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The HTC M8 is tipped to be the first HTC device to feature on-screen buttons rather than the soft touch variety.

HP has confirmed that it is plotting a comeback to the smartphone sector with an executive for the PC giant suggesting it wants to offer a “differentiated experience.”


Although failing to get into specifics, a senior director of HP has reportedly stated that a new smartphone offering is being plotted, stating “HP has to be in the game.”

Fielding question on whether HP would return to the smartphone scene, Yam Su Yin, the company’s Senior Director of Consumer PC and Media Tablets for the Asia Pacific markets stated: "The answer is yes but I cannot give a timetable. It would be silly if we say no. HP has to be in the game."

A former key player in the smartphone sector, HP splashed out a hefty $1.2 billion (£788m) on snapping up Palm back in early 2010. Sadly for the American company, its webOS software failed to keep track with the rise of iOS and Android subsequently seeing it drift into smartphone obscurity.

With the likes of Apple and, more specifically, Google having continued their meteoric rise through the ranks of the smartphone sector, a returning HP would face considerable trouble breaking back into a significant role on the smartphone front.

Responding to such concerns, Su Yin added:  "Being late you have to create a different set of proposition. There are still things that can be done. It’s not late. When HP has a smartphone, it will give a differentiated experience."

Reports early today revealed that Android now accounts for more than 70 per cent of all European smartphones sold during the three months to May 31.

While Google dominates on a software front, Samsung has become a key player on the hardware side of things and is now responsible for almost 50 per cent of all European smartphone sales. Although Samsung has stormed past formed leader Apple in Europe, latest figures have suggested things are less clear cut in the US.

“Across Europe, Android growth remains strong,” Paul Moore, Global Director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said. “However, in the US Apple’s expanded distribution agreement with T-Mobile is helping the iPhone keep Android growth at bay.”

He added: “T-Mobile is the smallest of the big four US carriers but it does have the capacity to give iOS a boost, particularly as 28 per cent of its customers plan to buy an iPhone when they next upgrade.”

Nowadays the game market is saturated with heaps of top title games, so it’s rare to find genuinely unique games out there.  But Plague Inc is one of those anomalies which is 100% different and special.  Not only is the strategy element of the game amazing, but it also has a weird underlying message hidden within it.


Before I scare any readers of a sensitive disposition… this game has strong ties to its name.  That means it’s about viruses and there is illness and death within it.  Please stop reading if this all sounds too morbid for you.  Disclaimer aside, yes this game is all about infecting the world’s population and trying to exterminate everyone on the planet.

You start off infecting one country and then you manipulate your plague cell’s characteristics to increase its infectivity and alter its severity and lethality.  As you infect more people you’re awarded more DNA points and you need to strategically select your upgrades to maximise on your spread.  For instance if you’re in an urban country then perhaps you want to make rats hosts of your pathogen.


A lot of this game simulation is set on the world so you spend a lot of time looking at the world map.  From there you can see the flight and shipping routes which will allow you to plan some of your infection route.  So you need to think of your way to spread via air, sea or adjacent landmasses.  Just to be clear about the routes – they’re animated by planes or ships… and they’re about the most animation there is in this game!


Ok, I lie, the random bubbles which pop up are also animated.  These can be DNA bubbles, new infection indicators or they can be research flasks.  But ultimately, there’s not much in the way of fancy graphics here.  Instead this game is heavily focused on strategy.  There are also random news headlines which provide some hilarious reads… one of my personal favourites is: “Goldman Stanley encountered an error in their random number generator”… so true… so true…

When you start off initially, you’ll probably just dive in and try any old upgrade options you see which are available.  But once you understand the potential methods and strategies, then you’ll spend a bit more time looking at the infected countries and the infection rates.  A lot of this game is about being patient and understanding critical mass.  Once you have enough people contaminated then your infection will snowball out of control and spread amongst the masses.

There’s a fair amount of complexity in this game, but for any strategist out there it should be relatively easy to pick up.  More importantly, this is a “must have” for any keen puzzle game player out there.  Even if you’re not a hardcore strategist it’s still worth your time to play the game.  The reason for this is because it spreads the message about germs, viruses and other pathogens.  Once a killer infection gains momentum it can spread like wildfire, and unless people are educated about the potential doomsday scenarios then they won’t understand the difficulty of implementing procedures to limit the spread of these infections.

Rating: 4.5/5 Plague Inc is a supreme strategy game which is also quite morbid, but it’s addictive for the brain and puzzle market fans out there.  Hopefully it can also serve an educational purpose in case we ever face a pandemic in real life.

Plague Tips and Tricks

• Remember that the aim is to exterminate everyone on the planet.  This means that you need infect all the countries AND all the people within the countries before you’ve killed off all the infected people.  I’ve had scenarios where I hadn’t finished infecting all the countries and the lethality of my virus caused the remaining countries to close their borders… thus preventing me from being able to infect them… and hence forcing me to restart the game.  I’ve also seen scenarios where I’ve killed all the infected people, but the infection hadn’t spread to everyone yet so there were still healthy people left on Earth.
• In your early games you’ll find that if you get detected too early, then you’ll be rushed to increase the lethality of your disease.  In doing so your rate of killing may exceed your rate of infecting.  To avoid this, you can de-evolve your pathogen from having any illnesses then you can stay hidden from the researchers forever.  As long as there is no illness then you won’t be detected.
• After a few games, you’ll realise that there are some countries which are particularly hard to infect due to their island nature.  Personally I’ve found that starting your infections in these countries can help towards letting you win easier.