HTC Desire Z review
There aren’t that many Android devices that offer a physical QWERTY keyboard. The HTC Desire Z squares up against the Motorola Milestone 2 nicely, leaving other devices to mainly scrap it out for the mid-range dollars. Even with the Desire Z taking a position towards the top of the scale, it would be easy to knock it after a glance at the spec sheet.
Indeed, we highlighted that it had an 800MHz processor rather than the more common 1GHz processor in our First Look of the HTC Desire Z. But let’s do it justice – this is a second generation Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset and as such, it is decidedly more efficient than 800MHz models of old – in fact, it will offer better performance than many older chipsets clocked at a higher processor speeds. Read more 
Samsung Continuum vs. DROID X, DROID 2, Incredible, Fascinate
We just posted the “Top Things to Know” for the Samsung Continuum over at Android Life, but we also have this sheet which shows how the device compares to the rest of Verizon’s lineup of top Android phones including the entire Droid family. Wondered how its “Ticker” matches up against the Droid X, D2, or Incredible? What about the Fascinate? Here you go.
Flash comes to iPhone thanks to Skyfire app
It looks like those of you using iOS will be able to play Flash videos very shortly through the new Skyfire mobile browser, which Fortune has recently detailed.
According to 9to5 Mac the app was submitted in August, and has recently been approved by Apple – which if true will make iOS platform a real all-rounder.
Skyfire is a full browser built on top of the native Safari browser you’ll find on your iDevice, meaning when a messge saying that you “can’t view this video” pops up, you’ll be able to play the content by way of a handy thumbnail.
Saying it plays Flash isn’t strictly true, however, as the browser turns Flash into H.264 (a codec for HTML5) video which iOS devices are more than happy to use. Somehow we can’t imagine this technicality worrying the end user.
As the press release puts it: “The “Video” icon [on Skyfire] enables users to play millions of Flash videos around the web that otherwise do not play on mobile. This unlocks content trapped behind those error messages with question marks and blue Legos by transcoding the Flash content into HTML5 on Skyfire’s servers”.
Creative ZiiO Android tablets offer 7 and 10 inches of apt-X love
Creative has announced the launch of two Android tablet devices in 7 and 10 inches, called the Creative ZiiO.
Joining a growing flood of devices entering the tablet market at the moment, Creative is looking to leverage its experience in audio by packing the new tablets with X-Fi tech and the apt-X audio codec, promising a premium audio experience whether it is via headphones or wirelessly with Bluetooth, using compatible apt-X speakers. Read more
First official HTML5 tests topped by…Microsoft
The Worldwide Web Consortium has released the results of its first HTML5 conformance tests, and according to this initial rundown, the browser that most closely adheres to the latest set of web standards is…Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.
Yes, the HTML5 spec has yet to be finalised. And yes, these tests cover only a portion of the spec. But we can still marvel at just how much Microsoft’s browser philosophy has changed in recent months.
The W3C tests — available here — put IE9 beta release 6 at the top of the HTML5 conformance table, followed by the Firefox 4 beta 6, Google Chrome 7, Opera 10.6, and Safari 5.0. The tests cover seven aspects of the spec: “attributes”, “audio”, “video”, “canvas”, “getElementsByClassName”, “foreigncontent,” and “xhtml5”:
The tests do not yet cover web workers, the file API, local storage, or other aspects of the spec.
Not do they cover CSS or other standards that have nothing to do with HTML5 but are somehow lumped under HTML5 by the likes of Apple, Google, and Microsoft. As Mozilla man Asa Dotzler pointed out, when Microsoft released its IE9 platform preview 6, it said that its “HTML5 features include CSS3 2D Transforms.”
“WTF, Microsoft? Are you trying to add more confusion to the conversation?” Dotzler wrote.
“HTML5 features include CSS3? That’s seriously confused. Please stop this. HTML5 is HTML. CSS3 is CSS. The two are not the same thing.”
LG enV Pro pictures and specs
The LG enV Pro running Android has been sort of a mystery up to this point with zero pictures in the wild and just a rumored release date of November 11th on Verizon. It’s rare that we see a device come this close to a launch date without a leak, but today we’ll gladly end its run. As you can see from the shots below and the one above, the device has a pretty nice form factor including what appears to be an amazing keyboard. Sporting dual screens, just as old enVs have, the device (according to the UG) will also come loaded with Swype, Bing, and the rest of the bloatware we’ve seen on non-DROID branded VZW Android phones. Read more
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