with your finger is simplicity itself.

Applications

As you'd expect from an Android-based handset, the Hero comes with Google's client applications pre-loaded, providing quick access to GMail, Google Maps and Google Talk and contact and calendar information can be synchronised with Google 'cloud-based' PIM services.
The Hero is also integrated with online services including Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. In fact it is clear that "online" is very much how the designers of the Android platform envisage that it will be used, no doubt something that will make the mobile operators very happy.
The full list of standard applications is as follows:

• Albums - browse and sort your photographs and images, upload to Facebook or Flickr
• Browser - access the world wide web in stunning quality!
• Calculator - number crunching
• Calendar - organise appointments and events, configure reminders, etc
• Camera
• Camcorder
• Clock - featuring also a world clock, timer, stopwatch and several alarms
• Dialer - the phone application
• Footprints - time-stamp, geo-tag and categorise photos into collections of 'memories'
• Google Mail - GMail client, distinct from the 'main' email client
• Google Maps - GPS services
• Google Talk - Google Instant Messaging client
• Mail - POP / IMAP and Microsoft Exchange email client
• Market - search for and download both free and chargeable applications for the Android platform
• Messages - SMS/MMS client
• Music - audio file player
• PDF Viewer - Acrobat-compatible PDF application
• Peep - Twitter client
• People - address Book
• Quickoffice - Microsoft Office-compatible document viewer
• Stocks - Internet-enabled Widget
• Teeter - game which makes use of the Hero's G-Sensor
• Voice Recorder - record notes and use the device like a dictaphone
• Weather - Internet-enabled Widget
• You Tube - search for videos and view the most popular

The Albums application allows you to organise and browse your photographs, both taken with the built-in camera or saved to the SD memory card:

Pictures can be set as the wallpaper or assigned to a 'Footprint':

Pictures can be uploaded to Facebook or Flickr directly from the Album view simply by tapping on their entry.

Your account details for Facebook, Flickr and Twitter need to be entered within the 'Social Networks' menu within the Settings:

Once logged in, you can then access any of the services from within any other 'socially-networked' application on the Hero - be it uploading a photo to Flickr directly from within the Albums application, replying to a contact via Twitter directly from the People (Contacts) application, or viewing a contact's Facebook updates directly from your contacts list:

The Peep Twitter client is designed to allow you to manage your tweets and messages:

Teeter is annoyingly addictive!

The Music player allows you to organise your audio files into playlists, shuffle songs, set files as your default ringtone, or as the ringtone for a specific contact:

YouTube is also built in:

The Quickoffice application provides view-only access to Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, but does not provide support for Office 2007-formatted documents.

The PDF Viewer, as its name suggests, can open pdf files.

Google Market

The Market is an online repository of all manner of both free and purchasable tools, applications and games for your Android handset.
When accessing the Market for the first time (and for that matter any of the Google applications on the Hero for the first time), you are prompted to sign in using your Google account details or create a new account and read the terms and conditions of the Market:

Once logged in, you can browse by category, filtering each by date or by popularity:

Installing an application, provided that it is free, is simply a matter of selecting its entry and tapping Install. If the application requires access to any of the phone's features, such as the connection to the Internet, you will be prompted to confirm that the action may be permitted:

Should you have to hard reset your Hero, when you next sign into the Market, any apps that you had downloaded previously will be re-downloaded and installed again automatically. This process will continue until you uninstall the application.

Email

The Hero supports both POP and IMAP email accounts as well as featuring a Server ActiveSync client enabling bi-directional push-based synchronisation of Contacts, Calendar and Email with Microsoft Exchange (2003 SP2 or later).

When adding a POP or IMAP-based email account, provided that your account is with a 'popular' provider such as Hotmail, Tiscali, Virgin or whoever, then the setup procedure is simply a matter of entering your full email address and password and the Hero will do the rest for you - even getting the correct outgoing mail server settings for your mobile operator, something that trips up a lot of users when having to enter the settings manually.
Alternatively you can complete the settings yourself should you want to set up a private server.

Setting up an Exchange account is not much more difficult - if you enter your Exchange email address and password the Hero will attempt to determine the server settings to use automatically, using the Microsoft AutoDiscover service.

Should the client not be able to determine the settings automatically, you will be prompted to enter the address of the server manually, as well as your domain, username and password - as you would have to on any Server ActiveSync client.
There are a number of 'little touches' on the Hero that make using it that much more intuitive and shows that the developers have clearly put some thought into. For example, when running through the Exchange manual setup, by entering in your email address of 'name@domain.com', the server address is automatically completed with 'domain.com' and the cursor placed at the beginning of the line, so that all you need to enter is the server name - little things, but they show that extra attention to detail that impresses me!

Another aspect of Exchange Server ActiveSync synchronisation that is a problem on other devices that the Hero simply dismisses is the matter of self-issued SSL certificates. If you use a non root-trusted certificate on your Exchange server, it is necessary to install the root certificate of the CA that issued the certificate to the Exchange server onto your client devices manually. This is not required on the Hero - when verifying the details of the server, if the certificate is not trusted by the device you will be prompted to 'cancel' or 'continue anyway', much as you are within a web browser when accessing a secure site whose identity cannot be guaranteed. This takes the headache out of setting up Server ActiveSync completely!

Once the connection to the Exchange server has been verified, you can then select what details you want to synchronise:

After a few minutes, depending on how much data you have to sync, your information will be downloaded and available:

As with other ActiveSync clients you can specify a schedule for your mail delivery - having mail pushed as it arrives or every xx minutes:

Synchronisation of email sub-folders is possible:

and you can define a maximum default size limit for downloaded email and define your signature:

It is not possible to edit your out of office status currently. It is also not possible to define different mail delivery schedules for different times of the day - when you leave the office or no longer wish to receive email of an evening, you must adjust the schedule manually - or you can just turn off the email notifications so the client still checks for mail but does not make any audible alert or vibrate.

These points aside, and let's not forget this is version 1.0 of the Android Exchange client, email delivery is very slick and the messaging very nice to use. Email messages can be previewed using a widget on the home screen, allowing you to quickly delete spam or move through the headers of messages to get to important mails that do need actioning.

Alternatively, if you don't have an Exchange email server, you can sign up for and use Google's own online services, synchronising email, contacts and calendar information with your online 'cloud' account:

Multi-touch Web Browsing

The web browser on the Hero is based on the WebKit platform, meaning that it is has the same core as Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari browser and is fully 'Flash-capable'. Web pages can be 'zoomed' into using the screen's multi-touch capability: moving a single finger across the screen moves the view of the web page; keeping a finger pressed on the screen while moving a second finger to the left or right causes the view to zoom in or out.
Displaying the blog is certainly not a problem:

The browser is also integrated with the Hero's messaging and Twitter client, meaning that should you come across anything of interest you can immediately 'share' it with others:

The Settings allow you to set the home page, turn off pop-ups, enable or disable JavaScript, etc:

The History shows recently-viewed pages:

The 'Windows' feature acts in the same way tabs do on desktop browsers and allows you to toggle between multiple active web pages within the same browser session.

Camera / Camcorder / HTC Footprints

The 5.0 megapixel camera on the Hero also features the usual effects and image processing options you get on other HTC models:

New to the Hero is the concept of Footprints. You can think of a Footprint as a digital journal entry that can be a photograph or a video, which can be geo-tagged by location and also have a voice recording associated with it:

GPS

The Google Maps application on the Hero is quite simply, amazing. Even indoors the GPS receiver not only correctly found the building I was in on the company site, but actually precisely pinpointed me to the rear of unit 9 by the window:

The route-planning capabilities are very impressive, providing both written and graphical directions:

Search

The Hero features an integrated search function, initiated by pressing the search button on the handset, depicted by a symbol of a magnifying glass.
When on the home screen, pressing the search button initiates a Google search box:

Pressing the search button within whatever application you are in at that point will search that application, be it your email inbox or your calendar:

Miscellaneous

The Google Talk client provides instant messaging functionality with other Google Talk users:

The Messages application provides a very nice means of managing your text and multimedia messaging:

Summary

The Hero is effectively several devices all in one. The ability to configure the look and feel of the handset for different 'moods' or times of the day based on whether you are at work or at play is a very attractive feature indeed.

For the prosumer, I think the Hero is definitely a contender for the iPhone's crown: unparalleled customisation options; powerful hardware; push email and PIM data delivery (whether with Exchange or with Google's own services); GPS; a very impressive web browser, the list goes on and on...

The iPhone's integration with iTunes and the iTunes Store is something that Android doesn't have an equivalent of yet, but depending on who you speak to this may be precisely the plus point they are looking for rather than be viewed as a limitation.

The Android Market really extends the functionality of the Hero, and any Android-based device for that matter. The wealth of free applications is astounding, ranging from alternate messaging and social networking clients to a barcode reader application that uses the on-board camera to scan barcodes of products and then locate via Google where on the web they can be purchased most cheaply!

For the business user, the ability to synchronise mailbox data with Microsoft Exchange is crucial. There are several device management solution providers working to integrate the Android platform into their products, but currently there are no automatic device provisioning tools I know of that can configure devices 'over the air' and enforce corporate usage policies, but this is surely only a matter of time.
DataViz have already released a version of their "Documents To Go" application for Android, providing viewing and editing capability for Microsoft Office 2007-format documents. This is available for purchase directly from the Android Market.

On the whole, then, the Hero is a joy to use: responsive, intuitive, excellent call quality (oh yes, by the way it's also a phone!) and a good battery performance.

It is perhaps also important to state at this juncture that Android is a very young operating system. Google only announced that they had begun development of a mobile platform approximately two years ago and already a significant number of major handset manufacturers have either already released a model using the operating system or have announced that they have one on the go.
Combine this break-neck development pace with the wealth of applications available in the Market and Android becomes a very attractive prospect. I for one am looking forward to this and future releases.

If by the time you read this you already have your Hero device in your hands and you are eager to learn more about Android and its capabilities, visit the Android section on the blog - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/android

Visit the Hero section of the HTC web site here - http://www.htc.com/www/product/hero/overview.html

Visit the official HTC Hero micro-site here - http://www.htc-hero.co.uk

For further information on how to configure Microsoft Exchange synchronisation on the Hero, read this blog article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-microsoft-exchange-synchronisati...

Introducing the HTC Wildfire

The Wildfire is HTC's latest Android-based "Superphone". Designed very much with social networking at its core, the Wildfire brings you closer to your online contacts with a raft of clever tools including the ability to view all of your Facebook, Twitter and Flickr updates all in one feed, organise emails, SMS text messages and photos by the person that sent them, as well as displaying contacts' Facebook status together with their caller ID when they ring. As HTC's own tagline has it: with the Wildfire, your friends have never been closer.

Technical Specifications

• Size: WxHxD 2.4 inches (60.4mm) x 4.2 inches (106.75mm) x 0.48 inches (12.19mm)
• Weight: 118 grams (4.16 ounces)
• Display:
  • Capacitive touch screen with pinch-to-zoom functionality
  • 3.2 inches
  • 240 x 320 QVGA
• Platform: Android 2.1 Eclair with HTC Sense
• Processor: 528 MHz
• Memory: 512MB ROM, 384MB RAM
• Expansion: microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible), supports up to 32GB
• Battery: Rechargeable 1300mAh lithium-ion battery
• Talk Time: WCDMA up to 440 mins, GSM up to 490 mins
• Standby Time: WCDMA up to 690 hours, GSM up to 480 hours
• Network: HSDPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz, GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Internet:
  • 3G: Up to 7.2 Mbps download speed
  • Up to 384 kbps upload speed
  • GPRS: Up to 114 kbps downloading
  • EDGE: Up to 560 kbps downloading
  • Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
• Camera: 5 megapixel colour camera, auto-focus and flash, geotagging
• Connectors: 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Tethering: Internet sharing via USB
• Sensors:
  • G-Sensor
  • Digital compass
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Bluetooth:
  • Bluetooth® 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate
  • A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  • FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer
  • Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HSP, PBAP, SPP, Service Discovery Application Profile
• HTC Widgets: Bookmarks, Calculator, Calendar, Clock, FM Radio, Friend Stream, Mail, Messages, Music, News, People, Stocks, Weather, Settings (such as Profile, Ringtone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) plus downloadable widgets
• Multimedia:
  • Gallery application for viewing photos and videos
  • Music
  • FM Radio
  • Audio supported formats: Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9) / Recording: .amr
  • Video supported formats: Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9) / Recording: .3gp
• Social Networking:
  • Facebook™ for HTC Sense
  • Friend Stream
  • Photo sharing on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter
  • Video sharing on YouTube™
  • HTC Peep for twittering
• Location Services:
  • Internal GPS antenna
  • Google Maps
  • HTC Footprints™
• Special Features:
  • HTC Caller ID that shows the caller’s Facebook status and a birthday reminder
  • App Sharing that lets you recommend apps straight from your phone
  • Full Flash support on the web browser
  • In-built, dimmable flashlight
  • Ringer that automatically lowers the ring volume when you lift up the phone or mutes when you flip the phone face down

You can check up to date specifications on the HTC web site - http://www.htc.com/uk/product/wildfire/specification.html

To celebrate the launch of the Wildfire, tell HTC UK via their Facebook page what you would do if you could get all your friends together for a day...and they may make it happen! (http://www.facebook.com/htcuk)

Applications

The Wildfire comes with all of HTC's own social networking, email, productivity and media management applications as well as a number of new features including a flashlight application, a means of quickly recommending new apps and a data transfer tool to copy data via Bluetooth from an old phone. The complete list of applications is as follows:

• App Sharing - recommend applications you like via your social networking accounts
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Call History
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Camera
• Clock
• Desk Clock
• Flashlight
• FM Radio
• Footprints - organise and geotag your photos
• Friend Stream - access your Twitter, Facebook and Flickr accounts from one convenient interface and have status information and updates displayed throughout the device in the People and Phone applications
• Gallery
• Google Mail
• Internet
• Mail
• Maps
• Market
• Messages
• Music
• News - RSS reader
• PDF Viewer
• Peep - Twitter client
• People
• Phone
• Quickoffice
• Search People
• Settings
• Setup
• Stocks
• Talk
• Teeter
• Transfer Data - transfer data via Bluetooth from another device
• Videos
• Voice Recorder
• Weather
• YouTube

Home Screen

As with all HTC Android devices, the Wildfire offers not one, but 7 home screens accessed by swiping your finger either to the left or right. Each home screen can be customised with Internet-enabled widgets providing up to date, at-a-glance information without the need to launch a separate application to view emails, text messages, calendar appointments, stocks, news, weather, social networking updates, etc.

Email

The Wildfire features the same HTC Exchange email client as that featured on the Desire, providing push-based bi-directional synchronisation of mail, contact and calendar data with Exchange 2003 and later. Contacts can also be searched online in the Global Address List.
Setting up the Exchange account is quick and simple, provided that you know your username, password, domain and mail server address details - contact your IT department if you are unsure:

When running the Mail application for the first time, you will be prompted to create an email account, select Exchange. You will then be prompted to enter your email address and password.
The wizard will attempt to determine the correct connection settings to use automatically. If the wizard is unable to determine the settings, you will be prompted to complete them:

The mail server address will be the same as that used by Outlook Web Access, or webmail, usually in the form "mail.company.com"

The domain will be the same as that used to log into your desktop PC or laptop (usually the third field underneath username and password).

The username and password information will be the same as that used to log into your desktop PC or laptop.

Once all of the details have been entered successfully, you will then be prompted to select which mailbox folders you wish to synchronise:

Your mail will then be synchronised. Access to all mailbox folders is possible:

Out of Office status and message can be edited directly from the device:

Schedule information can also be specified during which time mail will be pushed to the device, and separate delivery schedules can be set for peak and off-peak hours:

Application Sharing

App Sharing is a feature new to the Wildfire and allows you to recommend applications you have downloaded to your friends and contacts via your social networking accounts:

Utilities

The new Flashlight application on the Wildfire uses the camera flash as an adjustable torch, useful for finding your keys or even the keyhole!

The Data Transfer tool enables you to transfer contacts and other information from another phone via Bluetooth:

The Music Player provides MP3 playback as well as the ability to create Playlists, set music as your ringtone or share tracks via Bluetooth:

Google Maps offers all the features that the latest version of the application provides including Layers, Navigation, Latitude, Stars and more:

The News application provides up-to-date access to your favourite RSS news feeds:

With a set of headphones connected to act as an aerial, the FM Radio turns your device into a portable music player even if you have no tracks stored on your memory card:

The Footprints application allows you to group photos into events, combining them with GPS location details and comments:

Camera

The Wildfire features a 5 Megapixel auto focus camera with auto-focus and flash. The auto focus is operated by touching the optical navigation key once lightly, then again to take the picture. Alternatively there is also an on-screen button to take the picture. A number of image processing effects are also available.

Web Browser

The Wildfire also features a WebKit 3.1-based browser, supporting both JavaScript and Flash sites, as well as "pinch to zoom".

Pop-up windows can be blocked and web sites offering a "mobile view" can be viewed in either the mobile or full version optionally. Links can be shared quickly and easily via email, facebook, twitter or SMS text message. Multiple web pages can be opened simultaneously and toggled between using the Windows feature.

A nice feature when browsing a text-based page is the ability to highlight a word or paragraph, and send that text to Wikipedia, Google Translate or Google Dictionary with one tap:

Productivity

The Wildfire comes bundled with QuickOffice, a Microsoft Office document viewer supporting Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats. To edit and create documents a separate application will need to be purchased, such as DataViz's Documents To Go application.
A PDF viewer is also included as standard.
Using a free utility such as Dropbox or GDocs you can keep your device synchronised with your online documents quickly and easily so you need never be without that crucial presentation ever again.

The device can also be used as a USB modem with Windows allowing you to share the device's connection to the Internet from your PC, both via the cellular and WiFi capabilities of the Wildfire.
Connect the device to the PC via USB and select the option to connect the device in Disk Drive mode:

The device will be detected automatically:

Browse to the Tool folder on the device and run the HTCDriver application:

Once the installation has completed, remove the Wildfire from the PC, then reconnect it again, this time selecting the option to connect in Mobile Network Sharing mode. Windows will detect new hardware and install a network adapter:

You will now be connected to the Internet via your device. It really is that simple.

Visit the HTC web site for more information.

The Wildfire is available to order today from Brightpoint - +44 (0)870 849 0225

Setting up Microsoft Exchange synchronisation on the HTC Hero / Tattoo

The HTC Hero features a Server ActiveSync client enabling bi-directional push synchronisation of contacts, calendar and email PIM data with Microsoft Exchange 2003 SP2 or later.

You will be prompted to configure email account settings during the initial setup wizard when powering on the device for the first time or following a hard reset:

Alternatively, once booted, Launch the Mail application. The following screen will be displayed:

Should you have already configured a POP or IMAP account, then to add another account, select Menu --> More --> New account

Select Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, the following screen will be displayed:

Enter your full email address and password and tap Next. The client will attempt o determine the correct server settings to use automatically. If the client is not able to determine the settings, you will be prompted to enter the information manually. Alternatively if you prefer you can just tap on the Manual Setup button, the following screen will be displayed:

Complete the fields with the appropriate information:

• Email address
• Server address - this is normally the same information used for webmail access
• Domain
• Username
• Password

If the server uses a secure connection (ie, if you usually need to enter https at the beginning of the URL for webmail access), then tick the option.

If you do not know the information to enter, contact your IT department.

Once all of the information has been entered, tap Next. The client will verify the information entered. If you are using a 'non root-trusted' certificate on the Exchange server you will be warned that the device cannot verify the identity of the certificate and be prompted to confirm that you wish to continue anyway. Provided that the client is able to connect to the server successfully, you will then be prompted to select which folders you wish to synchronise:

Tap Next. The mailbox data will then be synchronised to the device:

To edit the synchronisation settings once the account has been configured, tap on the Settings icon in the All Programs view. Select Data Synchronisation and then Exchange ActiveSync:

Press the Menu button and select Settings:

The following screen will be displayed:

The following options are available:

Email sub-folders can be synchronised by pressing the Menu button from within the Mail application and selecting the Folders option.
Select the folder that you want to access, then press the Refresh button to download the mail in that folder. Bear in mind, that if you have selected the option to only download the last 7 days' worth of email, then that applies to all email folders so only messages that are newer than 7 days in this folder will be displayed.

Following a successful connection to the Exchange server, the device will be listed within the Mobile Devices Options within Outlook Web Access (Exchange 2007):

From here it is possible to issue a 'remote kill' command to the device that will remove the Exchange account from the device as well as any PIM data.

Setting up Microsoft Exchange synchronisation on the HTC Legend / Desire

The HTC Desire and Legend units feature an updated HTC Exchange ActiveSync client, offering the same push-based bi-directional synchronisation offered by the Hero and the Tattoo, but now also offering the ability to set and edit Out of Office status and message as well as supporting remote device wipe from Exchange as well as the ability to enforce password usage via ActiveSync mailbox Policy.

Setting up the Exchange email account is very similar as on the Hero and Tattoo models.
Launching the mail client for the first time will prompt you to select the type of email account you want to configure:

Select Exchange ActiveSync:

Select the option for Manual Setup:

Enter your full email address.
In the Server Address field enter the external name or IP address of the Exchange server (depending on how the administrator has configured the Exchange server - contact your IT department for the correct settings to use). This is usually the same address used to access Outlook Web Access webmail, in the form "exchange.mycompany.com"
In the Domain field enter in the domain which your user account is in - again contact your IT department for the correct settings to use. Usually, if you have a Windows PC in the office, this will be the contents of the "Log Into" field you use to access your PC (the third field below both "username" and "password" when logging in).
Enter your username and password - these will be the same details you use to log into your Windows PC.
Tick the option to use SSL if required by your Exchange server. If you don't know whether your Exchange server does or not, a handy way of telling is checking the address used to access webmail - if it begins with "https" then it does use SSL. If it just uses "http" (and doesn't redirect to an https address) then there is no need to use SSL.

Tap Next. If your Exchange server uses a self-signed Exchange certificate, you may be warned that the identity of the certificate cannot be verified, select the option to Continue:

Select which mailbox data you want to synchronise:

If your Exchange server has enforced security policies requiring password usage, you may be prompted to accept this requirement. Click OK:

Your mailbox data will now be synchronised. This may take a few moments depending on how much data is in your mailbox and which options you selected to sync.

Within the menu you can access Out of Office settings:

The Settings menu allows you to define how far back into the past you synchronise as well as how often mail is delivered:

NOTE - the default selection is for mail to be delivered every 15 minutes, so to enable true push you will need to adjust this option to "As items arrive":

Once synchronised, the device will be listed in the Mobile Options view within Outlook Web Access:

From here a remote wipe operation can be instigated in the event that the device has been lost or stolen, or you simply want to hard reset the device. Once complete, you will receive notification in your Exchange Inbox:

Once the Exchange account has been configured, you will be able to search the Exchange Global Address List (GAL) directly from the device:

You may also want to enable the LED notification light for new email messages:

Synchronise the HTC Hero with Microsoft Outlook

The HTC Sync application that ships with the Hero enables the synchronisation of contact and calendar information from either Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or the Windows Address Book.
Also included is the Application Installer, which enables the installation of APK Android application packages onto the Hero from your PC.

The HTC Sync installer is included on the SD card that comes in the Hero sales package, or alternatively is available for download from our FTP site:
ftp://ftpaccess:Brightpoint1@ftp.brightpointuk.co.uk/Technical%20Support...

You can download the software to your PC, or insert the microSD card into a suitable reader to access the software.

Installing the software is straightforward, run the executable package and follow the on-screen instructions:

Once installed, the application will launch automatically and an icon will be added to the System Tray:

On the Hero device, browse to Settings --> Applications --> Development and tick the option to enable USB Debugging. Now connect the Hero to your PC via the supplied USB cable. Windows will detect the new hardware automatically and install both a Removable Storage Drive and an Android USB Device.
Provided that the HTC Sync application is running, the new device partnership wizard will launch automatically:

Enter a name to identify your device:

You will be prompted to set the device time to that of your PC if they are different:

The main interface will then be displayed:

Select the Sync Manager icon and then the Settings button:

The Settings wizard will be displayed:

Select which application you wish to synchronise with:

Select which information you want to synchronise:

Specify whether synchronisation should be performed automatically each time the device is connected:

Click Finish to complete the wizard:

Depending on the options you specified, synchronisation will now either start automatically, or you can initiate it manually.

Using the HTC Hero as a USB Modem

It is posible to use the HTC Hero as a USB 3G modem with Windows XP and Vista.

In order to use this functionality, the HTC Sync software must be installed onto the PC first (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/synchronise-htc-hero-microsoft-outlook).

The HTC Sync installer is included on the SD card that comes in the Hero sales package, or alternatively is available for download from our FTP site:
ftp://ftpaccess:Brightpoint1@ftp.brightpointuk.co.uk/Technical%20Support...

You can download the software to your PC, or insert the microSD card into a suitable reader to access the software.

Once installed, on the Hero device browse to Settings --> Wireless Controls and enable the option to enable Mobile Network Sharing. Now connect the Hero to the PC via the supplied USB cable. Windows will detect the new hardware automatically and install an "HTC Remote NDIS Network Adapter":

Provided that your Hero has a cellular data connection, you will now be able to use that connection from your PC.

Addendum

For details on how to configure Windows 7, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/installing-htc-tattoo-usb-modem-windows-7