Last week we gave the Apple loyalists in attendance a chance to rip and rag the iPhone 4, and this time around we’re doing the same for Motorola’s best frienemies. The Droid X is without question the largest Droid in the family today, and calling it a showstopper on Verizon would probably be understating things. Now that it’s been on the market a few months, we’re curious to know how you early adopters like (or dislike) it. Did the massive screen end up being too large for comfort? Anything you’d tweak software-wise? How’s the VZW service been? Might your world change if Android 2.2 ever hits in official fashion? Go on and let us know how you’d alter this behemoth down in comments below — but give it some real thought first, cool? Cool.
Motorola has detailed its MOTO MING A1680 Android smartphone at its MOTODEV developer website. The A1680 is the first Motorola Ming series with Android and it is a clamshell with a transparent flip. The phone has a similar as the Ming XT806 which is intended for China Telecom, supporting CDMA network. The A1680 instead supports quad-band GSM/EDGE and WCDMA 2100 networks.
The Ming A1680 features a 3.1-inch AMOLED 480×800 display with touchscreen designed for handwriting, a 5 Megapixel auto focus camera with video recording, Bluetooth 2.1, and WiFi connectivity. It has built-in GPS with internal antenna and e-compass. This Android-based Ming is powered by Marvell PXA935 624MHz processor, 256MB RAM and 512MB ROM. It supports microSD/SDHC up to 32GB. The phone is equipped with 3-axis accelerometer.
After seeing the live shots and the teaser video, here is a video preview of the Samsung’s upcoming Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab. As for the features of the device, we can expect a 7-inch 16:10 touchscreen, a main camera and a front camera for video call, WiFi, WCDMA 3G and SDHC card slot. It is also said that the Galaxy Tab will have 1GHz processor.
While all of you Droid, Incredible and EVO 4G owners wait patiently for an official Froyo update to call your own, LG’s wasting no time introducing its first phones based on the latest and greatest Android build. Over in the UK today, the company has decided to launch the Optimus Series, a family of smartphones that’ll run “on a range of operating systems as well as Android.” If all goes well, LG will introduce around ten new smart devices worldwide in the second half of this year under the Optimus label, though only two are being partially revealed for now. The Optimus One with Google and Optimus Chic will both ship with Android 2.2 onboard, with the latter being specifically aimed at fashionistas who just might appreciate the “sleek curves” that make themselves so apparent. Further details surrounding pricing, availability and specifications remain to be seen, but here’s hoping this is just the beginning of the Froyo flood to come.
These five Nexus One smartphones may seem to have defects, but there’s actually nothing wrong with their AMOLED screens — the funky colors are an attempt to improve battery life by turning off unnecessary sub-pixel LEDs. Hooking up his handset to an industrial power meter, Android engineer Jeff Sharkey discovered a blood-red screen drew 42 percent less current than full color — the least of any combination by far — purportedly doubling the effective battery life of the phone. While you’re probably not going to be able to test the requisite software patch for yourself unless you’re mildly familiar with Google code, you’ll find a video of the crimson wonder after the break to fuel your dreams of a eyestrain-free astronomy cheat sheet… and Android bullfighting, of course.
We’re approaching the end of an era — the legacy of Windows Mobile handsets getting spotted running some open sourced OS or another shortly after their release. With Windows Phone 7 on the horizon the HD2 will surely be one of the last, but you can extend that grand tradition just a bit longer by installing your choice of Ubuntu Karmic Koala or Android 2.1. Those builds we reported on earlier have been made available for general consumption and, while installing them certainly doesn’t seem to be entirely risk free, neither of them touch the phone’s internal flash, so you’re never more than a reset away from the comforts of WinMo. If you’re feeling adventurous this weekend, both downloads are on the other end of the source link below.
Google’s Android Market now offers more than 4,900 applications for smartphones powered by the Android mobile operating system, according to the web services giant’s vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra.
Speaking Wednesday at Google’s annual I/O developer event in San Francisco, Gundotra said Android users have downloaded an average of more than 40 applications per user, adding that Android smartphones are now second in the U.S. in mobile web browsing, behind Apple’s iPhone.
5000 apps is a pretty good number. We (Movaya) are about to launch our first premium app in the Android Market next week so we’ll see how that goes.
According to FierceWireless, T-Mobile USA has sold more than 1 million of its Android-based G1 devices during the past six months.
The figure was apparently “buried” in Deutsche Telekom’s earnings report. According to the German carrier’s report, the G1 accounts for two-thirds of all of T-Mobile USA’s 3G handset sales so far.
Initial sales of the G1 are certainly a lot smaller in comparison to Apple’s iPhone. Apple sold around 3.7 million iPhones during the two full quarters after the device’s launch in the summer of 2007. Keep in mind, however, that T-Mobile USA has less than half the number of subscribers than AT&T so on a relative basis, it’s doing OK.
