Sprint has announced that the Motorola i1 will be available for purchase on July 25 through direct ship sales channels, and will hit retail outlets in early August. The Motorola i1 is the first Android-powered smartphone to include Nextel Direct Connect technology and sports a hardened body that meets military specs for shock, dust, and rain. Priced at $149 (after $50 rebate) for new customers and eligible upgrades with the standard two year contract.

Alternately Motorola i1 is also available at Boost Network. Cost is $419 no contract no credit check. $50 unlimited plan for text, talk, web and walkie talkie. See the official Boost site for more details.

See more details inside.

All Google Android Smart phone owners will be delighted to know that Barnes & Noble Nook content can be downloaded and read on their devices, as Nook for Android is available in the Android Market for FREE. It will provide you full access to your existing Barnes & Noble eBooks with additional support of LendME loan feature. In short it is a free & full featured eBook Reader.

If you are a SmartPhone enthusiast and following the latest trends, you would know that current high end Smart Phone beasts sport usually 1 Ghz snapdragon mobile processor from Qualcomm or similar specifications. Word is that Qualcomm has already started testing their brand new dual core 800 Mhz mobile processors.

HTC Vision is rumored to sport this 800 ghz dual core mobile processor and will have a 3.7-inch multi touchscreen high res display, Android 2.2 Froyo and a 8 MP camera with full QWERTY keyboard.It is probably safe to assume that features like an HDMI-out port and front-facing camera may be on board as well because of dual core processor. HTC Vision is expected for this holiday season, where HTC will also unveil a new screen technology we have never seen before.

 HTC Vision quick Specifications 

• Support for innovative 3D/2D user interfaces and console-quality gaming via dedicated, high-performance graphics engines
• 8megapixel camera
• Full 1080p HD video playback and recording
• Support for DTS/Dolby 5.1 surround sound
• Integrated Assisted-GPS, including support for Glonass satellite services
• 45nm process technology for ultra-low power consumption

Sometime back I wrote about Sony Ericsson’s plans to launch an Android device the XPERIA X10. Well it has finally been launched and is available online as well, unlocked that is! It’s Quad band device that is GSM and 3G both as most mobile phones are today. Noteworthy features are:

• Touch screen, 480 x 854 pixels WVGA 65,536-color TFT
• 4.0” screen!
• 8 MP camera
• A-GPS
• WLAN
• BT
• Android
• micro SDTM up to 16GB, 8GB included
• Facial Recognition
• Social Networks supported
• Apps from Android Marketplace can be installed
• Accelerometer

As usual Amazon is the first online seller and X10 is retailing at $850. A host of accessories can also be added. The details are available at the Sony Ericsson website.

Skype has finally made available Skype Mobile for Verizon on Android via Android Marketplace, it must be noted that it is available for only Verizon devices. The caveat is that to run Skype mobile users will have to turn off WIFI.

Clearly Verizon wants to protect their main revenue stream and this is why  Skype mobile will be using Verizon voice network for making all calls within US, VOIP will only be available when making calls internationally via 3G network using Skypeout credit. If you are making call to another Skype user then 3G data network will also be used .

What does it mean for you, if you are making a Skype call to a domestic number it will utilize your Verizon plan minutes, simple as that, but if you want to call your friends, family and co workers who are using Skype you will be able to connect them using 3G connection for free, but the 3G data plan still costs money and WIFI is no longer available.

Opera Mini was launched about a year back for the Android. It was called Opera 4 then, now we have Opera Mini 5 (Beta) available for download which has some very impressive features. The guys at Opera say that this browser “makes your mobile browsing experience as close as it can be to your desktop experience.” The new features introduced are:

• Tabbed Browsing: Needs no explaining, but this is feature is a must for smart phones.
• Speed Dial: On opening a new Tab, users are presented with a list of small icons, a click takes them to the desired page.
• Opera Link: With this feature users can synchronize their bookmarks and Speed Dial between their Mobile Phones and Desktop Computers.
• Download Manager: OMG, manage downloads form your smart device. This options lets users Pause and Resume downloads at will.
• Page Compression by about 90% ensures that browsing speed are greatly increased.
• Page Zoom.
• Password Manager: Users won’t have to remember those countless passwords instead the manager will store them on the Phone.
• Landscape Mode.

Download from the Opera Mini Page and better still watch the Demo via a neatly designed Simulator that will leave you dazed.

In my previous post on the Nexus One I wrote that that the Nexus will take sometime in beating the ever present iPhone, I still maintain this. But let me for a change say this that the way things are going (in the Google world) competitors need to feel threatened. What made me think so? well to begin with was the Google’s new approach to buying a Mobile Phone which gives one the ability to explore a mobile phone in ways that were previously unimagined. Impressive is the word that comes to one’s mind followed by “Ingenious”. Imagine holding your hand next to the screen in order to compare it with an editable image and then see how the Nexus One would look in your hand.

The Android today is running on at least 20 devices, in 19 languages, in 48 countries supported by 59 mobile companies. All this happened just a year back! That’s good going so far. Google now is selling the Nexus One on a Google hosted web store and the first device to be sold will be the Nexus One off course. This is quite different form the previous practice and welcome indeed. According to Google they want to “make the overall user experience simple: a simple purchasing process, simple service plans from operators, simple and worry-free delivery and start-up.”

It takes someone like Steve Jobs to make an iPhone, the very device that has literally taken the world by storm. As of today some 21 million devices of various models starting from the iPhone to the iPhone 3G and the 3GS have been sold. Downloads at the Apple Store have crossed the 3 billion mark in just 18 months. Even if these figures are exaggerated by 10% we can safely say that iPhone has sold like no other mobile phone has. Like it or not this makes it the most popular device on the planet. Try as the may Nokia (with Maemo), HTC (with Android) and Samsung (with Bada or TouchWiz UI) are no match for the iPhone.

But now it seems Google with HTC has got the iPhone in the crosshairs with the much touted and hyped about device called as the Nexus One. It is said that the looks alone are enough to make one drool. Both companies have worked hard in an effort to beat the mobile phone the world loves so much. The device is going to have a Snapdragon CPU clocking at a cool 1 GHz, it will boast of Android 2.1 besides having a 5 MP camera. The important specs are:

• 3.7″ capacitive Touch screen with 480 x 800 display.
• 512 MB of ROM and RAM
• 4 GB microSD card (included) and expandable microSD up to 32GB

I think it will be a long time before Nexus will be able to make a serious dent in iPhone’s popularity. Yes, iPhone’s market share will go down but it will take a sometime, ingenuity and good luck for Nexus One or any other mobile phone to beat the iPhone. Simply because people the world will not stop using their devices and Apple will not stop making/selling new models. In my opinion the coming months will see intense competition which is good for the buyers. The unlocked device it is said will cost around $530, whereas a two year contract with T-Mobile will cost something like $200.

Motorola Droid, the phone which is a direct iPhone competitor, and is grabbing lot of attention in US market due to Google open source android SmartPhone OS and the application ecosystem surrounding it. The phone so far has been available in US only by verizon for $199 and rest of the world is still waiting for it.

Well, the good news is that in couple of months, Motorola is going to release unlocked version of Droid throughout the world. Motorola is expected to launch the Motorola Droid (unlocked) in February and as well as announce the release of Droid 2 aka Sholes or Shules or Sholes Tablet.

The latest feature which Android phones are going to have is called Google Goggles, well actually this is visual search. Imagine going to a place where you need to find info on a certain building or a landmark. The obvious way would be to take out a tourist map or ask someone nearby, but with Google Goggles proud owners of Android devices will be able to snap the picture of that feature and hit the search button and let Google handle form there on. With in seconds audio/visual results will be displayed providing info about the landmark.

This certainly sounds like a useful feature for tourists. And yes this might as well come handy in case one gets lost in a new city. Watch the video here.