HTC Hero owners have been twiddling their thumbs waiting for an upgrade to the phone’s Google Android operating system. If you just can’t wait any longer, you can rocket straight past Android 1.6 Donut and unofficially upgrade to Android 2.1 Éclair yourself, thanks to good old-fashioned hackers. It’s a treat we’ve been hoping for ever …

Forget dropping the post-Christmas pounds, LG is working the chunk with the LG GW990 — a phone so big it’s pushing into tablet territory. The GW990 uses Intel’s new CPU, codenamed ‘Moorestown‘, which powers the phone’s marvellous multitasking skills. Not only do apps run in the background, they run simultaneously in the foreground — LG demonstrated the GW990 running three …

Forget dropping the post-Christmas pounds, LG is working the chunk with the LG GW990 — a phone so big it’s pushing into tablet territory. Big is beautiful, LG’s GW990 with its 4.8-inch screen. (Credit: Engadget) The GW990 uses Intel’s new CPU, codenamed “Moorestown”, which powers the phone’s marvellous multitasking skills. Not only do apps run in the background, they run …

Another day, another technology behemoth getting into the smart-phone business. This time, it’s Dell getting into the fray with the announcement of its Dell Mini 3 smart phone. The Mini 3 runs Google’s Android operating system, with Dell’s own user interface skinning the little green robot. It has an 89mm (3.5-inch) touchscreen and a 3-megapixel camera on the back. The …

The Motorola Backflip is like the Dext but with a horrific back injury. It’s an Android-powered smart phone with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, and it’s got similar rounded looks, but its screen also flips back at an angle. With the display at a jaunty angle, in what Motorola calls ‘tabletop mode’, the Backflip is perfect for watching videos or for …

We’ve flown a £21,500 radio-controlled chopper and crashed a model P51-D Mustang on the streets of London, but throw in an iPhone and the ability to shoot at our friends, and we’re insanely excited about the Parrot AR.Drone helicopter. The AR.Drone connects to the iPhone or iPod touch over Wi-Fi, and uses the phone’s accelerometer so you can fly it …

In the early 1990s, giving away free flights with its vacuum cleaners cost Hoover £50m and lost the board its jobs, but Carphone Warehouse isn’t letting that stop it. It’s giving away two free return flights to Europe to everyone who buys a Palm Pre between 26 December 2009 and the end of January. You can choose to take your …

We do everything on our phones, from ordering our groceries to getting our groove on. But on some phones, actually making phone calls makes us want to scoop out our eyeballs with a melon baller. Poor connections, tinny sound and echoes are just some of the voice-quality issues that leave us shouting impotently into our mobiles. Orange is promising to …

Tesco has announced how much it’s going to ding us for the iPhone, with two contracts and a pay as you go option available. One of our favourite details is its fair-use policy for surfing the Web on your phone — one delicious terabyte each month. Compare that to Orange’s paltry 750MB limit, or O2’s mysterious possibly-8GB limit, and it …

Vodafone will be dropping down chimneys right after Santa to deliver the iPhone to good little boys and girls on 14 January. It has also announced its iPhone contract prices, which we’ve put into a handy table for you. Like Orange, Vodafone isn’t trying to compete on price — check out our in-depth comparison of the iPhone on Orange versus …