Motorola Milestone X coming to regional carrier Bluegrass Cellular

Bluegrass Cellular, a regional carrier centered in Kentucky, has announced that the Motorola Milestone X is "coming soon" to their network. The phone is more or less a Droid X without the Droid branding, and continues the Milestone branding that Motorola has used for their Droid phones when offering them to carriers not named Verizon. The phone is the latest addition to a robust Android lineup from Bluegrass that includes the original Milestone (OG Droid) and the HTC-made Desire and Wildfire. For some reason the Milestone X is listed as having Android 2.1 Eclair as opposed to Froyo, which has long since rolled out for the Droid X. 

The launch of the Milestone X opens the possibility for the phone to make its way overseas or to grace other regional U.S. carriers like Cellular South. [Bluegrass Cellular] Thanks to Nathan for the tip!

Source: Androidcentral.com

Another look at the upcoming HTC 'Saga'

Remember that unannounced HTC Android phone that was spotted on a Taipei subway? Looks like it's appeared again, with a new pic being sent to Gizmodo. It's reportedly codenamed "Saga." Not a whole lot more to say about it -- capacitive buttons, front-facing camera, and the usual HTC design cues. But we're willing to bet it'll have a few tricks up its sleeve. Might we see it in two weeks at Mobile World Congress? It's looking fairly likely. [Gizmodo]

Source: Androidcentral.com

LG Optimus 3D appears in 2D form

Sure, the dual-core LG Optimus 2X is all the rage right now (be sure to check out our hands-on, benchmarks and gaming tests), but another high-end LG phone is starting to make the rounds. Phandroid got slipped this pic of what's being called the Optimus 3D. It very much looks like the Optimus 2X from the front, but the bottom bezel and earpiece are slightly different.

As far as that whole "3D" thing goes, no telling on that yet (and we're still not entirely sold on the idea sight unseen). But the screen supposedly is larger than 4 inches, has a dual-core processor (no surprise there) and "multi-channel RAM" (is that new?)

So, yeah, we'll see about this whole 3D thing. And by "we'll see," we mean we'll be at LG's event at Mobile World Congress in a couple weeks, and we'll get this thing figured out. [Phandroid]

Source: Androidcentral.com

Motorola i1Q headed to Sprint Nextel?

If you're on Nextel and have a hankering for some a physical QWERTY keyboard, it looks like relief might one day be in sight. The Motorola i1q (a follow-up to the also-rugged Motorola i1 on Nextel) appears to be a fairly rugged device, with full physical buttons -- including menu, home, back and call/end. It's said to be rocking Android 2.1 on a slow processor -- no great surprise -- but "manufacturing is quite robust."

No word about when we may see this guy drop, but we could see a lot of you in the field rocking this guy. There's one more pic after the break. [via Grupoandroid] Thanks, Andres!

 Source: Androidcentral.com

LG G-Slate makes guest appearance on MysteryGuitarMan's YouTube channel (video)

LG's promotional strategy for the G-Slate seems to be to keep officially mum about the device, while letting random pseudo-celebrities tease it out in brief glimpses. A week ago, K-Pop artist Seungri gave us our first sighting of the dual-camera array on the back of the G-Slate, which has today made its triumphant return to YouTube, courtesy of one MysteryGuitarMan. The rear of the device here doesn't look identical to the one in Seungri's video, however the metallic strip separating the cams and its "with Google" branding look nearly identical to what LG has on the back of its Optimus 2X Android smartphone. We're also seeing a single LED flash for the first time, there are a couple of unidentified connectors at the bottom, at least one of them likely to assist docking in landscape mode, and we do get to see the tablet in profile for an idea of how thin it is. Video after the break.

Source: Engadget.com

Dell Streak 7 launching at T-Mobile on February 2nd: $200 with two-year contract, $450 without

It's been an interesting few weeks of rumored Dell Streak 7 prices, but as promised, T-Mobile's setting the record straight with some official dollar figures. Yep, that predicted $330 price was indeed pretty far off -- turns out, T-Mobile will be offering the 7-inch, Android 2.2 tablet for just $200 (okay, $199.99 to be exact) on contract starting this Wednesday, February 2nd. Of course, you'll have to sign a two-year contract to get that sweet deal as well as send in a $50 mail-in rebate. Those looking for a bit more freedom can snatch up the NVIDIA Tegra 2-powered, T-Mobile HSPA+ slate for 450 bucks, which actually seems like a pretty sweet deal to us considering the Samsung Galaxy Tab is still about $500 off contract and $300 with two years of service. Sure, the Galaxy Tab has a few more things going for it, including a higher resolution display and bigger battery, but you'll just have to wait for our full review of the Streak 7 to find out if Dell's got a killer "4G" Android tablet hitting shelves later this week.

Source: Engadget.com

Canalys: Android overtakes Symbian as world's best-selling smartphone platform in Q4 2010

One day somebody will write a book called "The rise and rise of Android" and this moment will be highlighted in bold. Canalys' latest smartphone sales figures show that Android phone makers managed to shift a cool 33.3 million handsets in the last quarter -- more than any other smartphone platform out there, including the previous leader, Symbian, which sold 31 million units. That's a mighty leap from the 20.3 million Android devices the stats agency estimates were sold in Q3 2010. Symbian itself grew from 29.9m in Q3 to 31m in Q4, but Android's pace of expansion has been so rapid as to make that irrelevant.

Update: NPD's numbers are in as well, indicating that Google now has a 53 percent share in the US market, while Windows Phone 7 has managed to nab only two percent so far.

Source: Engadget.com

HTC Thunderbolt rumored to be hitting Best Buy February 14th, sans mobile hotspot or Skype video?

The HTC Thunderbolt may have been officially announced way back at CES, but there's still quite a bit we don't know about the phone -- namely, a price or a release date. We now at least have what looks to be a fairly solid hint of the latter, however, courtesy of the above shot of a Best Buy inventory screen that lists an in stock date of February 14th. You'll note that the screen doesn't actually mention the HTC Thunderbolt anywhere, but some sleuthing by the folks at Android Central reveals that the product code matches one found on a Thunderbolt box that turned up in a recent hands-on video. Joining that rumor is a separate one from Droid Life, which has obtained some supposedly authentic Verizon materials that suggest the Thunderbolt won't be shipping with mobile hotspot functionality enabled at launch, and that Skype video chat won't be enabled initially either. No word on a reason for the delay (if there actually is one), but both features will seemingly be enabled at some point, and there will apparently be a placeholder icon in the case of Skype that will display a "coming soon" message if it's launched

Source: Engadget.com

Enspert Identity Tab E201 rings up at $350 with Froyo, Gmail and Android Market

Enspert blindsided us at CES 2011 with a pair of quality Android tablets, and here's another surprise -- next month, the company's Identity Tab E201 will apparently ship 100% Google-certified. Importer Dynamism is taking preorders on February 1st for the 7-inch Android 2.2 tablet, which comes with both Gmail and Android Market on board, though admittedly for a somewhat larger outlay than we originally heard. $350 is what you'll pay for the 800 x 480 slate, which sports a 1GHz Hummingbird processor and PowerVR SGX540 graphics, 8GB storage and 512MB RAM, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, a full compliment of sensors and an SD card slot. Just a month ago we'd have called this quite the deal, but come February 1st you may want to wait -- after all, Google's busy bees may show off the fruits of their labors the very next day.

Source: Engadget.com