Windows 8 may not be available until 2013, according to an analyst quoted by Reuters, despite Microsoft's many statements that the software is expected to be available around the middle of 2012.

The analyst, Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft, said that the inevitable delay between the OS being released to manufacturing (RTM) and when vendors will have it ready-loaded on new machines could easily push availability of Windows 8 into early 2013.

This analysis would seem about right to my mind, given that Microsoft has only recently made available a developer preview version of Windows 8, and has yet to deliver a single beta version.

Looking back at the progress of Windows 7 as a guide, Microsoft first previewed this in October 2008, before releasing the first beta in January 2009, hitting RTM in July, and general availability in October.

Given that Windows 7 was a relatively minor update of Vista, while Windows 8 introduces some quite radical changes to the user interface and APIs, I would expect its development timeline to take at least as long, which makes mid-2012 seem somewhat optimistic to deliver the final release.

Microsoft could still surprise us, but I now expect to see a beta in January (probably at CES in Las Vegas), with RTM possibly coming in late summer at the earliest. So we might just see machines shipping by Christmas 2012, but don't bank on it.

Chinese manufacturer Huawei hit London on Monday night for the launch of its upcoming Vision smartphone and MediaPad tablet. Although the MediaPad is not due out in the UK until the first quarter 2012, we managed to get our hands on one of the devices at the launch party.

The MediaPad is a 7in tablet running Android Honeycomb 3.2. It has a unibody design, measuring 10.5mm thick and weighing in at 390g, and features a 1280x800 screen, which Huawei claims as full HD.

The tablet had a very similar look and feel to the HTC Flyer and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7in version. Compared to holding the 600g iPad, it’s noticeably lighter, and we’ve always found 7in tablets much easier to type on in portrait mode while holding the device.

There wasn’t much lag when switching between landscape and portrait modes, however we didn’t find the MediaPad touchscreen as responsive as some other tablet models, especially the iPad. It was also slower to load pages than other models we’ve used, although the 3G connection could have had some part in this.

There’s a 5-megapixel camera on the rear, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calling. Video playback was smooth, although those purchasing a tablet mostly for watching video or TV would be better opting for a 10in model.

The MediaPad runs a 1.2Ghz Qualcomm processor, which Huawei said makes it fantastic for gaming. Certainly Angry Birds seemed to run well on the device.

Huawei claims that the battery will last for more than six hours. It will also have Wi-Fi, HSPA+ 3G and an HDMI port. The MediaPad will be priced at £330 in the UK.

As the MediaPad is very similar to the Samsung Galaxy Tab, we asked Huawei if it was concerned that Apple would start legal proceedings against the firm for copying the look and feel of the iPad.

However, the spokesman said that Huawei was not concerned about that at all. He dismissed the Apple patent as being based on just one diagram, adding that he felt Samsung would be the eventual winner in the legal battle.

When we asked Huawei what the key differentiators were between its tablet and other existing models, it cited Honeycomb 3.2 and the full HD video feature. However, the 7in Acer Iconia Tab A100 already runs Android 3.2. The 1280x800 resolution is unique to the MediaPad among 7in tablets, although among 10in models it’s common.

Huawei is aiming the MediaPad at women, as it says that the current 10in models are favoured by men and so feels there’s a gap in the market for a device that females can fit in their handbags. However, Huawei declined to share any sales targets for the tablet, so it’s difficult to ascertain how successful the firm thinks this will be.

Overall we’d say the price point of the tablet could see it fall between the gaps. Current tablet buyers seem to be after one thing – the Apple brand, and will dig deep for an iPad. However, the £300+ price tag will put it out of reach of the bargain hunters, after the cheaper models to just try out this tablet fad. 

We’ll have a full review of the MediaPad up soon.

V3 got some hands-on time with the Huawei Vision smartphone, which was launched last night as the firm tries to grow its brand and presence in the market.

To start with the phone will be available from Phones 4U on a £25 per month contract which includes the handset for free. Huawei said that the Vision will be available in time for Christmas.

The phone has quite a sleek design with a unibody aluminium shell in keeping with rivals such as HTC. Three colours will be available: silver, rose gold or charcoal.

In design, the Vision is reminiscent of the Nexus S smartphone from Google with a similar shape and a curved screen, although the curve is not as noticeable.

We found the Vision comfortable to hold with its rounded shape. It's a nice size and weight coming in at 9.9mm and 121g.

For what will be a budget phone, the specs are quite reasonable. You get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and 2GB of internal storage. The storage can be expanded via the microSD card slot. We found performance to be good, and a respectable effort for a non-high-end phone.

It almost goes without saying that the Vision will come with connectivity such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G, but there is no near field communication technology.

The Vision runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread like a lot of smartphones, but Huawei has added its own touch. The home panels can be viewed in a 3D carousel which can be controlled by normal swipe gestures or a scrolling bar.

We like the different approach and the carousel looks good and works well. If you leave the screen on one home panel you get animations of the widgets on that panel. Another addition is the ability to change the widgets on the fly and group apps in folders.

Pre-loaded apps will include Angry Birds, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Order & Chaos and
Guerilla Bob HD.

The screen is a decent 3.7in which is a good middle-of-the-road size. We found the screen nice and bright with good clarity. The one problem we did find was a lack of responsiveness, where a button push sometimes took a couple of attempts.

It was far too dark at the event to test the camera properly so we'll leave that for the full review. The specs are reasonable for a budget phone with a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera that is capable of recording video in 720p resolution.

Another thing we didn't have time to test was the battery. It's rated at 1,400mAh, which is a little lower than we normally find in smartphones but we'll reserve judgement until we test it properly.

Overall the phone could be successful if marketed correctly, and could be one of the best budget-friendly phones around. We look forward to getting the Vision in for a full test and review.

V3 got some hands on time with the Xoom 2 and the Xoom 2 Media Edition, which were announced today as Motorola aims to get a jump on rivals as Christmas approaches.

Motorola has made a number of changes to the original Xoom tablet, but not all of them are positive and it could struggle to sell like its predecessor.

The direct successor retains the same 10.1in screen size, with Motorola boosting the display quality to HD and increasing brightness. However, when we used the device in low lighting at full brightness, the screen did not appear a major step up from the original.

The device comes with rounded off corners much like the 7in Acer Iconia Tab A100, and this is not a good look. Motorola has done this to make the device easier to grip, but it doesn't appear to make it any easier to hold than the iPad 2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Motorola has done well to shave off a couple of millimetres from the Xoom, which was a bulky device. The Xoom 2 is 8.8mm thick and weighs 599g, which makes it near on identical to the iPad 2 (8.8mm, 601g) in terms of specs, but not quite as thin and light as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (8.6mm, 565g).

Confusion surrounds the ports as the pre-production device we saw had SIM-card and micro-SD card slots, but Nick Notton, product manager at Motorola, explained that these will not be included in the retail versions. This is a downgrade from the original, but could be seen on future editions.

Disappointingly, Motorola will also be shipping the Xoom 2 with Android Honeycomb 3.2 and not Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), which is due to arrive imminently.

Notton said that Motorola will announce more about the ICS update in six weeks, but by that time other Ice Cream Sandwich devices are expected to be on the market and it could be 2012 until Xoom 2 buyers see the upgrade.

In an attempt to win over business users Motorola has preloaded a number of enterprise-specific apps in an attempt to make it an attractive purchase. These include the Citrix Receiver, GoToMeeting, QuickOffice and Fuze Meeting applications.

The Motocast app is an interesting addition that was debuted with the brand spanking new Motorola Razr. This allows users to sync the tablet with a PC or Mac and then access the hard drive wirelessly on the move. The app is the primary reason that Motorola has included just 16GB of internal storage. Notton said that the firm is going to make a big push towards the cloud, and played down security concerns as the ability to remotely lock and wipe the tablet will safeguard data.

Although in principle the inclusion of these apps is a good idea, their usefulness can be significantly impaired when there is no stable Wi-Fi connection. During our hands on we found the device frequently cut out when we were trying to stream content from the remote Mac it was connected to, for example.

We also had a play with the Xoom 2 Media Edition, which is essentially a smaller version of the Xoom 2. Specifications are almost identical aside form the 8.2in screen. Although Notton claimed that 8.2in "is the perfect size for viewing and reading media", we are surprised that Motorola didn't go for the 7in form factor, which is the perfect size for a pocket.

With unofficial pricing suggesting that the 10.1 Xoom is going to retail for £390 and the 8.2in tablet for £358, Motorola will be able to compete with Apple on price. Whether the Xoom 2 is enough to entice users from the iPad 2 is a different matter. V3 will post a full review soon.

Google has started rolling out the revamped version of Gmail, and we've switched over to the latest version in the V3 office.

Opinions are split, the style in which messages are displayed being the main sticking point. It reminds us of the changes made to Google News, which were also radical.

The new Gmail does have a much simpler look, and there is generally more space between categories and messages. We like the big red Compose button as it is easily identifiable and the ability to adjust the size of the chat bar adds convenience.

We found that adding a theme made it easier to read the text. Below, we chose the 'Terminal' theme as the black and white contrast works really well. There are a number of additional HD themes and there is bound to be one to suit individual tastes.

The settings menu has also been revamped. For a short time, Google allows users to revert to the retro Gmail and themes can be picked from this menu. As you can see the 'display density' now be adjusted - this basically closes the gaps between categories and message - so choosing the 'compact setting' will make the layout look very much like the old Gmail.

Comprehensive searches can be carried out easily simply by clicking in the corner of the search bar, and then filling out the necessary boxes. It really has been simplified to the extreme and helps to find things faster.

We found the conversation thread to be a big improvement over the previous version of Gmail and this is probably our favourite feature. Emails now read more like an instant message and aren't hidden away. Pictures of friends are also displayed on the left, adding a more personalised feel.

Overall, the revamp is a really great effort from Google and helps keep Gmail up at the top of the email clients. The conversation threads are a major improvement and advanced searching has been made much easier. The ability of Gmail to resize itself to fit small windows will also be invaluable to business users who regularly have multiple panes open when using large displays.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be the first handset to run the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, which will see it take over from the Nexus S as the king of the Android handsets.

Our first experience with the revamped Ice Cream Sandwich platform was positive, and Google has made several significant changes to the system by incorporating the best of Gingerbread and Honeycomb.

There are no longer any capacitive buttons positioned beneath the screen. Instead there are three context sensitive buttons located on screen: 'back', 'home' and 'recent apps'.

This means the 'settings' button shortcut has now been hidden away in the notification bar (as shown below, next to the date on the screen) so it is now a swipe and a click away. It's not a big deal, but for long-term users of Gingerbread it could take a while to get used to.

Another change has been made to the main apps menu. Instead of icons now being shown on one page, they are split over multiple pages, and quick swipes allow navigation between pages. This is a useful upgrade, especially if you download lots of apps.

Setting up folders is now far easier as well, as it only requires dragging apps on top of each other to start making a folder. Resizing the widgets is also a nice touch and gives more control over how content is displayed on home screen.

We also had a play with the Data Usage app, which is no doubt going to come in handy for heavy data users.

Samsung has chosen to stick with the curved design debuted with the Nexus S, which is no bad thing as it's a nice look. It's also comfortable to hold, despite weighing 135g, which makes it a tad heavier than the Samsung Galaxy S II and Nexus S.

One of the main reasons for the additional weight is that the screen size has been bumped up. The Galaxy Nexus comes with a 4.65in screen that boasts an impressive 1,280x720 resolution. Combined with Android's revamped 'Roboto' typeface, this makes text much easier to read.

We tested the device in a low-light setting and found brightness to be very good. From our brief overview, we think this could the one of best displays we've seen on a mobile device.

Another area that has been beefed up is the processor. Samsung seemingly turns up the processing power at will, and the latest Nexus comes with a meaty 1.2GHz dual-core processor.

We certainly noticed the speed when browsing the web and opening apps, but we still experienced a slight lag when changing orientation of the device.

One of the key new features we were keen to test was the NFC-enabled Android Beam app and, after a couple of false starts, we eventually got it to work. The feature requires two NFC-capable Android smartphones to be touched together, and the user transmitting data is required to tap the screen to confirm the transfer. The movement of content was pretty much instantaneous, which was impressive.

Samsung has confirmed that it will launch the Galaxy Nexus on 17 November, the week Nokia is expected to make its Windows Phone Lumia 800 handset available.

With the Galaxy Nexus boasting superior hardware and a revamped software platform, not to mention Android being a far more popular platform than Microsoft's offering, Samsung looks to have the edge on the Lumia.

Nokia launched two high-end devices at its annual Nokia World event in London on Wednesday and we got a chance to spend some hands with the Lumia 800 Windows Phone handset.

The flagship Lumia 800 is set to take the challenge to the Apple iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II and it bears a striking resemblance to the Nokia N9, which was released in selected European countries and uses the MeeGo platform.

The Lumia 800 exudes high quality craftsmanship, with a one-piece injection moulded body that Nokia touted as scratch proof. The device is also comfortable to hold, but isn't the lightest on the market as it weighs 142g.

Nokia has integrated an 3.7in Amoled screen with a resolution of 480x800 and colours are crisp with blacks particularly deep when compared to other devices. Brightness also seemed very good as we were using the device in a low light environment.

The 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 512MB of RAM are not the highest specifications around, but the device has been optimised to get the full benefit from the software, much like Apple has with the iOS. This makes the Lumia 800 extremely responsive, and there is no noticeable lag.

The Windows platform will also help the firm attract business users to the device, as it comes with Exchange support and Mobile Microsoft Office suite.

Some key features that set the Nokia apart from competing Windows Phone devices is the eight megapixel camera with an optimised flash for low-light conditions. The Nokia N8 had an excellent camera and the firm has clearly carried this through to the Lumia 800.

With Microsoft having already laid down specifications for the Windows Phone Mango platform before Nokia signed its deal with Microsoft, the Finnish firm has been unable to make its hardware substantially difference to other devices from HTC and Samsung.

However, Nokia has managed to sneak in a few of its own apps, the highlight of which is Nokia Drive, a free voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation system, a first for Windows Phone devices.

With a price of €420, the Lumia 800 isn't cheap, but with the services on offer and good performance it could be winner. Nokia is still behind when it comes to core specifications but as Apple has proved, raw processing power isn't everything.

Nokia is set to embark on its biggest marketing campaign with the Lumia series, so expect to see adverts for the device plastered everywhere in the next few weeks ahead of its November launch.

V3 will have a full review of the device in due course and we also have a video demo of the phone in action: