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Nov

For Audiophiles: Sub-$100 Mobile Headset (Earbuds + Mic) Review Round-Up + Meelectronics Earbuds Giveaway (5x Pairs, $200 Value)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Contests / Giveaways, Other Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

This article was written by a guest writer, Mikhail Lifshits, better known as ljokerl over at head-fi.org. Mikhail is an audiophile to the bone - a single look at his forum user page will leave you wondering if there is a pair of earbuds Mikhail hasn't owned or tried yet.

Today’s smartphones are quickly absorbing the functions of other portable devices - PDAs, portable GPS units, and standalone MIDs are a thing of the past - and conventional MP3 players may be next on the cutting block.

The audio quality of the latest-gen Android devices nowadays leaves little to be desired in comparison to the majority of mp3 players but the headsets included with most phones are a different story.

Nov

Last Week's Best New Android Apps And Games (11/01/10 - 11/07/10)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News

Last Updated: April 13th, 2011

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications and games that went live in the Market in the previous week or so.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets.

Best New Android Apps

PowerAMP Music Player

PowerAMP is the new powerful music player for Android, finally in the Market.
- plays mp3/mp4/m4a(including lossless alac)/flac/ogg/wav/tta/ wma/ape/wv
- optimized 10 band graphic equalizer for all supported formats, separate Bass and Treble controls
- folders and system library support
- tag editor/widgets/lock screen/skins/fast scan and more

Android Police coverage: PowerAMP is currently the leader of our Best Music Player poll and is my personal favorite.

Nov

Nexus One Learns A New Trick: T-Mobile's WiFi-Calling Now Possible Via Community Hacking Effort

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

The Nexus One may be growing long in the tooth, but it's still surely one of the most active phones when it comes to development. Hence this hack should come as a surprise to no-one: T-Mobile's WiFi-Calling functionality has been extracted from one Vanilla Froyo running device (the G2) and injected into another, the one and only Google Phone. While this will obviously only work on N1s on the T-Mobile network, it comes as a welcome distraction to those of us waiting for the imminent Gingerbread OTA.

XDA-developers member Rsotbiemrptson has put together a short guide on installing the hack yourself, reprinted below:

Instructions:
1.

Nov

Verizon's Motorola Droid Pro To Launch On November 18th For $180, Presale Starts November 9th

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Droid Pro, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

We've seen a leaked Verizon image showing the Droid Pro, Motorola's first serious answer Blackberry-style Android device, at the $180 price point before, but we never quite got the date. Today, Verizon went public with dates: we now know the device will go on presale tomorrow and finally be in your hands on November 18th. Price-wise, the Big Red officially confirmed the $180 price point, as expected, albeit after a $100 rebate. Not too bad for a business oriented device that can utilize voice and data in over 200 countries.

Official pictures and press release follow.

Update: Droid Pro user guide is here.

Nov

OHA Team Member Confirms Gingerbread Version As 2.3, Hints At Dev Nexus Ones Receiving An OTA Update In The Next Few Days

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News, Nexus One (Passion)

This week promises to be huge for Android - we've been hearing about the Gingerbread SDK possibly coming out on November 11th, and today an Open Handset Alliance team member Alvaro Fuentes Vasquez announced 2 very important details via his twitter account, namely:

Gingerbread will indeed bear version number 2.3, not 3.0
it will be hitting developer versions of Nexus One handsets in the next few days

Direct translation of the above, according to Google, is:

Prepare your Nexus One (Developer version) for Android OTA update 2.3 (Gingerbread) for the next few days:-D

The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) was announced on the same day Android was revealed to the world a bit over 3 years ago, with the sole purpose of promoting the open and free mobile platform.

Nov

AT&T Motorola Bravo And Flipside Now Available For $130/$100 From AT&T, $0 From Amazon And Wirefly

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in AT&T, Bravo, Flipside, Motorola, News

No matter what you say about AT&T (i.e. how long can they keep locking down sideloading no their Android phones?), at least their commitment to Android has definitely picked up compared to only a few months ago.

Today, as expected, 2 more new Android phones are available on AT&T, namely Motorola Backflip and Motorola Flipout.

Motorola Bravo

The Bravo is a slightly more upscale of the two, but still fails to impress me in any way other than being DLNA-enabled. To refresh your memory, here are the Bravo specs:

TI OMAP 3610 800 MHz processor
No physical keyboard
512 MB RAM, 2 GB ROM, 2GB microSD preinstalled
3.7", 854 x 480 FWVGA screen
802.11 b/g/n WiFi
MOTOBLUR
3MP camera with auto-focus (ugh)
DLNA-enabled
1540 mAh battery
Android 2.1

The Bravo is available from AT&T for $129.99, but also showed up on Amazon for $0.01 and Wirefly for free.

Nov

Pro Android 3, The First Book To Cover Gingerbread APIs, Goes Up For Presale, Offers Gingerbread Hints

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News

If you want to find out all the new goodies Android's newest upcoming OS, codenamed Gingerbread, is going to bring, you may want to ask Satya Komatineni, Sayed Hashimi, and Dave MacLean. These 3 writers are the co-authors of the Pro Android book series, and, thanks to a tip from @brodduncan, we now know they've definitely been playing with Gingerbread, likely for quite a while.

The new 3rd edition of Pro Android, which recently showed up on Amazon, mentions the Gingerbread SDK in its description:

Pro Android 3 shows you how to build real-world and fun mobile applications using the new Android SDK, codename "Gingerbread."

Learn what’s new with Gingerbread: improved UI across all Android platforms, integration with WebM, the latest Flash integration techniques, and more

The above confirms our earlier suspicions of user interface improvements that Gingerbread is bound to bring as well as reaffirms the WebM integration that Google promised at Google I/O this year.

Nov

[ROM] Team Whiskey Releases Obsidian, Their First Froyo ROM For The T-Mobile Vibrant

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Development, News, T-Mobile, Vibrant

If you're a Vibrant owner interested in custom ROMs, then today is your lucky day. With their Éclair ROM amassing a 400-page thread in under a month, it's safe to say that Team Whiskey's new Obsidian release is going to draw the crowds. Posted on XDA-Developers just moments ago, let's take a look at just what this ROM has to offer:

Obsidian is the first release of Android 2.2, Froyo, from Team Whiskey. Obsidian is a build that follows closely to its sibling releases. A fast, efficient, dark themed power house that's sure to please the daily driver and power user alike.

Nov

Verizon LTE Expert Confirms Existence Of HTC Incredible HD, Hints At LTE Support

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in HTC, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

A Verizon-bound LTE equivalent of the HTC EVO? Nope, that's no longer just a blissful dream for Big Red users, as @black_man_x, a Verizon employee working in the LTE division, yesterday tweeted out the following message:

To add on to that, he went on to tell Droid Life that the pictures of the Incredible HD that BGR obtained a few months ago are legit, although the device has since been "refined a bit." We've already seen one great EVO look-a-like, so let's hope this aluminum-clad beast is another.

Source: @black_man_x (Twitter) via Droid Life

Nov

Verizon Promo Offers A New 450 Minute Plan With Unlimited Text And Data For $69.99, 1400 Minute Family Plan For $139.99

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Verizon Wireless

Over the years, Verizon, the nation's largest wireless carrier, has been notoriously expensive plan-wise, especially compared to Sprint or T-Mobile. For example, you can currently get a 450 minute talk+text plan with unlimited data for $90 over at Verizon, while at Sprint, it will cost you $69.99 (+ the minutes can be used to call any carrier's mobile phone):

^{Left: Verizon, right: Sprint}

A new plan, or 2 plans to be exact, is being offered in a promotion, BGR found today, that are putting the current pricing to shame. Similar to Sprint, Verizon's new offer, sent to customers via email, now offers 450 minutes together with unlimited texting and data for $69.99, which is $20 cheaper than what we saw above.