"That thing's going to Cricket" - Aaron Baker, News Editor

FrankenPhone! It Lives!

Wasn't it Mick Jagger who once crooned, "You can't always get what you want / But if you make a mash-up you kinda can?" Something like that, anyway.

I'm tired of "close but no cigar" when it comes to mobile phones. iPhone's great except for that closed OS and no hard keyboard. Palm's WebOS is awesome but Palm can't seem to build a truly awesome piece of hardware to run it on. Android? How many branches has that platform splintered into already? And why I can't I find a Droid that does hard QWERTY and pinch-and-zoom Web browsing save the Europe-only Moto Milestone?

Even if I don't have the R&D lab and factories to create the ultimate mobile phone, I do have the power of the mash-up. And so I give you my FrankenPhone, Version 1, comprised by taking my favorite bits of existing mobile devices and smushing them together into one gloriously awesome KravPhone mash-up:

Hardware: HTC Touch HD2

This one's a tough call because part of me thinks I'll miss a hard QWERTY, but the capacitive touch display on HD2 is so big that it makes virtual typing a breeze. 4.3", 480 x 800 (WVGA) resolution of multitouch atop an 11mm thin device packing a 1GHz Snapdragon processor? Sold.

I might have to swap Nokia's best-ever camera (N86 8MP, maybe?) into the package, since I haven't spent much time testing HD2's optics. Then again, I'm pretty much resigned to the feeling that "No cameraphone is yet better than a sub-par standalone camera" these days, anyway, so it doesn't much matter.

Operating System: Palm WebOS

There's a caveat here, as you'll see when you get to the "Ecosystem" section below, but not worrying about apps for a moment, I'd want WebOS handling my contacts, messages, and multitasking. WebOS is the best combination of form and function on the market right now, combining excellent multitasking, notifications handling and data syncing with a gorgeous UI chock full of visual delights and flickingly-fun gestures. WebOS lacks Android's widgets, I know, but as a matter of personal preference I can live without 'em in favor of Palm's far more luscious visual treatments.

A second caveat, actually, is that WebOS lacks a virtual QWERTY with landscape support and a killer autocomplete/dictionary system. So I think I'd throw HTC's custom Android QWERTY into the mix since I've been such a fan of it on Hero and Droid Eris.

Network: Sprint

I almost, almost, almost chose Verizon … but Sprint works just as well as VZW where I live and work, and it's a heckuva lot cheaper than Big Red. 4G isn't yet widespread enough in the U.S. to really consider, and while CDMA networks can't do voice and data at the same time, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, especially considering AT&T's muddling 3G performance of late.

Now that I think of it, a GSM phone with both AWS and global HSPA banding could work … I could rock it on T-Mobile in the States and enjoy that forthcoming 21Mbps throughput I keep hearing about.

Ecosystem: Apple

Here's the aforementioned caveat: I'd want WebOS, but I'd want Apple and not Palm running the App Store. And the music/media store, for that matter. For all that people justifiably complain about Apple's closed-book app approval process and total lockdown on iPhone OS, the fact is they've got an App Store chock full of useful and fun software (and some useless stuff, too, of course). No other mobile platform has the games iPhone OS has right now, and frankly I like playing games on my phone. And Apple's got an iTunes Store chock full of audio and video content, if that's your thing, and an insane cottage industry of cases, docks, and other gear is in full bloom around iPhone.

And, hey, mashing-up WebOS with an Apple-run ecosystem would finally put an end to Palm and Apple's stupid bickering, right?

So there you go: It's the HTC-Apple-Palm (and maybe Nokia) mash-up FrankenPhone.

You got somethin' better? Give it to us in the comments!

In the spirit of international relations I give you some leaksauce straight outta T-Mobile UK. HTC's HD2 will launch across the pond November 6th, available on monthly contracts only. How do I know? Because Americans and Europeans generally flip-flop the month and day when they write dates, so that "06/11/2009" listed on the screengrab from T-Mobile UK's corporate database means November 6, 2009, not June 11, 2009. Smart, huh?

Well, it's smart if it's legit. Thanks for the tip, ye who shall not be named.

No word on a launch here in the States, except that if it comes to T-Mo USA it won't be this year. Their holiday lineup is signed, sealed and delivered already, good chap.

• HSPA/UMTS dual-band (850/1900 MHz) and GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) for N. America
  

After my brief in-person encounter with a Touch HD last week, I really hope this is true, and that HTC and AT&T drop the device on our fair shores early next year.  Touchflo 3D and basically any high-quality photos or video look astoundingly good on the device, and the phone's form factoris just sexier and more eye-catching than competing WinMo devices like Samsung's Omnia.  Also, you know, 3.5mm headphone jack ;-) 

More on this as I get it, but keep your fingers crossed right around January 6th ... that's when CES starts.

 

Second, my post about the possibility of the HTC Touch HD coming to T-Mobile as the next Android phone generated a few responses last week.  Then it generated a few more responses this week in the wake of HTC's tweet saying that the Touch HD *would not* be coming to the US at all.

What I can tell you is of the two tipsters who I referenced in that original post, one seems to have crawled back into the woodwork but the other followed up with me saying that the device in question will be from HTC, and will be slim, sleek, touch-based (no hardware QWERTY), and coming to T-Mobile as the next Android device in the US.  

I have taken your cries for the Touch HD to HTC's North American management. Now all we can do is wait and see how they answer. 04:37 PM October 03, 2008 from web

I've got no photos of anything new with HTC and T-Mo branding on it, nor do I have any comment from HTC or T-Mo themselves.  What I've got is a tipster with a pretty good track record whispering in my ear, and another tipster with no track record who whispered along the same lines once and then ran away.  And since y'all like this kind of thing (as do I), I'm passing the info along to you when it seems worth my posting and your reading about it.  The large handfuls of one-time-only, doesn't match up with anything else tips I get?  Those don't get posted.  For instance, I really don't believe that Apple is about to unveil rainbow colored MacBooks carved from solid blocks of recycled compost that run on methane, so I won't waste your time with that one.

We're obviously going to see more Android devices from HTC.  And more touchscreen devices from HTC.  And more Android devices and more touchscreen devices from T-Mobile (well, one more all-touch phone would be their first, I guess).  And I can't imagine that HTC doesn't understand the desire for slim, flashy, touchable, media-centric devices (with 3.5mm headphone jacks!) here in the US.  Go read their twitter stream - they GET IT, folks.

The image is taken from AndroidCommunity.com and was created by AC member heytisnan, btw.

Personally, I'd love to see a T-Mo branded (and subsidized) Touch HD running Android on the carrier's lovely new 3G network here in the U.S.  Touch HD would give T-mo two things I think it needs: A flashy Android phone, and a tricked-out, high-end iPhone competitor.

Treat this as rumor and nothing more at this point, but if anything more comes of this one I'll be sure to let you know.  I promise.

1. Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 (Carrier Unknown)

Sony Ericsson fans have been waiting on this one for a looooong time, and it will finally drop in Europe on Sep 30.  My interest in the X1 was recently revived by some online videos of the Panels user interface in action.  I've long been a fan of SE's mobile UIs, and if the experience of using the X1 can match its spec sheet and hardware design, this could be my new phone of choice.  Too bad we still don't know when it will be available in the US.  That they'll announce on November 4.

Look out, iPhone, it's the big, bad Touch HD.  HTC took everything that makes the Touch Diamond great and made it bigger and better.  Bigger touchscreen with higher resolution?  Check.  More megapixels on the camera?  Check.  Integrated 3.5mm headphone jack?  Check.  I can't wait to see how TouchFLO 3D runs on ths badboy.

3. LG KC910 (Unlocked GSM)

• 8 megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach certified optics
• Auto-focus and manual focus
• Xenon Flash
• Adjustable ISO sensitivity up to 1600
• Image Stabilization
• Face tracking
• Smile detection
• Blink detection (yes, seriously!)
• aGPS
• Dolby Mobile
• DivX and Xvid movie playback
• 3" WQVGA touschcreen
• Wi-Fi
• 7.2Mbps HSDPA
• Video recording up to 120fps for slow-mo playback

I'm very, very curious about the potentially huge impact Android will have on the mobile phone industry.  But the first Google phone looks like it was designed by nerds (Google's Sergey and Larry) and not designers (the folks responsible for HTC's other recent phones).  Give me Android on a sleeker handset with more consumer-friendly features and I'll get more excited.  I mean, you can partner with Amazon for 89 cent mp3 downloads but you can't build Stereo Bluetooth or a 3.5mm headphone jack into the G1?  Lame.