4
Oct
2010
The HTC Desire Z – Sprouting QWERTY for the Desire
Following the common trend to come out with QWERTY slider variants of its popular monolithic touchscreens, Taiwan’s leading smartphone maker HTC has unveiled its HTC Desire Z. Looking more like the earlier Desire than the upcoming Desire HD, the new smartphone is only the second Android from HTC to have a sliding QWERTY keyboard after its Dream released in June 2009.
Exquisite Screen
Sharing the same 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen with 16 million colors and WVGA (800 x 480) resolution, the HTC Desire Z takes off from HTC’s move to use Super LCD from Sony rather than suffer anew the inability of Samsung to supply the AMOLED displays used in the early Desire.
It’s interesting to note that the Desire Androids now use S-LCD while its first few production batches had AMOLED screens. But no matter, if Engadget is right in its comparison, the two screen technologies offer about the same picture quality with AMOLED being more power efficient.
General Features
With a smorgasbord of connectivity features on both radio (quad band GSM on 2G and dual band UMTS on 3G) and data (class 32 GPRS/EDGE on 2G and HSDA 14.4 Mbps and HSUPA 7.6 Mbps on 3G), the HTC Desire Z is up to the telephony task like any flagship smartphone.
It also has WiFi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA and while its 5 megapixel autofocus geo tagging and face detecting camera with LED flash is nothing to brag about, it does offer 720p video recording. Other features include:
• Qualcomm MSM 7230 at 800 MHz running Android v2.2 Froyo;
• Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, YouTube and Google talk integration;
• Multitouch Input, proximity and accelerometer sensors
• FM stereo with RDS and 3.5mm headphone jack;
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0;
• 1.5 GB onboard memory with 512 MB RAM, up to 32GB microSD support;
• 1300 mAh Li-ion battery for up to 9.8 hours on 2G, 6.6 hours on 3G with 430 hours standby.
28
Jul
2010
Google’s Android Sells More Mobile Phones
The smart phone industry has never been focused on operating systems like the way it is now. Currently, the platform war is being fought by three major sides, Google’s Android, RIM’s BlackBerry OS and the Apple iOS. As the end of the year approaches, much is expected from the upcoming Windows Phone 7 OS. The Nokia and Intel made MeeGo OS is not being considered by most critics, but it may add itself to the list if it proves to be surprisingly good.
Anyway, despite the impending challenges ahead for the OS, the Android is a pretty successful mobile platform. This year, the number of handsets running the operating system has sold more than three times the volume that it did last year. And this is more than just a sudden growth in overall smart phone sales; buyers actively seek out specific Android devices, this means that the OS’ sales growth is caused by its actual performance.
Recently, the OS has been updated to version 2.2 Froyo which brings better performance, new features and support for Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1. The update has been released for the Google branded Nexus One and will be released for other mobile phones later on. Google has also announced that the Android 3.0 Gingerbread will also be released later this year.
The current lineup of Android phones provides buyers with quite the array of choices. Of course, Google’s self branded Nexus One deserves to be put in the top of the list. But the HTC Desire and the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 come in at a very close second. Samsung’s i9000 Galaxy S certainly looks promising with its super AMOLED touch screen technology. Aside from the XPERIA, SE also has the X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro which provide Android fans with mid range choices as well.
2
Jul
2010
Android Gingerbread in New Rumors
While we are all waiting for the release of the new Android Froyo update for the many smart phones running Google’s powerful, open source, operating system –Google has been busy in their labs working on what would be the newest version of the Android OS: version 3.0 Gingerbread.
The name (and version number) has already been announced during the Google I/O conference. But with the expected launch date of “end of 2010” being several months away, the current focus for many is on the 2.2 Froyo –which is still not released for a great majority of handsets. Right now, only the Google Nexus One is able to make use of the update that is available. While it is expected that compatible patches will also be released in the next few weeks, none have yet to be made available.
Anyway, the rumors regarding the new version 3.0 Gingerbread are both impressive and at the same time, a little hard to believe. The source of the rumors has been traced to a Russian tech podcast that states that the new 3.0 version will be made specifically for high end Android devices –while mid to low range handsets will be sticking with version 2.2 Froyo. While such a move would not be surprising (Microsoft is doing the same with Windows Mobile and the upcoming Windows Phone 7), Google is not quite likely to take that route.
Right now, Google’s mobile platform is the most used OS –considering that there are so many handsets that make use of the OS. Pushing version 3.0 to abandon the older OS would mean alienating a large percent of Google’s current users. Also, Google also announced at the I/O conference that they plan to make the Gingerbread something close to a standard version –stable and with minimal compatibility issues so that all devices have a specific benchmark to meet.
1
Jul
2010
What is New with Android Froyo?
So it is the latest Android OS version, but with so much hype about the new Froyo, it is getting hard to figure exactly what is so special about the new version. We already know that the Os update has been released for the Google Nexus One. In the meanwhile, the Desire, Wildfire and Legend (which is HTC’s killer Android trio for this season) and several other handsets such as the Motorola Milestone and the Samsung Galaxy S might have to wait a little while longer for a compatible patch to be released.
With the launch of Adobe’s Flash Player for the Android 2.2 Froyo pre-empting the actual OS itself, many are wondering when the new era of Flash on smart phones will actually start. The players are all in place and all the industry needs now is a massive multi phone update to the new Android version.
Of course, the new OS is going to be bringing users more than just Flash support. In fact, the new Froyo updates have so much to offer that Flash support ends up becoming an extra feature.
The most obvious difference in the new OS is that the interface now has a cute mascot telling you what to do. And unlike Microsoft Office’s annoying paperclip, the Android Robot (a term that would make science fiction fans cringe) actually offers useful advice.
One of our favorite improvements is in the camera user interface. When taking photos, users can now easily adjust the settings, add effects and basically control every element of the shot in order to provide the best image possible (of course, users might want to brush up on the basic theories of shutter speed and aperture to figure out what exposure settings are best under certain light conditions). At the very least, the new UI lets users add in cool effects to photos too.
28
Jun
2010
Android Smart Phones Getting Froyo Update
Google has finally released a final build of the Android 2.2 Froyo update and that file is now available for people to download. Many have reported that the update does not appear on their handsets which means that this patch will not work on all Android operating systems. It has been confirmed that users would need to have the FRF50 firmware if they want to get the latest version of the Android.
Initial tests on the new Android 2.2 Froyo shows that Google has been true to their word in terms of the improved performance; the screens shift faster, apps and features load quicker and overall, the phone experience feels a lot smoother. In some ways, the update makes it feel like the CPU itself has been boosted in speed.
Web browsing has also been improved in the case of loading Java faster, however, since some internet connections are really slow, it is hard to see the big improvement –though when the connection is fast and stable and users are viewing pages with plenty of Java script, the performance boost is pretty noticeable.
Tethering and turning the handset into a WiFi hotspot have been confirmed, though these have yet to be tested. The feature has been much in demand among many smart phone owners in order to make full use of many 3G data plans and the inclusion of this to the Android is a welcome addition.
Naturally, the most anticipated feature is the Adobe Flash Player. Fortunately, Android smart phone owners do not need to wait any longer as Adobe has already released the downloadable Flash Player update just two days ago. The software development company was met with surprised and confused reactions from people as the player was only compatible with Android 2.2 and only the Nexus One has the OS at that time. Users of HTC’s Desire handset are expecting an update to Froyo soon.
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