Sensation smartphone in India

Sensation smartphone in: HTC


Mobile handsets manufacturer HTC Corp Thursday launched its smartphone HTC Sensation in the Indian market and said it will launch its HTC Flyer tablets in a couple of weeks.

"HTC Sensation is an exceptional smartphone that will win customers with its unique blend of functionality, usability and style. It will create a paradigm shift in the overall smartphone category with a brilliant experience," said Lennard Hoornik, president for south Asia, HTC. 

The smartphone is priced Rs.32,700.

"HTC Flyer will be launched shortly, in the next couple of weeks," he added. 

The company emphasised that India was a big market for HTC but denied to divulge its sales target here. 

"India is a huge market. We want to be a leading player here and we have high sales target here," added Hoornik. 

Based on Android 2.3 platform, Sensation is HTC's first phone to feature a 1.2 GHz processor supplied by Qualcomm and HTC Sense 3.0 user interface.

The phone is also equipped with an eight megapixel camera with auto-focus and a 4.3 inch touchscreen.

New smartphones give instant access to Facebook

Mobile phone giant HTC has launched two handsets - called Salsa and ChaCha - that will provide instant access to Facebook.

By punching in the 'F' logo, users will be able to instantly share photos, music and even their exact location on an inbuilt map from their mobile phone.

At the moment, owners of iPhones and similar products have to use a touchscreen process to access pages on the popular social networking site.

In a clear attempt to target the teenage market, the Taiwanese phonemaker called the two phones Salsa and ChaCha, the Daily Mail reports.

Salsa is a touchscreen-only phone with a 3.4-inch screen. ChaCha has 2.6-inch touchscreen with a separate keyboard, which looks a lot like a Blackberry.

Parents faced with children badgering them for one of the new gadgets may only have weeks to save up the cash as the phones may be on sale in Britain in April.

HTC and Facebook have spent two years developing the two phones. The devices have Facebook built into their contacts system, allowing users to see Facebook friends and message them.

When taking photos, the user simply has to press the F button and the images will appear on their Facebook profile. Similarly, when using Google maps, owners of the phone can press the F button to give friends their exact location.

Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, said: "We wanted to create the ultimate socially connected phones with mass market appeal."

Few smartphone owners are loyal to their brand

The booming smartphone market shows no sign of slowing but manufacturers will have to fight hard to keep their customers as smartphone owners show little loyalty to their current brands, a GfK survey shows.

The survey, to be published later on Monday, found that 56 percent of smartphone owners in key global markets were keeping their options open about which phone they would buy next, with only Apple commanding a significant degree of loyalty.

With features such as Wi-Fi, GPS and high-resolution cameras now commonplace, owners of Internet-enabled phones are increasingly concerned with the ease of accessing attractive services to enhance their devices, often through app stores.

"Loyalty with a handset is a lot more complicated these days in that people buy into experiences at the high-end level," Ryan Garner, the lead analyst on the survey, told Reuters.

"If a phone doesn't do what it says it will do or what the owner hopes it will do, the maker will lose loyalty."

The survey found that just 25 percent of smartphone owners planned to stay loyal to the operating system running their phone, with loyalty highest among Apple users at 59 percent, and lowest for Microsoft's phone software, at 21 percent.

Of users of Research in Motion's BlackBerrys, 35 percent said they would stay loyal. The figure was 28 percent for users of phones running Google's Android software, and 24 percent for users of Nokia Symbian phones.

Nokia, the world's biggest maker of cellphones, is revamping its software strategy under new Chief Executive Stephen Elop, and is due to release two new platforms next year.

GfK conducted the survey of 2,653 mobile phone users in Brazil, Germany, Spain, Britain, the United States and China online during October and November.

The German market-research company also found that 37 percent of cellphone owners in all those markets excluding China planned to upgrade to a smartphone on their next purchase. They did not ask the question in China for logistical reasons.

Sales of smartphones nearly doubled in the third quarter and are expected to be up more than 50 percent for 2010, according to IT research firm Gartner, outpacing growth seen at closer to 30 percent for the cellphone market as a whole.

Smartphones command far higher margins than regular mobile phones, although that profitability is being eroded by new competition from vendors who have been able to enter the market thanks to Google's open-source Android software.

Smart shortcuts to improve your BlackBerry experience

One of the greatest joys of using a BlackBerry is the number of shortcuts that a power user can use to get tasks accomplished in double-quick time. Want a one-click shortcut to lock your BlackBerry or toggle between vibrate and normal profiles? Or want to go to the bottom of a long e-mail in a single click - it's all possible with your trusted BlackBerry.

Smarter BlackBerry Use Shortcuts

Quick reboot: One solution during the rare occasion when my BlackBerry starts behaving as if it's under the weather (hanging, performing slowly, low on memory, etc), is to remove the battery and SIM card, wait a few seconds and reinsert. But that's not always easy, especially in a moving vehicle or when commuting. At such times, I prefer a software reset, much like a PC reboot. All you need to do is press your BlackBerry's 'Alt', 'Right Shift' and 'Delete' keys together. Not for folks with thick fingers though; they might prefer the harder option of removing the battery. Also, though I mentioned commutes, let me indemnify myself by mentioning that rush hour Bombay local trains are exempt from any such claims.

'Help Me!' Screen: Need a dashboard on everything related to your BlackBerry, ranging from memory to radio signal strength, uptime as well as identification information such as MAC ID, IMEI, OS version and more? The 'Help Me!' screen is the answer to your prayers. Simply press your BlackBerry's 'Alt', 'Left Shift' and 'H' keys simultaneously.

One-key lock: Some newer BlackBerry smartphone have a dedicated lock key on the top, but for older devices (and even newer ones if you want to use it), the one-key option to lock your BlackBerry is to press the 'A' letter key for a couple of seconds.

One-key vibrate mode: Need to quickly move to vibrate mode in the middle of an important meeting? Simply press the 'Q' key for a few seconds when you are in any alert profile other than 'Vibrate Only.' When you need to switch back, do the same and your BlackBerry reverts to the alert profile you were using earlier.

If you find it cumbersome to type in a long name for a contact you can easily find contacts from your BlackBerry's home screen by typing in the first and last initials, with a space in between. Of course, if you have multiple contacts with the same initials you'll get a list of such contacts.

Would you like to use a special or an accented character? Perhaps to personalise your BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) profile? You can get these by holding the character key and scrolling with the trackball or trackpad.

Messaging and mailbox Shortcuts

• To compose a new message press 'C' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To go to the top of a message press 'T' when viewing the message.
• To go to the bottom of a message press 'B' when viewing the message.
• To reply to a message press 'R' when viewing the message.
• To reply to all in a message press 'L' when viewing the message.
• To forward a message Press 'F' when viewing the message.
• To go to the next unopened item press 'U' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• Press the 'S' key to search for a sender or a word within a subject line, and any mail folder when viewing the 'Messages' screen. When you press 'S' when viewing a message, you can search within that message.
• To view your inbox press 'Alt + I' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To view your outbox press 'Alt + O' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To mark a message as opened/unopened press 'Alt + U' when a message is highlighted or when reading the message.
• To go to the top of mailbox press 'T' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To go to the bottom of your mailbox press 'B' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To go to the next date press 'N' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To go to the previous date press 'P' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.

Dell switching off BlackBerry, onto own smartphone

Dell Inc will shift thousands of its employees off Research in Motion Ltd's BlackBerry and over to Dell's smartphones, the company said on Thursday.

The money-saving switch affects the roughly 25,000 Dell employees who carry a company-issued BlackBerry. Dell employs around 100,000 people worldwide.

Dell is also launching an effort to convince its business customers to switch to the company's smartphone.

News of the company's plans was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, and confirmed by Dell spokesman David Frink.

Frink said the switch will begin soon, but said it will take some time to complete.

RIM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dell's BlackBerry users will be shifted over to use the new Dell Venue Pro, which runs on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 software and operates on the network of T-Mobile USA, the US arm of Deutsche Telekom AG.

Dell's decision to move its employees off BlackBerry may come as little surprise, given its aspirations in the mobile device market. The company has frequently talked about using handheld devices as a gateway to sell and promote a broader suite of services.

Dell formally entered the smartphone market only late last year, and launched its first device in the US, the Aero, earlier this year. The Aero runs on Google's Android software, as does Dell's new 5-inch tablet, the Streak.

RIM has long been the dominant player in the corporate smartphone market, but has seen its market share erode as companies such as Apple make gains.

In the third quarter, RIM's global smartphone market share slipped more than 4 percentage points from a year-ago, according to industry tracker IDC