Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 04 November 2008 11:51
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Despite an economic downturn and lower Q3 results for mobile phone
sales, HTC’s Peter Chou says he’ll sell more than 600,000 T-Mobile
Android G1 gPhones this year alone, outdoing initial expectations.
An
interview in the San Jose Mercury News with High Tech Computer’s (HTC) CEO, Peter Chou, outlines just how far the Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer has come over the past few years.
For years, HTC manufactured phones that other companies slapped their brand name onto, but just as a number of Asian manufacturing giants have established their brands as global behemoths, so too has HTC emerged from the realms of rebadgery.
HTC isn’t resting on its laurels, however – photos of the HTC Touch HD over at
CNET show that HTC is pushing the boundaries, bringing high definition screens to handheld devices as smartphones mature into true handheld multimedia computers.
Although today’s devices are often claimed to only be as powerful as computers from a few years ago, 2009 and beyond will clearly see an even faster evolution, with Intel’s MID (mobile Internet device) chips set to blossom and help deliver longer battery life and ever better handheld experiences.
Already phones such as Nokia’s N-Series and select Windows Mobile devices can be easily connected to an external screen and Bluetooth keyboard. How long will it be before these video outputs progress beyond composite to HDMI?
Battery life is always a concern, as is heat, but the quest to improve battery life and create ever more efficient technology – at ever cheaper prices – shows no signs of slowing down, even though the world is currently going through an “economic crisis”.
Google’s Android platform has certainly made waves in the smartphone world, and while the impact hasn’t been as great as the iPhone, companies like Motorola are dumping the Symbian UIQ operating system and will exclusively focus on Windows Mobile and Google’s Android.
Android is also attracting developers big and small, with
Electronic Arts set to bring Monopoly and Bejeweled to the Android platform this month, and more games are on the way.
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