The T-Mobile Sidekick 4G is now available for the subscribers of the fourth-largest US carrier for $99.99 with a two-year contract.

The new Sidekick is sure to be a decent option for these lads and ladies who love nothing better than to write their blogs and messages on a large, well-spaced physical QWERTY. The Sidekick 4G’s specs are nothing to frown about either, as it offers a 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor, two cameras – a 3MP rear one and a VGA front-facer, Android Froyo, 3.5-inch screen with WVGA resolution and access to T-Mo’s 4G network.

These are the specs, but if you want to know the real-world performance of this new incarnation of the Sidekick, go this way for our T-Mobile Sidekick 4G Review.

source: T-Mobile

A few days ago we exclusively informed you there is a great likelihood that the handset which we met as the Motorola DROID BIONIC at CES 2011 won’t be the phone that’s going to see commercial release with the DROID BIONIC brand.

As you may remember, our tipsters claimed that the model that was showed-off during CES 2011 (codenamed “Etna”) will never see the light of day. However, that’s not to say that Verizon won’t launch a phone named “DROID BIONIC”, as it is alleged that Big Red is firmly determined to use this brand, only that it will be a different device altogether – please, shift your attention to the Motorola “Targa“.

Confirmation now comes from Motorola (quoted by WSJ) stating the launch of the Motorola DROID BIONIC will happen in the summer. A spokeswoman gives the following reason for this postponement:

“Based on compelling feedback since [Consumer Electronics Show in January], we are incorporating several enhancements to make this an even better consumer experience.”

Just what we told you, isn’t it?

source: WSJ

You feel like rerunning an old episode of the Sopranos for some wisdom coming out of Paulie Gualtieri? You will be able to do just that on the go, with a fancy official app.

HBO has finally decided to bring its world-famous TV content to the smartphone and tablet universe. Dubbed HBO GO, the app will appear both on iOS and Android, and will allow you access to the premium channel’s content, such as all episodes of each and every soap that has appeared on HBO, plus a garnish of original movies.

HBO GO is supposed to go live on May 2nd (at least that’s the timeframe in the teaser video below), and will be available for free for current HBO subscribers. Mum’s the word on non-subscribers, or Bill Maher, for that matter.

via Engadget

What a day for equality in the Android Market. As we reported early on Tuesday, the CNN app that turned Android users green with envy over its long time appearance in the App Store, became available in the Android Market. And on Tuesday, the official White House app, a App Store exclusive since January 2010, also joined the Android Market as a free download.

The app offers videos and pictures of presidential happenings, news of events, announcements and press briefings. Some of this will be available as they occur in real time. With the app, which has already been downloaded 400,000 times, you get a notification when the President is about to speak.

Although the White House app is available for the Android and iOS platform, any mobile browser using a different OS can use the optimized mobile White House web page at http://m.whitehouse.gov.

source: TheWhiteHouse via Engadget

The nation’s fourth largest carrier sent out a Tweet that turned speculation into an official launch date. Wednesday, April 20th, the T-Mobile G-Slate tablet will be in the carrier’s stores. Offered at a price of $529.99 after a $100 rebate and a signed 2-year contract, the LG manufactured device is the next Honeycomb flavored Android tablet to hit the market.

In addition to sending out a tweet, T-Mobile spread the word about the G-Slate in its blog, making favorable price and speed comparisons with the Apple iPad 2 and the Motorola XOOM. T-Mobile compared the price of the 32GB G-Slate to the $729.99 that both AT&T and Verizon charge for the 32GB Apple iPad 2. The XOOM is $599.99 on Verizon and all three tablets use the respective carrier’s 3G network.

Wait! There’s more. The “LG Girl” was given a G-Slate to use as the video below shows you. “OMG!”, she exclaims. The LG Girl couldn’t put the tablet down as you will see when you click the play button. Will you be able to put down the T-Mobile G-Slate if you pick one up starting Wednesday? Let us know by leaving us a comment in the box below.

source: T-MobileBlog via AndroidGuys

According to this tweet, the T-Mobile G-0Slate will be in the stores Wednesday for $529.99 after a $100 rebate and a signed 2-year contract

A tweet was sent out today to let everyone know that the Droid Landing site is being prepared for the arrival of a new Droid handset for Verizon. The tweet passed along the word that the site has been reactivated and Field agents (that’s you-the Droid fan) are awaiting instructions.

Besides waiting to hear what the instructions are, Field agents would love to know which upcoming handset the search will involve. Will it be the Samsung Droid Charge, the HTC Droid Incredible 2 or even the Motorola DROID X2?

Previously, Droid handsets have been given away to those, uh, Field Agents who were able to find specified items which unlocked certain parts of a specified teaser page. Verizon did this with the Motorola DROID 2 R2-D2 limited edition handset and the Motorola DROID X. And now, once again, Big Red has dusted off the Droid Landing site in preparation for the next big Droid launch.

source: Twitter (@DroidLanding), via AndroidCentral

Analyst Horace Dediu of asymco has come to the conclusion that by some time in 2012, Android users will overtake the installed base of iOS users. Graphing the number of activations each quarter, the analyst says that currently Apple has 191 million users after 48 months. In 31 months, Android totals 83 million users. Deidu deduces that the latter will overcome the former by sometime in 2012 based on current rates of momentum and growth.

Of course, momentum is not a static number. Things change, new features get offered, and the analysis done by Dediu assumes that everything stays the same.  The analyst adds, “One should be careful about drawing conclusions that this implies effective competition. Both platforms are growing very quickly. iOS is growing at at least 100%/yr and Android’s second year was 65x bigger than its first. iOS growth is limited by the ramp rates of a limited portfolio of products. Android growth is limited by how quickly vendors can bring out products. Neither platform is demand constrained and hence they are competing for share of growth not for share of a fixed pie.”

He also says that “extrapolation is a dangerous game.” For example, had he done this comparison even just a week prior to the launch of the original Motorola DROID, the results would have looked quite different.

source: asymco via AndroidGuys

According to analyst Horace Dediu of asymco, by next year Android users could number the number of iOS users

On some level, we all knew the app rankings were flawed. Particularly among the ‘Top Free’ apps, we’ve all downloaded countless ‘Top’ apps that really turned out to be duds. And that’s exactly how they got to the top; by being enticing, and getting lots of downloads.

But experts have noticed a recent change in both Google’s Android Market and Apple’s App Store. Apps are seemingly getting more recognition for retention, while the pretty-faced-lemon apps are dropping in the rankings.

Peter Farago of Flurry, an analytics firm, offered the following: “We’ve been noticing changes in ‘Top Free’ rankings for at least three days now…From our point of view, Apple is absolutely considering more than just downloads, which we believe is the right direction to go to measure the true popularity of an app.”

The changes in the App Store mirror those recognized in the Android Market last month. Experts say that the revised algorithm must be taking into account Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU). So frequently accessed apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Pandora are rising to more appropriately prestigious app rankings. Have you noticed the change?

source: Guardian

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the fastest browser of them all? Microsoft decided to find out the answer to this question by putting an Apple iPhone, a Nexus S and an HTC Windows Phone 7 device through a browser battle. Without trying to give anything away, we can tell you that the benchmark used in the battle was made by Microsoft, the video was filmed by the guys from Redmond and this all took place at a Microsoft conference. Want to take a guess now which platform won?

We also need to tell you that the browser used on the HTC Windows Phone 7 device is the upcoming IE9 with hardware acceleration in the browser which means that the software on the HTC Windows Phone 7 device is not yet available for the public to use. Using an unreleased browser to compete with two browsers currently available possibly skews the results in favor of a desired objective-it is not playing on a level playing field. In fact, it is like comparing oranges to an Apple-and an Android.

source: YouTube via GeekWire, ElectricPig

This may be the very first time you hear of the OGT Tablet, but chances are it won’t be the last, as this tab is to pack a 188 ppi display (just for comparison’s sake, the iPad 2’s display features 132 pixels per inch, while the Motorola XOOM’s one has 160 ppi), unspecified 1GHz processor and is set to be advertised with the catchy “the world’s thinnest Android tablet” tag.

And, jeez, the creators of this tab really want to redefine the meaning of the word “thin” – we can’t help but point out it’s a wee bit thinner than anything else that has been announced in the tablet market so far – both the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 stand at 0.34, while the OGT Tablet is only 0.27. Impressive.

These things aside, the OGT Tablet will also offer two cameras – a 5MP rear one and a 3MP front-facer, as well as a microSD card slot. Both 3G and Wi-Fi versions of the tab will be available, and you will be able to choose between 32GB and 64GB models.

So far, so good, really. We don’t know about you, but we are really waiting for the official announcement of the OGT Tablet.

source: OGT via Android Central