Just a few days ago, we reported that the DROID 2 World Edition would be equipped with a 1.2GHz processor instead of the 1GHz chip on the DROID 2.. So perhaps it shouldn’t be too shocking that speculation is growing that the limited R2-D2 edition of the Motorola DROID 2 to launch at the end of this month, will also sport a 1.2GHz chip. How ironic it is that in just a few days, the Star Wars Special Edition of the DROID 2 will escalate the speed race in the cell phone industry.

We also can now clear up a mystery. When the DROID 2 R2-D2 Special Edition was first announced, it was to be sold only online. Now, the word is that each participating store will have 200 handsets in stock and once they are all sold, that will be it for that location. If it is true that the limited edition will have a 1.2GHz processor, demand is going to be high, so if you want this device, your best bet might be to order from Verizon’s web site as soon as the clock strikes 12 on September 30th.
source: BGR

Consumers will have to wait just longer to experience a Samsung Galaxy Tab that’s in equal stature to the current selection of iPads as the 10” version of the Android powered tablet is slated for release some time during the first half of 2011.

The revelation comes directly from Gary Twohig, manager of Samsung Mobile in Ireland, which will undoubtedly throw a pickle into the path of potential Samsung Galaxy Tab owners out there. Sure, you can purchase one of the many variants expected to become readily available this holiday season, but the 10” version is going to come along with a V8 JavaScript Engine which was a feature touted with Froyo.

There are other speculations that Samsung is holding out on releasing the 10” Tab in order to wait for the next iteration of Android to better optimize the tablet experience. So if you have a lot of patience and can withstand the temptation of getting the Samsung Galaxy Tab this holiday season, you may be in for a treat when the 10” Tab makes it to market.
source: Silicon Republic

Some leaked photos and specs of the Motorola DROID 2 World Edition have been released and they are certainly interesting at the least. Want to start with the ARM V7 processor with the dial turned all the way to 1.2GHz? Many of the other specs are familiar to those with the DROID X or DROID 2, such as the 3.7 inch screen with a resolution  of 480 x 854, a 5MP camera, the version of Blur that is on the DROID X and 2, and the same physical QWERTY from the DROID 2. We would expect the device to be launched with Android 2.2, which of course means Flash Player 10.1 would come pre-installed on the phone.

The new processor certainly helps with benchmark scoring as the Quadrant test came in at 1566 and 1709 during an encore. The DROID X with Froyo scored 1431 which shows you the nature of the Beast named Droid 2 World Edition. The Linpack score was 16.499. If you have a need for speed, you might want to seriously consider this your next handset. Unfortunately, no information on launch date and price have been discovered.
source: DroidLife

NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor will apparently be powering HTC’s upcoming Android tablet, according to a DigiTimes report. The dual-core processor has already been selected for use on some Froyo flavored tablets, but the Taiwan based manufacturer plans on using Android 3.0 for their tablet which is now due out in 2011. The report goes on to say that Pegatron will be building the device, which will be equipped with a 1280 x 720 display and be multi-touch enabled. It will also offer 2GB of memory, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth.

Both HTC and Motorola appear to have tablets ready to roll out, but the pair are waiting for Google to finish development of Android 3.0. It is also possible that that the Honeycomb build of Android will be the version optimized for tablets. Neither HTC or Pegatron would comment on the story.

For NVIDIA, grabbing the businesses from HTC would be another sign that the company is quickly becoming the platform to use for tablets because of the company’s focus on the technology used for GPU chips. The inclusion of the Tegra 2 processor on Android flavored devices is expected to make for stronger multimedia performance than what is currently seen on the iPad.
source: DigiTimes

Just when things were starting to look rather stale on the software side with Sony Ericsson’s line of Android powered Xperia smartphones, out of nowhere comes a purported leaked road map showing updates for the devices. The document itself is in German and is said to come directly from the IFA event held last week in Berlin – which naturally holds some juicy details regarding Android updates.

For starters, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is looking to receive its dose of Eclair which will provide noteworthy items such as 720p video capture with continuous auto-focus, HTML 5 support in the browser, a total of 5 homescreens, and the integration of Facebook and Twitter with your contacts.

Other devices like the X10 mini, X10 mini pro, and X8 will also be a part of the Android 2.1 Eclair eating club which will tack on things like an incremental change in the four corner navigation and Bluetooth 2.1. Moving past all of the Android 2.1 news with the X10 handsets, it looks as though Sony Ericsson is planning on doing something with 2.1x which is alleged to offer an improved UX platform to both Mediascape and Timescape.

Sure it’s nice for current handset owners to know that Eclair will spruce things up for their dated Android 1.6 experience, but there is no mention in the leaked document regarding any hints of Froyo for any of the smartphones. Additionally, there is no time frame on when we’ll be seeing these updates begin to roll out.
source: Xperia X10 Blog

At the end of the month, Verizon will be releasing the R2-D2 limited edition of the Motorola DROID 2. A video that appears to be the official boot-up animation for the phone has been found. The device will be available through online sales only, starting September 30th, and has all of the features that the Motorola DROID 2 has, including the installation of Android 2.2 out of the box.

If you are feeling ambitious, or if you are a die hard Star Wars fan and would cross over to the dark side just to have this boot-up animation on your DROID, DROID X or DROID 2, you can call on the Force and use a Jedi mind trick to install it on your phone. If that doesn’t work (for some reason), check out the sourcelink for directions.
source: DroidLife

Hot on the heels of HTC’s major handset announcements in London, there are already speculations about the Taiwan-based manufacturer in regards to tablet computing. Some were hoping to hear or see something officially during the recent festivities, but sadly, no mention of it was ever uttered publicly about it.

However, DigiTimes is reporting that the company is moving forward as they intend on getting their feet wet in the tablet business seeing that it’s rumored that we will see an HTC Android powered tablet some time during Q1 of 2011. In addition, it’s pegged to run Android 3.0 which is looking to make its presence widely known some time around this busy holiday season, and should most likely make its way onto HTC’s tablet.

Digitimes reported: “For marketing tablet PCs, HTC will have an advantage thanks to its strong ties with Google and established cooperation with mobile telecom carriers around the world, the sources pointed out, adding that if the performance and quality of the new device is on par with its smartphones, continuous support from these strategic partners is expected.” Based on that, the source mentioned appears to be component manufacturers that might already be in the loop regarding HTC’s tablet intentions, but then again, it could be nothing more than general assumptions at this point. Moreover, it’s rather difficult to infer whether or not these speculations can be taken to heart especially when they’re still weak in tone, but then again, you never know what might come out of it all.
source: DigiTimes

Metrics firm Gartner has released some exciting news for fans of Google’s open source OS. The momentum that has behind Android ever since the launch of the Motorola DROID has continued to lift the OS to the point where it is expected to be the world’s second largest mobile platform by the end of this year. The Symbian platform currently wears the crown.

At the end of last year, Android had a market share of only 3.9% which put it behind Symbian’s controlling 46.9%, RIM’s 19.9%, the 14.4% belonging to iOS and Windows Mobile 8.7%. But 2010 has belonged to the green robot and by the end of the year, Gartner expects Android’s piece of the pie to rise to 17.7% which will leap frog third place RIM (17.5%), iOS (15.4%) and Windows Mobile (4.7%). Symbian’s share is predicted to drop to 40.1% as the ball drops on Times Square.

Over the next two years, Gartner forecasts more sliding for Symbian, to a 30.2% slice by the end of 2014. Android should be a breath behind with 29.6% of the market. Interestingly, the company predicts a rather slower pace of growth for Apple with iOS owning 14.9% of the pie which is enough to pass a rapidly declining RIM, but not enough to challenge Symbian or Android. RIM’s total should be slightly above 11% by the end of 2014.

It’s an amazing story how Android has really taken hold of the consciousness of the cellphone market. Going from worse to first is an inspirational lesson, as fans of the Tampa Bay Rays learned a few years ago. If Gartner has read the tea leaves correctly, the open source OS has some more years of amazing growth ahead of it.
source: Gartner

Motorola’s rumored Stingray Android tablet has been glimpsed at again on Verizon’s internal systems, coded MZ600, as usual. Google, however, commented that Android is making its way onto tablets because it is an open source platform, and anybody can use it in a way they see fit, but, overall, it has not been optimized for tablets yet.

El Goog went on to pour some cold showers on manufacturers that Android Market will not be available on all tablets, and its presence will be decided on a case-by-case basis. That’s because the great majority of apps, and the Android interface itself, are not optimized for the tablets’ resolutions and experience. We know that Google mentioned its next version of Android, Gingerbread, will focus on the interface, and the user experience, thus trying to make it pointless for OEMs to lay custom skins over the stock appearances. Furthermore, there have been rumors that Gingerbread will be focusing specifically on suiting the Android interface for tablet living.

Putting two and two together from what we know about Motorola’s tablet, the Stingray might very well be the first device we will see Gingerbread on. It has the guts – Motorola will probably be using the dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 as a chipset, and the glory – Google is working directly with Motorola on the Stingray.

Considering how the DROID became the best-selling Android device, and not only on Verizon, Motorola might be again Google’s poster child, for an Android Gingerbread tablet this time. Out of the many rumors floating about Motorola’s tablet, we choose to believe in Verizon’s roadmap that a tipster sent to us, stating that the MZ600 will be available on Big Red in November. That would nicely coincide with the holiday shopping mania, wouldn’t it?
source: PhanDroid & TechRadar

We remember that a few months ago Motorola was planning to release a 2GHz phone this year. Considering that 2GHz+ SoCs are not coming before 2012 at least, it was hard to believe that Moto has a grasp on some unknown to mankind technology, but we loved the swirl of speculation that followed this statement.

Now it might turn out that Motorola meant two cores humming at 1GHz each, and the words could have been taken out of context. Out of all dual-core mobile chipset, only the next generation Snapdragon, and NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 have already shipped to manufacturers. The newest Snapdragon is probably going to HTC, so that leaves Tegra 2, if Motorola is to keep those 2GHz (rather 2×1GHz) promises.

Motorola is traditionally using TI’s OMAP family of chipsets for the DROID family, and OMAP4 will be a dual-core Cortex-A9 endeavor, but it is still not ready for commercial shipments, from what we know. However, Moto has claimed that it will have NVIDIA graphics in its units, and that again leaves us with only one possible chipset choice for a dual-core flagship Motorola phone later this year.

That coincides with the rumors that NVIDIA and Motorola are buddy-buddies with Google on the next version of Android codenamed Gingerbread, which just accidentally might be tailored to tablets. So, for all we know, the dual-core Tegra 2 might appear first in the Motorola Stingray tablet, considering that we are already seeing NVIDIA-powered tablets multiplying like microwaveable popcorn.

Of course, that would mean that Gingerbread will be ready for the holidays, so we just hope this chain of thoughts doesn’t turn out to be a train wreck.
source: AndroidandMe