The Gurus are back with another week of tech news goodness. This week we talk BlackBerry 10, Galaxy S III, Kindle in Target, and our NYC correspondant Craig, gives us a review of the AT&T HTC One X. And of course we also talked A LOT about The Avengers! Enjoy the show!!

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Last week Mike asked if any of the GG fans lived in NYC and could pick up a test unit HTC One X for a review.  Thankfully, I live in Queens and thus was able to head into the East Village to snatch one up.  The event was held in the Crosby Hotel in Manhattan, i.e. pretty swanky place.

I was so absorbed playing with my review unit that I actually missed lunch (props to HTC and ATT for some seriously good smoothies).  I got a good demonstration of Sense 4, the new Beats audio software, and a couple of the One X accessories, so stay tuned.

The Phone Itself…

…looks like a standard HTC slab of a phone upon first glance.  4.7” screen, slightly bowlegged (rounded on the left and right).  Feels good in the hand – it’s slim, light, and has the slightest pebbling of the “high-tech polymer” that the phone is made of. I think HTC is taking a little bit of Apple’s unibody design to heart here; the entire polymer/plastic is a single piece machined out of one block of plastic.

The earpiece and external speakers are drilled out of the block instead of separate grilles attached to the body. The HTC rep said that this reduced much of the tinny sound that comes from smaller speakers.  The speakers do sound better, plus they look better than the normal wire mesh for a speaker.  All in all, this phone is pretty sexy.  My only complaint about the look is that the phone I was given is white…:

…which looks as ugly as sin to me.  The black is a lot more attractive in my opinion.  I work as a used car parts sales guy during the day, and the white smudges pretty easily.  Granted, it does clean off easily.

The screen is incredible.  I’m normally running a Thunderbolt, which has a good screen but nothing amazing.  This is a full HD screen running about 317 pixels per square inch.  It isn’t quite up to the level of Apple’s Retina display, but it does look amazing.  Many are saying that it’s the best screen on an Android device and I’d have a hard time arguing with that.  I didn’t even notice how much clearer and sharper everything as at first.  Initially I wasn’t really impressed, but the more I use it the more I appreciate how excellent it is.  It’s bright enough to use in direct sunlight, and the colors really pop out when you’re in standard indoor lighting.  Sometimes the colors are so bright and saturated that it almost hurts to look at.  The Gorilla Glass seems pretty tough, and I’m rough on phones.  Two weeks with me and we’ll really see how tough it really is.

Room for Improvement

There’s really only a couple of small defects in the build that I’ve been able to find: the SIM door on the back (right under the power button) doesn’t really seem to sit right and the volume rocker slides around a little bit.  Using the enclosed SIM Door Tool (or a paperclip) to unlock the SIM card door makes it look a bit better, but like I said it does not sit completely right.  I think the proper word for this would be sloppy.

Break time for a Public Service Announcement

And We’re Back with a Special on Buttons

As for the external buttons, the volume and power buttons feel a bit mushy to me.  What I mean is that it is hard to tell when you’ve pressed a key and it’s easy to press one without meaning to.  The placement of the volume buttons is a head-scratcher too – they’re about a third of the way down the phone and I’m used to them being a lot higher up.  This has resulted in me pressing the Up volume button thinking “Why am I hitting the Down and blowing out my eardrums?”

The three hardware buttons at the bottom light up when the phone is in use and in a dark environment.  I’m not a fan of the non-existence of a menu button, though that’s just an ICS “feature” so I can’t dock the One X for it.  I say that if you’re going to have the hardware buttons, then have all four.  If one of them has to use up screen real estate, just make them all on screen. A minor complaint, to be sure.  But still.

The Camera

The camera (along with the audio) is what HTC focused on for this phone.  The UI has been changed in that looks different, but it’s not difficult at all to get used to.  I do end up hitting the filter button instead of the shutter button.  There are a ton of Instagram-esque filters…I don’t use them, and now that Instagram is on Android I’m sure they won’t be used by too many people.  In addition to the normal options (flash, timer, front/back camera), many options like ISO and exposure have been added to increase the usability for more advanced users (a.k.a. not me, but enjoy these nevertheless:)

The video camera is great, recording in 720p.  To me, the coolest thing about it is that is has the ability to take stills WHILE taking video and the ability to hold the shutter button on the still camera to take 4 pictures a second for five seconds. When you finish with these burst photos, you can pick the best one and delete the rest.  You can also take stills from a video that you’ve shot but the quality will be slightly degraded.

I attempted to upload a three minute video, but the upload took well over twelve hours…not sure if it was a network thing (tried on both WiFi and LTE) or an actual bug, but it sure took forever.  The video was defaulted to private also.  The camera app always starts up quickly, which is a huge boon for those who always miss their shots like I do.  You can load the app from the lock screen by bringing the camera app into the unlocking ring, instead of swiping the ring upwards like normal. By doing this, you can use the camera without unlocking the phone.  This also works if you use unlock gestures, passcode, or facial unlock.

Sense 4: Addition by Subtraction

Sense 4 is a great improvement over earlier versions.  HTC listened to many of us who complained that Sense was too bloated and needed to be slimmed down.  The widgets are still present and very functional, but many of the pointless animations and less-used features have been removed.  Along with the improved 1.5Ghz dual-core Qualcomm processor, this phone blazes along with nary a hangup or any lag to be seen.

HTC included a couple of task manager features: apps can be closed one by one in the “Recent apps” view by swiping up, and another more more intricate one under your app list.  Many people don’t think that Android devices need an task manager; apparently HTC disagrees.  I personally like having the ability to close an app, but I prefer to let Android manage most tasks.

The stock apps are actually pretty good- the browser in particular is great for a stock browser.  The mail app finally has threaded messages (I use the Gmail app though, so I avoided this).  The messages app doesn’t seem to have changed much but it still isn’t as good as HandcentSMS.  The stock keyboard now has Swype-like motions that are pretty accurate.  I’d have to say that it is one of the best stock Android keyboards around.  The browser now supports a sort of Readability knockoff, stripping most pictures and ads in order to just get you the content of whatever articles you are reading and also has a builtin Pocket/Instapaper offline article reader.  All of these work great, but with the lack of real tabs like DolphinBrowser or most other third-party browser apps, I don’t use it.

The Real Question: Does It Function As a Phone?

One thing I tend to ignore when considering phones is how well it works for making phone calls.  I can attest that this is a HUGE improvement over the Tbolt.  The audio is a lot clearer than any ATT phone I’ve ever had and is considerably better than my Verizon Thunderbolt.

ATT has made huge improvements in its New York network, which is good because it used to suck hardcore.  At the end of my 3GS’ lifespan, I wasn’t able to make phone calls that lasted more than 5 mintues without dropping the call.  Their LTE network is amazing: I got speeds of up to 33mb/s downloading, and 14 on the up.  That is considerably faster than Verizon’s network, but it isn’t very widespread.  Once you get out of the city itself and into more suburban areas, you revert back to 3G/HSPDA+. ATT still calls it 4G (coughliarscough) and the phone only shows 4G when on HSPDA+, but says 4G/LTE when on a real 4G network.  Their 3G/HSPDA+ speed is pretty good compared to their old 3G.  I’ve been averaging about 3mb/s upload and between .5 and 1 on the upload.  I’ve found that running on HSPDA+ is pretty harsh on the battery; I’m assuming it’s only because the phone’s LTE antenna is still seeking out signal and burning a lot of battery power that way.

The Audio

My two biggest worries for the phone were the nonremovable battery and the Beats audio.  The Beats audio was something I wasn’t sure was going to work: full disclosure, I loathe Beats headphones.  You’re just paying for bass and looks.  Apple gets crap about making expensive stuff that looks good, but at least it all works well.  Beats headphones sound terrible and are way too expensive.  But I digress…

The HTC reps stated that the audio portion of the One series has been one of their biggest improvements.  The phone recognizes when you have a Beats product (over the ear cans or earbuds) or a non-Beats audio device plugged into your phone.  If you have a Beats device, it recognizes which one and turns on a pre-installed set of equalizers and a “sound profile” for that headphone.  If you’re not rocking a Beats audio solution, there is still a Beats equalizer that automatically turns on… too bad it sounds like crap.  All it does is boost the bass, treble, and volume a bit.  Sounds good when you listen to whatever top 40 hit is popular today (“oh, snap!” – my girlfriend), but if you’re looking for nuance in your music choices, avoid the Beats software like the plague.  The phone audio is my biggest gripe about this phone; the Beats “profile” sounds awful but I’m sure it’ll sell well since I’ve seen so many people wearing those awful headphones around NYC.  Come at me bro.

The Battery

The battery was a huge concern for me.  A non-removable battery is okay as long as you put a huge battery in.  The One X battery is only 1800 MaH, which is big but not as large as I’d like a battery to be.  Supposedly Sense 4 was written with performance in mind: both running more smoothly and not being such a battery drain.

I’m happy to report that HTC has hit it out of the park with this one, too!  The battery lasts all day with medium to heavy usage, such as LTE most of the day and HSPDA+ and a couple of hours on WiFi.  I unplugged the phone at 7:32AM and it was at 33% at 813:PM.  So, nearly 13 hours later, and still having a third of the battery life leftover… that’s pretty good.  I had drained it down to 7% by the time I went to sleep at around 11:30PM.  Usage was mostly streaming Pandora and Slacker Radio on LTE, some GPS usage, lots of texts and Google Talk, Twitter and G+ usage, internet browsing, a couple of short phone calls, emails, camera shots; really just a normal day’s usage for me.  That’s about three times as good as my stock Tbolt battery though, so I’m not complaining. I really don’t forsee the battery being a huge problem while the phone is new.  But, once the phone starts to age a bit…I’m just wondering how long the battery will  hold the full 1800mah charge.  If you switch phones more before your two-year contract is up, I wouldn’t imagine it being a problem. If you use the entire two years, not so sure there.

The Accessories

I got a short demonstration of a couple of accessories designed for the One Series.  The most impressive was the MediaLink dongle that attaches to any HDTV.  If you have the device and use three fingers to swipe upwards, whatever’s on your phone’s screen will be projected on the television screen.  The link is either through the wifi network or a Peer-to-Peer DNLA link.  There was only a small amount of lag a couple of times.  Most of the time, however, it was a quick link to the dongle and no lag when switching between photos or videos.  Quality was amazing and I’m pretty impressed with this device.  The presenters stated that most photos and videos would simply mirror whatever’s on the screen, but certain things would be shown on the screen but controlled on the phone (slideshows, Powerpoints, etc).  I asked if there is/would be an APK for devs to design apps around the MediaLink device, but that hasn’t been decided upon yet.  I thought it would be great to use the phone as a controller for games or just as a keyboard to use the TV as a monitor.  While the MediaLink looks great, the ATT-only Beats wireless speaker is a joke:

While wireless speakers are cool, this one sounded terrible. You can’t dock your One X with it, only connect via wireless.  You can, however, dock an iPhone/iPod with it. How does that make any sense?  And to top it all off, ATT will let you have this hideous speaker for the low, low cost of $400! 

Drumroll for the Final Verdict…

All in all, I’d have to give this phone a 9/10.

The updates to Sense, amazing screen, fantastic processor, and ICS make this phone a true joy to use. I can only really dock it for the cheap plastic construction that’s a bit shoddy, buttons that aren’t well placed and don’t have any click to them, and of course the blasphemy called Beats audio.  These “imperfections” don’t take anything away from using the phone and are just nitpicking items that I don’t like.  When your biggest complaint about a phone is where the volume rocker is and if it has Beats branding, that’s really just showing how great it is.

Personally, I find this phone to work so well it’s nearly impossible to pick one thing out that’s awesome about it.  Everything simply meshes together well and… the phone just works like a great phone should.  If only there was some way to keep this phone without the GG getting some serious heat from HTC!

I Can Haz Fone?

The HTC One X is a blast to use, and I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity that I was given to test this phone out and write a review on it. If there’s anything else you want to know about this phone, just let me know.  I’ll do my best to answer you.

- Craig

In an interview with Pocket-Lint at Mobile World Congress HTC’s chief product officer was pretty candid with statements like,

“From the original Sense up to Sense 3.5 we added too many things. The original concept was that it had to be simple and it had to be easy to use and we had that philosophy, but over time it got cluttered,”

Seemly to understand what consumers have been yelling for the last year, HTC wants to bring back the simplicity of Sense and let the best parts of Android ICS shine through the skin.

“What we’ve done right now is a good mixture of keeping Sense and Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich element in a good balance. We haven’t tried to change everything here. We have kept a lot of the ICS element but still added the Sense flavour on top of it,”

via [Pocket-Lint]

Let me first introduce myself by a name that most of you haven’t heard in a long time. I’m Nic Ball the “Berry Guru”. Before there was a Gadget Gurus, before there ever was an Angry Guru and much before I secured my doctorate, I was simply a blackberry junkie. I walked around with my head held down and my thumbs busy typing away on a keyboard as I weaved through pedestrian traffic. It was the best of times. The smartphone market was on in it’s early childhood. We’d finally crossed over the threshold of Windows Mobile and the world was ours to take. Then the iPhone came along and started the downward slide. Android came on the scene and it was as if all the air in the room had been let out. Now here we are only a few years later but it seems like forever ago. Now here we are, RIM, the former king of the market is now the ugly red-headed step child of smart phones. What, if anything, can RIM do to save this ship?

The most obvious problem with RIM has been the total consumerization of IT. No longer are system admins able to keep everyone on an easy to manage and easy to control system without justification for that granular control. Now days CEO’s are demanding the use of an iPhone or iPad and the notion of using a BlackBerry is quickly fading away. RIM has missed out on consumer market in belief that there would always be a rock solid business market. As this layer starts to fade away we have to look at other solutions at RIM.

Management:

Let’s start with the people steering this ship. Co-CEO’s and Co-Chairmen Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have lost touch with the pulse of consumers. Being both co-CEOs and co-Chairmen of the board they dictate the agenda and answer to no one. This and their admitted success in the industry to the point of total domination before the iPhone have lead to delusional isolationism. Just one month ago Mike Lazaridis said

“These new models will build on the incredible success of the BlackBerry Curve line and further expand the largest global launch of BlackBerry smartphones in our history” and “RIM has taken a unique path and the reason why we do things might not always be obvious from the outside.”

Might not be obvious? How about ‘is clearly mind boggling.’ These two would better server as CEO where they’d have the ability to kill any ideas they didn’t like, but would also be held accountable by shareholders via the board of trustees. With the threat of being canned over their head they might be more willing to try new things.

Ecosystem:

What started out as an alternative to Flash could be the answer to solving a lot of RIMs ecosystem problems. Outside of BBM there aren’t too many applications that RIM has nailed down that anyone wants to use outside of their ecosystem. RIM doesn’t have Instagram, or FaceTime or anything else Apple ‘wows’ you with. What they do have is strong developers who create apps that you would only want and know about if you already had a BlackBerry. There’s hope that more major titles will come to BlackBerry but I think there’s an easier solution. With HTML5 a company such as Instagram would be able to make a single HTML5 app that looked beautiful on PCs, Macs, Android, BlackBerry, iOS, and Windows Phone.

Think this is all crazy talk? Here are a few early examples.

• DeviantART Muro - HTML5 based sketch app
• Hootsuite - Social media dashboard
• Coolendar - Simple and ‘polished’ calendar app
• Grooveshark - Music service whose apps were pulled from iOS and Android markets

Hardware:

When it comes to deploying your own OS and hardware RIM hasn’t always been the worst but they’ve run into stagnation. Their phones all seem to be the same and look the same. When was the last time someone was asked “did you see the new blackberry?” Heck the last innovation this company made was the Storm, which was a flop for consumers and critics. Perhaps the solution is in licensing their OS out to the likes of HTC and or Samsung. Two companies who know how to make fresh and appealing hardware. Even Microsoft with all of its cash didn’t decide to make hardware on their own. Allowing another manufacture to develop hardware for them could really give a fresh start to RIM.

NFC:

NFC is currently in its infancy. Only one American device currently has it. If RIM were to commit to this new technology they could be the forefront of a new and developing market. RIM is already starting to dabble in this technology with their “BlackBerry Tag” protocol. If done right this could be the equivalent of BBM appeal. NFC door locks, car docks, nightstand dock, etc. It’s really a crazy and fun tech that could do so much for their bottom line.

PR:

Finally the first reason of hope I’ve had for this company in a very long time came from the following video from Ashley Esqueda. It was the first breath of fresh PR air I’ve whiffed in awhile from camp RIM.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
Now Ashley does two things well. She shows cleavage and seems to be genuinely excited about what she’s seen from RIM at CES. RIM basically we need more excitement. We don’t need some unknown DJ explaining how his eccentric life-style fits BlackBerry. Or for that part how some broke ass bike messenger uses BBM to meet up after work with his fellow broke as messenger friends.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
Apple nails this. They show “real” people using their products in “real” ways.

Conclusion:

The bottom line here is simple. RIM has a ton of ways to save their company and right this ship. The only question is whether or not they’ll be able to do any of these things. RIM has shown that over the years they’ll make the wrong choice despite what seems obvious to the rest of us.

HTC has been doing very well the last couple of years in the smartphone market and this year they are seeing a 20% decline in sales, when compared to this time last year. Before HTC hit this small dip, they have been on an increase for 6 straight quarters. That is some really strong momentum, so what gives?

Could it be the fact that HTC has not really put out any phones that are groundbreaking? Most of their hardware, although nice, is more of the same like that of previous devices. They have tried to incorporate the Beats headphones and it really seems that there is not much interest in that to generate sales.

Maybe HTC needs to sit back and re-evaluate their future plans. Could they possibly ditch Sense to help them some, or do they need to work harder on it? Who knows, maybe they have something up their sleeves and they haven’t let the cat out of the bag. What do you think?

(via Tech Crunch)

Hardware

In today’s world of 4.3” and 4.5” phones being the norm, the HTC Rhyme seems rather small with it’s 3.7” 480 x 800 screen. Measuring 119 x 60 x 10.85mm and weighing in at 4.58 ounces, the Rhyme feels great in the hand. The edges are rounded and the back is coated with soft touch plastic giving the device a very “friendly” feel. The frame of the phone is made of aluminium that wraps around to the back as well. It’s not quite “unibody”, but it feels very solid. The back is also home to a 5mp camera, flash, and charging contacts for the Rhyme’s custom desktop dock. The traditional charging port is on the bottom left covered by a plastic “flap”, which I hate since I have no nails, and the volume rocker is on the top right of the device. The top contains the power button on the right and headset jack on the left. The look is very clean and minimalist. It’s a good looking phone. Even in “plum”.

The Rhyme also comes with a “charm” that plugs into the headset port of the device. It’s a long cord with a plastic square on the end that lights up when you have a missed call or text. The idea is that this charm dangles outside of your purse (or man bag), so you can easily see when you have a new message or missed call. This is one of many specialized accessories that are offered with the Rhyme. There is also a desktop dock that has a built in bluetooth speaker so you can stream your device’s audio to it. Dropping the Rhyme in the dock also activates a pretty snazzy desktop mode that includes a clock, weather forecast, music player and photo slide show.

Camera

The 5mp camera takes decent shots in optimum lighting conditions, but suffers greatly when not in bright light. You could of course turn the flash on, but it washes images out and gives them a yellow hue. Since the Rhyme is running Sense 3.5, you get a ton of photo effects settings. Tapping the effects button on the top left brings up settings like vignette, dots, grayscale, vintage and way more. There are also a bunch of scenes to choose from like portrait, landscape, action, panorama, HDR, low light, whiteboard, and close up. On top of all of that, you have settings for ISO, white balance, auto focus, auto enhance, and more. I can appreciate all the options and settings, but I just want to pull the phone and shoot. I don’t want to have to mess with settings and tweak the image to get a good photo.

The Rhyme also captures video in 720p HD resolution. The videos look pretty good, but they suffer form the same low light issue that still shots do. It’s as if the sensor just doesn’t let enough light in. The audio recording is good as long as there aren’t multiple sound sources or anything too loud. The sound gets washed out pretty easily if your in a loud environment like a concert or party.

Software

Running Android 2.3.4 and HTC’s Sense UI version 3.5 the Rhyme has a very “been there, done that feel”. Sense UI seems to get bigger and heavier with each new version, no longer adding things that Android lacks, but seemly adding things just to add them. Not all additions are bad however. The lock screen is a large improvement over the traditional Android lock screen, allowing you jump into shortcuts quickly. The notification window has a tab for quickly accessing settings like WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. It’s a nice touch, as it’s much faster to swipe down the window shade than rummaging through the settings menu.

HTC Sense is known for it’s huge selection of eye catching widgets and the Rhyme doesn’t disappoint including 70+ widgets. The calendar widgets are as useful as they are beautiful. The weather widgets are sized small to large and provide great at a glance information. Then there are newer additions like the “Quick Launch” widget, which takes up an entire home panel. The widget gives you customizable shortcuts to apps and a clock with your weather forecast. The Quick Widget doesn’t seem that useful, especially considering HTC already provides multiple weather and clock widgets.

My other growing issue with Sense UI is that you are forced to use HTC’s mail app if you want to use their mail widgets. One of the advantages of Android is it’s awesome Gmail app, but Sense forces you to use HTC’s mail app if you want tight integration within the widgets. It feels disconnected to the rest of the Android experience, not to mention the HTC mail app lacks many of the features that Gmail provides.

Then we have the issue of updates. The Rhyme was released with Android 2.3.4, right around the same time Google released Android 4.0. HTC issued a statement with the devices they plan to update first and the Rhyme was absent from that list. I understand that this device is not aimed at the geek elite, but I feel like it should be noted.

Battery and Performance

Today more Gs are more better right? If you’re living on the bleeding edge than you won’t settle for anything less than a 4G device, especially on Verizon. The Rhyme however, was launched with 3G only. Obviously HTC and Verizon are not marketing this device to the tech geeks that count Gs and processors. With download speeds ranging from 600kps-900kbs and upload speeds from 400kps-700kps the Rhyme is no speed demon, but it was very consistent.

Being a 3G only device and powered by a 1600 mAh battery the Rhyme has great battery life. I could easily go 10-12 hours with moderate to heavy use. You won’t be winning any download races, but think of the Rhyme as the turtle from the Tortoise and the Hare.

I was worried that with Sense 3.5 and being powered by a single core 1 GHz processor, that the Rhyme would be a bit of a dog. I have actually been pleasantly surprised by the performance. Swiping through home screens is super smooth and I have seen very little lag overall. The only time where I noticed some slow down, is when unlocking the device. This is probably due to the way Sense UI “spins” the home screens into view when you unlock the phone. Overall, the performance of the Rhyme is solid. It’s not a spec’d out power house, but it delivers where it matters most.

Conclusion and Final Score

The HTC Rhyme is a pretty forgettable device save for the plum color and some cool accessories. It gets lost in a sea of device not only from Verizon, but from HTC themselves. What differentiates this phone from the Droid Incredible 2? Not much if anything. But hey the Rhyme isn’t geared towards me. It’s geared towards busy ladies. Well, at least that’s how HTC and Verizon are marketing it. In all honesty, I like this phone a bit more than the Droid Incredible 2, but would quickly overlook it thanks to it’s plum body. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. What I do know is, if you make a great product, you don’t have to market it to specific genders. If you make a mediocre product, have to do something to make it stand out.

Guru Inspection
Hardware
Even though it's smaller than most of today's smartphones, the Rhyme looks great and feels great in the hand.
Cameras
Both still shots and video suffer from serious low light issues, but in good lighting the camera works well. there are tons of settings for pre and post photo taking to fine tune your image.
Software
HTC Sense 3.5 looks great and offers some advantages to vanilla Android but takes a small toll on performance.
Battery and Performance
The battery will last you a full day easily, but your data speeds suffer greatly with the lack of 4G LTE. The Rhyme showed little to no signs of lag even carrying the heavy load of HTC Sense 3.5

Overall
The Rhyme is trying really hard to stand out with it's lackluster specs and fancy design. It performs well enough, but leaves a lot to be desired.

According to an email recieved by Android Central forum member trter10-2, HTC is working on bringing Android 4.0 to the HTC Thunderbolt early 2012. Of course you should take what anyone says with a huge grain of salt until an update is actually available for download. Also this representative might have mixed up the Thunderbolt and the previously released statment from HTC. Either way, stay tuned, we’ll keep you updated!

“HTC knows how excited our fans expect to receive on their smartphones latest operating system from Google, Android Ice Cream Sandwich, so we are pleased to announce the list of devices that fall under the first wave of update :  HTC Vivid, HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation XL and HTC Sensation XE, as well as HTC Rezound, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G and HTC Amaze 4G, by working closely with our retailers. We continue to evaluate our products, so stay tuned, in which you can find dates and other devices that will also have Ice Cream Sandwich, but a little later. “

via [Android central Forums]

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The Otterbox Defender for the HTC Thunderbolt is all about give and take. The phone is by no means “small” and the case on the phone, we’re talking tank size. It’s heavy, it’s big, but it will take a beating and keep your device safe! With a multilayer approach, the Otterbox encases your Thunderbolt in a plastic housing with a built in screen protector. Then wraps that housing in a thick rubber skin that buffers the phone from accidental damage.

I changed the spark plugs on our car the other day, and I would have normally left the Thunderbolt inside away from harm. I’m paranoid and the thought of wrenches, oil, and other hazardous materials around my device makes me cringe. With the defender on my Thunderbolt, I had no reservations with bringing it out and keeping it close. The result, other than new spark plugs in a Civic, was a scratch free Thunderbolt.

The rubber skin has covers for your charging port, headset, volume and power buttons. While this prevents dust, grime and liquids from getting in the ports, it makes charging and using the headset port a pain. You have to pull back the rubber tabs each time you want to charge or use the headset jack. Not the end of the world but it can get cumbersome.

The Otterbox defender case also comes with a holster that has a 360 degree pivoting clip. It’s a plastic belt clip style holster that you’d imagine a police officer or Batman wearing on their utility belt. With the case being so big, this just looks ridiculous, but it does do a great job of holding the case onto you without fear of it getting hit and falling off.

Again, the Otterbox is all about compromise. You get a great case that is rock solid and will, with out a doubt, protect your phone from the most treacherous of situations. On the other hand, it’s bulky and extremely heavy. Not really the cases fault since the Thunderbolt is BBP (big beautiful phone), but it is something to keep in mind when choosing your protection. I don’t normally put cases on my phones, but when I do, it’s the Otterbox Defender.

Today HTC had an announcement planned, and they finally announced the rumored device code named Vigor. The device was announced under the name Rezound. Verizon has announced several LTE heavy hitter Android devices and this is another to add to the list.

Spec wise the Rezound is very impressive. It is supporting a 4.3 720p display, which seems to be the beginning of the new Android trend on resolutions. Powering the phone is a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of storage on board with a 16GB SD card, and 1GB of RAM, all running on Sense 3.5.

The not so good news is, the fact that the device will launch with Gingerbread, but of course, HTC says that the phone is capable of running Ice Cream Sandwich. The phone will get the 4.0 update early next year. The camera has been really worked to give great shots with its 8MP optics and instant shutter, panorama assist, action burst, complimenting an f2.2 lens. It is capable of 1080p video recording and has slow motion capture integrated.

If you look on back you will see the red Dr. Dre Beats logo. This is the first phone that comes with a pair of Beats headphones ,and there is an API that will allow developers to take advantage of the hardware and software. This HTC phone is a true Android killer and will no doubt be the device you will want to get if you love, Android, Music, Beats Audio, Verizon and HTC.

(via Android Community)