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Sep

HTC Sense Will Support Map Pre-Caching In Its Latest Upgrade

Posted by Brad Ganley in Applications, Desire HD (Ace), HTC, News, Videos

Yesterday, Engadget got some hands-on time with the brand new HTC Sense upgrade that will debut on the Desire HD and the Desire Z. It will support all kinds of crazy stuff we've been waiting for like remote wiping, phone location, and backing up to and restoring data from HTCSense.com. Another cool feature is map pre-caching, which means that the phone will have pre-loaded maps on it.

The end result is a much more responsive map experience, allowing you to zoom in and out and pan around with "no waiting". It also means that you don’t need a data connection to get around, a notable foible of the otherwise excellent Google Maps.

Aug

Samsung Unleashes Galaxy S Phone Accessories: Desktop, Car Docks, and Spare Battery Charger; Teases WMG160 HD Media Streaming Device For The US

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy S, News

It’s hard to say if it called for a full-blown press release, but Samsung today issued a statement announcing the availability of official Samsung-branded accessories for Galaxy S devices in the US.

What kind of goodies can users expect? Well, as the title suggests, Samsung has produced some very shiny photos of a desktop dock, a car dock/charger, and a spare battery charging system (they’ve apparently caught on that many Android users go through multiple batteries in the course of a day). You can see them in all their glossy black plastic glory below:

Sunglasses not included.

Tomfoolery aside, these are necessary accessories for a phone as robust as the Galaxy S; the car and desktop docks/chargers in particular.

Jun

Samsung Behold II Update To Android 1.6 Donut Going On Now, Brings New Features, Fixes Bugs, Hates How Mad We Are

Samsung Behold II Update To Android 1.6 Donut Going On Now, Brings New Features, Fixes Bugs, Upset At How Mad We Are

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Behold II, Donut 1.6, News, Samsung, T-Mobile

In an unsurprising and entirely boring turn of events, Samsung Behold II upgrade to Android 1.6, aka Donut, has started on June 21st and is expected to be completed on June 25th.

As we mentioned earlier, Behold II will not be getting past 1.6, to shock and outrage of numerous device owners, and this week will be the last (if not the only) highlight of Behold's about to be slow and boring life.

The bad news is: lots of you are unhappy, some to the point that you vouch never to touch Samsung products again.

The good news is… there is always the hacking community.

Jun

Google Maps Navigation Comes To Canada And Mainland Europe

Posted by John Thompson in Applications, Apps/Games, News

If you’re running Android 1.6 or higher, and live in Canada or Mainland Europe, you’ll want to update Google Maps to version 4.2 to take advantage of free Satellite Navigation in your country!

This morning, a post on the Google Blog confirmed that Navigation is now available in 11 more countries, including Canada, France, Germany and Italy.

Today we’re launching Google Maps Navigation version 4.2 in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland for Android devices 1.6 and higher. Google Maps Navigation is an Internet-connected GPS navigation or ‘satnav’ system that provides turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps.

May

Garmin-Asus' Garminfone Reviewed, Is It A Solid Entry? [With Video]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Garmin, Garminfone, News, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Videos

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

The Garminfone is coming to T-Mobile very soon, so in order to help us figure out whether it is just a useless and superfluous toy or a candidate for your next phone/gadget, Engadget grabbed a review unit and put it to the test.

The Highlights

You can read the full review or if you want just the most important highlights, you can read the bullet points I handcrafted below, followed by a video and some photos:

Garminfone is coming to T-Mobile in June for $199
It has a 600MHz processor, a 3.5" capacitive screen, a 3MP camera, a 2GB microSD card, and runs Android 1.6, unlikely to be upgraded to 2.0+ any time soon, if ever, due to heavy customizations in the UI
if it's not obvious from the pictures, there is no physical keyboard
according to Engadget, Garminfone is the best mix of PND (portable navigation device) and smartphone to date
the phone is quite similar in build quality, size, and shape to Garmin G60, aka Nuvifone, which was running a custom Garmin OS and never ended up being too successful
there is no headphone jack… WHAT??

Apr

Google’s Turn By Turn Navigation Finally Comes To The UK

Posted by John Thompson in Applications, News

Being in the UK myself, one thing I’ve continuously struggled with when using Android is Google’s navigation on Maps. I’ve tried the hacked version of Maps in the past giving people in the UK navigation features, but it’s always been slightly unstable and troublesome for me. You can, therefore, imagine my delight when I woke up this morning to find a ‘Navigate’ option under a search result on Maps.

Although there’s some confusion as to when navigation was enabled for UK users, most suggestions point to the feature being enabled overnight, and no update was required. I’m using the latest version of Maps on a Nexus One and no actual updates were pushed to my phone, which indicates that it was activated by Google for UK devices remotely.

Apr

Garmin-Asus Announce Garminfone, Exclusive To T-Mobile USA

Posted by John Thompson in Devices By Manufacturer, Garmin, Garminfone, News

Garmin-Asus have announced their first Android powered smartphone with the Garmin navigation experience fully integrated. Called the Garminfone (original, I know), it comes with a 3MP camera on board, a MicroSD slot supporting up to 32GB of storage and of course a custom version of Android.

Although the key selling point of the Garminfone is the turn by turn navigation, it offers a compelling set of features for any smartphone lover. The turn by turn navigation promises to use multiple positioning technologies to find your location no matter where you are, and you can use Garmin’s voice studio to record custom voice directions for the navigation.

Apr

Detailed Mega Review Of Android 2.1 On Our HTC Hero - Discover All The New Features (With Lots Of Screenshots)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Development, Hero, Hero (Sprint, HeroC), HTC, Sprint

Last Updated: April 21st, 2010

Introduction

Us, Hero owners, have been waiting for an OS upgrade for a loooooong time, since the phone got released last October with Android 1.5.

At first, we were hoping for 1.6, then 2.0, and finally 2.1 was promised ("Totally for real this time, yo" - said Sprint and HTC but we saw nothing).

Other phones kept getting 2.1 upgrades but our favorite Hero saw only promises after promises with release dates pushed further and further back.

Android 2.1 On HTC Hero

Therefore, when a Hero Android 2.1 build got [inadvertently - oh, the drama with these leaks!] leaked online, and an Android ROM hacker by the name of damageless (hi damageless!) incorporated the code from the leak into his ROM, called DamageControl, we knew the finish line was near.