Android v2.3 (Gingerbread) Now Coming To HTC Desire Z, Desire HD, Desire, and Incredible S In Q2

Do you carry an HTC Desire Z, Desire HD, Desire, or the brand-friggin’ new Incredible S? Are you wondering when you’ll get a bite of that sweet, sweet Gingerbread (or, in non-mega-geek-speak, when your handset will be updated to Android v2.3)?

While HTC isn’t naming any specific dates (that just tends to make people rage when the unavoidable delays occur), they’ve confirmed to Slashgear that the four aforementioned devices will get Gingerbread, and they’ve offered up a pretty big window for when those updates will come: Q2. That means we probably won’t see any of them by March, but all of them should be floatin’ over the airwaves by the end of June.

HTC Incredible S, Desire HD, News : Desire Z and original Desire will all be eating Gingerbread by the end of June

When it launched the Incredible S at MWC a couple of weeks ago, HTC promised the new 4-inch device would be quick to get a Gingerbread update and now it's giving us a definitive schedule for it by saying that Android 2.3 will be distributed to its new flagship phone by the end of Q2 2011. We're not sure four months of sitting by the window waiting for the OTA update to float in necessarily matches up to our definition of "quick," but there are much better news for owners of HTC's older devices. The Desire HD and Desire Z -- both released in September 2010 -- will also be leaping away from Froyo and up to Gingerbread and will be joined by the original Desire, which was announced way back at last year's MWC. That handset was essentially HTC's own-brand Nexus One, so we already knew it was capable of running Gingerbread, but it's still rare to see a device go through two significant Android updates (the Desire began life with Android 2.1). All these old Desires are placed on the same update schedule as the Incredible S, whereas the newly announced Desire S and Wildfire S will ship with Gingerbread preloaded.

HTC Incredible S now shipping this week in UK, will come with Froyo to start

Though it'd originally been pegged for the second quarter, it seems HTC's bumping that up a smidge with the launch of its new flagship -- the Incredible S -- in the UK this week. Pre-orders are going on as we speak with shipments promised for tomorrow, but there's a catch: rather than shipping withGingerbread, the phones will come with Froyo to start with an upgrade to Gingerbread promised for the near future. Buyers, we've got a little homework for you: if you're feeling adventurous and in a warranty-voiding mood, try to figure out what's going on with those auto-rotating capacitive buttons, alright?

Question:HTC Incredible S auto-rotating buttons explained?

We were quite bedazzled by the HTC Incredible S after our hands-on at MWC, but it's the auto-rotating icons for the capacitive buttons that left us most intrigued. So we went back to the HTC booth to try to make sense of it all. From what we were able to observe, there's some optical trickery happening here: the icons appear to be glittering and shimmering depending on viewing angle as if lit through a prism, half-mirror or grate of some kind. We think that a pair of LEDs are used to project the intended icon onto the glass surface via either a combination of prisms and half-mirrors, or via horizontally and vertically polarized grates. Watch our video after the break, and let us know in the comments how you think this actually works. 

HTC refreshin Android lineup with Incredible S, Desire S and Wildfire S

The buttonless wonder we once knew only as "HTC's upcoming flagship device" has today been revealed to be the Incredible S. It's a new 4-incher that emulates the Droid Incredible's successful industrial design, but deviates in a lot of other ways, including the fact it'll launch globally -- at some point in early Q2, but with only Android 2.2 on board. We got to see one in person ahead of today's unveiling and we have to say it feels like a very solidly and neatly built pocket machine. The capacitive buttons' labels are not painted on and actually rotate with the screen, so that they can be either in landscape or portrait mode, whatever your wishes (and physical position). We found that ever so simple little feature added a greater sense of interaction with the phone, plus -- let's face it -- it's just a ton of fun to do.

in terms of hard specs, the Incredible S comes with a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 backed by 768MB of RAM, a 720p HD video-capable 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and autofocus, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing image taker, and a 1450mAh battery. Resolution is your standard-issue 800 x 480.

That res is also shared by another in HTC's newly launched handsets today, the 3.7-inch Desire S. It is essentially an HTC Desire inside a new aluminum unibody shell, making use of largely the same design language and specifications. The camera is still a 5 megapixel unit, and is joined by an MSM8255powering things from within, a new front-facing camera (1.3MP), 768MB of RAM, and a 1450mAh battery. The big difference between it and the Incredible S it is launching alongside is that the Desire S will ship with Gingerbread from the start, which should be some time in the middle of Q2 2011.

Soon after its launch, we'll all get to witness the debut of the Wildfire S, the new low-end offering from HTC, which cranks up resolution from QVGA to HVGA relative to its predecessor and adds yet more colors and vibrancy for the sake of that ephemeral youth appeal that all these phone makers are hunting for. A big point in the Wildfire S' favor is that it'll also come with Gingerbread preloaded. We'll soon be grabbing more hands-on time, along with pictures and video, with all of these devices, so bear with us.