Nokia N8 is the current best phone camcorder, but it has its title seriously contested by the Optimus 2X, which ups the game at Full HD 1080p. We gave you a sample video captured with the Optimus 2X not long ago, and now we have this mini shootout to show how good it really is. And there’s even a nice surprise for you if you stick with us after the jump.

It turns out that the Optimus 2X field of view is even wider than that of the Nokia N8, which has a 28mm lens. It’s rather strange that LG didn’t brag about it when announcing the dual-core smartphone, because a wide angle lens like that is a nice thing to have.

Now to the first part of the promised video shootout. First we have both handsets compared at their best settings – 1080p for the Optimus 2X and 720p for the Nokia N8. Don’t forget to switch to fullscreen!





To make the resolution advantage of the Optimus 2X easier to see, here is a couple of 100% crops, one from each video. We’ve upsized the Nokia sample to make them easier to compare. We can’t say the advantage is huge, but it’s definitely there.



On the other hand the Nokia N8 seems to have an advantage in terms of framerate here as its videos generally look smoother than the Optimus 2X output. We should bear in mind though that the Optimus 2x is a pre-production unit and it may do better when it officially hits the shelves.

Moving down to the direct 720p-vs.-720p comparison we are pleased to see that the Optimus 2X is now the smoother of the two contestants. Again, don’t forget to click that fullscreen button.





As you’ll see, it’s hard to pick a winner based on the resolved detail.



Of course, video-recording is not all about resolution and resolved detail. Things like dynamic range (where the N8 is still the king), adaptability, color balance and autofocus accuracy (if video AF is at all present) play equally important parts in capturing high-quality clips.

Still it looks like the Optimus 2X will be one of the strongest contestants of the year in the video recording category.

HTC HD2 turned quite capable device and its loyal users seem to have no intention of abandoning it any time soon. The latest achievement HD2 has accomplished is dual-booting Android and Windows Phone 7, both of them installed on the same memory card. Pretty intriguing, right?

After porting Android and Windows Phone 7, triple-booting Android, Windows Mobile and Ubuntu, the guys at the XDA Developers have outdone themselves once again. The HD2 users are now capable of booting two of the hottest mobile operating systems straight from a single SD card.

Here is the full tutorial video. Watch it carefully and if you decide going this way, be prepared of losing information, operating system, warranty, etc.



The process requires some work and is not that easy, but you’ve done similar hacks beforeр you shouldn’t have any problems.

You can find the complete tutorial here.

The veil has officially lifted – the HTC ThunderBolt is out in the open and ready to impress with LTE connectivity and a 4.3” touch screen. The rumored UMTS connectivity didn’t pan out though, it’s just CDMA EvDO Rev. A and LTE...

The HTC ThunderBolt flaunts impressive specs but if CDMA isn’t available in your country, don’t feel too bad – the ThunderBolt is essentially an HTC Desire HD with CDMA and LTE connectivity built in along with a few other goodies.

A 1.3MP front facing camera has been added to the mix, along with Skype integration (which integrates with the phone book and supports video calling over CDMA/LTE), bigger 1400mAh battery, 8GB of built-in memory and (if I’m reading this correctly), a 32GB card in the box.
Sounds impossible (and awesome) but how else can you interpret “preinstalled 32 GB microSD”?

Anyway, the rest is still here – 4.3” TFT WVGA touchscreen, 1GHz Snapdragon, 768MB RAM, 8MP camera with dual-LED flash and 720p video capture, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 (updatable to 3.0 “when available”) and Android 2.2 Froyo with the latest Sense UI.

There’s no release date just yet (or price) but you can sign up for a notification when more details are available.

Today HTC announced a new addition to their CDMA smartphone lineup, the EVO Shift 4G. The full QWERTY-packing Android smartphone comes with a 3.6” LCD screen of WVGA resolution. The 4G moniker and the Sprint allegiance give away the EVO Shift WiMax radio, but you should know that there’s also EV-DO support for when the new generation networks aren’t available.

The HTC EVO Shift 4G packs a Qualcomm MSM7630 CPU, clocked at 800 MHz and a 5 megapixel camera capable of HD video recording. The rest of its key features include 3.5mm audio jack, Wi-Fi, GPS and a microSD card slot. The EVO Shift 4G will ship with Android 2.2 (Froyo) an there’s no information yet whether a 2.3 (Gingerbread) update will come.

The bad news is that the HTC EVO Shift 4G is a Sprint-exclusive so your only chance of getting it involves living in the US and being fine with signing a long-term contract costing north of $70 per month. The price of the handset itself is $150 after a $100 mail-in rebate.

The XDA-Developers forums have finished baking a Gingerbread ROM for the HTC Droid Incredible. The OMGB-4 ROM is not completely bug-free yet, but it’s the first relatively stable Gingerbread port for a phone other than the Nexus S...

If you’ve been keeping track of the OMGB port here’s what changed since version 3 – the 8MP camera now works, Facebook sync has been fixed, the default kernel has been changed to Invisiblek #21 and MIUI Music App has been added.

There are four things left to fix – the two major items on the To Do list are the Camcorder and GPS and there are two other minor things. There’s no Setup Wizard (so you need to add the account through the Settings menu) and the microSD card need to be mounted as mass storage using scripts rather than the usual way (the scripts are included, you just run them).



You can read up more on OMGB 4 and download it (ROM Manager is supported) over at the XDA-Developers forum.