gadget news: Android

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Showing posts with label Android. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Android. Show all posts

HTC Thunderbolt review -- Engadget

HTC Thunderbolt review -- Engadget: "At a quick glance, without any background information, your eyes might tell you that the HTC Thunderbolt is little more than a Verizon remake of Sprint's EVO 4G and AT&T's Inspire 4G. After all -- like its contemporaries -- the Thunderbolt features a spacious 4.3-inch WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera, and dual-LED flash. In reality, though, the Thunderbolt is something more: from the Inspire, it borrows a better, crisper display with a wider viewing angle and a newer-generation (though still single-core) Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. From the EVO 4G, meanwhile, it borrows a cool integrated kickstand and the addition of a second '4G' radio, making this a spec Frankenstein of sorts -- the best of both worlds. Of course, instead of Sprint's WiMAX for that 4G radio, the Thunderbolt grants you access to Verizon's LTE network -- a network so fresh, it still has that new-network smell. There's a lot of horsepower here."

Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 Review: Right on the mini - GSMArena.com

Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 Review: Right on the mini - GSMArena.com: "Minis are supposed to be the cheaper, stripped down version of the bigger and superior gadgets. There’s a long list of bigger and superior siblings for the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 to choose from but it has its own two feet to stand on.

So, the Galaxy Mini is the last shake of the bag. It will never get to rub shoulders with the big and scary smartphones. But it’s not all bad you know. Not bad at all actually for what basically is an entry level smartphone with complete connectivity, social networking, internet, Android apps and music. It’s the right kind of device for smartphone newbies. A good option if you just don’t want to spend a truck-load of money on a smartphone.

Key Features:

Quad-Band GSM and dual-band 3G support
7.2 Mbps HSDPA
3.14” 256K-color QVGA TFT touchscreen
ARMv6 600MHz processor, 384MB RAM
Android OS v2.2 (Froyo) with TouchWiz v3.0 UI
160MB internal storage, hot-swappable MicroSD slot, 2GB card included
3.15 MP fixed-focus camera with geotagging
GPS receiver with A-GPS
Stereo FM radio with RDS
3.5mm audio jack
Document editor
Accelerometer and proximity sensor
Swype text input
MicroUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth 2.1
Social network integration
Good build, youthful styling

Main disadvantages:

Low screen resolution limits choice of apps
Fixed focus camera
No secondary video-call camera
No flash, no dedicated camera key
Poor video recording QVGA @ 15fps

The Galaxy Mini was not made to impress. It was made to serve and be simple to use. It’s a solid little smartphone that has all the important ingredients. It can do most of the things your Galaxy S can, just without the stuff that pushes the price up."

Nokia E7 vs LG Optimus 2X vs Apple iPhone 4 - Phone Arena

Nokia E7 vs LG Optimus 2X vs Apple iPhone 4 - Phone Arena: "The Nokia E7, LG Optimus 2X and the Apple iPhone 4 are one of the best and most current representatives of rather different mobile operating systems – Symbian, Android and iOS. It's a long shot to compare the three as they are so different, but it gives us a bird's eye view of how the mobile industry has changed in the last few years.

The Nokia E7 has the worst timing of the three, appearing right after Nokia announced its decision to slowly phase out Symbian, and replace it with Windows Phone. Still, it is an extremely well-crafted device, and its anodized aluminum chassis feels very solid in the hand, all the while it manages to keep a fairly slim profile, considering it carries an excellent chiclet-style physical keyboard.

The LG Optimus 2X is basically a big slab, but the curved battery cover edges, and the soft touch plastic on the back make it comfortable to hold. The iPhone 4, on the other hand, has exceptional looks too, but it achieves it with a steel and glass frame, while still having one of the thinnest profiles out there.

The displays utilized are also very different. First we have the 4” ClearBlack AMOLED on the Nokia E7, which offers the widest viewing angles, high contrast, and nice, saturated colors, plus it has a polarizing filter on top to aid in sunlight visibility, since it is not as bright as the LCD screens on Apple's and LG's handsets. Its main downside – the low 360x640 resolution.

The iPhone 4's so-called Retina Display is much smaller than the one on the E7 at 3.5”, but it has the highest mobile display resolution out there – 640x960 – and is one of the brightest too. And, finally, the display on the LG Optimus 2X is a solid 4” IPS-LCD with 480x800 pixels, making it a good choice if you'd rather have a bigger screen with standard resolution than the smaller one on the iPhone 4."

Intel's x86 chip will power 6-8 Android devices this year - Phone Arena

Intel's x86 chip will power 6-8 Android devices this year - Phone Arena: "Notebook makers are claiming that Intel is planning on combining their x86 chipset with the Android operating system. Particularly as Microsoft has decided to use ARM platforms, Intel's cooperation is fitting, even though they have their own MeeGo OS.

Several Taiwan notebook makers, including Inventec and Compal Electronics, say that the Intel x86-powered Android devices could be announced as soon as April. That announcement would likely take place at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, April 12-13. If they can't be ready by then, they're expected at the Computex Taipei conference later in the year.

If Intel does in fact use Android with their processors, it could mean a tremendous cost-savings for the end user. Without licensing fees, those Taiwanese notebooks could offer competitive alternatives to Windows-based netbooks and other mobile OS tablets.

The sources propose that these new partnerships, which are a departure from the traditional Wintel (Windows + Intel) market, will improve the overall health of the PC ecosystem. Of course, in addition to an Intel/Android notebook, we're looking forward to more of their Intel/Chrome OS solutions expected around mid-2011."

Motorola argues that Android fragmentation is a good thing - Phone Arena

Motorola argues that Android fragmentation is a good thing - Phone Arena: "The major criticism leveled by Android's competitors is that the fragmentation of their device market is a hindrance to the operating system. But Motorola Mobility's corporate VP, Christy Wyatt, disagrees. She argues that variation among Android devices is actually one of Android's strengths. At AnDevCon (Android Developer Conference), Wyatt argued for the benefits of Android fragmentation. Despite the challenges it presents to developers, customers have the luxury of choosing their screen-size, price range, and other features, rather than being railroaded into a one-size-fits-all approach.

But she did admit to some shortcomings: "Managing differentiation against fragmentation is kind of a delicate balance." And if you've ever owned a low-end Android device, then you'll probably agree. It's difficult for developers to make an app that is sufficiently impressive on the top-tier handsets, but still compatible with slower devices with earlier OS builds.

You would be right to doubt Motorola's obviously biased perspective on Android fragmentation. But there's still some truth to it. Isn't it nice to not only be able to choose an OS, but also a manufacturer, feature-set, and price range? While recent rumors of Apple's lower-end iPhone have diminished, Apple has almost certainly considered expanding their lineup to net an even larger customer base."

Have a taste of Android or WP7 by simulating them on your iPhone - Phone Arena

Have a taste of Android or WP7 by simulating them on your iPhone - Phone Arena: "Lets say that you are a happy iPhone owner but at the same time you have sometimes wondered what it might feel like to use Android or even Windows Phone 7 for a little bit. Well, now you can actually try either one of the operating systems to some extent by simulating them right there on your iPhone. OSFaker is the app that you need to download, assuming your iPhone has already been successfully jailbroken.

OSFaker can be easily obtained through Cydia and will do its best to give you a graphical representation of either Android or WP7. For those of you unfamiliar with Cydia, imagine Apple's App Store, but offering apps which were designed specifically to be used on a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch. Needless to say, such applications would have never made it to the listings of Apple's App Store.

Using the application proves to be pretty simple as it gives you the option to simulate Android or WP7 right after its launch. OSFaker added WP7 simulation in its most recent update, which explains its limited capabilities. On the other hand, the Android simulation includes access to a handful of basic apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Calculator, and Paint. Feel free to give it a try if you are curious enough already!"

FCC gives the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 the ole' once over - Phone Arena

FCC gives the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 the ole' once over - Phone Arena: "Visiting the FCC the other day was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The tablet, powered by Android 3.0, was designed to challenge fellow Honeycomb flavored Motorola XOOM and the Apple iPod 2. Designated model 7100, the tablet visited the FCC with a radio that supported the 850 and 1900MHz bands. Those are two U.S. frequencies which hints of an imminent launch soon in the U.S.

One thing that might hold back the release of the tablet is last week's announcement of the Apple iPad 2. As we reported yesterday, Samsung's executive VP of mobile, Lee Don-joo, called the Galaxy Tab 10.1 inadequate after seeing how thin the Apple iPad 2 is. Besides the issue about the thickness of the Samsung tablet, the executive also said that after seeing the Apple iPod 2, the Korean based firm would have to reconsider its pricing of the device. The problem is that with the Apple iPad 2 listed as the same price as the older, original iPad, it puts pricing pressure on all newer tablets even if they have many improvements over older models."

Motorola XOOM gets a CPU overclock to 1.5GHz, gets blazing fast

Motorola XOOM gets a CPU overclock to 1.5GHz, gets blazing fast: "The Motorola XOOM packs some serious punch under the hood and there’s hardly an Android application that would require more. However this doesn’t stop the hacking community to try and squeeze every last drop of performance out of dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU (you know, just in case)."

Motorola Xoom vs. Apple iPad: Comparing the Tablets | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Motorola Xoom vs. Apple iPad: Comparing the Tablets | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: "Let's get cocky and assume that next week's Apple event brings us a new iPad—the iPad 2, if you will. Let us also assume that the iPad 2 will add front- and rear-facing cameras, and thus FaceTime to the mix. And now that Motorola's Xoom is finally available to the masses, let's take a quick look at how the first Honeycomb tablet stacks up against the iPad we know—and the iPad we know is coming.

Pricing

We ran an in-depth Xoom pricing piece earlier in the week, and the short of it is: despite the seemingly hefty price tag attached to the Xoom, a two-year Verizon contract and a Xoom are about the same cost as two years with the iPad on AT&T. This one is more or less a draw."

Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830 review: Ace in the hole - GSMArena.com

The Samsung Galaxy Ace can get far with a name like this but it isn’t going any further than its comfortable midrange spot. You know, if you want the best seat in the house you need to move the cat. The Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830 is a feline droid – the black cat in Samsung’s Android portfolio. And it spells bad luck for the competition – mid-range droids are a force to be reckoned with in the smartphone world.

With the kind of specs, the Samsung Galaxy Ace could have passed for a high-end phone a while back. So, if your processing power and screen estate needs haven’t risen sharply during the past year or so, the Ace will serve you well.

In fact, with Froyo on an 800MHz processor, good connectivity and screen size and resolution that were good enough for the first three iPhones, the Samsung Galaxy Ace is looking good.

The only downside to the package is the QVGA video @ 15fps. That may be acceptable on a low-end dumbphone but certainly disappointing on a mid-range Android.

Samsung Google Nexus S review: Royal droid

Another year, another heir to the Droid throne – and Google are trying to be democratic about it. Which is a roundabout way of saying they’re not monogamous. For the Nexus One, Google teamed up with HTC. This time around, they trusted Samsung to do the job, using the Galaxy S as a base. It’s only their second try and users are given a second chance to like the Royal Droid. A tall task it is – the very concept is fundamentally incompatible with the free and open source Android system. Royal blood is not a benefit in a free democracy. Google did learn it the hard way with the Nexus One.

Google’s second smartphone child has more than just an image problem to tackle. The Nexus S has to keep pace with the evolution of the platform. The 'S' in the name may stand for many things - from second to superior. But with Android 2.3 Gingerbread inside, speed is not far from the truth either. Here’s what else the Nexus S has to offer in a nutshell.

LG Optimus 2X first encounter: How fast is Tegra 2?

Surely 2011 will be remembered as the year that dual-core CPUs made their smartphone breakthrough. Here we have the LG Optimus 2X pioneer and we are rushing to give you a preview of what dual-core CPU has to offer to you today. It’s not one of our typical previews you will be seeing here – we are just going to focus on the performance of the LG Optimus 2X and hopefully, the Tegra 2 platform it pioneers. Normally, we avoid getting into details about the performance of non-retail units, but this one is so good that it will almost be unfair to save the praise.

Samsung Galaxy 551 review

Samsung Galaxy 551 (I5510)

The Samsung Galaxy 551 is something that should have happened a long time ago. This is not to say that the form factor was out of favor with Samsung. But it took a slew of CDMA messengers to finally see a QWERTY side-slider to land in Europe.

Android debuted on a full QWERTY phone, but messengers were never meant to be the dominant species. The Galaxy 551 is pragmatic enough to accept the fact and live with it. Samsung itself knows better than expect the market to embrace more QWERTY messengers the skill and size of the Motorola Milestone or the HTC Desire Z.

The Samsung Galaxy 551 does not look forward to making a big splash, It’s part of a broader effort of giving the Galaxy lineup some depth in the midrange. With Froyo and all-round connectivity the Samsung Galaxy 551 makes perfect sense in the segment of affordable smart messengers.

Samsung I9010 Galaxy S Giorgio Armani review

We wish the Samsung I9010 Galaxy S Giorgio Armani was carved out of a gold bar. It would’ve been so much easier. The world would’ve been a better place. But for a change, the Armani-branded Galaxy S is not a tacky, overdone and overrated piece of useless crap. It’s a phone that brings beauty and performance together to please even the most demanding user. It doesn’t feel right when a fashion phone is the better smartphone. But not everything that makes sense to you makes sense to everyone else. Armani and Android – they just don’t mix, do they? What’s the point in selling performance to customers that want bling? Does a smartphone need to be dressed up and well groomed?

But you know, these are the easy questions. And now for the tough one – is the I9010 worth the price premium over a standard Galaxy S?

The answer is most definitely no in terms of user experience, and probably only just in terms of build quality and design. OK, some would gladly spend a little extra perhaps on superior materials and better looks, but how is that nearly 200 euro.

On the other hand, now that the Galaxy S can match the good looks of the iPhone 4 it only makes sense that it’s priced accordingly. And even the I9010 remains cheaper than the cheapest of last-gen iPhones if you discount carrier subsidies.

And it doesn’t even take the expensive Apple iPhone to realize that the I9010 Giorgio Armani is not doing as bad as it may look. True, it’s more expensive than the Desire HD, but the difference here isn’t that great and the Super AMOLED screen and the better build quality seem more than enough to show for it.

We are yet to see how the Gingerbread-packing Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc will be priced, but we are guessing it won’t be notably cheaper than the I9010, not until the middle of this year at least. And until then it would be a choice between looks and functionality, which is never one-sided.

To be honest though, there will be other phones competing against the XPERIA Arc. Destined to a niche existence, the Armani-branded Galaxy S is will struggle to reconcile its two different selves. To say that a very capable smartphone will be scraping a miserable existence as a fashion phone is not too far off perhaps.

The Samsung I9010 Galaxy S Giorgio Armani is a phone in which brilliant looks and brilliant performance are the two parts of a perfect whole. Its curse though is that very few customers will appreciate a perfect blend of fashion phone and smartphone. Fewer yet will want to buy it. Like we said, it’s not fair.

A new look for Google Translate for Android - Official Google Mobile Blog

When we launched the first version of Google Translate for Android in January 2010, we were excited about the year ahead. For the first time, we were bringing the capabilities supported on Google Translate—like machine translation, romanization of non-Roman scripts and spoken translations—to the Android platform. We also offered voice input to let you speak the word or phrase you wanted to translate instead of typing it in, and SMS translation so you could translate SMS messages sent to you in foreign languages.

Today, we’re refreshing Translate for Android with several updates to make the app easier to interact with. Among other improvements, we’ve created better dropdown boxes to help select the languages you want to translate from and into, an improved input box, and cleaner icons and layout.

We also want to let you in on an experimental feature that’s still in its earliest stages - Conversation Mode. This is a new interface within Google Translate that’s optimized to allow you to communicate fluidly with a nearby person in another language. You may have seen an early demo a few months ago, and today you can try it yourself on your Android device.

Currently, you can only use Conversation Mode when translating between English and Spanish. In conversation mode, simply press the microphone for your language and start speaking. Google Translate will translate your speech and read the translation out loud. Your conversation partner can then respond in their language, and you’ll hear the translation spoken back to you. Because this technology is still in alpha, factors like regional accents, background noise or rapid speech may make it difficult to understand what you’re saying. Even with these caveats, we’re excited about the future promise of this technology to be able to help people connect across languages.

HTC Gratia review: Body double - GSMArena.com

Compact but capable, subdued but edgy, old but new. That’s the HTC Gratia. With Froyo greasing the cogs, the European version of the HTC Aria is more than a name change – this petite droid is getting ready to storm the Old Continent. The Android world is in a stage where big screens make the grade, which makes it frustratingly hard for people who like their droid in a small package. The compact Gratia comes with a 3.2” screen and is noticeably smaller than competing phones with the same display diagonal.

Acer unveils the Froyo-powered Liquid Mini and beTouch E120 - GSMArena.com news

Acer has introduced two new Android Froyo smartphones on CES - Liquid Mini and beTouch E210. The first one is a smaller version of the previous Liquid model, while the new beTouch is a QWERTY touch-bar. Liquid Mini has a slightly smaller screen than its predecessors - a 3.2-inch capacitive one with HVGA resolution. The rest of the specs include a 600MHz Qualcomm processor, 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 5 megapixel camera and the usual connectivity package (3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, FM radio).

Motorola CLIQ 2 Photos Hit the Web - Softpedia

Mobile phone maker Motorola is supposedly on its way to bring to the market a successor for its very first Android-based device, and some new photos with this handset made it to the Internet recently. We're referring here to the Motorola CLIQ 2, which was rumored before to be on its way to make an appearance on T-Mobile USA's airwaves in the not too far future. Apparently, those who were indeed waiting for the sequel to hit T-Mobile's network won't have to wait too much before the move is made.

Some of the latest reports around the Internet suggested that the device would be set for launch on January 19th, the same day when Magenta plans on adding another Android device to its offering, the Dell Streak 7.

TA117 Tablet from Onkyo Formally Introduced - Softpedia

It would appear that quite a few companies plan to hitch a ride on the tablet bus, as a fair amount of announcements have been made over the past month alone, no doubt in anticipation of CES, 2011, and Onkyo has now joined this movement. Since the Apple iPad was released, and despite the arguably mixed feelings it caused, the reality of the matter is that tablets have sold very well. Slates are, in fact, even now growing in popularity, despite their relative scarcity, at least as far as on-sale model variety goes. That said, the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show is already shaping up to become the stage for demonstrating a slew of tablets.

Nokia N900 gets a Gingerbread port, Nexus One stares in disbelief - GSMArena.com news

Add the Nokia N900 to the short list of devices running the latest iteration of the Android OS – 2.3 Gingerbread. The last of the Maemo kind just got an unofficial ROM that, while not perfectly stable, proves that a relationship between those two is possible. The Nokia N900 Gingerbread port comes courtesy of Alexey Roslyakov, a Russian coder, better known under the nickname DrunkDebbuger. He says a publicly available experimental release should come before the year's end, which means in less than a week. Of course it’s not completely functional at this stage, but cellular data, Wi-Fi and sound are a go and naturally support for the rest of the hardware is being added as we speak.

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