Archive for January 2010
Android Demo (日本語)
Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz discuss the availability of the SDK, that it will be open source in the future, and demo applications on the Android platform. Subtitled in Japanese.
Snapdragon Powers the Android in the Acer Liquid A1
While much of the online mobile community has been talking about the upcoming Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 to be released Q1 of next year, we now have the worldâs leading laptop maker Acer beating it to its markets with the release the worldâs first Android 1.6 smartphone powered by the Snapdragon â the Acer Liquid A1.
Top Class Features
The Liquid A1 can bask in the limelight before the XPERIA X10 or the HTX HD2 gets out. In the meantime, Sony Ericsson fans dismayed at not having their eagerly anticipated X10 in time for the holidays just might opt for the A1 instead. Itâs a fine alternative alright. Only short by 0.5 inches from what the X10 has, its 3.5â wide-VGA capacitive touchscreen looms quite large on its equally elegant and slim body just 12.5mm thick and weighing just 135g. The A1 shares many of the features weâve come to expect from a high end versatile smartphone.
This is a quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE on 2G and UMTS on 3G with HSPA data connectivity at 7.2 Mbps for high speed internet surfing and downloading. Local data connectivity is served with its WiFi 802.11b/g that has an added Acer Sync feature allowing you to synchronize your desktop with the handset over WiFi as well as over its Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR. You can also sync between your address book, calendar and email with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. You can automatically upload your videos to YouTube and your photos to Picassa, making Googleâs online media services a virtual remote backup for your media content.
Just like most other upscale smartphones, you get excellent imaging feature with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with geo-tagging thanks to its built-in GPS receiver. Apart from capable multimedia players, the A1 gets what Acer calls Spinlets apps that allow streaming audio and video content. It supports a choice of wireless stereo earphones with Bluetooth 2.1 A2DP support or any high fidelity headphones using its 3.5mm jack.
Rumours that its Snapdragon will be underclocked to 768 MHz are finally confirmed. While this might easily be feared to cause underperformance when all the other Snapdragon handsets are clocked at 1GHz, thereâs also speculation that Acer might have needed to detune the processor to give the handset a longer battery life with all those features tucked in. You get 5 hours of talk time and up to 400 hours on standby from its 1350 mAh lithium-ion battery. Not bad for a full-featured high end smartphone. But you can expect Acer to come out with the next handset running the newer Android 2.0 OS.
Availability
Acer has managed to ship out the anticipated Liquid faster than most had expected, beating the worldâs number one computer maker Dellâs Android MID to the finish line. It comes just as the more awaited XPERIA X10 running the same Snapdragon and Android 1.6 OS wonât be released until the first quarter of 2010.
Release date is November 28 and can already be pre-ordered in some key European cities like Spain and mobile sites like Clove in the UK have it ready for pre-order at a mere SIM-free price of â¬286 (â¬328.90 with applicable taxes)- cheaper than initially thought. Sales package of the Acer Liquid A1 is said to come with a 2GB microSD card and you get a choice of body colors â red, black or white.
If you are tempted to get your hands on some great Acer Liquid A1 deals then you should check out some of the Liquid 24 month contracts that are available as well as some of the contracts on offer for the Acer Liquid on O2.
Android Phones For Links SMX Advanced 2009
www.davecolorado.com I shot this at SMX Advanced in Seattle this week. I was sitting way in the back charging up my iphone at the end of the day so I apologize for the shakiness. I think I keep the video to one minute which fits into the SMX video policy, but I didn't ask Matt Cutts for permission. So Matt if you are reading this I hope you don't mind. I tried to ask you at the end of the session but I could never get inside the crowd to ask. If you want me to take it down I can do so. www.davecolorado.com
Android Peeks – fast scroll
One thing I like about Android… Fast Scroll Watch Android team members talk about their favorite features.
HP Dubs Android Netbook ‘Compaq Airlife’
HP Dubs Android Netbook ‘Compaq Airlife’
Remember the HP Android smartbook that Steve Ballmer hoisted up at CES? HP has given it an official name: The Compaq Airlife 100.
Read more on PC Magazine via Yahoo! News
Samsung Moment May Get an Android OS 2.1 Upgrade by Month’s End
Samsung Moment May Get an Android OS 2.1 Upgrade by Month’s End
There is good news for those with a Samsung Moment who are getting impatient for an upgrade to the latest version of Google’s Android OS: this will reportedly be available in a week or so, bringing some significant new features.
Read more on Brighthand
A Milestone in Mobile Phones – the Motorola Milestone
Most people will recognize this as the Motorola that Verizon will carry in the US. But on the other side of the Atlantic, people will know this as the Motorola Milestone. Either version is Motorolaâs first GSM phone running on the latest Google Android 2.0 Ãclair operating system.
At least thatâs what it will be once it gets released in Europe this December starting with Italy and Germany. The O2 German site has it priced at a SIM-free â¬481 but rumour has it that it will be closer to â¬400-â¬450 once released.  The sales kit is expected to come with an 8GB microSD card, 16GB in the US.
Droid â Milestone Differences
While sharing the same hardware and design, there are some differences between the US Droid and the European Milestone versions. The former gets the latest Google Maps and has its multitouch feature on its capacitive touchscreen turned off while the latter has the Motorola MOTONAV GPS application that does the same spoken turn-by-turn GPS guidance and sports a multitouch capacitive touchscreen similar to what the iPhone 3Gs has.
In fact, were it not for the difference in form factor, the Motorola Milestone/Droid is the closest if not the best rival the iPhone could have had. The new Android 2.0 seems to even up the functionality score with what the iPhone can do. While itâs heftier due to the real glass on the display and an all-metal body at 165g over the iPhoneâs 139g, size-wise, theyâre quite similar when the Milestoneâs QWERTY slider is closed.
Great Value High end Features.
Its feature set can easily dislodge many flagship smartphones in the market. It sports a massive 3.7â wide-VGA capacitive touchscreen with multitouch (for Europe) and a brilliant display that puts to shame the AMOLED display on the Samsung i8910 HD.
You can pretty much do on its screen what you can do on the iPhone: double tap to zoom in or out as well as pin or squeeze your fingers to zoom Web pages, photos and maps and spread out to zoom out. Â Thereâs no other mobile phone other than the iPhone that can do that at this time.
Another outstanding feature comes from its imaging function. It has a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash that also supports wide-VGA recording at 24 fps frame rates. The new Android OS now has flash support where before, mobile phones running Android didnât have any flash on their cameras.
And of course, itâs a quad band GSM and twin band UMTS phone with HSPA data connectivity for a no-wait surfing and downloading on the net. WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR are there for wireless data connectivity. Its CPU is the ARM Cortex A8 clocked at 550 MHz and is touted to be as powerful as the one used by the iPhone 3Gs.
Battery life is 6.5 hours talk time and 14 days standby time from its 1400 mAh lithium-ion battery â typical of most other flagship handsets. Thereâs the usual coteries of hardware features you can expect from a top act smartphone â 3.5mm headphone jack, microUSB support, microSD slot for up to 32GB, stereo Fm radio with RDS, GPS, accelerometers and capable multimedia players.
High Marks All Around
At its price point, nothing comes close to the Milestone. In terms of value for the money, no flagship mobile phones can hold a candle to it. Motorola may have indeed created a defining milestone in its phone-making history with this. At the very least, it has redefined what a high value high performing flagship smartphone is. It comes right in time to update the Christmas shopping list. And thereâs no Nokia or HTC on it, just a Motorola Milestone.
To find the best Motorola Milestone deals you can look at Moby1 who compare all the latest phone deals for the Milestone and many other phones, and they also have many informative phone reviews.
A Cheap Android Phone that Should Be – the HTC Tattoo
For a smartphone with an operating system thatâs open and free, itâs been surprising to see a slew of Android phones that rival the high ends handset that use their more proprietary OS platforms like Symbian. Especially when we see them sporting features that, while decent, are quite common with many other high end phones costing less.
Predictable Features
Among those features, you get 16 GB microSD support, high speed internet with 3G HSPDA, WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, stereo FM with RDS and GPS support. Thatâs what many Android phones have. And the new HTC Tattoo is no exception.
It also features a typical 3.1 mega pixel autofocus camera and a decent multimedia feature starting with a gorgeous 2.8â LCD TFT resistive touchscreen display, presumably with the usual accelerometer for automatic viewing orientation changes. HTC phones are not known to have great multimedia features as they are really meant to target the more serious corporate and business markets. But, just as a perfunctory nod to mobile phone trends, it makes business sense to put in all the bells and whistles weâve come to expect from mobile phones.
The HTC Tattoo from the Taiwan-based mobile phone novice runs on a powerful Qualcomm CPU clocked at 528 MHz with a 256 MB Ram and 512 MB ROM, engine features that are just as powerful as any Android phone out there. People often wonder if the Android phone requires so much power to run effectively, and thus, bring up its price rather unnecessarily while sporting the familiar touch-screen form.
Outstanding Value
But what makes the HTC Tattoo stand out is its affordability in the rumored â¬350 price point, that is, if you consider that affordable. This newest handset officially released by HTC is said to be the cheapest Android phone expected to hit the market during the last quarter of the year starting this October. If you are familiar with the high end HTC Touch 3G, then you have an idea how the Tattoo looks like, but using the Android OS instead of Windows Mobile.
This is HTCâs fourth Android handset and this time, it looks like the target market for affordable handsets should provide a wider market base for its line of Android phones. Does the Android have a mass appeal? That remains to be seen as they typically get snapped up by high end markets with their upscale price. Whether they can upgrade (or downgrade) from their Symbian, Windows and Linux handsets remains to be seen. The Android OS is actually a great mobile platform with so much promise and there are no royalties in its use by phone makers.
If you want to compare HTC Tattoo contracts then Best Mobile Contracts is a good place to visit as they compare thousands of mobile phone deals and mobile broadband deals every day.
Android and Snapdragon: Acer Liquid A1
Yes, itâs the Android fanâs dream come true; a mobile smart phone running on a 1GHz Snapdragon with Googleâs Android software. Sadly, the Acer Liquid A1 will not be running version 2.0 Ãclair (or Flan for that matter). Instead, it will use the Android 1.6 Donut; which is good enough for those who are desperate for an Android fix.
The demonstration unit of the Liquid featured an under clocked Snapdragon running at 768 MHz, fast – but not the full 1 GHz of power that the Qualcomm processor can deliver. Still, that little tech demo is more than enough to make us even hungrier for this Donut.
Word of advice, keep a hold on your wallet. There has been no confirmation regarding when this device will come out, well, Acer just made it formal that the device will definitely be released.
New in the Business
For those who are wondering why Acer is venturing into the mobile phone industry, the question is, why not? With Apple already deep in the hot tub, it’s not uncommon to see other computer manufacturers delve into the industry. Plus, ever since smart phones have taken the place of pocket PCs in society, mobile phone are becoming more and more like really small laptops.
Acerâs previous mobile phone set for Windows Mobile Professional 6.5 is a series of conventional touch screen devices. The mobile phones were okay, but hardly anything special. Hopefully Acer will provide a better sense of design know-how when it comes to the Android; because as anyone would agree, an Android phone deserves only the best.
Impressive Direction
Acer officially stated that they have big plans for this device, we just hope they deliver. The high definition capacitive touch screen is impressive, no word yet if they are planning to put in multi touch capabilities. Considering that this will be running on a Snapdragon with amazing graphics capabilities, we are hoping to see excellent 3D graphics without any significant slowdowns or lag.
The rest of Acerâs release information is pretty vague, but we have confirmed a 5 mega pixel camera with geo tagging (yes, that means we have got confirmation on GPS as well). As a 3G device, HSDPA is already a given, and we are expecting to see EDGE, GPRS and Wi-Fi capabilities as well. Acer has also confirmed that the Liquid with have integrated applications for Twitter, Facebook, Picasa and Flickr. Spinlets is a new Acer application that focuses on sharing media files such as videos and music.
The Future of the Android
The Google Android gets a lot of hype and expectation because they truly deliver some of the best performances of all existing operating systems. Which is why whenever a new Android mobile phone is announced, everyone is all over it, the specs, the planning, the direction and concept of the device. If it is going to run an Android, it better be good. Acer knows this and they are playing the game by the rules. We are definitely going to keep a close eye on Acerâs latest update on the upcoming Acer Liquid A1.
To get your hands on the Acer Liquid on contract you should pay a visit to Best Mobile Contracts. They compare all the latest phone deals as well as comparing mobile broadband deals.
ActionComplete for Android Phones
This mini tutorial/video demonstration shows actioncomplete, an Android app for GTD enthusiasts and task list management. Visite www.androinica.com for more details.
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