The last we heard, Verizon had lit up its 196th 4G LTE market. At the rate they are moving, they may cover the entire country before the end of 2013 which is currently their goal. According to a handful of readers, some areas in New Jersey that were previously 3G-only are now seeing LTE signals and speeds. Congrats!

At this point, we almost wouldn’t expect VZW to announce each of these new markets as they go live. Most of the bigger cities have already been given the green light, so many of these new ones are smaller markets. Obviously they would want to mention them in bulk at some point and we may get just that towards the middle of each month.

Have you started seeing 4G LTE in your previously untouched neighborhood?

Cheers Mike and John!

It may be hard to believe, but there are devices still out there that have not received the update to Ice Cream Sandwich yet. I know, it’s unbelievable. The Toshiba Thrive and the Acer Iconia tablets are just two of the devices on that list. Well, you can now mark off the Iconia tablet, as Acer has begun to push out ICS to the A200 tablet starting last Friday. Congrats, Iconia owners.

As for the Thrive, owners have until the end of Spring to receive it on their devices, so the wait could be a couple more months. Word from Toshiba’s PR Manager is that both the 10.1″ and 7″ variations of the device will receive the Ice Cream love around that time frame. Could be worse – you could own a Thunderbolt.

Via: Computer World, PC Mag

The Andru charger was introduced a couple of weeks back and has since taken the Android collectible world by storm. As the coolest charger you will ever find, Andru lights up while plugged in, has bendable arms, movable antennas, and is your ultimate desk companion.

If your first thought runs along the lines of “Oh, another cheap plastic accessory,” then think again. This charger is actually much higher in quality than I had imagined it would be. It is sturdy plastic and rubber, the green and white matching cord feel of the highest quality, and none of the moving parts feel as if they are on the verge of falling off. It’s a great little charger for the Android enthusiast in the building.

At $25 a pop, you may have a hard time justifying it especially with the half dozen other chargers you have lying around your house. Trust me though, as an Android fanboy, this is definitely worth it.

Jump past the break for photos and contest details. Yep, we’re giving 4 away.  

The Android booth at last year’s Mobile World Congress was everything you would hope that an Android booth would be. There was a slide, Android collectibles, devices, a conveyor belt, a lounge, and more. To remind you of its awesomeness, the Android team has posted up a recap of the fun while reminding us all that they will be back at MWC doing it all over again. Can’t wait to see what they have in store.

Via:  Android at MWC 2012

After all of the drama that Google Wallet has gone through over the last couple of weeks (security issues and freezing of prepaid cards), we have yet to discuss usage of the app itself. With prepaid cards back for the most part and enough ways to get the app on your device even though Verizon is doing their best to prevent it, we want to know if anyone has actually used it.

Since carriers have asked Google to not include it on certain devices and with only MasterCard currently along for the ride, I’m personally having trouble finding places to use it at. Even at CES in Vegas, I had made it a goal of mine to use Wallet every single time I took a cab ride. Unfortunately, the only cab with PayPass functionality was the very last cab we took to the airport and the transaction failed enough times that we tossed cash out in frustration.

My first time happened to be last week as I stopped through a Peet’s Coffee here in Portland and noticed the PayPass pad. I fumbled through the transaction, expecting it to be more difficult. It wasn’t. I’m now hooked and am looking for ways and places to use it more often. NFC payments are simply put, brilliant.

Have you had the chance to use it?

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Verizon has been in talks with companies such as Comcast and Time Warner to acquire additional spectrum to beef up their network. The spectrum in question just so happens to be the same frequencies that  T-Mobile’s HSPA+ runs on, so naturally, T-Mobile is not good on this deal. T-Mobile argues that the nation’s largest mobile carrier does not need this additional network and that T-Mo could actually do a better job at deploying and making use of it.

We can’t blame T-Mobile for trying their hardest to get some more slices of the pie. It’s now in the hands of the FCC and as many have stated, we sometimes wish there was better regulations when it came to issues of spectrum purchases.

More coverage at Android Life.

As you know, Ice Cream Sandwich is supposed to be the Android release that merges the tablet and phone experiences. The OS was built to be able to scale no matter what the screen size and hopefully help end the ridiculous “fragmentation” argument that competitors cannot seem to let go of. In fact, if you go into the Android SDK and start messing with resolutions, you can view both the tablet and phone versions of ICS to see what I’m talking about.

One ROM developer by the name patrick decided to work with that multi-screensize idea of Android 4.0 and see kind of magic he could create. His goal was to create a tablet version for the Galaxy Nexus. Guess what? He did it. And no, this isn’t just a build.prop edit as some have tried in the past.

The actual phone.apk is struggling to work (you can’t make calls), but everything else apparently works just fine. With help from the community, I’m sure they will get the voice issues sorted out at some point. For now though, feel free to take it for a spin and see what your phone would look like as tablet. Make a backup!