The Verizon iPhone 4‘s inability to do simultaneous voice and 3G data is still one of the key differentiators between it and AT&T’s GSM version, but it seems not all Verizon smartphones are created equal. According to a purported leak from inside the carrier and passed to Phandroid, the upcoming HTC Thunderbolt will actually support simultaneous voice and 3G data; however, it’s not something we should expect to hear Verizon making much noise about.

According to the leak, Verizon “cannot promise the experience will be one that is consistent with [the] brand” and so are advising sales people to “not reference this functionality as a benefit during your conversations with customers.” As sales strategies go this seems somewhat bizarre, but we can understand Verizon not wanting to overshadow its other devices – including the new CDMA iPhone – with a single HTC handset.

[via Android Community]

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Facebook has denied reports that HTC is making a Facebook-branded smartphone, with a spokesperson suggesting “the rumors around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown.” According to Dan Rose, Facebook’s head of business development, the speculation is simply over-assumption based on “just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs and integrated them into their device in an interesting way.”

As for whether the HTC device – which is expected to be announced among a range of handsets at MWC 2011 next month – would be Facebook branded, Rose was even more blunt. “No” he told reporters at an event in London this week.

Although Facebook phone rumors have persisted for some time now, this latest batch suggested that HTC would produce two devices for the social network, offering support for Facebook Voice calls and putting the news page on the homescreen. The devices were expected to be Android-based, and SlashGear has heard separately that at least one would include a physical QWERTY keyboard.

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“The rumor got twenty-two hundred hits within two hours?”
“Thousand.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Twenty-two thousand.”
“Wow.”

And so it was. Once again, the powers that be at Facebook have been forced to come forward and deny yet another rumor that a FB-branded handset was on the horizon, this time crushing hopes and dreams of an HTC device. Dan Rose, head of business development at the company, came forward with the following statement: “This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way. The rumours around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown.” When asked whether or not the handset in question would be Facebook-branded, he followed with this: “No. There’s no such thing as Harvard law. And there’s no such thing as a Facebook phone.”*

*Liberties taken with the quote.

Facebook puts the kibosh on branded HTC phone rumors, still plans to sweep the Oscars originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Short of only making a single prototype and sewing it into Peter Chou’s trouser pocket, we’re not sure what HTC could do to stop its smartphones leaking and spoiling the surprise come launch day; still, if they didn’t we wouldn’t get premature glimpses of models like this Verizon slab from the mobile01 forums. Hot on the heels of the potential Desire replacement from earlier today, this Verizon-branded model is also expected to run Android.

On the back is a protruding camera and dual-LED flash, together with some angular molding that looks a lot like that of the Verizon DROID Incredible. Meanwhile the front reminds us of the HTC 7 Trophy.

Full details are likely to come through at MWC 2011 in Barcelona next month, assuming HTC doesn’t spring another leak before then. Reach for the needle & thread, Peter, we say.

[via Android Community and via Engadget]

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A second HTC phone to escape the netherworld of disputed renders has just been discovered. This touchscreen slate for Verizon lacking a front-side camera was last seen in the Pocketnow leak but is now snuggled up with a Harrods bear in a Chinese user forum. How cozy. Better yet, we’ve now got a view of the Droid-Incrediblish backside showing a dual-LED flash. Again, no detail to confirm but we’ll bet it’s announced with Android at a Mobile World Congress press event in February.

[Thanks, LIMIX]

Continue reading HTC’s buttonless slate spotted in the furry wilds

HTC’s buttonless slate spotted in the furry wilds originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One of the phones HTC is expected to unveil at Mobile World Congress next month has been spotted in the wild, with the prototype apparently snapped while its tester was flaunting it on the Taipei metro system. Engadget‘s tipster doesn’t have a name for the device, but it matches up with previously leaked renders believed to be HTC’s new range.

Exact specifications are in short supply, but there’s a front-facing camera next to the smartphone’s earpiece and a row of touch-sensitive buttons running underneath the display. Screen size is unclear, but it could well be a 3.7-inch replacement to the HTC Desire, announced at MWC 2010 and one of the devices we’re expecting to see replaced at this year’s show.

[via Android Community]

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Why bother waiting for its official Mobile World Congress reveal in February when you can view the newest HTC flagship today? The touchscreen slate prototype (notice the serial number stamped along the bottom of the handset’s face) you’re looking at above matches the leaked Pocketnow render exactly including the arcing earpiece and isolated front-facing camera with chrome ring. It was just spotted by an eagle-eyed tipster while waiting for a Taipei metro system. Sorry Windows Phone 7 fans, this baby is Android through and through. And seeing it in the wild lends credence to all of the HTC devices pictured in that leak. A couple more snaps after the break.

[Thanks, LIMIX]

Continue reading HTC’s newest Android flagship phone revealed

HTC’s newest Android flagship phone revealed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 05:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, the Facebook phone. Despite statements by the company that it is flat out not making a phone, the rumors persist, and not one but two separate stories have now cropped up on the same day that a mysterious “call” button has appeared on some folks’ Facebook pages. The first of those comes courtesy of BGR, which says it has heard from someone involved in a recent focus group that supposedly centered on a Facebook phone. As the story goes, the phone (which apparently wasn’t actually referred to as a “Facebook phone”) would have an always-on GPS service, no or very little local storage, a camera (with images stored in the cloud), a “news ticker-style message notification system” with all messages funneled into one “mass inbox” and, last but not least, some sort of location-aware coupon service that’s described as “Facebook Deals on steroids.”

Joining that is a report from the London-based City A.M. financial newspaper, which says it has learned from unnamed sources that HTC will debut two Facebook-branded phones at Mobile World Congress next month. Details on those are otherwise expectedly light, but the paper says the phones will run a “tweaked version” of Android and sport Facebook’s colors — supposedly, Facebook’s Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos (formerly of Firefox and Google, respectively) are largely responsible for the launch. Of course, the paper also says HTC is responsible for “Google’s Nexus range,” which doesn’t exactly help its case, and leads us to suspect that we may simply be dealing with one big game of telephone here.

Facebook phone rumors resurface: cloud-based, HTC-built? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First get your spoons and cereal bowls out, because Google’s released the SDK file for developers to take a look at Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Next get super pumped up at the thought of running Android apps on your brand new BlackBerry PlayBook. Get a weird feeling in your hearing at Plantronics Infamous Wall of Ears. Hammer away at your social brain with more unique details about the HTC Facebook phone. See as both Facebook and the infamous Farmville game get hacked via their fanpages. Some BlackBerry users are getting their handsets dipped in real gold while others are ready to toss them in the garbage as a Verizon BlackBerry outage leaves everyone stumped. Check out the latest in developers to cash in Android apps with Adknowledge and a 95% profit share. Have a close and personal look at a very odd device with our unboxing and hands-on of the Motorola Roadster. Finally, see a fantastic analysis of our modern slab reality in the article General Purpose vs Use-Case Specific Tablets by Ben Bajarin. All this and MORE on The Daily Slash!

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To see more Daily Slash posts, click here: [The Daily Slash] or here: [SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up]

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Earlier today we reported on the rumored Facebook phone being developed by HTC. The device is said to have Facebook’s color scheme and branding and be focused around the Facebook news feed.

Now BGR has been tipped by a man claiming to have been part of the focus group for a device that matched the description of the Facebook phone. Based on the questions he was asked, we can assume that a few things are at least being seriously looked at for inclusion in this new smartphone.

-Location-aware coupons that push to your phone when you are near where you can actually use them.

-An always-on GPS service that runs in the background and shares your info with friends / apps like the coupon thing. There are some disturbing privacy implications there, but I doubt most buyers will care.

-Very little, if any, local storage. Everything is in the cloud.

-There will be a camera, but it will upload straight to the cloud.

-The phone will include a news ticker notification system that pushes all of your different accounts into one mass inbox.

[Via BGR]

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