Leaf, the HTC distributor in South Africa has just announced that the HTC Sensation is headed for South Africa.

The HTC Sensation which features an aluminium unibody design, 4.3″ Super LCD and 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, along with all HTC phones in the 2011 lineup, will be available in South Africa.

Although HTC South Africa did not give exact release dates, we can expect the HTC phones which includes the HTC ChaCha, Salsa, Wildfire S, Desire S, Incredible S and Android tablet, Flyer,  from the second quarter of 2011.

The phone I am looking forward to the most has to be the HTC Sensation, the first dual-core Android phone by HTC which runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread and features a massive 768MB of RAM.

Rumors have been floating around the Internet for a while regarding the specs of the HTC Sensation AKA HTC Pyramid, but it is now official and boy is this a beast.

The HTC Sensation will run Android 2.3 Gingerbread powered by a beastly 1.2GHz dual-core snapdragon CPU. HTC has also added a massive 4.3″ screen, but what makes the screen so spectacular is that its a super LCD running at 540 x 960 pixels.

HTC Sensation Specs:

• Android 2.3 (with new Sense UI v3.0)
• 4.3″ qHD Super LCD Capacitive Display
• 126.1mm x 65.4mm x 11.3mm – 148 grams
• 768MB RAM / 1GB ROM
• VGA front-facing Camera
• 1.2GHz Dual-Core MSM8660 Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU
• 8MP Camera (1080p @ 30/fps) and Stereo sound recording
• HSPA+ 14.4Mbit / 5.76Mbit 900/1700/2100 MHz
• 1520mAh Battery
• Wi-Fi b/g/n, DLNA, Bluetooth 3.0

The HTC Sensation will launch in the Europe market starting from mid-May 2011 and perhaps South Africans will also see it here from then seeing as we normally get our releases with that of Europe.

Leaf, the distributor of HTC products in South Africa, has just announced via Twitter that the Paid Android Market will be available in South Africa soon.

To date South Africans only had access to all the free apps through the Android Market, but soon we will get to experience paid apps also.

The tweet by Leaf states that the paid-for Android Marketplace will be available to South Africans from the 2nd quarter of 2011. This will enable us to get the latest and greatest content on the Android Market charged straight to our credit cards.

The introduction of Paid Apps in the Android Market it not only just good news for local Android users, but this also opens up a whole new world for our local developers enabling them profit from building Android applications for the local market.

HTC makes some pretty cool Android phones, the HTC Desire being one of the best Android phones on the market and the day they announced the HTC Desire HD it was evident that they would have another winner in their lineup of Android phones.

Shortly after the release of the HTC Desire HD in October 2010 in other countries, I caught a glimpse of it on the MTN website where they already advertised it with certain packages, but I took it with a grain of salt as it was not published in any official MTN brochures.

The first time I saw the HTC Desire HD in a brochure was in November 2010, and since then this new HTC Android phone has been advertise with both MTN and Vodacom, but the question still remains is the HTC Desire HD actually available in South Africa.

I have heard of numerous people who are still waiting to get their hands on HTC Desire HD, having already waited more than 6-8 weeks despite the device being advertised by both MTN and Vodacom.

This weekend my wife went to upgrade her phone and one of the device she looked at was the HTC Desire HD, but upon enquiring about the availability of the device, the lady behind the counter quickly told me that they have no idea when they will actually get the device and that she has clients that are waiting for more than 8 weeks already.

Now my question is, and maybe Leaf can answer this, is the HTC Desire HD available in South Africa? And why do cellphone companies advertise products they clearly do not have stock of?

Do you know anybody who has a HTC Desire HD? How did he/she obtain it? Would love to hear.

Samsung has spotted a gap in the market most other manufactures have missed and it is one the iPod Touch has been dominating, but for how long the question remains.

Most smartphone manufacturers have been rushing to bring out their own tablets, but one manufacturer has gone the extra mile and added a smaller touch screen device to their line up of products for this year.

In addition to the new Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1, successor to the popular Samsung GALAXY Tab, Samsung has also announced the Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0, a iPod Touch like device running Android.

“The Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 is the perfect product for multimedia enthusiasts who pursue the new trend of smart experience.” said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business. “There is a huge demand for access to applications and rich multimedia on the go. With the Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 we have created a device that delivers a Samsung GALAXY S Smartphone-like app experience and stunning entertainment features at a reasonable price.”

The Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 is essentially a GALAXY S smartphone with the telephony guts ripped out, delivering users with a full multimedia experience and access to Android Apps without the need of being tied into a cellphone contract.

The GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 comes with Android 2.2 Froyo, a large 4″ touch WVGA Super Clear LCD, a 3.2 Mega Pixel rear-facing, a front facing VGA camera, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, and a GPS receiver, all powered by a 1GHz processor.

Users of the GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 will have access to more than 230 000 applications through the Android Market, and have full turn-by-turn navigation through Google’s Navigation App and the onboard GPS receiver.

This has to be the first true iPod Touch competitor that I know of that runs Android, and must say I can’t understand why we have never seen Android devices like these before. I for one would sure not mind owing a Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0.

The Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 is expected to be available in South Africa from April this year.

HTC is currently unveiling a array of new mobile at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, one of these phones is the successor to the highly popular HTC Desire called the HTC Desire S.

Compared to the original HTC Desire, the HTC Desire S gets a bump up in the RAM, internal storage, battery and also a fixed focus front camera.

The HTC Desire S is a unibody styled phone with a 3.7 WVGA touch screen and Google Android 2.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. There’s a front-facing camera for video calls and video chat and a 5 Mega Pixel camera with power LED flash and auto focus.

- 3.7-inch Super LCD display with 480×800 pixel resolution
- 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 CPU
- 768MB RAM, 1.1GB internal storage and memory expansion slot
- Network: Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and HSPA/WCDMA support
- 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus, power LED flash and promises 720p HD video recording
- VGA front facing camera
- Bluetooth 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
- 3.5mm stereo audio port
- Internal GPS, Gravity Sensor, Digital Compass, Proximity Sensor and Ambient light sensor
- Micro-USB
- 1450 mAh Lithium-ion battery
- 130 grams weight

Barcelona, Spain is currently hosting the Mobile World Congress, a huge conference dedicated to mobile devices where large electronic companies showcase their latest and greatest mobile device, one such company is Samsung.

For a while now rumors has been flying around about the release of the Samsung Galaxy Tab II and the Samsung Galaxy S II, but up until now these was just rumors, Samsung has now officially announced the release of both the Samsung Galaxy Tab II (10.1) and the Samsung Galaxy S II.

Samsung Galaxy S II

The Galaxy S II is an Android 2.3 Gingerbread phone with a 4.3″, 800 x 480 Super AMOLED Plus display, a 1GHz dual-core Orion / Exynos processor, NFC, Bluetooth 3.0, and 24Mbps HSPA+ connectivity. The Galaxy S II is very thin at 8.49mm, which makes it the worlds thinnest smartphone on the market, but for how long I don’t know. The Galaxy S II also features a 8 Mega Pixel Camera AF with LED Flash and 2 Mega Pixel Front-facing Camera.

Samsung Galaxy Tab II (10.1)

The Galaxy Tab II (10.1) is a 10.1″ Android 3.0 Honeycomb Tablet, and has a 1280 x 800 resolution. It features an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor clocked at 1GHz, and storage of either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB. It looks allot similar to the Motorola XOOM tablet. The Galaxy Tab II (10.1) also features a 8 Mega Pixel Camera capable of 1080p video recording at 24fps and a 2 Mega Pixel Front-facing Camera.

Both devices are set to launch in Europe in early March, and with Samsung’s strong presence in South Africa we are likely to see them here not too long after that.

In December 2010, Google announced their latest Smartphone to the market called the Nexus S, since then the Nexus S has only been available in a few select stores in Europe and South America, but that is set to change.

Vodafone has announced yesterday that the Nexus S will be available in all Vodafone store around the world soon and that includes South Africa.

Vodacom has confirmed that they will offer the Google Nexus S with its 4″ curved super AMOLED screen, 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and 16GB storage in South Africa but can not yet comment on the exact date the device will be available.

Why would you want the Google Nexus S as appose to other already locally available Android handsets? To put it simple, the answer is updates. The Nexus S is a Google phone meaning it runs no custom software, just plain Android. Because it runs vanilla Android, users of the Nexus S will get updates as soon as they are available ensuring that they always run the latest Android operating system where as if you have an HTC phone you would probably only get updates a year later because the manufacturer runs custom written software on top of Android.

Would you consider getting yourself the Google Nexus S?

Samsung South Africa has announced that their popular Android tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, will soon see a price cut. This news comes only days after Core Croup, official Apple distributor in South Africa, launched the Apple iPad in South Africa at ridiculously low prices.

Samsung jumped Apple one when they launched the Galaxy Tab in South Africa in late 2010, making it the first officially available tablet in South Africa, but it came at a hefty price of R 7,999.00 just a bit cheaper than what it would cost to import an Apple iPad at the time.

The tables have however now turned with the iPad officially available in South Africa starting at R 4,399.00 for the 16GB WiFi version, almost halve the price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

When Samsung was asked by MyBroadband whether they will be responding to the launch of the iPad, Samsung responded that they have lowered the pricing and will review other channels and price drops as required.

Samsung was however unwilling to reveal with how much they have lowered the price of the Galaxy Tab and also stated that the Galaxy Tab is also a video and voice device that have other competitive differentiators.

Should the Galaxy Tab’s pricing come in line with that of the Apple iPad what tablet would be your first choice?

At an even last night in Mountain View, Google announced the long awaited Android Market website http://market.android.com

For long the only way Android users could explore the Android Market was through the Market app on their mobile phones, which was frustrating and compared to other App Stores, like the Apple App Store, a bit disappointing.

The new Android Market Website is set to change that by allowing Android users to browse through all the apps in the Android Market by category or introduce them to the latest top free and featured apps.

Android users also have the ability to search, something that was previously missing from the old App Marketplace. But for me the greatest feature has to be the auto app download to your phone, with a simple click on the Android Market Website you can request the selected application to download to your phone and install without you needing to touch your phone.

The Android Market Website is clean, fast and easy to browse its easy to see that this will be a hit amongst Android users.

What do you think about the new Android Market Website?