Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Sep

LG To Deliver Dual Core Smartphones Using NVIDIA Tegra 2

Posted by Nate Kimmey in LG, News

It looks like LG doesn’t want Samsung to get all the dual core glory. The company has just announced their own plans for dual core smartphones, this time using the the NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor that we’ve already seen power a few Android tablets. The expected Q4 release of these phones (interestingly, the same timeframe as Samsung) seems to line up with the release of an Android-powered LG phone headed to T-Mobile. Unfortunately, without a name, there’s no way to tell if this will be part of LG’s Optimus series (currently, the only known phone in the series is the Optimus 7, which runs WIndows Phone 7).

Sep

Samsung Fascinate Officially Coming To Verizon Starting September 8/9; World Feigns Surprise

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Fascinate, News, Verizon Wireless

Verizon sent out a press release this morning announcing that the Samsung Fascinate we've been hearing so much about lately will, in fact, be dropping on September 9 (as rumored). Even better, it'll be up for sale online tomorrow (September 8\) - meaning you won't be able to get your grubby paws on it until the 9th at the earliest anyway.

As rumored, pricing will be $300 with a $100 mail-in-rebate (MIR), for a final cost of $200. No word in the release if they'll be running the rumored Buy-One-Get-Any promo we heard about, but at least we don't have to wait long at all to find out, do we?

Sep

Samsung Announces Orion - A Cortex-A9 Based Dual-Core Mobile CPU

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News, Samsung

Remember the Cortex-A9 we talked about just a few days ago - the one that can clock in at well over 2 GHz on a 28nm process? Turns out Samsung has had its eyes on that bad boy for a while - they've now announced a mobile CPU based on the architecture (one caveat, though - the chip is manufactured on a 45nm process).

The lack of a major die shrink may keep things running at a more reasonable clip (1 GHz), but the improved architecture still allows for huge improvements over today's tech. Namely:

Dual 1 GHz A9 cores
64 KB data and instruction cache
1 MB L2 cache
HDMI 1.3a
Full 1080P video encode/decode at 30 fps
Triple display controller
Up to 5x the 3D graphics performance over previous Samsung processors

Further, it looks like we're looking at a fairly flexible chip here:

For design flexibility and system BOM cost reduction, Orion integrates a set of interfaces commonly used in mobile devices to configure various peripheral functionalities.

Sep

US Cellular HTC Desire Review: A Phone That's Passed The Test Of Time

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Eclair 2.1, Froyo 2.2, HTC, Phone Reviews, Reviews, US Cellular

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Introduction

Well, well, well. I never thought the day would come: the HTC Desire, first announced at Mobile World Congress in February, has finally landed in the States! Of course, six months is a long time in the world of technology, so when I first started reviewing the Desire, my expectations weren't nearly as high as those of, say, my colleague Ian Douglas when he began reviewing the Samsung Epic 4G.

Nonetheless, the carrier HTC decided to bless - US Cellular - was in desperate need of a decent Android phone, and, if nothing else, the Desire absolutely beats the pants off its only other Android offering - the Samsung Acclaim.

Sep

Unrevoked 3.2 Is Out - Brings 1-Click Froyo Root To EVO 4G, Incredible, Desire, Aria, Eris, Wildfire; NAND Unlock/S-OFF To EVO 4G, Incredible, Desire

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Aria (Liberty), Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Development, Eris, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Froyo 2.2, Incredible, News, Wildfire (Buzz)

This is seriously impressive stuff - the guys from the unrevoked team did it again, and this version 3.2 is definitely their best release yet. Most of the credit, outside of the core unrevoked team, belongs to Sebastian Krahmer for discovering the exploit that works on all supported phones.

This article mentions rooting, Nandroid, and flashing of custom ROMs. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, hit up our primers here:

Unrevoked 3.2 Features

One-click root without reinstalling/reflashing/wiping your existing stock Android OS.

Sep

FroYo Update For HTC Desire On O2 Goes Live Before Dying A Sad, Sad Death

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Froyo 2.2, HTC, O2

Well it's not the first phone to get FroYo, or even the first phone with HTC's Sense UI to receive the delicious update, but Froyo is coming to UK carrier O2's HTC Desire. The update hit the air - before being pulled almost immediately!

According to O2's full statement posted on their forums,

Hi all
As some of you will have noticed the Android 2.2 Froyo update for HTC Desire on O2 went live this morning. While we’re pleased that so many of you have been able to download it successfully and are enjoying the benefits of 2.2, we have seen that a small number of people are having problems installing the update.

Sep

[App Of The Week] Multicon - Reclaim Your Home Screen Real Estate

Posted by Brad Ganley in Applications

Even though I have 7 home screens on my EVO 4G, I still sometimes find myself cramped for space. I have a whole bunch of apps and shortcuts that I would like to have instant access to. Enter Multicon.

The function of Multicon is to make widgets that pack in a number of downsized icons in the space that would normally be occupied by only single ones. This enables you to pack a large number of app shortcuts onto a home screen that only fits 16 by default (on most handsets).

Multicon is especially useful for devices with larger screens, such as the 4.3" EVO 4G, Droid X and the 5" Dell Streak because it's much easier to click on icons several times smaller in size on those devices than on ones with smaller screens.

Sep

No Super AMOLED On The Samsung Galaxy Tab, But It Still Won't Suck

Posted by Brad Ganley in Galaxy Tab, News

Yeah, Samsung knows you WANTED a Super AMOLED display on that Galaxy Tab but, unfortunately, it looks like that won't happen. We just saw the video (below).

After I dried my eyes, Samsung's executives in the video reassured me that the Super TFT they opted for instead is still great looking and offers even better battery life than super AMOLED. They also said that the Super TFT was developed in parallel to the Super AMOLED (so it's not old news) and is the best TFT display that you can get. Does it look as good?

No. I'm not sure if it's the screen glare in this picture or what, but at this point, I'd rather have that Galaxy S than the Galaxy Tab.

Sep

First Custom ROM For Motorola Droid 2 Lands: Epic Unleashed 1.0

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, Droid 2, News, Verizon Wireless

Good news on the Droid 2 modding front: the first custom ROM for said phone has been released. As this is the first ROM out for the device - and it's fairly soon after release - there's not a ton of customization. Still, any improvement is better than none at all, right?

The ROM (Epic Unleashed 1.0) is the work of Matt4542, and requires root and koush's recovery. It retains a feel pretty close to stock:

Things in the rom:
Removed bloatware(Stupid Verizon!)
Added scripts
Many build.prop mods

Still has Motoblur, just took my system folder and edited it like ****.

Sep

Redditor Creates Spreadsheet To Keep Track Of Upcoming Android Tablets

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Devices By Manufacturer, News

This is pretty cool - looks like redditors have come together to build and track a speadsheet on upcoming tablets. So far most of the data on the sheet seems to be firmly based on established knowledge, but it's only just begun forming - it's likely that over time, more speculative data may be added. Still, a very neat idea and it's cool to see people working together on something productive.