February 2011 Archives

Feb

New Ad Shows $299 Price For Thunderbolt, Continues To Be Most Confusing Device Launch Ever

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

Well, another day, another HTC Thunderbolt rumor. Today's addition to the Thunder-rumor-dome is a little different, but don't worry - it's still pretty upsetting. A new Best Buy Ad has shown up with an advertised price of $299 for Verizon's debut 4G handset. Yuck. The Android Police team already thought $249 was a little steep, but $300 for a phone based on a platform that's been around more than 4 months worldwide?

Along with that, there's some delightful speculation about the Thunderbolt's release date having been pushed back to March 10th (which now seems fake). Hats off to Verizon and ...

Feb

Motorola XOOM Gets A Teardown, 4G LTE Chip Upgrade Takes 10 Minutes, Not 6 Days

Posted by David Ruddock in Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

The good folks over at iFixit gave the Motorola XOOM a teardown this morning, and aside from the ridiculous 57 screws holding it together, it has been deemed pretty tinker-friendly, scoring an 8/10 on the repairability meter.

One interesting piece of information did emerge during the XOOM's disrobing, though - in regard to its much-touched LTE upgradeability. The teardown's author noted that the XOOM ships with a dummy mini-PCI board, presumably holding the 4G LTE radio's slot. What's so fascinating about that? Well, the author claims a seasoned technician could swap out the dummy card and close up in ...

Feb

WidgetLocker Updated To v2.0, Adds Support For Themes

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Mods, News

The long planned, much anticipated update to WidgetLocker that adds themes has been released, and it's every bit as awesome as we expected. Perhaps the best part about it is that there's already a broad selection of themes available in the XDA thread, and it's likely that number will increase substantially as time goes on thanks to the groundwork laid by previous WL mods.

Once you find a theme you like, installation is very, very easy:

1) When clicking on a link in the form of http://…foo.wltheme.zip, chose WidgetLocker to open the link rather then

...

Feb

Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 Pre-Orders Are Live, Shipping In March?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy S II, News

Could the ship date for Samsung's Galaxy S II i9100 be moved up to March? So says UK eTailer Clove, who has apparently had pre-orders open for some time now, with prices at £510 and £590 for the 16GB and 32GB versions. Surprisingly, it turns out they're not the only one with open doors - Mobile City Online is taking pre-orders for the i1900 as well, charging $700 with free shipping, with a ship date of Q1 2011 (which would be by the end of March). While Mobile City doesn't say whether that's the 16GB or 32GB version, Clove's ...

Feb

CNN Releases Android App Made Specifically For Honeycomb Tablets

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

If you remember, during Google's Honeycomb showcase in the beginning of the month, one of the tablet-optimized apps demoed was made by CNN. Considering CNN is one of the Honeycomb/XOOM launch partners, the new app showed up in the Market like clockwork for an easily digestible price of free. For those who need a refresher, here's the video from the presentation again:

The CNN app features a swipable navigation bar on the left-hand side and a grid story layout on the right side. For video junkies, live video broadcasts as well as pre-recorded video segments are provided. Vocal activists among ...

Feb

Android 2.2 "Froyo" Update For HTC Aria To Be Available Tomorrow, February 25th

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Aria (Liberty), Froyo 2.2, News

It's been a long time coming, but AT&T is finally about to show some love to the HTC Aria: they've announced via their Facebook page that an update to Froyo will be made available tomorrow. The post tells users to check back tomorrow to "learn how to download the update," so this might not be a nice and easy over-the-air procedure. But at least it tells us that one manufacturer is still developing for its older devices.

Source: AT&T Facebook page via Android Central

...

Feb

GameSpy To Release Free Cross-Platform SDK To Developers, Complete With Cloud Storage For Game Data

Posted by Will Shanklin in Apps/Games, Games, News

Social gaming engine GameSpy has announced that they are about to release their software development kit (SDK) for developers large and small to integrate at their will.

While their lone Android title (to date) is the uber-popular Dungeon Defenders, GameSpy is actually a grizzled veteran to the console world, having helped power the social engines of companies like Rockstar Games and Nintendo for years. Similar to gaming networks like OpenFeint, the network brings all the expected features (social integration, leaderboards, in-game purchases), plus a few not-so-standard perks, like cloud storage for saved games, screenshots, and videos.

Developers will ...

Feb

Froyo Update For Samsung Epic 4G Halted After Reports Of SD Card Access and Data Connection Problems

Posted by Zak Stinson in Android OS, Epic 4G, Froyo 2.2, News, Samsung, Sprint

Samsung has a reputation for not being the greatest at updating their devices, but this week has been especially rough for them. First, Microsoft had to halt an update to the Samsung Omnia 7 due to reports of bricked devices. Today, Sprint has just stopped pushing the Android 2.2 update for the Epic as users have found hardware problems after applying it.

According to Sprint's support forum, there have been an increased number of calls into their Care Centre about issues with wireless data connectivity and the ability to access the SD card. While it's a relief that ...

Feb

Google Releases Android 2.3.3 Update .ZIPs For Nexus One And Nexus S

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Nexus One (Passion), Nexus S (Crespo/Soju)

Google may have jumped the gun on announcing that the Android 2.3.3 update for the Nexus One was available - although they did say that it could be a few weeks until the update deployed OTA, it wasn't available for download and install, either. Or, rather, it wasn't until now: the update .ZIPs have been posted and can be downloaded directly from Google.

Nexus S:

Nexus One:

2.2.2 FRG83G -> 2.3.3 GRI40 update

Obviously, Gingerbread brings a ton of new features, and 2.3.3 builds upon them even further. ...

Feb

Hello, Literature: Books Page Goes Live On Android Web Market

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, News

You read that right: the Market now includes a totally awesome Books site. To be honest though, none of us is really sure what all has changed, since none of us really used it before - but it doesn't seem like a lot, other than a flipped switch. Let's start with what it looks like:

Notably, there's now a dropdown to sort by genre (to the left of the search box, above). When you select a book (protip: Sherlock Holmes is free... or if you're like Artem: Walden is free.), you're presented with the option to read it on the ...

Feb

It's Official: Samsung Captivate Froyo Update Now Available Through Kies Mini

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in AT&T, Captivate, Froyo 2.2, News

It looks like the Captivate is the next domino to fall, much as expected: AT&T just confirmed via twitter that the Froyo update is now available for Captivate owners through Kies Mini. Similarly, that support page we stumbled upon last week before being pulled has gone back up, and it looks just like it did then.

Obviously as the update is done through Kies Mini, you'll need that to start. Once you've got Kies all ready to go, you need to do a minor amount of jiggering to get the update installed. Not quite as easy as most OTAs, ...

Feb

[Hands-On] WiMAX Hits CyanogenMod 7 Nightlies - One Moar G, Way Moar Speed

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Mods, News

Last night, Cyanogen revealed on Twitter that WiMAX had officially landed in CM7, via the latest nightly. No small feat, given that the team had to write their own code entirely from scratch. And while CM-based builds with WiMAX have been floating around for a few weeks now, this is the first official release - effectively addressing the last major qualm many EVO owners had with CM.

I have to say, WiMAX in CM7 certainly doesn't fail to impress: I managed to hit 6.5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload. In 3 tests, I averaged 5470 Kbps download and 1041 ...

Feb

Motorola XOOM Review Roundup: An Android Tablet, Done (Mostly) Right

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

It's launch day for the XOOM, and already the major news outlets have had a chance to spend a few days with the much anticipated device. Not only does the XOOM bring a new standard in high-end to the masses (a la Tegra 2), but it's also the first device to ship with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) on board. It's also really the second major Android tablet to launch (the Galaxy Tab being the first), and the first to match the 10" form factor of the iPad. But how does it fare? Let's take a look at what our reviewers ...

Feb

The Flood Of Tegra-Optimized Games Begins: Fruit Ninja THD And Backbreaker THD Now In The Market, 'Cept You Probably Can't Play Them

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Apps/Games, Editorials, News

The raw power behind NVIDIA's soon-to-be ubiquitous Tegra II chipset makes for some interesting possibilities when it comes to gaming. However, there are certain pitfalls when one manufacturer leap-frogs the competition. Being the first to market in this latest generation of system-on-chips, NVIDIA has developers and exclusives pretty much at their beck and call. Who are you doing to develop for, the company with a multitude of devices hitting the market right now, or the "other guys" without any firm release date? NVIDIA's in a strong position right now, and it's going to do its best to solidify that.

Some ...

Feb

HTC Desire Z: Long-Term Ownership Hardware Review

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Desire Z (Vision), Devices By Manufacturer, G2 (Vision), HTC, Phone Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Take a look at the top tier of Android phones right now and you might notice something. They all kind of look the same. Black front fascia, large touchscreen, minimal waistline. Boring, right? Well that's just the way things are going. Alternatives to the slate way of living are becoming increasingly rare, which puts the HTC Desire Z with its hardware keyboard in an intriguing light. With its metallic accents and suave grey pallet, the Desire Z cuts a different path. So how do I mean rare? If you want a top-level QWERTY Android phone in the USA you have ...