For all RIM’s troubles of late, we’ve always loved its Bold series of phones, and their pro-worthy keyboards. Put simply, there is still nothing faster out there to type a properly punctuated email. But the Bold 9900, released earlier this year, was almost too large: it was built with the American market in mind, and they like they like their phones like their cars – big.

It’s no coincidence then that RIM is launching the BlackBerry Bold 9790 in Indonesia, market with less absurd tastes, later this month, followed by the UK in the new year. The 9700 line of Bolds is a little smaller, a little more manageable – and this time, a whole lot thinner.

Like the recent super skinny BlackBerry Curve 9360, this is a slim, smooth phone. RIM hasn’t released the exact dimensions, but it feels comfortable to grip, and the smooth plastic back panel is far more subtle, and far less silly, than the faux-leather finish of the Bold 9700 and 980 phones.

The front of the phone however has changed very little, save for the four buttons below the screen, which are now separated (we can take or leave the change. The 2.44-inch 480×360 display is pin sharp, and responded well to pinch gestures, zooming in on the browser. But it is still barely bigger than a postage stamp: this is not for watching videos on.

We’re pleased to report meanwhile that the rubbery keyboard hasn’t changed a bit. It’s a matter of preference whether you prefer these ridges keys or the isolated, clicky plastic buttons of the BlackBerry Curve line, but we love them, and though they’re slightly smaller than on the Bold 9900, you can race across them at incredible speeds with your thumbs.

Inside, the BlackBerry Bold 9790 is powered by a 1GHz processor, but more of note is the inclusion of an NFC chip (Near field communications). RIM is betting big on the technology, and although its real world uses are limited for now, RIM’s UK boss Stephen Bates says the company is in talks with big payment companies, and reckons that NFC will be available to use in day to day use in public during the lifetime of these phones.

Of course, BlackBerry 7 is still BlackBerry 7: a very modest software upgrade with a decent browser and universal search, and not a lot more. The BlackBerry App World isn’t exactly packed with awesome games and apps, but you knew that already didn’t you? With the advent of RIM’s new OS, BBX, expected next year, that’s not likely to change either – but if you want a decent emailer with no distractions, this could well be worth holding out for until after Christmas.

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Alongside the BlackBerry Curve 9380, RIM is launching BBM Music in the UK today, which lets you keep 50 songs at any one time, and stream all the songs from your contacts’ libraries as well. We should be going hands on with both later on today, but in the meantime click through for the official photo gallery. The BlackBerry Curve 9380 is out in the “coming weeks”.

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UPDATE: Huawei says it is looking at Ice Cream Sandwich, but there are no plans for an upgrade right now. We doubt that’ll stop the hackers, mind.

You might not have heard of Huawei, but they’ve been around for years. They’re behind almost every network branded phone you care to mention, but recently, they’ve been trying to “do a HTC” and build their own brand. Earlier in the Autumn, it released the £99 Huawei Blaze, a competent Android phone slightly let down by a small screen and fusty default keyboard.

Now it’s back with a bang, and the Huawei Vision, a more powerful and far more impressive mid-range follow up that’s barely any more expensive, and far better specced.

Remember the HTC Legend and its luscious unibody metal ways? The Huawei Vision takes the same machined aluminium approach and upgrades the hardware: it’s 9.9mm thin, with no sign of that unseemly HTC chin, and a feels shockingly premium for a device we were told will cost only around £150 unlocked.

Four capacitive buttons sit below the 3.7-inch curved LCD screen, which we found was responsive to multitouch gestures, and impressively bright though let down by the rubbishy TouchPal default keyboard, which is great for Chinese typing and not much else.

Android 2.3.5 itself is its usual charming self, and with no drawbacks this time – a 1GHz processor means you won’t have any problems with games or Adobe Flash. The phone comes with the swanky SPB 3D shell preloaded, which smoothly scrolls through panes like HTC Sense on the Sensation family of phones – not bad considering it costs £9.45 in the Market. Huawei’s other custom apps seen on the blaze are missing, such as its social networking widget and 3G data watchdog, but these are easily replaced. Unfortunately, no one could tell us if the Huawei Vision would be updated to Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”, but we’ve followed up with the company and will update when we hear back.

So what’s the catch? It would appear to be the camera: it’s shockingly slow. In the admittedly dingy confines of the launch venue, it took around six seconds to go from pressing the shutter to the photo being taken. We’re hoping Huawei fixes this in due course – it certainly doesn’t bode well for the final quality of the 720p HD video the 5MP camera is supposed to be able to shoot either.

The Huawei Vision is out before Christmas at Phones4U in three colours: silver, gold and charcoal grey. Even if HTC needn’t worry yet, by the looks of things, arch rival ZTE certainly has its work cut out for it.

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First things first, those specs: the HTC Sensation XL sports a aluminium unibody design similar to that of the HTC Sensation, but on a much larger scale. Its display stretches a huge 4.7-inches across (the body itself is 9.9mm thick), and houses a 1600mAh battery on the inside, but for man hands, feels just the right size.

HTC is bogging up the eight megapixel camera on the back with an f.2.2 aperture, claiming it’s the best it’s ever come up with – it certainly snapped and processed shots quickly, but we’ll save the verdict on that for review time. Unike the Sensation, the HTC Sensation XL can only record in 720p HD resolution, rather than full 1080p HD for video.

Spec heads take note: the HTC Sensation XL is not the very latest in hardware. It packs in just 16GB of internal storage with no microSD slot, and instead of going dual-core, the processor is a single 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 chip, which won’t win any benchmark scores.

The screen too, while bright and vivid, is a bit off the pace: it’s palatial, giving you lots of space for your thumbs to roam, but the resolution is 480×800. On the HTC Titan that’s expected – Windows Phone only supports this resolution for now – but on Android, when Samsung and LG are moving to 1280×720 resolution screens, it’s only average. Stretched over such a large screen, it also produces visible grain if you look closely, something that may come as a shock to iPhone 4 owners used to “Retina” displays.

Monster beats

Like the HTC Sensation XE, the larger Sensation XL features Beats audio integration, right down to the logo on the back. In the box, you get a pair of in-ear Beats headphones with an in-line track remote, or, if you go for the limited edition model, a pair of Solo over ears with the same track controls – you can’t buy these anywhere else right now.

Plugging these in triggers a Beats audio sound profile that can be turned on and off from the drop down notification menu, although we weren’t able to test the quality of this in a quiet environment.

Otherwise software itself holds few surprises: the test model we tried out ran Android 2.3.5, and came with all HTC’s latest cloud services, including Location and movie rental app Watch. If you like HTC Sense on Android, you’ll love this, but if you’ve not been interested before, this is unlikely to sway you.

Frankly speaking, we’re genuinely starting to think that if you want user friendly software, HTC’s Windows Phones really might be the way to go: we love Android but there’s no denying it can be complicated to use.

The only thing of note: this version of HTC Sense (3.5) is missing the massive new People widget included on the HTC Rhyme and HTC Explorer. That gives you more screen space to play with, but we did rather like it: it gets rid of the boring dock at the bottom in favour of two simple phone and contacts buttons.

Verdict

What’s perhaps most remarkable about the HTC Sensation XL is HTC taking a step back from the cutting edge when it comes to specs. Clearly aware that it can’t compete with Samsung on this front, it’s hoping style, design, awesome sound and intuitive software will help win new customers over, not raw power. If you want that, try the HTC Sensation XE or Samsung Galaxy S 2.

It’s a smart move given few will ever notice the difference in speed, and puts HTC ever closer to Apple as its main competitor. If you can overlook the screen issues, it’s shaping up to be a winner.

The HTC Sensation XL is out from November, only in white. We’ve confirmed with Vodafone that it will stock it from launch.

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Last night I sat for almost two hours on an achingly stylish chair. In every sense of the word. Apple’s designer seating is not the best for lengthy keynotes. The reason for my prolonged discomfort was Tim Cook. Projected in front of us at a private London event, Mr Cook made his first public appearance as Apple’s new CEO and calmly ushered in a new age for the iconic manufacturer. But it didn’t go well.

Within minutes of his closing remarks, the web’s tech vultures had descended on the newly-announced iPhone 4S. “I Am Disappoint” groaned Gizmodo. “Ho well, there’s always next June,” lamented Pocket-Lint, and even TechRadar’s usually chipper Patrick Goss sniffed that “it is difficult not to feel a little underwhelmed.”

But they’re missing the point. Many of the web’s most experienced commentators are so busy grumbling about the familiar design of the new iPhone, they haven’t noticed that Apple doesn’t need a new design, and has no reason to rush one out of the door.

Even accounting for its antenna trouble, the shape, size and proportions of the iPhone 4 were always spot on. Reviews from those same sites said so. So what could possibly be grinding these tech hacks’ gears?

Inside, the iPhone 4S packs in rumour-satisfying kit like never before. There’s the much-leaked, and vastly improved camera. Siri voice control. The A5 processor and a beefed up battery. iCloud. A friend-finding location service. 1080p HD video recording and faster 3G (through a clever dual antenna system). It should be, by any yardstick imaginable, a home run.

Pretty much the only rumour Apple failed to tick off the list was NFC and an iPhone-powered digital wallet. But if that’s standing in the way of punditry praise, why did every single one of those sites rank the iPhone 4 as being better than, say, the Nexus S? NFC can’t be that important, can it?

No, Of course not. It’s much shallower than that.

The single missing feature which seems to have irked the tech press so much is the lack of a new shape. Not a thinner shape, or a lighter shape, a curvier shape or a more rigid shape… just a new shape.

They are, with few exceptions, howling with pained exasperation at the device they’ve pined after for months, wrapped up in a shell they’ve already professed to love. Honestly, there’s just no pleasing some people…

In the meantime, those eyeing up an iPhone 4S will doubtless be grateful that there are tons of cases and accessories already available. There won’t be a shortage at launch, as was the case with the original iPhone 4, and there’s the possibility that much of their old kit can continue to function without adjustment or replacement, should they upgrade from an iPhone 4 or 3G, or 3GS.

Let me tell you from personal experience: Once you’ve bought one £50 Apple dock, you don’t buy another, you get the Dremel out, and hope for the best. Thankfully, most upgraders will be spared this DIY nightmare. The plastic dust gets everywhere.

Of course, any new iPhone 4S owners will miss out on a few bragging rights. It won’t be immediately obvious to every passing person that you’re cradling a brand new iThing. But, personally, I’m glad that on my next train journey nobody will know whether I’m using an old iPhone, or a new iPhone. For once, Apple’s upgrade itch isn’t so scratchy, because my gadget envy is vastly reduced by simply not seeing their new iMusthave at every turn. For once, ignorance really is bliss.

And in the meantime, while I’m slowly considering whether to add an S to the end of my iPhone’s name or not, Samsung and Co have plenty of time to lure me to the green green grass of Android. Or Windows Phone.

Apple’s lack of physical change has offered a rare chance for the competition to break from the norm, and this can only be a good thing.

Rather than continue churning out lookalike black slabs with curiously familiar home screens, the Android mob has the maneuvering room it needs to create eye-popping new designs, fine-tune their software, and perhaps dodge any more of those troublesome intellectual property lawsuits.

Sometimes change for the sake of it is a bad thing. I can’t help but notice the iPod nano and iPod touch are similarly static in the design stakes, and while some will decry Apple’s lack of ‘innovation’ in the area, perhaps the old adage rings true: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Unless it’s those bloody designer chairs. Please Apple, get them swapped for something more cushiony in time for the iPhone 5. Thanks.

Original image by Jason Cartwright

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It’s mere minutes away. We’re sandwiched in Apple’s UK iPhone 5 iPhone 4S launch event. There are fewer journos than ever here, which means fewer hands-on reports than ever before. We’ll be bringing you our first fingers-on impressions, just as soon as Apple dishes up the goods. Turns out Apple didn’t have samples for us to play with. For shame! We’re busy tracking them down, so stay tuned, and read on for the nitty gritty.

• iPhone 4S Bluetooth 4 hints at new accessories
• iPhone micro USB charger hits Europe. First chink in Apple’s proprietary armour?
• Siri for iPhone 4S revealed: Smart voice control spells death for the keyboard
• iPhone 4S coming to Vodafone
• iPhone 4S official, lands on 14 October
• New iPod nano: Apple really wants you to use it as a watch
• iOS 5 is coming 12 October with iCloud

19:36: iPhone 4S pre-orders begin on the 7th October. It’ll be available October 14th. And that’s it… No iPhone 5. It’s all over. We’ve updated the headline with a heavy heart.

19:34: For the first time, the iPhone 4S will be available with 64GB of storage. It’s available in black and white. The iPhone 4 and 3GS are sticking around too. The iPhone 3GS 8GB is going free on “typical contracts”.

19:29: now we’re watching a new ad for the iPhone 4S.

19:29: There’s support for English, French and German. It’ll be beta to begin with, but Apple is promising more languages and features later on.

19:27: Siri also does dictation. You can dictate anywhere you’d usually see a keyboard.

19:26: “who are you?” “I am a humble personal assistant”. Neat.

19:26: Ask Siri “how do I get home?” and it’ll figure it out. We will use that A LOT.

19:25: Searching the web is faster with Siri too. “Search Wikipedia for Neil Armstrong” results in you being zipped straight to the Wikipedia article. No Google in between. It just whizzes you straight to the Buzz Armstrong entry.

19:22: Siri remembers everything you ever tell it. Scott Forstall just asked it to remind him to call his wife when he leaves work. Siri set up a geofence around his work, remembering that he works at Apple, and set a reminder to “call Molly” – because it remembered who his wife was from a much earlier conversation. Spooky.

19:19: You can ask it to read your messages too you, or reply via dictation, or ask it about your calendar beforehand “Do I have any meetings Friday at Noon?” – “You don’t have anything on your calendar this Friday at 12pm” – it’s all seamless.

19:19: Siri understands maps, it’ll give you directions if you ask it… it’ll even fish out a restaurant for you: “There are 15 french restaurants nearby, I’ve ordered them by quality”…

19:15: Siri understands not just the words, but the meaning. Scott Forstall just asked “what’s the weather like today” followed by “what’s the hourly forecast” – Siri figured out it was the same question. It even understands “Do I need a raincoat today?” answering “It sure looks like rain today”. It seems incredibly smart. And it does more than weather…

19:14: There’s one more thing… Siri, true voice control comes to the iPhone. They’re demoing it now, saying it’s a Beta.

19:10: iPhone 4S takes 1080p HD video too. It has realtime image stabilisation too and noise reduction. Showing us a video now. It looks great, as you’d expect.

19:06: We’ve got a graph of how fast it is compared to other cameraphones too. There’re some example photos too, but we can’t do them justice here. Apple will doubtless have them online shortly.

19:06: The camera has been improved. The iPhone 4S has an 8MP sense. 3264 x 2448 resolution. 60% more pixels than the iPhone 4, but it has backside illumination that gathers 73% more light per pixel than the iPhone 4. Richer colours, better low light performance. It’s 30% faster too. There’s a hybrid IR filter for accurate colours too. Apple’s going after compact cameras with the iPhone 4S. It has a five element lens to make a 30% sharper picture with f/2.4 aperture. There’s even an Apple Image Processor inside the A5 chip. The iPhone 4S can detect 10 faces in a photo.

19:06: The iPhone 4S is a world phone too. A single phone to work on CDMA and GSM networks.

19:01: The antenna has been improved (we’d hope so), says Schiller. The engineering team made a system which “intelligently switches between two antennas to transmit and receive” – this has never been done and it can do it while you’re on a call for  better reliability. Apple’s boasting 2x faster 3G downloads too. They’re not calling the iPhone 4G though.

18:59: Battery life is “industry leading” for the first time in iPhone, 4S has 8 hours of 3G talk time, 48 hours of 2G talktime. 10 hours of video. 40 hours of music playback.

18:54: And here’s the iPhone…. It’s the iPhone 4S. It looks the same, but Phil Schiller says it’s all new. There’s an A5 processor and 7x faster graphics.

18:50: There’s a new iPod touch too. It runs iOS 5, looks the same, but is also available in white. It’s cheaper though, starting at $199 for 8GB up to $399 for 64GB.

18:50: There are new clock faces too, so you can wear the nano as a watch… thre’s even a Mickey Mouse watch, and yep, the hands move. It’s available today.

18:47: Here’s Phil Schiller to talk about new iPods… They’re updating the iPod nano. It looks the same, but uses much larger icons. The fitness experience is improved too. It now senses walking and running without any add-on sensors for Nike+.

18:45: iCloud goes live on October 12. We’re watching a video all about it now….

18:41: Find my Friends is a new app that lets you share your location with friends. You can “see if your son made it to school OK today”… You can share your location permanently, or share your location for a certain amount of time, for a single event. That’s very smart. You can let people find you while you’re on a day out at the beach, and it’ll automatically switch off at the end of the event. Apple just went head to head with Google Latitude. Parents can switch off kids’ ability to turn off Find My Friends, and control who follows them too.

18:40: Eddy just had a little dig at Gmail. You get an ad-free Me.com e-mail address.

18:39: Documents in the cloud… build into iWork apps, and yep, they’re available on October 12 as updates to those who already have them (Keynote, Pages, Numbers).

18:38: Recapping iCloud with Eddy Cue. Since iOS 5 and iCloud are so intertwined, we’re willing to bet it’s launching at the same time.

18:37: Here we are: iOS 5 comes out on October 12, and it’ll be free! Compatible with… iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad, iPod touch 4G, iPod touch 3G.

18:34: iOS 5 is PC Free. You can set up the whole shebang without a PC, and using wireless updates.

18:33: Safari enhancements and mail gets a facelift with rich text formatting…. still no release date though.

18:31: A brief recap of the new camera features in iOS. The tweaks here are some of our faves, but here’s something new. you can now edit photos inside the standard photo app. Remove redeye, one-touch autocorrect, cropping. It’s all there.

18:29: Lots of repetition here, iMessage, Reminders, Notifications, Newsstand…. Hold tight, the new stuff will be along really soon. Probably, just after an iOS 5 release date.

18:28: Scott Forstall’s showing off iOS 5. It’s a recap of what we already know (and have been using for some time in beta form).

18:25: Apple’s got a new app. Cards. Design and send a greeting card from your phone. It’s sent in the mail. Apple just put Moonpig on notice. You even get a push notification when the card is delivered, because Apple includes postal service tracking barcodes. $2.99 all including postage within the US. $4.99 anywhere else in the world. Coming to the US October 12th.

18:22: Here comes the new stuff. Scott Forstall’s on stage to show off the ‘latest innovations in iOS.’

18:20: iPads are even replacing 40 pound flight bags for pilots. Tim Cook says that “makes the airplane more efficient”… only a little bit, granted. He says “Consumers don’t want tablets, they want iPads.”

18:19: Every state in the US now has an iPod pilot programme, or deployment. They’re showing up everywhere. iPads in schools are helping kids learn in amazing new ways.

18:18: iPhone now holds 5% of worldwide mobile phone market. That’s all phones, not just smartphones. It could be more… 1.5 billion units annually. Did Tim Cook just hint at a cheaper, mass market iPhone?

18:16: iPhone has 125% year on year growth. 93% of the Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPhone. Tim says the iPhone is “pummeling the competition”. 70% of people are Very Satisfied with the iPhone, in satisfaction surveys. 95% are Satisfied to Very Satisfied.

18:15: Tim says 16 billion songs have been downloaded through iTunes. We just saw a screenshot of iTunes with iTunes Match running. Looks like iCloud’s a go for launch today then…

18:14: Half of iPod sales are now going to people who have never owned an iPod before. Doesn’t sound like Apple’s moving away from the iPod any time soon…

18:12: Recounting the iPod. “It reminded all of us how much we love music and made it simple to use again”

18:12: We have a high ceiling here, and a lot to do, says Tim. Next… Music.

18:10: Every single quarter for five years, the Mac has outgrown the PC market. Nearly 60 million people use a Mac around the world. Market share has increased too. In US retail, Macs are selling 1 out of ever four PCs in store.

18:10: Tim’s now talking about the MacBook Air, recounting reviews. Wired called it “laptop nirvana” and we agreed.

18:08: Tim says 6 million copies of Lion have been downloaded. It took Windows 7 20 weeks to reach 10% of their install base. Lion did the same in two weeks.

18:08: Products are at the core of everything we do. Here come the updates…

18:06: And now a short video about Apple retail…. hold tight, the iPhone 5′s coming soon. We hope.

18:04: A few updates: Two new retail stores opened last week in China. They’ve both set new records, with iconic curved glass staircase. “I think only Apple could do this” says Cook. It welcomed 100,000 visitors in its first weekend. By comparison, the top grossing Apple Store in LA had 100,000 visitors in its first month.

18:03 And we’re off. Tim Cook is on stage. He says it’s his first product launch as CEO, that he loves Apple, and that it’s a privilege of a lifetime to work where he does. He says Apple’s campus is like a second home. We’re watching a live stream at a private event at Apple’s Covent Garden store, so we feel a little voyeurish.

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A 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen, 600MHz processor and 3MP camera all combine to form a rather pedestrian handset on paper, and indeed, HTC has been pushing this same basic phone in one form or another for a few years now, first as the HTC Hero, then as the Wildfire, Gratia, and Wildfire S. The hardware difference this time is that it’s sporting a rubberised back, presumably to shave costs down, but also give it a more rugged feel, which may please the butter fingered.

In a briefing with HTC last week (sadly, we weren’t allowed to take photos), we got to grips with the HTC Explorer, and have to report that it’s slightly less attractive than the press pictures make out because of this.

But HTC isn’t purely a hardware company: the HTC Explorer model we tested was running one of the latest versions of Android (2.3.5), with the new Sense 3.5 interface that declutters the home screen. Gone is that familiar HTC arced menu at the bottom: now there’s just menu and phone, and one massive weather widget. It sounds minor, but we think casual smartphone users will appreciate the difference.

Unfortunately, that low power 600MHz processor and low-res screen mean HTC has omitted a few of its core services, including Locations mapping and Watch movie rentals, as well as the swizzy 3D scrolling effects on the HTC Sensation and HTC Rhyme.

It’s for this reason that we’re not entirely thrilled by the Explorer. To be perfectly honest, we think HTC could have tried a little harder: if Huawei can make a similarly specced phone, (the Blaze) in a much thinner shell for £99 on Pay As You Go, HTC doesn’t have much of an excuse.

The HTC Explorer will ship this quarter in black and navy colours. Stay tuned for a full review in due course. UK network Three has already confirmed it will be stocking it.

Out October | £varies | HTC

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Still buzzing from the excitement of Apple confirming the iPhone 5 launch next week? If you’re a fellow UK resident, there’s an even better reason to get hyped up: Apple’s holding a simultaneous UK launch event. Check the invite image here: It just landed in our inbox, complete with an amended icon for our time zone, and that can only mean one thing: The UK will be blessed with the iPhone 5 nice and early.

That little clock isn’t just the attention to detail that we love about Apple (compare it to the American invite, it’s a teeny bit different), it’s also a hefty hint that we’ll get to play with the new iPhone 5 in the flesh next week, closely followed by public availability.

See, Apple usually simulcasts major announcements across the globe, holding regional launch events where appropriate. In the past though, the UK has missed out on some of the glitz and glamour.

There was no UK launch event for the original iPad for example, because British gadget fans simply wouldn’t get their hands on it for months. While American journalists got invites to the unveiling, and some hands-on time with Apple’s new baby, the UK had no such special treatment. When the UK release rolled around, Apple held its usual briefings with the press to explain the iPad’s features, but there was no party to attend, and no invite to RSVP.

This time around though, we’ve got our name firmly on the list. When the iPhone 5 arrives next week, we’ll be there, reporting live and salivating at the prospect of an imminent UK launch. Make no mistake: the next iPhone is just around the corner, and the UK is right at the front of the queue.

What’s in store? Check out iPhone 5: What we know already

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Just announced this morning, the Samsung Omnia W sports a 3.7-inch 800×480 Super AMOLED screen, which is substantially smaller than the 4-inch Samsung Omnia 7 Windows Phone already on sale. Rounding off the specs are a nippier 1.4GHz single core processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 10.9mm deep chassis.

On the software front, the Samsung Omnia W runs Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango”, as you’d expect, with a few extra additions of Samsung’s own volition: AllShare, Samsung’s DLNA streaming app for Android and Bada phones makes its debut here, along with a video calling app and an e-
Reader.

We’re a bit surprised by the Omnia W: where the Omnia 7 matched the Samsung Galaxy S spec for spec, this update sits far below the still mighty Samsung Galaxy S 2 phone in terms of features and hardware. Between that and the presumably upcoming iPhone 5, it could have a hard time standing out – HTC seems to have taken a savvier approach with its own new Windows Phone, the absolutely enormous HTC Titan, giving it the USP of a 4.7-inch screen.

We’re still chasing full availability details for the Samsung Omnia W but expect a release in Italy at least at the end of October.

(via Crave)

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Make no mistake, the HTC Rhyme is no Sensation or Titan: its screen measures a mere 3.7-inches across (800×480), packs a 5MP camera and is powered by a single core 1GHz processor. But it’s designed to look a bit more chic than those man toys, and comes in plum (purple), clearwater (no idea) and hourglass (also no clue).

HTC’s Android 2.3 skin, Sense, has also been revamped: you now get its excellent HTC Watch movie streaming service, and some revised widgets, which is promising, as we’ve long said HTC needs to rework Sense to avoid it becoming long in the tooth.

It also comes with a few intriguing accessories, including a sports armband, docking stations, headphones (Not Beats Audio, alas), and most surprising of all, the “HTC Rhyme Charm.” It’s a small light emitting cube at the end of a cable that glows on calls or messages, and can double up as a yank cord to pull your phone out of a bag. Not quite as ambitious as Sony Ericsson’s LiveView, but at least it’ll work all the time without dropping connection, we guess.

The HTC Rhyme is out in Europe next month, with the purple variant exclusive to O2. Stockist Clove.co.uk tells us it is expecting units in around 8 October, but expect a hands on later this week.

Out October | £TBC | HTC

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