Chris Dehghanpoor - 5/8 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Chris is an Android devotee based out of Houston, TX. He enjoys indie rock, general geekery and long walks on the beach. If you can't find him online, he's probably playing Plants VS Zombies.

May

That Was Quick: EVO 4G’s Already Been Rooted

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Carriers, Devices By Manufacturer, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News, Sprint, Videos

Prospective EVO 4G owners: go ahead and shave $29.99 off your expected monthly bill from Sprint. We’re still over a week away from the official launch of the phone, and it seems that it’s already been rooted. The hackers responsible for the root haven’t released many details at the moment, but they did provide us with several pictures and a video of the hack.

For those unaware (all 3 of you left?), ‘rooting’ a phone is another way of saying that users can now have complete access to a phones operating system (you can see more details here). We’ve covered rooting in the past, and most of the more popular Android phones have been rooted for a while, but the EVO 4G is a bit different.

May

Mystery Verizon Droid Surfaces – Is This The Droid 2?

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Carriers, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

A user over at Howard Forums has leaked what appears to be a ‘Getting Started’ manual for an as of yet unknown Motorola phone. Rumor has it that this is the Motorola Shadow/MB810, a phone that we’ve seen in random leaks here and there for the last few months.

Apparently it’s an ultra-thin slider, which has some speculating that it will be Verizon’s follow up the original Droid. If this is in fact the MB810, then we know a little bit about the expected specs:

4.3 inch screen
HDMI port
8 Megapixel camera
1080P Video Recording
802.11 b/g/n

This info all came via Engadget’s past coverage of the device here and here.

May

Nexus One Users, Get Your Froyo Download And Install Guide Here! UPDATE: It's Been Rooted!

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Devices By Manufacturer, News, Nexus One (Passion)

Last Updated: May 23rd, 2010

Big thanks to the folks over at this XDA thread that discovered the URL!

Disclaimer! We are not responsible for any harm that may occur due to your flashing or attempting to flash this rom

Here is the official download link from Google:

http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-FRF50-from-ERE27.1e519a24.zip

Google seems to have removed their link. I'm mirroring the file ~~here.~~ Man, you guys killed my Dropbox too! Here's another mirror. Let me know if the mirror stops working. I personally uploaded that file and verify its authenticity.

One our contributors confirmed a successful flash by using our instructions, so we have verified this now works.

May

Want To Relive The Moment? Now You Can – The Android Keynote Is Now Online

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in News, Videos

Where were you at 8:30AM PDT this morning? Working? Pfft. Work is for losers. You should have been on Youtube watching the live stream of today’s Android keynote. You know, the one where Froyo was officially announced?

Well, if you were one of the unfortunate souls stuck at work with blocked Youtube access, or a nosy boss, or maybe you’d just like to watch the heavy handed Apple bashing and awe inspiring features announced all over again, you’re in luck.

Google has put up the keynote in its entirety for your streaming pleasure. I’ll embed the videos below, or you can catch the playlist on Youtube here.

May

First EVO 4G Review Hits The Web!

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Carriers, Devices By Manufacturer, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Sprint

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Looking for a tasty little news snack before the big keynote at Google I/O tomorrow? Well, you’re in luck, because it appears that Walt Mossberg over at All Things D dropped his EVO 4G review tonight.

The review’s fairly short…it’s almost more of a preview than a proper rundown, but I’m sure the usual suspects (Engadget, Gizmodo, MobileCrunch), will cover the device in greater detail in their reviews. Until those start popping up though, what can we glean from Mossberg’s?

It’s fast. Walt says the phone’s 4G capability ‘offers the highest consistent downstream data speeds I have ever seen on a cellular network.’
4G use significantly reduces the battery life.

May

Google Updates Platform Version Stats Yet Again, 2.1 Finally In The Lead

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Carriers, Devices By Manufacturer, News

Once again Google has updated their platform version chart, and this time OS Version 2.1 has something to celebrate.

If you haven’t been keeping track, Google has a chart that illustrates the breakdown of Android versions on devices currently in the wild. This is done primarily so developers will know what version to develop for, but has also been used as ammunition for Android’s detractors who like to bring up fragmentation as one of Android’s biggest flaws.

Until April, the chart would go several months with out any new updates, but since the fragmentation argument started gaining ground, Google has switched to a more consistent update schedule, posting new results every few weeks.

May

NVIDIA’s Tegra Chipset To Focus On Android, Sets Crosshairs On Apple

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Devices By Manufacturer, News

During NVIDIA’s quarterly earnings call last week, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced that they would be focusing specifically on Android powered devices with the second generation of their Tegra chipset.

The Tegra platform is a S.O.C. or ‘system-on-a-chip’, which means that it integrates the CPU, GPU, northbridge, southbridge and memory controller onto a single chip. At the moment most Android handsets are using S.O.C’s developed by Qualcomm – you may have been hearing a lot about the Snapdragon recently, which is one of Qualcomm’s more popular chipsets.

Jen-Hsuan Huang went on to mention that NVIDIA are specifically gunning for Apple’s A4 S.O.C., which can currently be found in the iPad and is expected to be powering the next generation iPhone:

And iPhones are out there, the iPhone 4G is coming, the iPad is obviously a revolutionary product.

May

HTC Officially Introduces A New, More Social, Phone: Meet HTC Wildfire

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Carriers, Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, Wildfire (Buzz)

Last Updated: April 2nd, 2011

After the good gentlemen over at Smartphone Arena broke embargo this morning, HTC went ahead and made things official with their latest Android handset, the HTC Wildfire.

Looking like the bastard child of an HTC Legend and Google Nexus One, it seems the Wildfire is intended to further flesh out HTC’s lineup of Android handsets. The handset is set to hit Europe and Asia in Q3 2010, which is a shame, because this is definitely the kind of handset that T-Mobile US could use. At this point, their current line up is beginning to show its age and their latest announcements, like the MyTouch Slide and Garminfone, aren’t exactly drool-worthy.

May

WTF - Sprint To Charge $10/Month “You Get To Use An EVO 4G” Fee

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Carriers, EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, Sprint

After wiping the drool off our screens long enough to actually read Sprint’s press release for the EVO 4G, we found ourselves a bit put off by the 10$/month ‘Premium Data Charge’. Here’s the relevant excerpt from the release:

A $10 per month Premium Data add-on will apply allowing customers to take advantage of a richer data experience than ever before.

The way that the $10/month fee is presented in the press release seems to imply that it would only be applicable to those who can take advantage of Sprint’s 4G network, which is still in the process of rolling out in many parts of the country.

May

Want Android On Your iPhone 3G? There’s An App For that.

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in AT&T, Devices By Manufacturer, News, Videos

The mad scientists over at the iPhone Dev-Team have done it again! Planetbeing, the dev who brought us the Youtube video of the original iPhone running Android, has just posted another, showing off Android running on Apple’s iPhone 3G.

Since the project is still in development, not everything is working at this point, most notably audio, but it seems like the majority of the features are intact, including multi-touch, WiFi, and the baseband, which is required for the call and text messaging functions.