Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update starts rolling out

The long-awaited Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update has started rolling out to devices. Microsoft is taking the cautious route by rolling it out to select handsets in the first week, followed by more handsets getting the update if everything goes smooth the first time.

Devices getting the update will see a notification on their phone and after that they will be required to connect the device to their PC or Mac and use the respective clients to update the software on the phone.

For those who are not aware, Windows Phone 7.5 Mango brings the much needed and highly-requested multitasking functionality. Post-update, you will be able to press and hold the back button on your device and scroll through tiles of recently used apps. Applications can now save their state when you switch, so you can for example switch from a game to email and then back to the game and continue from where you left off. Of course, for this to work, the application must support multitasking.

Other additions include Groups in which you can add a bunch of people and see their updates and send messages to everyone in the group simultaneously, Twitter integration, which shows the tweets of the people you follow in the People hub, Local Scout that uses Bing Maps and Search to show you interesting places around you based on your current location, visual voicemail (requires operator support), improved Live Tiles, persistent camera settings that don't go back to default values when you close the camera app, Wi-Fi hotspot functionality and much more. You can click here to see the full list of additions in Mango.

Nokia Sabre gets leaked out by Microsoft

Microsoft's Canadian division accidentally spilled the beans on a mysterious Nokia phone, bearing the name Sabre. The leak came from a rather unexpected and, dare we say, a bit boring part of the Windows Phone developer competition announcement - the terms and conditions section to be precise.

As you can see in the picture above, the Nokia Sabre was mentioned along with its Searay counterpart, and two Samsung devices, dubbed Yukon and Wembley. Unfortunately, there is no available information on the device's specifications at this point.

As far as the Samsung devices are concerned, there is a strong probability that one of them might be the recently announced Omnia W.

HTC EVO Design 4G press shot leaks to complete the puzzle

The first press shot of the Sprint-bound HTC EVO Design 4G leaked today, completely revealing the mystery around the smartphone before launch. The specs of the high-end Android handset leaked a while ago and now we also know what it looks like.

In case you need a quick memory refresh, the HTC EVO Design 4G (previously known as HTC Kingdom) will come with a 1.2 GHz dual-core Scorpion CPU and 768 MB of RAM. Its 4-inch LCD will sport qHD resolution, while the camera at t

he back will be doing 720p video and 8 megapixel stills. A WiMax radio has also been confirmed.

We are hoping that in the time passed since the previous leak HTC did some changes to that list and the EVO Design 4G would actually come with a 1.5 GHz CPU, like the recently announced Sensation XE.

With the press shots already made, the actual announcement of the EVO Design 4G can't be far away really.

HTC Explorer Is Budget-Friendly Android Handset

Another day, another leaked image of a HTC Android phone. The latest handset to be leaked prior to its official launch, is to be called the HTC Explorer.

Yesterday the Taiwanese company finally unveiled the female-specific HTC Rhyme following similar leaks in the previous week. The HTC Explorer, or the Pico as it has also been called, has already been seen in rather inelegant and blurry pictures but what we have here looks very much like official renders from HTC itself.

 

The handset itself features a small 3.2in screen with a HVGA resolution, a 600MHz processor, a five megapixel camera, and 384MB of RAM.

It will obviously be targeted at the budget end of the market but will still come with Android Gingerbread, skinned with the latest version of Sense (3.5). It is set to arrive in both blue and black and looks like it could take over from the Wildfire S in the HTC Android handset line-up.

HTC are hosting an event here in London early next month when we expect to see a variety of handsets including the Explorer and the oddly-named HTC Runnymede.

We’ll be covering the event live so stay tuned for all the latest news from the busy Taiwanese company.

HTC Sensation to get a CPU speed bump to 1.5 GHz, says FCC

We have some good news for those in the US that plan on purchasing an HTC Sensation 4G. The manufacturer of the Android smartphone just got its request to make hardware changes to the Sensation approved by the HTC.

The request involves pushing up the CPU speed to 1.5GHz and replacing the battery with a bigger one. We already knew that the bigger battery that ships with the Beats-loving Sensation XE is compatible with the original Sensation, but we thought that the only way to get it is to purchase it as an accessory.

Anyway, HTC is obviously going to bring the US Sensation on par with the Sensation XE in terms of battery life and performance. Now, if only they would release a firmware update with the Beats audio tweaks, the difference between the two devices will boil down to the headset supplied in the retail package.

We are also hoping that HTC will bring an update for the existing Sensation 4G units (and theirSensation brothers outside the US), bringing their dual-core CPUs clock speed to 1.5GHz. There are no hardware differences between the Sensation smartphones so it is possible. So far though, there has been nothing official about it.

Thanks Raymund, for sending this in!

Officially confirmed: iPhone 5 comes on October 4th

That's that then - the invitations have been sent and it has been officially confirmed that we are just a week away from seeing the next iPhone. The announcement will take place next Tuesday in a rather unusual place - the Apple campus in Cupertino.

Normally those things happen in other venues in San Francisco, but this time Apple will be inviting journalists to its home. There's an outside chance that this is done so they can make LTE demonstrations, without depending on the (still rather spotty) LTE coverage. Still, most rumors suggest that the iPhone 5 won't have an LTE radio so we wouldn't bet our houses on that.

However, the most exciting part about the event is the number of smartphones that will be announced. We received information from at least two reputable sources that more than one iPhone will be revealed, but if the invitation is to serve as a clue, it's only going to be one.

The first three icons describe the date, time and location of the event, so we assume that the number of missed calls on the last one indicates that we won't be getting both an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 4S.

Update: Interestingly, BGR.com has evidence that AT&T has issued a vacation blackout order to its employees for the middle of October, which naturally leads us to believe that the next iPhone will launch somewhere around that time.

Anyway, the event is now less than 7 days away so the end of this seemingly endless guessing game is near.

First photo of Samsung Focus S for AT&T comes, unofficially

AT&T and Samsung somehow managed to announce a phone without actually showing it. Yep, the Samsung Focus S was made official without a single photo of it - good thing that someone managed to snap a photo of it in the wild.

The Samsung Focus S is the Windows Phone 7.5 cousin of the Galaxy S II and shares a lot of the same top-notch specs - 4.3" SuperAMOLED Plus screen, 8.5mm body, 8MP camera (but just 720p video, no FullHD) and a 1.4GHz single-core CPU.

It turns out we've seen it before - that's the exact device that Microsoft's Corporate Vice President used to demonstrate the new crop of WP7 phones. Except this one has AT&T branding.

Speaking of which, AT&T also announced the Focus Flash - looking at its specs, we'd say that's the new Omnia W. So, now the question is when Samsung will show the world-wide version of the Focus S.