HTC, manufacturer of Android smartphones, have announced some good news for Android users wanting to root their phones and load custom operating systems on them.

The company confirmed in an announcement on the official HTC Facebook page that they are saying goodbye to their locked bootloader policy, and from now on will no longer lock the bootloaders on it’s phones.

‎”There has been overwhelmingly customer feedback that people want access to open bootloaders on HTC phones. I want you to know that we’ve listened. Today, I’m confirming we will no longer be locking the bootloaders on our devices. Thanks for your passion, support and patience,” Peter Chou, CEO of HTC

The move by HTC could see the smartphone brand rise to the top of the Android platform, with die hard techies already saying that they will be moving over to HTC because of this announcement.

Opensource communities will also welcome this announcement and I think we should see more of them supporting HTC and developing custom ROMS for the devices.

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.

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.

Rumors have been doing the round for long that Facebook will be releasing their very own phone to the market, even though Co Founder of Facebook  Mark Zuckerberg denied it, these rumors just wont die.

Its seems that rumors was true, well sort of, but its not Facebook releasing a phone, it’s HTC.

HTC unveiled an array of new phones at the Mobile Web Congress in Barcelona yesterday and two of these phones, the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa, had a very popular social networking site button on them.

Both the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa comes with a dedicated Facebook button on the devices, once the Facebook button is pushed it will lead users directly to the popular social networking website or post content to it automatically, depending on what is being done on the phone at the time.

These handsets are the first of their kind with dedicated Facebook buttons and deeper Facebook integration, but we can expect more phones this year with similar functionality.

The Facebook buttons on both devices are context aware and will gently pulse with light when there is an opertunity to share content or make updates on the devices.

“With a single press of the button, you can update your status, upload a photo, share a website, post what song you are listening to, ‘check in’ to a location and more.” said HTC in a official statement.

Taking pictures and uploading them to Facebook is a breeze, when a user take a photo the simple press of the Facebook button will upload the photo to their Facebook profiles. Facebook messages and convesations will also appear in the phone messages and email inboxes.

HTC phones has for long had pretty good Facebook integration, but with the new HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa they have taken Facebook integration to a whole new level.

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

HTC last week unveiled two new smartphones to the market, the HTC Desire HD and the HTC Desire Z. Both these phones are built on top of the HTC Desire’s success.

Here is a closer look at the HTC Desire Z, a lower end model of the HTC Desire with a QWERTY keyboard.

The HTC Desire has for a while now been the only real competitor for the Apple iPhone and has become the phone of choice for die hard Android fans. Today at the HTC Launch event in the UK, HTC unveiled two new models of the popular Android phone.

The two new models are the HTC Desire HD and the HTC Desire Z, the one a new high end device set to take on the new role of the iPhone 4 alternative and the other a bit more slimmed down version of the normal HTC Desire.

The HTC Desire HD features a new 8 Megapixel camera capable of 720p video recoding with 2 LED flashlights. It also features a large 4.3″ SLCD screen capable of 480×800 resolution, 1.5GB internal memory for storage and 768MB or RAM while maintaining the 1GHz processor.

The HTC Desire Z has a bit of a slimmed down processor coming in at 800MHz, it also has 1.5GB on internal memory for storage, 512MB or RAM, a 3.7″ SLCD screen, and 5 Megapixel camera capable of 720p video recording. The major difference with the HTC Desire Z is that it features a Z-Slider QWERTY keyboard.

Both new models of the HTC Desire will ship with Android Froyo 2.2 and will allow you to share videos, pictures and music to your TV or Display with the help of  DLNA.

Both the HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z will be available from next month overseas so we should hopefully see them here in South Africa within the next few months.

If you are a real geek like me, you are always on the lookout for the next best smartphone deal. Gerhardt Fourie was kind enough to send through this list of specials currently available at MTN while he was busy shopping for his next smarthone.

Here is the specials currently going on at MTN for the month of August 2010:

As far as I know there is no pay-in fee for any of the above phones and the price is the monthly over a period of 24 months. The MTN 200 package includes R200 worth of airtime.

I am glad to see that Samsung is coming to the party with their new Galaxy S and Wave phones and at such a cheap prices. Please note that the N8 is only on pre-order atm and will only be available in September.

[Thanks Gerhardt Fourie]

The HTC Wildfire is HTC’s latest Android phone to hit the South African market. What will make the HTC Wildfire a success? The fact that it is a slimmed down version of the HTC’s high-end Desire smartphone.

Leaf confirmed that HTC Wildfire will be available in South Africa, and that we can expect it at the end of June 2010.

Although HTC introduced it to the market with the latest version of Android Froyo, the HTC Wildfire will instead ship with Android 2.1, same as the HTC Desire is running.

Some things users can expect from the HTC Wildfire include:

-          Android 2.1 Éclair
-          HTC Sense (UI)- 7 Screens and true customization
-          Friendstream- ( aggregates all you Facebook, Twitter and Flickr feeds on one screen )
-          Application Sharing
-          Supports MS Exchange
-          Google maps- with street view.
-          Android Market- 1000’s of applications to download.
-          5MP camera with Flash – photo face tagging & upload
-          528Mhz processor.
-          TFT LCD capacitive touch screen

The HTC Wildfire is aimed at the youth market and are expected to retail for allot less than its bigger brother the HTC Desire. South African can expect the HTC Wildfire end of June 2010.

With the iPhone 4G expected to launch later this year and the tremendous uptake of smartphones, feature phones have been taking a backseat ride as people are now a days more concerned as to what apps a phone can run then the features it has.

I still believe features matter in a phone and every now and again a new phone gets released with some really great features that is worth mentioning. Leaked specs of the HTC Incredible reveal that it is just such a phone worth mentioning as it looks like one incredible device on paper.

The HTC Incredible will feature a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 8 GB internal memory, microSD memory card support, an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and video capture, and a 3.7′-inch, 480×800 pixel OLED screen. Then there is the normal features that you’d expect from a smartphone like Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G, Accelerometer and the latest Android OS, Android 2.1.

The HTC Desire and Legend is set to launch in South Africa the 15th of April 2010, the HTC Desire will be the current top smartphone to hit the South African market. The HTC Incredible is set to top the HTC Desire with regards to specs and shouldn’t disappoint.

Now that’s one bad ass Android phone I would like to get my hands on.