Sure took a long while, but the Android 2.2 update is now available to all HTC Legends residing in Europe and… no, sorry, this isn’t the just-announced Gingerbread. It’s Froyo, the one before it — trust us, this isn’t a frozen dessert you won’t mind in the midst of winter. And don’t bother asking about 2.3 because HTC isn’t giving specifics yet. Wildfire? That’s “coming soon,” according to the person behind the HTC UK Facebook curtain.
It’s almost a given that HTC may have a little announcement for us next Monday, but chances are you’d like to let Windows Phone 7 settle in for a bit while you cling on to your trusty green bot. Assuming neither the Desire HD nor the troublesomeDesire Z / G2 tickled your fancy, you now have two more options for consideration: a “phantom black” Legend and a “brilliant white” Desire (as seen a few weeks ago). Patrons in Europe should be seeing these new handsets starting this month, but here’s a caveat: we’re told that rather than going 100 percent SLCD for the Desire, it’s actually a mix of both SLCD and AMOLED, so be sure to double-check with your store before handing over your hard-earned euros.
They might not be quite as exciting as the HTC Desire Z and HTC Desire HD, but that doesn’t mean the original Desire and HTC Legend have run out of appeal quite yet. HTC has officially confirmed the brilliant white Desire spotted last month together with an ominous looking “phantom black” version of the Legend which would go very well with your Darth Vader costume.
Beyond the different color schemes both handsets are functionality identical to their regular predecessors, which means Android 2.2 and HTC Sense, WiFi, UMTS/HSPA and 5-megapixel cameras. They’ll both go on sale via various European carriers starting this month.
It’s a sad day for fans of Android, brushed aluminum exteriors, and retina-searing AMOLED displays. Bell’s HTC Legend seems to have come to the end of its days, the provider moving the phone to “end of life” status due to “ongoing supply constraints from the manufacturer.” Phandroid speculates this is due to AMOLED shortages slowing down HTC manufacturing, and that certainly seems like a reasonable conclusion. We also checked out some other suppliers of the phone and they too are not listing it in stock, so this could be a rather abrupt end of the road for one of the best looking, though not necessarily best performing, Android handsets.
Update: David D. wrote in to point out this Forbes article pointing out that chip shortages could also be at least partly to blame here.
It’s summer. It’s hot. Naturally, everyone wants to lick some frozen dessert in one form or another. Shortly after the Nexus One got its absolutely official Android 2.2 update, HTC has once again leaped out to tell us of its own Froyo offering. The Taiwanese mobile giant has informed Recombu that it’s expecting “several of our 2010 models including Desire, Legend and Wildfire” to join Google’s latest green bot party “beginning in Q3.” We went to the trouble of confirming this with HTC ourselves, and while this isn’t really much of an update from the company’s previous statement in terms of time frame, here’s hoping that at least some of its customers will get the delivery before the summer fiesta ends.
Updates for the HTC Desire, Legend and Wildfire aren’t far off, as HTC has confirmed that they’re planning an Android 2.2 Froyo roll-out – complete with HTC Sense, of course – sometime from Q3 2010. According to the company’s UK team, the three handsets are among “several of our 2010 models” that will get the updated version of the Android OS, which their engineers are currently hard at work on.
“We are working hard with our partners to update the HTC Sense experience on Froyo and distribute it to our customers as fast as possible. We expect to release updates for several of our 2010 models including Desire, Legend and Wildfire beginning in Q3″ HTC
The exact schedule for the new firmware’s release hasn’t been specified, only that HTC expect it to be launched sometime in Q3 this year (i.e. from July 2010 onwards). Google announced this week that it was pushing out Android 2.2 Froyo as an OTA update to the Nexus One.
Sure, the Desire’s coming to a handful of regional American carriers later this year, but what if you want the smaller, sleeker, more aluminum-clad Legend? Well, there aren’t any carrier-branded options in the States — but it seems that a number of unlocked units with US 3G bands are starting to ooze out of the cracks. Negri Electronics has an 850 / 1900MHz 3G Legend in its store for a shade under $500, which means you’re not getting much of a discount over the more powerful 850 / 1900MHz version of the Nexus One — but you are getting a pretty sweet unibody shell and an optical d-pad. Any takers?
The phone, the myth, the Legend has just become available over in Canada, giving North Americans their first taste of that aluminum unibody construction. It’s looking highly likely that this is the same handset we saw gracing the FCC’s pages not too long ago, indicating that Yanks should be getting in on the fun relatively soon as well. AT&T already let one HTC cat slip out of the bag today, guess this confirms the Liberty won’t be feeling lonely in Ma Bell’s Android cupboard whenever it does launch. And hey, Canadian friends, just think of the Legend as consolation for your teams not sniffing the Stanley Cup the past three years.
AMOLED screens have once again come in for attention over concerns regarding image quality, as Tweakers took two HTC Legends into the lab to demonstrate the issues they have displaying grayscale correctly. The Legend – shown here snuggling with an Apple iPod touch and an HTC Hero – apparently proved unable to show regular grayscale, instead offering up a range of muted pinks, grays, greens and browns.
The Legend’s screen brightness was also a cause for concern, mustering 253 cd/m2 in comparison to the Hero’s 310 cd/m2. Both the Hero and the iPod touch use a more traditional LCD panel, rather than the AMOLED technology used in the Legend and its larger sibling the HTC Desire.
Unfortunately Tweakers didn’t have a Desire to hand to include in the testing, though anecdotal reports from some owners suggest it too has patchy grayscale support. One point where the AMOLED displays do deliver is in blacks, however, out-performing both other devices in testing.
We made no disguise of our lust for the shiny, MacBook-esque loveliness of the HTC Legend when we reviewed it back in March, and so the idea of it crossing over from Europe to the US and Canada tickles us in the very best of places. The newly published FCC listing may not mention the Legend by name, but some codename and label sleuthing certainly seems to imply that it refers to an HTC Legend with AT&T-friendly 850/1900 WCDMA support.
That would be handy not only for AT&T in the US but Rogers, Bell and Telus in Canada, and we imagine all four carriers would quite like to get their hands on the Android 2.1 smartphone. Of course, an FCC filing doesn’t have anything so useful as a release date attached, but we’re crossing our fingers that the US Legend arrives sooner rather than later.
