Depending on who you speak to, the Incredible will be the next HTC phone to launch in the US. Or maybe it’s the Supersonic . There was even talk that they may be one and the same . More

Chatter over the Milestone’s impending Android 2.1 update has reached a rolling boil in recent days, but it’s actually the Milestone’s American cousin that’s getting the official coverage today. That’s right: Verizon’s just posted details on the Droid’s upgrade to Google’s latest and greatest cut, and you’ve got the expected host of goodies including the new 3D Gallery app, voice-to-text, news and weather widgets, pinch-to-zoom support, “improved” pattern lock, and — get this — live wallpapers, something we’d originally thought Motorola might leave out. It appears to lack the Nexus One’s 3D app launcher (which we’d expected), but it’s still pure gold for owners. Let us know when you’ve gotten it, eh? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Verizon posts Android 2.1 upgrade details for Droid originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

Tired of waiting for Verizon and dissatisfied with a series of recent buggy leaks , the fine folks at XDA Developers were determined to trade their Cupcake-laden Droid Eris for a more toothsome Eclair on their own terms. Yesterday evening, it seems they finally achieved their goal, though not without a caveat or three. If you’re still running the stock Android 1.5, it’s a simple matter of dropping a ZIP file onto your SD card and restarting your phone; if not, you’re completely out of luck. Rooters warn that the hack won’t work on phones that have already been flashed to that aforementioned Eris 2.1 leak, and that they haven’t yet figured out a way to restore any non-1.5 phones back to factory default. If hacking isn’t your daily bread, proceed with caution — Sense UI may be fancy and all, but chaining your phone forevermore to an unsupported OS just ain’t worth it. See what an Eris Eclair looks like after the break

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but Android Central seems to have obtained a screen shot from a deep, dark, top-secret Verizon system that indicated that the upcoming CDMA version of the Nexus One will be “available only through www.Google.com/Phones.” That, of course, matches T-Mobile’s strategy of quietly letting Google do its thing — and Verizon’s strategy of keeping its network “open” — so you’ll just have to remember to not line up at your local store at 8PM the night before the launch, otherwise you’re going to come away very, very disappointed. What’s a whole lot stranger, though, is a mention that it runs HTC’s Sense UI , which means one of a few things: Google’s allowing carriers and manufacturers to have their way with the Android builds sold directly through its own store, the Verizon-branded Nexus One is the Incredible , or the document is just sorely confused. The way we see it, there’d simply not be enough differentiation between the Nexus One and the Incredible for them to come to market as separate products if they were both running Sense — and besides, isn’t variety the spice of life? Update: That was quick — it seems Verizon has already updated its specs to remove the reference to Sense and change the URL from google.com/phones to google.com/phone — no plural. Thanks, ninjalex76! Verizon’s Nexus One to be sold only through Google, have Sense UI (or not) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

You know how you pay a fixed monthly fee for your phone, and can check email and Twitter, surf the web and the Yelp app anytime you like without counting minutes or megabytes? Yeah, well that’s all gonna end. More

Android Forums is alight today with fresh HTC Incredible chatter — a phone every Android fan on Verizon is desperately waiting for — and we’ve managed to glean a few more pictures and possible specs out of the mess. It looks like we can expect a half gig of RAM with about 320MB available (roughly the same as what you find on the Nexus One ) and an 8 megapixel cam, but interestingly, the phone’s Snapdragon core is apparently underclocked to 768MHz, almost certainly a battery-saving measure on HTC’s part; fortunately, the Sense -powered Android 2.1 firmware is still said to be “blazing fast.” It measures 117.5 x 58.5 x 11.9mm — just a hair narrower, shorter, and thicker than its Nexus One doppelganger, small enough of a difference so that we think it’ll be virtually indistinguishable in person. As shots go, we’re seeing now that HTC has moved from the brightly-colored glossy shell to a soft-touch black one while keeping the strange contours; we think there’s at least a chance that this is final ID, too, since the Verizon logo is silkscreened at the bottom. Inside, the entire thing (including the battery itself) is a shockingly loud shade of red, mirroring an odd design trend first seen on the HD mini . We definitely dig it. If the stats over on the forum hold up, the Incredible’s on track for a launch in April or May, so it’s still a few weeks off — in the meanwhile, we encourage you to check out more of the new shots after the break

Nokia was rumored to be building it, but according to the WSJ Verizon Wireless ‘ first 4G handset will debut mid-2011, running on the LTE network that’s launching end of this year after Boston and Seattle guinea pigged the service. More

Nokia was rumored to be building it, but according to the WSJ Verizon Wireless ‘ first 4G handset will debut mid-2011, running on the LTE network that’s launching end of this year after Boston and Seattle guinea pigged the service. More

Alright, you ultrafast mobile broadband zealots, whip out your calendars and draw a big red tick around the middle of 2011. Verizon’s CTO Anthony Melone has identified next summer as the carrier’s release window for its first LTE handset, which should be preceded by the 4G service being rolled out by the end of this year. If you’re wondering what you’ll be using on that “faster than 3G” network while waiting for the vanguard handset , we saw plenty of LTE-equipped gear at CES and let’s not forget about that 1080p-decodin’ NVIDIA tablet that was teased during the show. The one bit of bogus news from Melone was the statement that contracts with “as much data as you can consume is the big issue that has to change.” Verizon seems resolutely set on introducing some type of tiered or metered price plans, which is unfortunately the same path AT&T is headed down . The message from the networks is therefore clear: with great (downloading) power comes great (bill-paying) responsibility. Verizon promises first 4G handset for next summer, foretells end of unlimited data plans originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:45:00 EST.

Alright, Droid owners, decent multitouch performance isn’t the only thing you’ve got to brag about. As you likely know by now, 2.1’s in the works for you — and from the latest video we’re seeing of an official test build running in the wild, we’re cautiously optimistic that it’s going to be a fantastic little update. As we’d reported some time back, the Nexus One’s revamped app launcher is missing, but multitouch appears to work like butter in both the browser and revamped Gallery app and the new news and weather widgets have made the cut as well. Most notable, though, might simply be the fact that everything flies — home screen switches, opening of the app drawer, zooming, it’s all mega-fast.