February has been a extremely good month for iGeek, seeing visitors more than double during this month. I would like to thank all the loyal iGeek readers and urge you to further spread the word about iGeek.

February I started to promote iGeek more aggressively using social media and payed more attention to my writing style to help improve my page ranks. This all has paid off very well and the proof is in the stats.

Here is a list of the top visited blog posts for February 2010:

1. JR Show Dem (Make the circle bigger) video
2. Disable Google Buzz mail notifications
3. Straatligkinders Kaptein span die seile video
4. Introducing the 2010 Stormers Vodacom babes
5. The Nerdies 2010 turning into mudslinging competition
6. How to mirror Wikipedia
7. HTC’s Desire to take on Google Nexus One
8. G-Connect Giveaway
9. Got my HTC Hero
10. Web Africa’s new pricing a disappointment

Be sure to check back here often for the latest in Technology and some entertainment news straight from Cape Town. You can also follow me on twitter of join the Facebook fanpage to stay up to date on the latest articles.

Thanks for everybody’s continued support.

The Android based HTC Hero has won the prestigious award of Best Mobile Handset. HTC just announced that its HTC Hero was awarded the prize of the best mobile handset at the 15th Annual Mobile Awards.

“A remarkable 500 entries from across the global mobile ecosystem were submitted this year, all of an extremely high caliber, and the winners should be incredibly proud of their achievements,” said Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board, GSMA.

Since the release of the HTC Hero late in 2009 it has only received great feedback from its consumers and industry analysts in the mobile arena. The HTC Hero features a 528MHz Qualcomm processor as well as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, HSPA, EDGE, and GSM and a 3.2″ capacitive touch screen. The best of all, this all runs on the new and fast growing popular Google Android OS.

HTC recently released some new Google Android phones into the market, be sure to check out the HTC Legend, the Hero’s bigger brother, and HTC Desire. I’m sure one of these handsets will be in line for the best mobile handset award next year aswell.

I just wrote an article about the HTC Desire, HTC’s latest phone to take on the Google Nexus One, but HTC has also introduced another phone called the HTC Legend.

The HTC Legend is the successor to the popular HTC Hero, or its bigger brother. The HTC Legend has a similar 3.2″ screen and that protruding lip at the bottom of the handset as the HTC Hero has.

The HTC Legend is hewn from a single block of aluminium and will ship with Google’s latest Android OS, Android 2.1. It features a 5 megapixel camera just like the Hero but this time there is a single LED flash for taking those pictures in the dark. The Legend unlike its little brother now also boasts a OLED screen which will ensure for more vibrant colours, and will still have the 3.5mm audio jack like in the HTC Hero.

The trackball has once again been scraped like in the HTC Desire in favour of a new optical device. This apparently means a sleeker design and less hardware failures.

The release date for UK has been set for end of March just like the HTC Desire, but if or when South Africa will get this phone only time will tell. I will keep you guys posted on South African dates for the HTC Legend and HTC Desire.

It’s currently the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona and as expected HTC has unleashed a whole bunch of Android smartphones, with one of them being the HTC Desire.

The HTC Desire is HTC’s answer to the Google Nexus one, although the HTC Desire with Google Android operating system is not very ground breaking it is here to compete with the Google Nexus One.

The HTC Desire is a combination of the HTC Hero and Google Nexus one when it comes to looks, and has similiar specs as the Nexus One.

A overview of the HTC Desire specs: the HTC Desire is a Google Android phone and will run Google Android 2.1 with a 1GHz snapdragon processor, same as the Nexus One. It will have 512MB of ROM and 576 MB of RAM memory, a 5 megapixel camera (with flash and autofocus), GPS, and the usual connectivity options: WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G. It will also feature a beautiful AMOLED 3.7 inch multitouch screen capable of 400 x 800 resolution.

What makes the HTC Desire so different from the Google Nexus one? Well it is basicly the same phone except for a small difference in looks and the lack of a trackball that the Nexus One has, and HTC Sense UI that allows for multitouch on the HTC Desire.

Now this is a phone I would trade my HTC Hero in on, although whether South Africa will get this anytime soon we must see.

Since I got my HTC Hero in December last year I have always been browsing the Android Market and Web for some cool apps, and I think this is really one of the coolest apps out there. Cool and extremely geeky.

So you are in a hurry and you lost your keys somewhere in the couch where you were chilling, no problem! Just get your Android phone and fire up the Metal Detector app and swipe it over the couch, it will start vibrating when it passes the keys.

The Metal Detector app works on all Android models that has the built-in magnetometer that is used for the compass. Wow sorry normal Apple iPhone users, I believe only the iPhone 3Gs has this functionality.

Here is a video demonstrating the Metal Detector App

Android users get your Metal Detector App for free from the Android Market, just search for “metal detector”. BTW if you haven’t got a Google Android based phone yet, you can win one at Web AddiCT(s);

Vacation time is over and now its time to get back to business. Some of you may recall that just before the Holidays I was lucky enough to get a HTC Hero powered by the great new mobile OS from Google, Google Android.

I have been using the Hero now over the holidays and has gotten quite familiar with the OS and I’m loving it to bits. The HTC Hero is not the only phone currently available in South Africa running the Google Android OS, there is also the HTC Magic, HTC Tattoo and HTC Dream.

There is also the OpenMoko any geeks dream when it comes to phones. Why you ask? Well just because its open source and you can basically run anything on it the cpu and memory is capable of. The OpenMoko works well with Google Android and now you can win one.

Rafiq from WebAddict(s) is now running a competition where you can walk away with a OpenMoko phone capable of running Google Android. All you have to do to win this Google Android phone is to follow the steps on WebAddict(s).

Last week I got the news that I was eligible for an upgrade, at first I wanted to port to Vodacom to get the iPhone as I have played around with a few of them and love it, but after some consideration and a hefty price tag my attention turned toward the HTC Hero or iPhone killer as some say.

It was a mission to get hold of one, as everybody is either out of stock and only expects new stock in the next year or does not get the phone until next year. Lucky for me the guys at Durbanville MTN shop got hold of an HTC Hero in only one day, great service from them, and I picked up my Hero yesterday.

The phone is absolutely superb, I’m loving every aspect of it and can see why people are saying that it’s the iPhone killer. The HTC hero is lightning fast with applications and menus opening instant without any sign of hesitation. A nice feature is the Accelerometer, one example I tested was with Google Maps in street view. Enabling the digital compass feature and physically moving around with the phone in your hand made the street-view move around as if you where standing in the street and looking up, down, left or right.

Out of the box the Android operating system asks you for login details to social networking sites like Facebook, twitter and Flicker and integrates it into your home screens if you would like to. Importing contacts was a breeze specially since I had all my contacts in Gmail, Android just asked me to sync with my GMail account and voila there all my contacts was imported.

The Android market place is also a breeze to operate with all the apps you can think of, 99% of the kind of apps I searched for where free.

The 5 mega-pixel camera of the HTC Hero is also very nice, it takes very high quality images that is sharp and crisp. One downside of the camera is I would have liked a flash, but its not the end of the world.

I’m definitely a Android fan now, and won’t turn back anytime soon. The Hero is sure to give Apple iPhone a run for its money.

If you are due for an upgrade have a look at the Hero, I’m sure you’d like it. I’ll be writing more about Android and Tips and Tricks for the HTC Hero and Android marketplace from now on here.