Aimed at the younger market, who account for the biggest chunk of the social networking fan base, the phone comes with both Facebook and Twitter integrated into the device. On first impressions, it comes across as a sort of budget HTC Desire, with ease of use being the key component.

There's the simplicity of the Sense interface, an app sharing system plus 3.2-inch touchscreen. The Android OS motors along on a 500MHz processor, there's a 5 megapixel camera on-board plus FM radio and WiFi capability.

"Today’s social networks provide an essential forum for friendship with more than 400 million users, many of whom are young adults, actively sharing their lives with their friends through Facebook," said Florian Seiche, Vice President, HTC EMEA.

"HTC Wildfire makes the HTC Sense experience available to young mobile users for the first time. It brings all your communications into one place, whether it’s through Facebook, Twitter, text messages, images or email, ensuring that you are never far away from the conversation and always close to your friends."

No official on-sale date has been given but it's thought that we could see it in stores as soon as July. HTC has also been quiet when it comes to pricing for the Wildfire, but given that it's aimed at a more youthful audience, we can only assume that it'll arrive with a price tag that's tailored accordingly.

News reports yesterday suggested that Standard Chartered, a British bank with interests in the Asian markets, will be switching their allegiance from the Research In Motion produced handsets to the arch-rival product produced by Apple.

The financial institution employs some 75,000 employees worldwide, which if they they'd all carry out a migration from BlackBerry to iPhone could mean that RIM will take a serious pounding on the sales front. However, only a small proportion of the workforce gets supplied with a Blackberry device currently.

Nevertheless, this move and others like it, could seriously harm the success so far enjoyed by BlackBerry producer. In the US, RIM has enjoyed the lion's share of smartphone sales with a 36 percent lead. Google Android-powered devices are running a close second with a 28 percent share of the market, while Apple and its iPhone currently has only 21 percent, according to recent statistics supplied by the American NPD Group.

Customers will need to pay an initial 75 pence connection charge but they'll escape the other high charges normally associated with phoning home from abroad. Anyone with a contract that includes minutes, as well as PAYG customers with the Freedom Pack minutes deal, will just have to pay their regular tariff rates.

Vodafone has also been keen to advertise their international roaming rates, which they say will allow customers to browse the web with a charge of £1 per MB for the first 5MB of data used and £5 for each subsequent 5MB used.

Texts back home will cost 11 pence and there's also a handy free real-time text alert service being offered by the mobile provider to remind you when you're getting near the end of your data allowance. These international roaming rates commence as of June 15th.

Google has revealed that it will ditch this sales approach and focus instead on selling the device through networks, in a similar fashion to the way it does here in the UK via Vodafone. The added benefit of this approach is that potential customers can go to a high street shop and try the phone for themselves, prior to parting with their cash.

One criticism of the online selling approach for the Nexus One has been the lack of customer support. Google has clearly decided that selling the device through network outlets makes much more sense in terms of offering a more complete customer service.

The announcement was made by Andy Rubin, vice president of Engineering at the US search giant. "While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It's remained a niche channel for early adopters," he commented.

While the Nexus One will move to traditional retail outlets, the Google online store will evolve into a virtual shop window and be used for promoting a variety of other Android handsets available around the world.

With a 600Mhz Qualcomm processor the Ally has a 3.2-inch 800x480 pixel resolution touchscreen. But what really grabs you is the 4-line slide out QWERTY keyboard that appears underneath the screen as you slide the two halves apart. Raised keys means touch typing can be carried out relatively easily. 

Alongside that there’s a 3.2 megapixel camera, plus 4x zoom, WiFi functionality, aGPS, 3G and Bluetooth 2.1. Onboard storage space can be boosted from 4GB to 16GB thanks to a built-in microSD card slot.

It’s hoped the handset will join the LG InTouch Max GW620 here in the UK soon, although a domestic release date has yet to be confirmed. Meanwhile, the release date Stateside is said to be May 20.

The device, also previously known as the Mini 5, will be available through O2 although pricing for the gadget has yet to be released. However, it's likely Dell will be keen to undercut the Apple iPad, which gets its UK debut on May 28th.

Running on the Android platform, the Streak has a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen and is similar in stature to an iPhone only a little bulkier. What's more, the device also comes with two cameras, with a webcam on the front and a 5-megapixel lens on the back, plus a UMTS/HSDPA modem.

The Streak first made an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year and while the 5-inch screen model will get a June release, it's rumoured that there'll be 7 and 10-inch versions of the tablet-computer style device to follow.

Similar to the other eagerly awaited Samsung handset, the Wave, the Galaxy S sports a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, 5 megapixel camera and beefy 1GHz processor, along with a very decent 16GB of internal memory. Like its counterpart, the device will also have DivX certification for its 720p HD video output capability.

Vodafone hasn't confirmed any tariffs as yet, although you can register on their site for details and updates. The handset looks sure to be a hit with a solid feature-set that also includes A-GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, USB 2.0 and integrated 802.11 WiFi. There's also a microSD card slot capable of taking up to 32GB.

The main focus is aimed at the iPhone and relates to a variety of issues from power management and memory issues through to telephony elements inside the device. It's another new angle in the ongoing saga, with Apple already suing for alleged patent theft surrounding options like the 'swipe to unlock' feature found on HTC phones, which works in a similar fashion to the iPhone.

This latest round in the ongoing dispute between the two companies was lodged on Wednesday although it is thought unlikely that availability of the iPhone will suffer. HTC's Google Android-based Desire is seen as one of the main iPhone rivals and that model, plus eleven others in the US range, has been putting a dent in sales of the hugely popular Apple smartphone.

Jason Mackenzie, vice-president of HTC Corporation North America, said: "We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones. HTC believes the industry should be driven by healthy competition and innovation that offer consumers the best, most accessible experiences possible."

His comments follow a similarly robust statement from Apple boss Steve Jobs back in March when he said: We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it."

A support page is already available on the Apple website that gives advice on the workarounds that are available to fix the issue. So far iPad owners Stateside have complained abut not being able to connect, weak signal strength, passwords that get forgotten and frustratingly slow download speeds.

Apple maintains that this is a problem that has affected only a very small number of customers. The range of workarounds so far suggested include updating router firmware, switching encryption and renewing your IP address.

Although there have been a few technical hitches along the way, Apple is doing good business with the iPod in America, having sold over a million of the devices in the first month of its release. Both the WiFi model and its 3G-enabled counterpart will, hopefully, be available here by the end of this month.

The Wave is another twist on the iPhone/iTunes concept and will retail at around £400 for the unlocked version. This is the first handset to run the bada open-source operating system and is set to feature a 3.3-inch capacitive touch screen. It'll motor along on a 1Hhz processor and this, combined with support for DivX and Xvid codecs, should mean video will work a treat on that AMOLED screen.

You'll get the Samsung Apps marketplace preloaded on the Wave, although apps written specifically for the phone itself will obviously be few and far between initially. However, with the release of a dedicated SDK for the bada platform it shouldn’t be long before a wealth of third-party apps start appearing, subject to their approval by Samsung that is.

The Android OS is open-source and, in essence, similar to a Windows desktop computer, so it can be easily utilized by any phone manufacturer. As a result, Android can now be found in a variety of handsets from larger, well established phone manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola as well as the rapidly expanding relative newcomer HTC.

Research carried out in America by the NPD Group has found that Android-powered mobile phones are the second most popular, after Blackberry, which has 36 per cent marketshare. Consumers buying new Android handsets accounted for 28 per cent of the market in the first three months of this year. The Apple phone lagged behind getting just 21 per cent.

The revelations suggested that strong sales of Android favourites like the HTC Droid Eris and Motorola's Droid devices were the main reason for the sprint ahead in popularity compared to the iPhone.

Apple are expected to regain ground at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco next month, when it's expected they will launch the new 4G iPhone.

The announcement follows the merger last year and the pairing now makes up a combined communications company that is the biggest in the UK. As well as allowing the two companies to share mobile phone masts, the merger will also mean cost savings moving forward, said to be around 3.5-billion, although there will also be some job cuts.

While the new Everything Everywhere marketing catchphrase will be applied to both Orange and T-Mobile, it's thought that the individual brands will survive here in the UK for at least the next 18 months. The merger means that 30 million customers now fall under this corporate umbrella.

Everything Everywhere is jointly owned by France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom. Following integration of Orange and T-Mobile from July 1st, it is hoped the telecoms giant will push forward with their rumored single super-network, aimed at providing customers with better coverage and a much more resilient network.