Rash Of New Samsungs Rumored: 720p Screens, Ice Cream Sandwich

Earlier today, we heard about the possible existence of Samsung's Omnia W, said to be the follow-up to the Omnia 7. It turns out that's just the tip of the iceberg, with rumors of a whole bunch more new Samsung smartphones coming to us from Italy.

These rumored models run the gamut from the GT-B5510, running Froyo on its diminutive 2.8-inch screen, all the way up to tablets.

The highlight of the group is arguably the GT-I9250, if only due to the fact that it's supposed to arrive running Ice Cream Sandwich. It should have a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED display (no plus?) with one of these 720p screens we keep hearing will soon be showing up on smartphones.

Also supposed to be receiving a 720p screen will be the GT-I9220, but this one will be debuting with Gingerbread instead of ICS. It's said to have an eight-megapixel camera and feature a dual-core 1.4GHz processor.

The GT-I8150 also looks like it will be decently powerful, with an apparently single-core 1.4GHz chip, 3.7-inch WVGA display, and five-megapixel camera. We don't know anything about its processor, but the GT-I9210 should have a 4.5-inch WVGA Super AMOLED screen, eight-megapixel main camera, and two-megapixel front-facer. On the smaller side of things, the GT-S5610 will go with a 2.4-inch QVGA display. All three of these models are slated for Gingerbread. 

HTC Wildfire S Unboxing (Video)

The Wildfire S is a very small, reasonably inexpensive Android-powered phone from HTC, now available for T-Mobile USA. It runs Android 2.3.3 with HTC Sense 2.1 on a 600MHz processor (you read that correctly). What's amazing is it's pretty snappy, looks great, feels good in-hand, and does a lot of things that only the expensive, high-end Android-phones do.

In this video we'll unbox this little guy, take a look at what comes with it, and do a hardware walk-around. We'll save software and bench-marking for our next video (so make sure you have subscribed to our video channel so you don't miss it!).

Dell Retires Its Streak 5 Android Tablet

The original Dell Streak - formally the Streak 5 to differentiate it from larger models - debuted last summer. We were still in the pre-Honeycomb world back then, where Android tablets struggled even more than they do now to make a stand against the iPad. In spite of its limitations, we found the Streak to be a more than capable Android, so long as your needs lined-up with the specific niche its hardware and software created. Now, just a year later, Dell has officially pulled the plug on the Streak 5.

The fact that the Streak was never meant to be easily toted around in your pocket, as a smartphone would be, let Dell really build the heck out of it, crafting a metal-and-glass form that felt really solid. Though it shipped with Android 1.6 (it's hard to imagine that was still acceptable only a year ago), the Streak got Froyo a few months later on, helping to modernize it a bit.

With the Streak 5 gone, will we ever see another tablet with this form factor? Smartphones are already threatening to push the 5-inch barrier; would their presence make tablets that size irrelevant, or might there still be a demand for WiFi-only devices of this form-factor, without the expense of cellular data? 

Leak: First Look at Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Google has always named the major versions of Android after yummy snacks: Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, and Honeycomb. All but the last version have been operating systems for smartphones with Honeycomb being specific to tablets (and an upcoming release for Google TV).

Some of us were worried that the Android operating system would be "fragmented" across platforms, with separate versions for smartphones and tablets, making development more difficult for all.Google eventually quelled those fears by telling us about Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), which they said would integrate all the tablet-specific goodies back into the smartphone branch.

We haven't officially heard much about ICS, but we suspect it will be featured on Google's next Nexus phone, which some are calling the "Nexus Prime", after which it will likely be rolled out to the Nexus S and Nexus One, and later to the AOSP for others to build into custom ROMs.

Now, thanks to a leak, we've got what looks to be the first screen-shots of ICS. Based on these images and the source who leaked them, here's what we're able to determine about Google's next Android OS:

- New launcher and app drawer
- New Camera app includes a panorama mode
- Gmail app themed to look like the new ICS theme
- ICS theme is blue (no longer "Android Green" or "Honeycomb Indigo")
- Will come with the Google Shopper app (NFC-Enabled devices will be able to utilize those features in-app)
- Google search bar is embedded on top (like Honeycomb)
- Apps/Widgets launcher a lot like Honeycomb

What else can you see in the screen-shots? What else do you hope is included in ICS? Let us know in the comments!

HTC Sensation Android 2.3.4 European Roll-Out Reportedly Begins

The HTC Sensation (that is sans 4G, as in the unlocked version not the T-Mobile one) is shipping with Android 2.3 Gingerbread out-of-the-box but the manufacturer has started the European roll-out of an official update, according to reports.

After the update notification, download and installation process, the HTC Sensation is now reportedly updated to Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread. The update is a 41MB file and it bumps the version all the way to 1.45.401.2. The first phone that is purportedly updated to the new version is in Germany but if you live in Europe and already have the update, let us know!

Update: We've received info that the update is already available in Romania (thanks @balanionut) and in Slovakia (thanks Tomáš).