The Nokia N900 Gingerbread port comes courtesy of Alexey Roslyakov, a Russian coder, better known under the nickname DrunkDebbuger. He says a publicly available experimental release should come before the year’s end, which means in less than a week. Of course it’s not completely functional at this stage, but cellular data, Wi-Fi and sound are a go and naturally support for the rest of the hardware is being added as we speak.

If being an alpha tester isn’t much to your liking, you can try the stable Android 2.2.1 Froyo release for your N900. Roslyakov says it should be available for Christmas.

The final bit of good news is that there will be some kind of Android release for the Nokia N900 in time for the old calendar Christmas (7 January).

It seems that all N900 owners have made Santa’s Good kid book this year.

The rumors on the upcoming Samsung-made Nexus 2 a.k.a. Nexus S have just been reborn. The first hands-on shots of the smartphone have just surfaced and so have some details on it, thanks to the FCC website.

The next-gen Nexus phone was first expected to show up on 8 November 2010, but Samsung announced the Continuum instead and we almost lost hope that we will ever see a second Nexus phone.

Yet over the past 24 hours the Samsung-made Google Nexus S popped up on a bunch of websites (of the FCC, Wi-Fi Alliance and Best Buy Mobile) and, most excitingly, we finally got to enjoy some live shots of the smartphone.

Samsung Google Nexus S

And while the I9020 Nexus S doesn’t look much like the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S on the outside, those are said to be identical on the inside, save for the Android 2.3 a.k.a. Gingerbread that the Nexus S should be powered by.

We can expect a 5MP AF camera with HD video recording, Bluetooth 3.0 and 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity and maybe the gorgeous 4″ Super AMOLED touchscreen found on the Galaxy S.

There is still no word on the Nexus S launch date and price tag but keeping in mind that the Gingerbread should come any moment now, we shouldn’t wait for too long to get all our questions answered.

The Android v2.1 Eclair packing Vodafone 945 and the QWERTY slider feature phone Vodafone 553 are the two new additions into the carrier’s lineup, while Vodafone 543 gets refreshed in Miss Sixty fashion.

Vodafone 945 is the successor of the company’s first Android – the 845. The upgrade involves a 3.2-inch WQVGA capacitive touch display and a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash. The rest stays the same – 3G with HSDPA support, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, microSD card slot and 300MB internal storage. Vodafone 945 also runs on the same OS as 845 – Android v2.1 Eclair. No word on Froyo yet.

Vodafone 945

Vodafone 553 is a QWERTY slider with 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, FM radio and microSD card slot. 553 is a feature phone with touch-based proprietary software packing Vodafone 360 People phonebook and Opera Mini 5.

Vodafone 553

Meanwhile Vodafone and Miss Sixty prepare an exclusive refresh of Vodafone 543. The new edition will come with Miss Sixty customized covers and phone accessories.

Vodafone 543 Miss Sixty

All three devices should be cheap and available for the holiday season.

The BlackBerry Storm and its sequel didn’t do so hot when RIM was trying to break into the touch phone market. But as they say, third time’s the charm – the first BlackBerry Storm 3 photos hit the interwebs and they look like an improvement.

The BlackBerry Storm 3 reportedly has a bigger screen than its predecessors – 3.7″ unit looks much roomier than the 3.25″ screens on the Storm and Storm 2. There’s no info on the resolution though, hopefully it’s got a bump from the 360×480 pixels resolution of the previous versions.

First photo of the BlackBerry Storm 3 • The BlackBerry Torch 9800 in red

The Storm 3 also features Wi-Fi hotspot connectivity, says the rumor-mill, and 8GB of built-in memory. There’s an optical trackpad this time around.

A leaked slide from July allegedly had info on the Storm 3 – BlackBerry OS 6 (and the WebKit browser it brings), 512MB RAM and support for microSD cards up to 32GB. The camera is listed as 5MP and there’s Wi-Fi 802.11n support. SurePress is back too, even though it was dropped for the BlackBerry Torch 9800.

So far so good – but here’s where things start getting iffy. Check out the slide – there doesn’t seem to be a trackpad. And there’s that gossip that the Storm2 we’ll be actually getting an almost silent refresh (the one on the slide) so it stays as a current model, while the real BlackBerry Storm 3 is the device pictured in hand above. So for now, take everything with a big pinch of salt.

Since we mentioned the Torch, check out the second photo – it looks great in red.

The first country to get an unlocked Aria will be the HTC homeland, Taiwan. The handset should hit the shelves tomorrow but we couldn’t quite see what the pricing will be. The machine-translated press release mentions 14900 yuan but considering that this is about 1700 euro, a price of 1490 seems much more likely.

Update: One of our readers tipped us that the quoted price is 14900 Taiwanese dollars, which equals just over 400 euro. Ouch!

Technically HTC haven’t mentioned a word about the Aria hitting other countries, but once the exclusivity chains are broken, this should be inevitable. It’s not like we can’t put to good use a nice little midrange Android handset with sleek design and sensible price tag around here in Europe.

You heard that right, the Android 2.2 Froyo update for the HTC Desire will enable the 720p video recording rumored from the very beginning. The HTC Sync software will also enable iTunes syncing.

The updated software for the Euro HTC Desire will of course keep the signature HTC Sense UI and bring the App Share widget and HTC’s enhanced Caller ID and a better multi-language keyboard.

The update process is simple – users will be notified when the update is available and the update won’t wipe the data from the phone. HTC suggests you hook up your Desire to a Wi-Fi network before you download the update to avoid data charges.

Unlocked HTC Desire phones will be the first to score Froyo, but owners of carrier-branded phones should be getting the update “in several weeks time”.

This piece of news comes hot on the heels of the announcement that the HTC Evo 4G phones on Sprint will be getting Froyo next week.

Both devices run on Android v1.6 Donut, have 3.2 megapixel snappers, ST Ericsson 416MHz processors, 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM, and full connectivity package – Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, FM radio and 3.5mm audio jack. The common specs sheets end with an accelerometer for auto-rotate and a microSD card slot.

Acer beTouch E120 sports 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen, while beTouch E130 uses 2.6-inch landscape QVGA touchscreen and full-QWERTY keyboard below it. The QWERTY bar form factor is definitely a novelty in the Android world.

We are already familiar with E130, since it was recently showcased at Computex 2010.

Acer beTouch E120 • Acer beTocuh E130

Both beTouch devices run on Android OS v1.6 Donut and will feature additional software such as Acer Spinlets (for accessing or sharing media content) and UrFooz (for social networking).

Both phones will be released in Q3 this year in black and white versions. Acer beTouch E120 will hit the shelves in mid-July, while its QWERTY sibling E130 is expected in August. There is no word on pricing yet.

Three is the latest major UK carrier to announce that it will get the iPhone 4 at launch. Launching its pre-order campaign on 15 June and starting actual sales on 24 June, Three becomes the fifth UK operator to offer Apple’s latest mobile phone.

Meanwhile O2 announced that it will offer its subscribes an early upgrade if they go for the iPhone 4. You will be able to pay off the reminder of your contract and get an iPhone 4 on a new 18 or 24-month one (AT&T style).

O2 will charge you with 20 pounds for each of the remaining months of your contract, no matter how much you are really paying. That’s about 30% off the cheapest iPhone tariff. This way it will still be cheaper to pay off your contract and get a new one, instead of buying a SIM-free iPhone.

There is a catch of course – you will lose the change-of-mind period option. So once you’ve decided to go the iPhone 4 way, there is no turning back.

With five carriers throwing tempting iPhone 4 offers your way it has to feel good to be British these days.

Introduction

Modern always-on web-connected generation need so much equipment to get through the day it’s a small wonder they don’t have to lug tool bags around – the small wonder in this case is the Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro. It’s a full-featured smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard for great messaging and 720p video recording, all in an impressively compact body.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro official photos

The term “cameraphone” emerged soon after pictures taken with a mobile phone began to look less like impressionist paintings and more like actual photos. Today we’re at a point when 5MP are nothing to write home about.

So, this here pro is the lesser cameraphone of the Vivaz pair. And “camcorderphone” does sound clumsy. But if competing phones are any indication, 5MP stills and 720p video is quite an exciting combo.

Less attention grabbing, but no less useful is the hardware QWERTY keyboard. Sure, there are plenty of phones around with a full keyboard, but how many of them can match the Sony Ericsson Vivaz feature set?

To answer that, we need to know what those features are of course, so here’s the traditional list of pros and cons.

Key features

• 3.2″ 16M-color resistive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, face and smile detection, geotagging and touch focus
• HD 720p video recording @ 24fps with continuous auto focus
• Symbian OS 9.4 S60 5th, topped with a custom-brewed homescreen and media menu
• 720 MHz CPU, PowerVR SGX dedicated graphics accelerator
• Quad-band GSM support
• 3G with HSDPA 10.2Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps support
• Wi-Fi b/g; DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS support
• microSD card slot (up to 16GB, 8GB card in the box)
• Built-in accelerometer; Turn-to-mute
• TV out
• Wisepilot navigation software preinstalled (30 day trial)
• Four-row QWERTY keyboard
• Office document viewer
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS; TrackID
• microUSB and stereo Bluetooth v2.0
• Web browser with full Flash support
• Decent audio quality

Main disadvantages

• Camera downgraded from 8MP on the regular Vivaz
• No camera lens protection
• The S60 5th edition UI isn’t the best in usability
• No auto locking of the screen during a call
• No DivX or XviD support out-of-the-box
• No smart or voice dialing
• No secondary videocalling camera

The scales are swinging both ways. A point in favor of the Vivaz pro is the mature Symbian platform. It cannot hide its age and is struggling to catch up with the best in business. But it’s been around since the dawn of time (the time of smartphones that is), which makes it well supported and very reliable.

The QWERTY keyboard, the document viewer and the ActiveSync support are real must-haves for the business crowd. High-quality photos and videos may be a teenage thing but they can help be creative with a presentation too.

Another way to look at the Vivaz pro is as a great travel companion. Posting status updates on Twitter and Facebook is a breeze thanks to the keyboard and dedicated apps. And so is uploading 720p videos to YouTube. There’s even voice guided navigation included.

How the Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro stacks up against the competition

Follow us on the next page to explore the hardware of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro and find out how the form factor and keyboard affect handling.

The first signs of an Eclair update coming to the Hero appeared a few months back but as it turns out it’s only now that HTC are finally ready to release the Android v2.1 update for the device.

According to company’s support page you can download the update Over-the-Air (preferably on Wi-Fi). HTC didn’t mention any other improvements to come along with the new firmware other than the new features inherent to the fresher Android version.

Currently, Android v2.1 update for HTC Hero is only available for the users across Taiwan but it should spread around the globe soon.