The future is in the smartphone, according to Telstra GM of Postpaid Mobile, Nathan Azouz. After two highly successful generations of the Telstra Easytouch line, Telstra’s third generation of the simple-to-use handset is a smartphone! “We have been listening to our customers, and some of them want to dip their toe into smartphones” said Mr Azouz at an event in Sydney yesterday.

Build for the carrier by Chinese OEM ZTE, the Telstra Easytouch 4G is designed for novice, casual or more mature customers who prefer an easier to use experience, but still want to enjoy some of of the enhanced capabilities of a smartphone. The device features a 4.3″ screen and a 8MP rear camera, powered by 1900mAh battery – …

This one truly shows off the brilliance of the developers at Google. The big G have submitted a US patent request over an new technology that will supplement your mobile device’s camera when the image is too poor.

Imaging taking a photo of a far-off object with your zoom set to maximum, resulting in a poor quality image. Your phone will then use its compass, GPS/GLONASS and time of day to search the Google servers for an alternative image of the object you are photographing. Be it from Google Images or Google Streetview, the handset will then interpolate and replace the poorly photographed subject with an inlay of the object from a better image! There is even provision in the …

‘Places some amazing technologies into the hands of the people’

Right at the top of the hill, the Samsung Galaxy S III sits in the top-spot as Samsung’s flagship handset. It is nimble, powerful, but how well does this handset perform as a phone? The much awaited powerhouse device does a lot of things exceptionally well, but some important things are lacking.

WHAT WE LIKED

As soon as I opened the box for this phone, I knew I was in for a serious experience. …

When I was in high school, my physics teacher Mr Gordon told us that it was technically possible to make a satelite from a smartphone. Think about it – it has a camera and various sensors to capture data, a processor and memory storage to process it and cellular communications to send it home. We all toyed with the idea, thinking it was cool, but relegated it to the ‘maybe one day’ files. Turns out, we were wrong.

NASA have announced that they have set up a small team of engineers out of their Ames Research Centre to develop three nanosatelites, powered by Android phones for launch this year! The nanosatelites are all built from off-the-shelf components, keeping the prices …

8am this morning marked the opening of Samsung’s first company-owned retail offering in Australia, dubbed the ‘Experience Store.’ Norman Ma and I attended the opening with a mix of excitement and trepitation of the offering we were about to see.

We arrived just before 8am to see elements of the store still being installed. It has some pretty impressive window displays, the most prominent of which featuring a trio of Galaxy Notes, which were being placed on their pedestals as we arrived. Looking through the glass revealed a brightly lit store, filled with products and people whom I assume to be Samsung corporate employees. After a little while, the doors were opened to the ten or so people in line …

It’s almost that time of the year again – the new iPhone is about to be announced. What does that mean for Android? It means a whole bunch of poor iPhone users’ contracts are ending and (assuming that they have seen the light) will be switching to our favourite operating system as they re-sign contracts. We are often asked what apps a new comer needs to make the switch to Android, so I asked the Android Australia team for recommendations and in turn put together the following list of essential apps.

As my mobile phone contract ends soon, I find myself looking at the future of my cellular services. Of course, I’ll take this as an opportunity to upgrade to a late-model phone, probably a Samsung Galaxy S III or the next Nexus, but the question remains, how will I pay for my service? I’ve been doing some basic math, and thought I’d share it with you.

I have been on Optus for almost 8 years now. For my purposes, they have always been fantastic. The service is good and is generally available most places I go, the plans are good value and offer benefits of linking my bill to my family’s and the benefits like cheap cinema tickets and Qantas …

Josh, Bryce and I had the pleasure of attending the media launch of the new ASUS Transformer Infinity yesterday in Sydney where the Taiwanese manufacturer outlined their new strategy in tablet design. One thing that caught my attention was the importance ASUS are paying to the built-in camera as an integral part of the mobile experience, as evident by their inclusion of some pretty cool camera technology.

For starters, ASUS have included an 8mp CMOS sensor. To me, 8mp is the perfect resolution for a mobile device. It is large enough to produce useful images that are of a good size, but dont sacrifice image quality. The sensor is also backlit, which reduces the need to increase ISO to …

I finally got my hands on a friend’s Nexus 7 last week. I’m hoping many of you have had the same privelidge, or even have one of your own – but let me tell you, this thing is beautiful. The casing is stunningly designed, but one thing I noticed are these four little Pogo Pins on the body that dont seem to fit any accessory I have seen before. For those of you who dont know, Pogo Pins are electrical contacts that sit flush with the body of a device and are used for creating a temporary electrical contact when it is docked or connected to an accessory.

Well, some interesting slides have been leaked that show us what these …

Editor’s note: We know this is old news but it slipped through the stream of articles. We’ve posted that the One XL and One S will be getting the update, but not that Telstra specifically will be dishing them out.

Good news, everyone! Or just those of you who have an HTC One XL or One S from Telstra. Telstra have noted on their Smartphone Software Updates page that “HTC is preparing an update but is yet to confirm the date it will be submitted for Telstra testing” for both the handsets, which both have an expected delivery date listed only as TBC.

Unfortunately, we dont know if it will be 4.1 or 4.1.1 released to HTC users, but …

Sad news just out from the Vodafone Blog saying that the roll-out of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean to Samsung Nexus S handsets on the Vodafone Australia network have been delayed. According to the blog, the delay has been caused by problems with the software not being able to meet Australian regulations for emergency calls from cellular devices.

Vodafone has not given us a timeframe as to when the update will be available, but updates will be placed here, on the Jelly Bean stream of the Vodafone Blog.

Source: Vodafone Blog

It was a day we all knew was coming, but no one quite wanted to think about or admit. The surge in demand that has come over the past few years for cellular services in Australia now means that we will soon run out of 04XX mobile phone numbers. The country already has more cellular subscriptions than people, sitting at about 24.5 million subscriptions as of the middle of 2011. Many of those subscriptions proudly established by those of us with telecommunications careers here at Android Australia.

In an announcement today the Australian Media and Communication Authority, ACMA, announced amendments to the national numbering plan. That includes changes to the landline numbering system and the addition of an 05XX cellular …