LG has finally started the roll out of the Gingerbread update for its Optimus One smartphones, according to reports. LG had initially denied the Gingerbread upgrade for the Optimus One devices saying that the handset does not meet the minimum criteria required for the upgrade. However, in March this year LG had revealed its plans for the roll out of the Gingerbread upgrade for the Optimus One smartphone in the month of May but failed to roll out the upgrade in time.

The Optimus One Gingerbread upgrade was to be made available through the Android Market. But the update now will be available through LG’s desktop smartphone client as and when the update is made available.

LG is yet to announce the timeline or the availability of the upgrade. But since the roll out has been confirmed by various users across the globe, it is expected that the global roll out of Gingerbread upgrade for LG Optimus One will follow sooner than expected. In India users can expect the update for their Optimus One devices by the end of September this year.

The Gingerbread update has already been made available to a few manufacturers internationally and they are already making Optimus One devices available with the Gingerbread V2.3.3 update. The Gingerbread upgrade for the existing users will be made available soon.

Research In Motion (RIM) on Monday announced the launch of BlackBerry Torch 9810 with the BlackBerry 7 operating system in India.

It features a large 3.2 inch high Resolution touch display and slide-out QWERTY keyboard that allow faster typing. The smartphone has 8 GB of memory which is expandable up to 32 GB with a micro SD card that helps users to take more pictures, capture more videos and download more apps.

The 1.2 GHz Processor of BlackBerry Torch 9810 makes browsing faster than ever. The smartphones is also loaded with a 5 Megapixel camera with flash, and advanced features to help capture still images of high quality video like a pro with 720p HD video recording.

With the BlackBerry 7 OS, the new Torch 9810 is powered with augmented reality that is enabled with the digital compass and accelerometer. With the Wikitude World Browser, it provides an exciting new way to interact and socialise with the world around. The new OS also enables the smartphone with voice-activated universal search with speech-to-text translation, one can search for files, email, contacts, music and more&#151and even search the web&#151without typing a thing.

Samsung has introduced a new BlackBerry Messenger-like feature called Chat On. The service, part of Samsung’s global mobile communication, will work across all major smartphone and feature phone platforms.

With Samsung Chat On users can interact with friends and family regardless of whether the device they’re using is a smartphone, feature phone, tablet or notebook computer. Users can instantly share text, images, hand-written notes and video through it. They can chat in groups as well, while a web client will allow easy sharing of content and conversations between mobiles and PCs.

“With Chat On, Samsung has vastly simplified mobile communication by allowing users to connect to our upcoming feature phones and all major smartphones in the market,” said Ho Soo Lee, head of the media solution center at Samsung Electronics. “Users around the world can now enjoy easier and richer interactivity with whoever they want, in the format they want&#151this is mobile communication reinvented and democratised.”

Chat On is available in more than 120 countries and supports up to 62 languages. It allows feature phone users to share text, pictures, calendar events, contacts and emoticons through an easy-to-access client.

Smartphone users can see how often they communicate with their buddies using the Interaction Rank feature of Chat On, and can post comments on buddies’ profile pages. Users can also create an Animation message, which allows them to create their own content by scribbling texts, adding audio and choosing background pictures.

Samsung Chat On has been officially announced and will gradually be rolled out across all Samsung smartphones, feature phones, tablet and notebook computers &#151 new and old. This functionality will also be added to all upcoming devices including those showcased at the IFA in Berlin.

Nokia has announced a new upgrade of its maps service. With the new Nokia Maps v 3.08, the maps application for Symbian based devices now even provides real-time weather forecast to the users. Notably, it provides up to five days of weather predictions as well.

Nokia has also added live traffic notification to the maps. Countries like Germany, France, US, UK and Russia can get real time traffic information using Nokia maps. But other countries will have to wait for some more time as Nokia plans to bring this feature soon.

The look and feel of the application has also been tweaked for an easier access and use. The search result system has been tweaked for better readability.

Nokia has also brought the ‘Drive to Contact’ feature back which was removed earlier due to some issues. With this feature, drivers can directions to their destinations.

Nokia Symbian users can straight away head to the Nokia Beta labs and try the new Nokia Maps on the Symbian devices including Nokia N8, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7-00, Nokia E7-00, Nokia E6-00, and Nokia X 7-00 running the Symbian Anna or above. Non touch devices are not supported in this release.

HTC on Tuesday announced the launch of its Evo 3D smartphone in India during the annual Qualcomm event in New Delhi. The HTC Evo 3D is priced at Rs 35,995.

Evo 3D, as the name signifies, is a 3D smartphone based on Google’s Android Gingerbread 2.3 operating system, with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon system on a chip &#151 MSM 8660 &#151 running at 1.2 GHz with an Adreno 220 graphics engine, 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of onboard storage.

The device features a 4.3 inch 3D display with native Resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, which is slightly better than the screen of Optimus 3D at 480 x 800 pixels. Both phones have screens of the same size.

Evo 3D features two 5 Megapixel cameras at the back, capable of capturing 3D visuals at 2 megapixel resolution and 720p 3D video at 30 frames per second. Apart from 3D video, the camera is capable of recording full 1080p high definition video at 24 frames per second along with 5 megapixel 2D still images.