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Brits won't have to wait long to get their hands on the HTC One Max. Vodafone UK says that it will be offering the gigantic smartphone this week as a carrier exclusive in the country; customers can pick it up for £49 if they're willing to subscribe to a £47 monthly plan. An unlocked version is also available, although it's not cheap at £600 ($958) for a 32GB model at MobileFun.co.uk. We expect pricing to come down as competition heats up, but HTC's massive handset currently demands an equally large premium.

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Amazon may not be developing its first smartphones by its lonesome. The Financial Times claims that the online retail pioneer is teaming up with HTC on three handsets, one of which is at an "advanced stage of development." It's not clear if or when these devices would ship, according to tipsters. None of the involved companies are commenting on the rumored smartphones, but they would continue a familiar strategy for HTC. The company has a history of partnering with web giants like Facebook and Google as they experiment with official devices; when Amazon is already comfortable with offering its own hardware, it's a natural fit for an HTC deal.

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The debate around giant smartphones is over. Manufacturers like Samsung, Sony and LG have amply demonstrated that it's possible to build a pocketable, phone-like device with a screen bigger than five inches. Now it's HTC's turn. But instead of re-imagining the much-praised One for this new category of device, HTC's designers have mostly just cloned it, while adding a drop of Miracle-Gro to produce a 1080p panel that measures 5.9 inches diagonally, versus the One's 4.7 inches.

The result is the One Max, a product that carries over some good things from the One while also finding room for a few notable extras like a fingerprint scanner and expandable storage. At the same time, it also introduces some major snags -- not least of which are the its intimidating size and weight. The job ahead of us is to somehow find the upper body strength to weigh it all up.

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The rumors, they are true. Apple's ready to take the wraps off of something big next week, just in time to seriously impact our collective holiday spending -- and just a little more than a month after that big iPhone event. In fact, the invite alludes to that recent event by noting that the company still has "a lot to cover." And just like the last invite, there's more than enough color here to go around, so take that as you will. As ever, there's no word on precisely what'll be announced, but rumor is that the iPad, iPad mini and MacBook Pro lines are set for refreshes. And the recent release of the OS X Gold Master hints at a bit more information on the desktop operating system side of things. Whatever the news may be, we'll be bringing it to you live at 10AM PT.

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Angry Birds Go! (their emphasis, not ours) is the next big entry in the Angry Birds franchise, first teased back in June by the Finnish bird-flinging game company. The game takes the "universe" of Angry Birds and applies it to downhill cart racing; it'll even accept new karts in the form of telepods, the Skylanders-esque system first introduced in Angry Birds Star Wars 2.

As the teaser shows, players employ power-ups to take their birds, pigs, and other Angry Birds characters past opponents on a variety of downhill courses. Beyond it being an entirely new genre for the Birds, the game looks dramatically prettier than other Angry Birds series entries. We'll get to see just how those fancy new graphics play out when the game arrives worldwide on December 11th for both iOS and Android devices (and we expect BB10 and WP8 too). Head below the break for the debut gameplay trailer.

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Many loyal T-Mobile customers will have to kiss their grandfathered plans goodbye. That's because the carrier is sunsetting legacy plans and moving subscribers to new ones, Big Magenta has confirmed to Engadget. While the company has yet to get back to us with the finer details of the switch, a spokesperson told us that affected folks will be provided with "similar or better features at a comparable price." An unconfirmed report that surfaced last week notes that clients will get special rates not available to newer patrons, with prices beginning at $20 -- the cheapest individual Simple Choice Plan costs $50 a month.

A HowardForums user also posted a letter reportedly from T-Mo (posted after the break) that lends credence to that claim, as it moves an existing user to a $45/month scheme with unlimited voice, text and 4G data. The transition's slated to begin in November, but if you'd rather switch carriers, you'd better take advantage of this shakeup ASAP -- the company's giving you the option to do so without penalty fees until February 21st, 2014.

[Image credit: Alex Schwenke, Flickr]

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ThumbsUp Labs believes that our smartphone screens are too messy -- we have to wade through pages of apps to find just the right tool at a given moment. The company hopes to clean things up by releasing the private beta of Aviate, an Android launcher that builds context-aware home screens and task-oriented "Spaces" based on app data and locations. It will show news apps and weather when you're at home in the morning, for example, but switch to travel-friendly apps and check-in shortcuts when you head out. The launcher will also recommend new apps for given categories based on popularity and the user's habits. While only Aviate's alpha testers will get first crack at the beta, each of those early adopters can now invite five friends; the company is also offering beta access to the first 500 people who use the code "ENGADGET" to sign up. Check out our hands-on after the break.

Update: Invitation codes have run out! If you're the giving kind, please share any invitations in the comments.

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Siri's clearly found hitching lifts in Chevy's Spark and Sonic cars comfortable, as it's now planning road trips in several of the company's other rides. Apple's virtual assistant will now partner with MyLink infotainment systems in 2014 editions of the Camaro, Cruze, Equinox, Malibu, SS and Volt, allowing drivers to make calls, play tunes, dictate messages and access their calendar without taking their eyes off the road. Like before, Siri-equipped iThings are simply paired with the car via Bluetooth and triggered using a button on the steering wheel. We suppose this means Bumblebee can finally have a voice in Transformers 4, but whether Bay'll be willing to repurpose some of his explosion budget for the license fee is a different matter.

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Cupertino's latest hire is an interesting one, especially when we think that about all those cool wearables that could one day take pride of place in Apple's online and physical stores. Angela Ahrendts, currently CEO of Burberry, has been recruited to fill a position that will be created just for her when she switches allegiances next spring -- as a senior VP reporting directly to Tim Cook and responsible for the "strategic direction, expansion and operation" of Apple's shopping experience. Ahrendts has already demonstrated that she can work with Apple, as Burberry helped to promote the launch of the iPhone 5s (shown above), so hopefully this union of fashion and technology will deliver better results than some others we've seen.

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On-the-go Fresh Paint artists no longer have to finish their masterpieces on their smartphones. An upgrade to the Windows Phone 8 app now lets creators resume painting on their desktop, saving any progress through SkyDrive. There are a few perks for small-screen devotees, too -- the update brings a new pencil format, front-facing camera support and an "Inspire Me" tool that finds images on Bing. If you regularly find yourself doodling on your Lumia, you'll want to grab the spruced-up Fresh Paint app through the Windows Phone Store.

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After teasing us this summer, Imagination is ready to provide full details of its first Warrior CPU core. Its new P5600 design centers on the MIPS Series5 architecture, which brings performance upgrades like 128-bit SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) code support, hardware virtualization and numerous low-level optimizations. The design reportedly manages brisk 32-bit performance in a considerably smaller footprint than rivals -- a P5600 occupies about 30 percent less space than a "comparable" Exynos 5 Octa, Imagination says. It may be a long while before we see that speed in a smartphone, however. The company will start licensing the core this quarter, but customers still have to build processors and ship finished devices.

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It's (relatively) easy to see 3D images on an iPhone, at least with the right equipment; producing those images is another matter. Seene's new iOS app makes that capture process downright trivial, however. The software creates parallax-based 3D photos with the help of the phone's accelerometer, guiding users until they've photographed multiple angles of a given subject. While the resulting images are occasionally flawed, as you'll see from our test shot after the break, it's simple to share them through social networks and web links. Creative iPhone users can check out Seene at the source link. Those on other platforms are currently out of luck, although Seene tells us that it plans wider support as the company grows.

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With the holiday season fast approaching, it looks like Nokia is eager to bump up sales in the UK lest it get trounced by the competition. For Vodafone customers shopping around for a new Windows Phone, that means getting a free year-long Netflix subscription with the purchase of a Lumia 1020. According to The Financial Times, Nokia will bear the brunt of the cost, while the extent of Netflix's financial involvement is unclear. Though the Lumia's photographic capabilities are undeniable, the phone hasn't quite caught on like wildfire, largely due to inaccessibly high pricing, even on contract. Considering that just last month, AT&T and Microsoft slashed the two-year contract price from a whopping $299 to $199 in the US, this type of corporate anxiety is hardly surprising. The Nokia/Netflix arrangement might prove mutually beneficial, as the latter is keen to expand in European markets, though time will tell if it's enough to reel in holiday shoppers.

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Hands-free gesture control is no longer a novelty in the mobile space, but the required processing power limits what's currently possible. More sophisticated input may be close at hand, however, as eyeSight has just teamed up with ARM to optimize its gesture control for chips using Mali-T600 series graphics. By relying on the T600's general-purpose computing engine, eyeSight's software can now track 3D movement, facial expressions and finger gestures without a huge performance hit. While companies will have to build supporting apps and devices before we see eyeSight's technology in use, it could lead to Kinect-like control of phones and smart TVs using relatively ordinary silicon.

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