Team-BHP - Android Thread: Phones / Apps / Mods

Chrome OS is going nowhere. Many lead OEMs are pulling out for now.
Motopad - the official launch device for Honeycomb is coming in Q1. Expect others to follow suite in few weeks after that.
Given the recent callback of few of the tegra based devices (toshiba etc.,), am a bit skeptic of tegra based devices. Yes Nvidia is the leader when it comes to graphics cards for PC world, but it takes lot more to translate that success to mobile and embedded world.

Vijay

App Name - Chrome to Phone

Free/Charge - Free

What it does - Need to install an extension on Chrome browser on your PC and an app from market on your phone and then lets you send links, map coordinates, contacts etc from your browser to your phone

How it performs (your rating) - Excellent !

Quote:

Originally Posted by gkrishn (Post 2185884)

Does any one know how to block ads?

Adfree Android - search in market, haven't used it though, would prefer to pay for an adfree version or put up with the ads

with Samsung Launching froyo on "Samsung Galaxy 551 I5510"
which is Qwerty version of I5801 (Galaxy3) it looks like their Dev team was busy tweaking their Android 2.2 froyo for this new device and never cared for Galaxy 3 users who have been banging their heads on computer screen to show an update from 2.1 to 2.2

Using a cracked version or whatever it is available on those non-samsung site can be a security risk.

Does anyone has newer news if the poor Galaxy 3 users will ever get Android 2.2 ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by abhayshanu (Post 2186322)

Hmmmmm, have heard alot about it, but if I would consider something other than the X10, it would be only because it is technically much better than it. So is it?

Here is a list of the full specifications:

– 1 GHz SnapDragon processor
– Android 2.2 (Froyo) with HTC Sense
– Internal phone storage: 1.5 GB
– RAM: 768 MB
– 123 x 68 x 11.8 mm (4.84 x 2.68 x 0.46 inches)
– 164 grams (5.78 ounces) with battery
– 4.3-inch SLCD touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution
– HSPA/WCDMA: • Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz • Upload speed of up to 5.76 Mbps and download speed of up to 14.4 Mbps
– Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
– Internal GPS antenna
– G-Sensor
– Digital compass
– Proximity sensor
– Ambient light sensor
– Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
– IEEE 802.11b/g/n WiFi
– 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
– Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
– 8.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus and 2x LED flashlight
– 720p HD video recording
– Audio supported formats – Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9) • Recording: .amr
– Video supported formats – Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3) • Recording: .3gp
– 1230 mAh battery
– Talk time: Up to 320 minutes for WCDMA, Up to 550 minutes for GSM
– Standby time: Up to 490 hours for WCDMA, Up to 420 hours for GSM
– microSD expansion (SD 2.0 compatible)
– 100 ~ 240 V AC, 50/60 Hz DC output: 5 V and 1 A AC adaptor
– Dolby® Mobile and SRS surround sound
– Share pictures, video or music to your big screen TV or PC display via DLNA® (Digital Living Network Alliance)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluengel180 (Post 2186839)

This is about the Desire HD..
Couple of things are holding me back from this device right now.

S-LCD ! No clear review about the same, some say its not near the Su-AMOLED experience.
Battery life is pathetic I hear!! (Less than 24 hrs !! with decent use >>Source: review on flipkart, another on some gadget site)
With Honeycomb in "coming soon" phase, that might kick some bucks out of the current set of phones (Desire HD included), when it arrives in say Feb-March..

@Jassi!
nice!!
Can you please shed some light on point #1 and #2 ?
care,

Ace.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghpk (Post 2186769)

Using a cracked version or whatever it is available on those non-samsung site can be a security risk.

I would not call it a "caracked" version. "Custom" would be the better word.

And I would not be concerned about security issues, as long as source code is available. The GPL requires people distributing GPL'ed code or its bits and derivatives to provide full sources of their modified versions.

I am not sure what you mean by the "non-samsung" sites; and when there is no access to full source code, there is no assurance that the official Samsung (or any other brands', for that matter) version of Android accesses my data without my permission.

Quote:

Originally Posted by driverace (Post 2186874)

This is about the Desire HD..
Couple of things are holding me back from this device right now.

S-LCD ! No clear review about the same, some say its not near the Su-AMOLED experience.
Battery life is pathetic I hear!! (Less than 24 hrs !! with decent use >>Source: review on flipkart, another on some gadget site)
With Honeycomb in "coming soon" phase, that might kick some bucks out of the current set of phones (Desire HD included), when it arrives in say Feb-March..

@Jassi!
nice!!
Can you please shed some light on point #1 and #2 ?
care,

Ace.

The LCD is not as vivid as the amoled on my nexus one - but given its size, its quite gorgeous in its own right. And yeah visibility in daylight is better on the desire hd vs nexus
Battery lasts for a day easy (always on wifi or 3g and skype calling included with bluetooth on). Besides most of these phones are chargeable using usb and so its difficult to end up without any charge at the end of the day.
Honeycomb is a bit far away and primarily targeted at the tablet experience - from what i hear it will require more gpu which is only in the hummingbird processors not snapdragon.

If i played the waiting game, I would wait for something with dualcore (which is not on any phone today including nexus S). But for whats out there today, I'd say desire HD or galaxy S are your choices - HTC vs samsung. Personally I'd pick HTC as there are better chances of you getting an android update in time from HTC than samsung and the community at xda is also more pro-active with htc.
Keep in mind though - nexus S is pretty similar to galaxy S, so people at xda can easily port nexus s updates to galaxy s (dont bet on samsung though for speedy updates)

Quote:

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR (Post 2186875)

Thanks for correcting me, I apologize for confusing custom version.
however the point remains the same, why Samsung is making few lakh people run the olders android version ?

In fact i am also out of phone memory and would like to install Apps on SD which comes as a standard feature on 2.2

Quote:

Originally Posted by abhayshanu (Post 2187106)

All this talk about the HTC is making me love it, but its not a brand recognized much in India, the only problem I think I can face is, if I have a problem, where should I go? Are there service centers and are the people working there skilled?

i have been using htc since 2003 - yes they were in india then - the phone i had was an O2 XDA IIs - anyone remember those? big screen running windows :D HTC was always making phones for any and every provider - just that they decided to make themselves a direct brand much later. I have never had to goto HTC support, but have walked into a Nokia support center once and was allowed past a line of 50 ppl (lucky i was an employee) - it can't get worst than a standing in a line of 50 ppl! I think phone support is pretty good with HTC and on the rare occassion where an HTC phone really did get screwed up (for a friend) they replaced it without too many hiccups.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghpk (Post 2187110)

this is exactly why i would recommend getting an HTC (or direct google) over samsung (or sony, etc) - if you are not comfy with custom ROMs you're gonna be left with stock old android for a long long time. Just install a custom rom :)