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Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich now available in UK for unbranded HTC Sensation XE

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An update to my previous post – Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is now also available (as of 13.00 BST) for the HTC Sensation XE. HTC released ICS for the Sensation yesterday – but not the XE.

To get the update, simply go to Settings, About, Software Updates and then click Check Now. It’s around 300MB in size so unless you have unlimited data I’d suggest using wi-fi.

FINALLY!

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich now available in UK for unbranded HTC Sensation handsets

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Reports are starting to flood in to the official HTC UK facebook page that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is now available as an OTA update for stock (unbranded) HTC Sensation handsets in the UK – at last!

I haven’t got anything on my Sensation XE at the moment so I can only assume that right now it’s only rolling out for the Sensation but stayed tuned for more info.

If you have an HTC Sensation phone in the UK, check for updates now!

Update 2.21pm: A whole bunch of others have also said they can now see the update on their UK Sensation phones.

Update 03/04/2012: The update is now also available for the Sensation XE.

Ice Cream Sandwich imminent for HTC Sensation and Sensation XE in the UK

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This week has brought a whole load of important Ice Cream Sandwich news. The Samsung Galaxy S II has apparently started getting updates today, and earlier this week brought ICS to the Sensation XE is some European countries such as Germany.

HTC has said that they’re expecting the roll out to spread to the rest of Europe in the coming weeks – and we sure hope it does as they promised it would arrive on our phones before the end of March.

I’m frequently checking my phone for updates and also regularly keeping up with the news online to make sure I’m one of the first in line!

All I can say is that if it is set to arrive with us before the end of March, HTC should issue it within the next two weeks. We’ll update you as soon as we have more news!

Android 4.0 ICS for the HTC Sensation XE is nearly here – what to expect?

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Well, HTC have told us recently that we should expect Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for the HTC Sensation XE (as well as many other HTC phones) by the end of this month. This is great news for me as I’ve been looking forward to it since I got my phone back in November last year. But what are you to expect? Here’s a round up.

  • New(ish) home screen – HTC haven’t really changed it massively themselves, but with ICS some changes have been brought in. The famous rounded bar that shows at the bottom of the screen in Gingerbread (with the big phone button) has been replaced with the ICS equivalent. You can now set four shortcuts on the bottom bar. You can also specifically set how many home screens you want (up to 7), rather than being stuck with empty home screens.
  • Face unlock – the new software brings in face unlock – so you can use your camera to unlock the phone. Handy, I guess.
  • Updated web browser  – the web browser has got a couple of minor new features – like being able to force websites to load desktop pages.
  • Other new stock ICS features – Whilst some ICS features aren’t added in (probably for compatibility reasons), there are some new things like data cap settings which could come in handy. You can tell the phone how much data you get per month, and the phone will moderate itself accordingly.
  • Better app organisation – you now get app folders (finally). In addition, the recent apps feature has been overhauled to give you a much better preview of what is going on in the background.
  • Access to notifications from the lock screen – pretty self explanatory, but this will be useful.
  • Updated Google apps – some Google apps like Gmail and Google Maps have been updated somewhat.
  • Sense 3.6 – An update to HTC’s Sense software.

That’s the main key feature update. I’m looking forward to it – but I would have liked to have seen HTC working on some of their own apps – such as the Music app which, I feel, needs some fixes and updates!

When will hard drive prices start to fall?

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If you’ve been keeping up with tech news over the last few months, you’ll remember the Thai floods that wreaked havoc for hard drive production last year. The floods did a lot of damage to major hard drive brands as their factories in Thailand were badly damaged.

Ever since the floods, hard drive prices have skyrocketed. It seems you can’t get a 1TB hard drive for much short of £100 any more, and for anything smaller prices aren’t much cheaper!

Analysts are now saying they expect high prices to continue through 2012 as recovery slowly starts to take place. iSuppli is predicting that supply will be back to normal levels towards the end of 2012, but until then prices will remain reasonably high.

What’s annoying is that, when I look on Amazon, it seems to be cheaper to buy an external hard drive and rip the drive out of it than too buy an internal drive on it’s own. What sense is there in that?!