This pink Samsung Galaxy S2 was announced in South Korea back in November, everything went quiet regarding global availability. Phones 4 U have announced that they will be offering the device from Feb.13 on a two- year contract starting from a very reasonable £21.50 a month.

Not looking for a contract to go with that shiny new pink phone, then online retailer Very are set to offer the device SIM free for a whopping £499.99. Whichever way you look at it, that’s Galaxy Nexus pricing. While listed as in stock, they are in fact awaiting their supply which they claim to be within 7 days.

Are you planning to pick one up as a Valentine’s day gift? Hit up the comments and let us know.

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Clove was expecting to start shipping the accessories mid-January, but a statement on their blog today states other wise. Citing delays from Samsung as the cause for the delay, their expected ship date is now February 13th. Pretty disappointing but what can we do? It’s like the Verizon Galaxy Nexus launch all over again. As Clove said in their blog post this morning “we know this is not the news that you wish to hear, but unfortunately we can not supply you the product until we have the stock.” It most definitely is not the news we wanted to hear this morning, but here we go with the waiting game.

As always you can count on Android Authority to bring you the latest on this story, and hopefully we won’t have to wait longer then February 13th. Are you disappointed? Let us know in the comments.

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This is it. It’s coming. But you’ll have to wait a little more. At least Samsung is giving us some peace of mind by saying it’s arriving this month, and has already confirmed that the official release date will be November 17th for UK:

4th November 2011, London, UK – Samsung today announced the first smartphone to feature Android™ 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and a 4.65″ HD Super AMOLED display, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, will be available in the UK from Thursday 17th November.

The Galaxy Nexus™ is the first smartphone to feature a 4.65’’ HD Super AMOLED display with a market-leading resolution of 720p (1280×720), ensuring vivid colours and excellent picture clarity. The Galaxy Nexus also comes with a 5 megapixel camera and new rounded design that measures just 8.94mm thick and features a minimal 4.29mm screen bezel.

The Galaxy Nexus features the latest version of the Android platform, 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), which brings an entirely new look and feel to Android. It has a redesigned user interface with improved multi-tasking, notifications, Wi-Fi hotspot, NFC support and a full web browsing experience, while introducing new innovations such as ‘Face Unlock’, which uses facial recognition to unlock your phone. It also comes with integrated Google+™, allowing you to ‘hang out’ with friends and talk over Google+ Messenger. Google™’s services are connected to the cloud, keeping your email, contacts, and other data synced across your devices.

The latest handset from Samsung and Google is designed to provide a “pure Google” experience and users will be the first to receive software upgrades as they become available. It also features a number of Google Mobile services, including: Android Market™, Gmail™, Google Maps™ 5.11 with 3D maps and turn-by-turn navigation, Google Earth™, Movie Studio, YouTube™, syncing with Google Calendar™ and a redesigned Google+ app.

The Galaxy Nexus also features an ultra-fast 1.2GHz dual core processor and HSPA+ connectivity, providing superior power and speed.

Simon Stanford, Head of Mobile, Samsung UK and Ireland said: “The level of interest and anticipation surrounding the release of the Galaxy Nexus has been fantastic. The collaboration with Google to launch the world’s first smartphone featuring Android Ice Cream Sandwich and a 4.65″ HD Super AMOLED display is evidence of Samsung’s continuing passion for the smartphone market and commitment to delivering innovative devices. We’re delighted to introduce the Galaxy Nexus to the UK and are looking forward to seeing it in the shops on 17th of November.”

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be available on the 17th of November 2011 in a range of UK retailers.

So when is it coming to US then? Some previous rumors said it would arrive a week after the European launch, and just before Black Friday, or possibly even after it. That’s quite a little more to wait for it.

The latest Verizon rumors, however, pointed at a November 17th date, too, so if it makes you feel any better you can believe these. I’m not sure it would make sense for Verizon to open up the “pre-orders” in the same day it’s “launching” in UK, though, so I’m thinking it’s really coming to US on November 17th, too.

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Sony is one of the biggest consumer electronics companies in the world, and their products are usually pretty high-quality, at least compared to most other manufacturers. So as the tablet market was taking off, they couldn’t be left out of the game, and they decided to enter the market not with one, but two tablets, and try to make them as “different” as possible from their competitors.

I’d say they succeeded doing that, but it remains to be seen if the customers will prefer their tablets over the ones from their competitors. The Sony Tablet S, which is the larger 9.4″ one is set to launch on September 16th, but is already available for pre-order in US, UK and Canada. The prices start at $499 for the 16 GB version in US, and £399 in UK, while the 32 GB one will be $599 in US and £479 in UK.

The Tablet S comes with Honeycomb 3.1, Tegra 2, 1 GB of RAM, 16-32 GB internal storage, 5 MP camera on the back, and VGA camera in front, an infra-red emitter to connect with other devices, DLNA, and a 5000 mAh battery, which seems dangerously small for a 9″-10″ tablet (Galaxy Tab 7.7 has a 5500 mAh battery).

Sony has certainly tried to be innovative with this tablet, so they’ve thought about moving the weight center of the tablet more to the left when you’re holding it with one hand. This is why it’s thicker on one side and thinner on the other. This way, it apparently feels more like a lighter 7″ tablet. The design appears to be detail-oriented as well, while the build of the tablet feels very solid, even though it’s made out of plastic.

One issue that I think everyone has noticed, is that it’s coming with a Tegra 2 processor at the very end of its life cycle. Tegra 3 is supposedly coming out next month, and it was actually planned for release in August. If they actually managed to do that, then Sony would’ve released their Tegra 2 tablet after the quad core Tegra 3 tablets would already be in the market, and selling for the same or lower price.

I’m trying to figure out why Sony keeps doing this, with their phones, too. They probably think of themselves as making higher-quality products than the rest, but instead of pricing them higher, they wait until the end of component’s life cycle to release their own product *for the same price*. This way they get their components cheaper, while they can still make the profit they wanted to make if they priced them higher.

But I’m not totally convinced. I think if they actually chose that “strategy” they’re not living up to their potential. I think the real issue is that they don’t have a product process as efficient as the others. I’m pretty sure that if they worked harder they could offer cutting edge technology in their products, as well, and for similar prices.

But I don’t think that’s even necessary. If they are confident in their product, I’m sure they could price it say $50 more expensive than say Asus (which actually makes pretty high-value products). Maybe even $100 if their product can truly wow people, and is ahead of the others not only in cutting edge technology, but also in several areas. Only companies who don’t create truly exciting products have to fight a bloody price war.

Of course, they would still have to not go over the iPad’s pricing. People see too much “value” associated with iPad, besides its specs, that’s impossible right now to price it over the iPad – no matter what you put in the tablet. At least until the Android tablet ecosystem grows a little more and iPad’s market share drops under 50%, they won’t be able to price their tablets more than iPad, and it will be difficult to price them even the same as iPad.

All that being said, do you like this tablet enough to want to buy it? If not, why not?

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If you still don’t think Android is the future not only of most high-end smartphones, but also of most low-end ones, where Nokia has historically dominated, then this should throw some cold water on you. A new research shows Android is now on 47% of all new smartphones in UK, where Symbian has only 7.2% left, which is down 19 points from last year’s 26% market share. One fifth of the UK smartphone market, or 70% of Nokia’s market in smartphones gone in one year. Just like that.

Over the years when Nokia started losing market share to Android and iPhone, th argument has always been “but Nokia is still the largest smartphone manufacturer” or that “it still dominates the poor countries”. Nokia have already lost their crown in smartphones last quarter to Apple and Samsung, and they’ve lost the smartphone OS crown with Symbian by the end of last year, when Android first surpassed Symbian. And they are quickly losing their market share in countries where they’ve been huge market leaders, like India.

Since Android clearly dominates smartphones now with about one out of every 2 smartphones being old around the world being an Android smartphone, and since all feature phones are being replaced by smartphones, it’s pretty clear where all this is going for Symbian and Nokia. As smartphones are getting cheaper and cheaper, most people will end up buying an Android smartphone from a company different than Nokia, and instead of Nokia’s less capable feature phones. It’s only a matter of time before Android replaces Symbian at every level.

The fact that Nokia have basically announced the death of Symbian themselves earlier this year because of the deal with Microsoft, the decline of Symbian has actually been accelerated. This has made the company weaker and weaker financially with each passing quarter. They might find out that by the time they’re launching their first WP7 phone, they might not have enough money to push it strongly themselves.

One thing is for sure, even if Nokia succeeds in pushing WP7 to 20% by 2015, as predicted by Gartner (a claim which I find completely bogus and random), they would still own only a part of that, while the other manufacturers like HTC and Samsung will get the rest. So Nokia’s old days of being the largest phone manufacturer, and dominating the market, are not going to come back.

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BT release Android application

BT have released an Android application (and one for the iPhone, too) which helps users connect to one of the 1.6 million WiFi hotspots around the UK. Back in the early 90′s BT used to be known as British Telecom and now the BT Group ‘is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries’. The application for Android provides customers who have the BT Total Broadband service plan automatic connection to any BT OpenZone and BT FON hotspots when in range.

To take advantage of the application you have to log in with your BT username and password. From here, you can set in the application preferences how you would like to the app to behave (i.e. connect automatically). One of the best things about the app is that it offers a mapping service that can direct you to the nearest available hotspot. This information is kept up-to-date every week. Furthermore, every time someone downloads the application BT will donate 50p to charity (up to £10,000).

[Via: Electric Pig]

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HTC Desire HD on Amazon UK

For a short moment the HTC Desire HD apparently made a surprise appearance on the Amazon UK website. The HTC Desire HD, also known to some as the HTC Ace, is alleged to be a 4.3-inch, 8MP touting Android 2.2 smartphone.

According to the leaked screenshot, the device will become available for £415 ($650) but due to the fact we only have an image to work with, we cannot look into the HTML code behind to see if there are any other juicy its of information to piece together. Amazon pulled the listing shortly after posting it, which has only led to a reduction in speculation and a confirmation that the device is on its way.

However, the rumor is that it will have a uni-bodied aluminium design, although we haven’t heard anything about the HTC Desire HD/Ace making its way stateside. After all, the original HTC Desire took its sweet time in making the trip across the pond.

[Via Electric Pig]

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Dell Streak - Photo credit: Pocket-Lint.com

Dell has announced that its Android-powered Streak tablet, also known as the Dell Mini 5, will be available in the UK from O2 and the Carphone Warehouse in early June, and Dell.co.uk later in the month.  Pricing information is not yet available and will be announced by O2 before the launch.

Dell has also said that the 10mm thick tablet (or smartbook) will be made available to U.S. customers at some point during the summer.

The Dell Streak features a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution and is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. A 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a dual LED flash is included, as is support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a microSD memory card slot with support for 32GB cards can be used to add storage.

While the Dell Streak supports voice calling on GSM and UMTS networks, it is intended primarily as a data device and supports GPRS, EDGE, and 3.5G HSPA data speeds.  It will have access to the full range of Android applications available on the Android Market, and will launch with built-in Touchdown Exchange support.

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HTC Desire

This month Vodafone UK are launching not one, but three Android based devices. Vodafone are one of the strongest networks in the UK in terms of customer support and 3G signal. There has been no better time to switch networks given that there is such a wealth of choice for any Android enthusiast. We have covered all three of these devices extensively over the last few months, but here is a summary of links to guide you on your way should you be in the market for a new phone.

Vodafone UK site links

• HTC Desire
• HTC Legend
• Sony Ericsson X10

Review and hands on videos

• HTC Desire
• HTC Legend
• Sony Ericsson X10

Related articles

• HTC Desire
• HTC Legend
• Sony Ericsson X10

We really do not love the Sony Ericsson X10, despite its fashionable appeal, the examples we’ve been exposed to reveal the device as slow and cumbersome. The HTC Legend is a great device but if you really want the state of the art right now, the device that we would truly recommend is the HTC Desire. However, at the end of the say, the choice yours.

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