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Jul

I Am Iron Meh: LG Ally Review

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Ally (Aloha), LG, Phone Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you’re a fan of a physical QWERTY keyboard, your Android options tend to be fairly limited. Your best bet would be to pick up the Motorola Droid, but if, for some reason, that phone doesn’t do it for you, you’re limited to either the Cliq or the Backflip – both developed by Motorola, and both gimmicky and under-powered. For some reason manufacturers seem to be avoiding high-powered QWERTY handsets like the plague, instead opting for touchscreen ‘superphones’, such as the EVO 4G, or the Nexus One.

Sure, these are nice handsets, but for those of us that just can’t get used to a touchscreen keyboard, QWERTY handsets are where it’s at.

Jun

HTC Aria Coming June 20th To AT&T, Initial Hands-On Impressions Surface

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Aria (Liberty), AT&T, Carriers, Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News

Last Updated: June 17th, 2010

Good news, AT&T customers – starting June 20, AT&T will begin selling its first HTC Android device, the Aria. A few days ago, they (accidently?) released a video showing the HTC “Liberty” being tested. At the time, we speculated that it might actually be the HTC Aria we’d heard about before. Turns out we were probably correct, as various news outlets have been receiving the Aria to play around with, and they look to be one and the same.

The phone isn’t quite as high-end as other recent HTC outings on other networks (such as the EVO or Incredible): it offers a 3.2” display running at 480 x 320, as well as a 5 megapixel camera (sans flash).

May

App Review: Sirius XM For Android

Posted by John Thompson in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you’re a Sirius subscriber, you’ll be glad to hear that the Sirius app for Android was released today! I’ve been listening to online radio on my Nexus One for the past few hours, and have come across no problems. Subscribers can get the app and login with their credentials to start listening to their favorite channels, and those of you who haven’t got a subscription for the service will be offered a 7 day free trial upon installation.

The layout of the app is similar to that of the Sirius iPhone application, with tabs at the bottom of the screen making it simple to navigate between categories and channels.

May

App Review: Beautiful Widgets

Posted by Nate Kimmey in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

HTC's Sense UI (user interface) includes plenty of features that could make those with vanilla Android jealous, most of which involve the home screen. Phones running the custom UI have their own set of high quality widgets, which includes a "flip clock" that plenty of Android users seem to clamor over. The widget itself is four icons wide and two icons in height, and includes a clock that flips between numbers, the temperature, and icons to denote the current weather. The Flip Clock widget is so popular that alternatives for those without the Sense UI have begun to make their way into the Market, one of the most popular being Beautiful Widgets by LevelUp Studios, the makers of popular Twitter app Touiteur.

May

Sprint Mobile Hotspot App On HTC EVO 4G Hands-On

We Go Hands-On With The Sprint Mobile Hotspot App On HTC EVO 4G [Post Google I/O Coverage]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in App Reviews, EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, News, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Sprint

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

As you may know, the HTC EVO 4G comes with a mobile hotspot capability out of the box, even in Android 2.1, for $30 a month.

While Froyo (Android 2.2) will indeed include a similar mobile hotspot capability baked right into the OS, it is unknown at this point whether Sprint will rip it out before shipping to the EVO 4G customers or not.

Regardless of what will happen in the future, we are here now, and Sprint included a mobile hotspot app with the EVO that is in dire need of reviewing.

Sprint Hotspot

The application is called Sprint Hotspot and is very straightforward to use.

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??

May

Custom ROM Review: CyanogenMod For The Nexus One

Posted by John Thompson in Development, Tips & Tutorials

Introduction

We’ve covered custom ROMs a few times before on Android Police, telling you how and why you may want to try them out on your own Android device. If you want to install a custom ROM onto your phone, but don’t know which one to go for, you may want to consider Cyanogen, which is compatible with the HTC Dream, Magic, Nexus One and Motorola Droid.

I’ve been testing the CyanogenMod for the past few weeks, and have found it to be extremely stable, whilst adding numerous features that can’t be found on the stock version of Android 2.1.

Although Cyanogen is available for several devices, this review is based on Cyanogen 5.0.6 running on the Nexus One.

May

New York Times App Review

Posted by John Thompson in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

The New York Times has recently released an application for Android, and it looks great!

Appearing on the Android Market following releases on both the iPhone and WebOS platforms, the NYT application looks extremely similar to its iPhone counterpart. You can access news from an abundance of sections via a drop down menu, similar to how you’d pull down the notification bar.

The interface is extremely simple, and easy to navigate. You can select from a list of articles within each section, and view not only the article, but also any media associated with the article as well, such as photos and videos.

May

Detailed Preview/Review Of The Official Android Dropbox Client Beta

Posted by Ian Douglas in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

For those unaware, Dropbox.com is an online file storage service that gives users a free account to store up to 2GB of files.

As you install the client software on other systems, your files become instantly accessible, providing a very convenient way to share data between home, work, and mobile devices (an official iPhone client was released on September 29, 2009).

You can pay for additional storage if 2GB isn’t enough, or you can refer others to Dropbox which will give you an additional 250MB per user, up to an additional 8GB.

I’ve been a Dropbox user since the fall of 2009, when a coworker gave me a demo of how he used his account to synchronize files between a Linux and Windows system for doing web development.

Apr

In-Depth Review: Google’s Nexus One Car Dock (With Video!)

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

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Google has finally released the last of the accessories for its first foray into the mobile handset market, the Nexus One. Shortly after the Nexus One was announced, we were graced with the desktop dock - a simple, yet functional device that takes advantage of the metal contacts on the bottom of the phone to allow charging and audio playback without the need to mess with pesky wires.

We’ve been teased with the prospect of a car dock in promotional videos, such as this one, but were never given a target date. Well, as of a couple of weeks ago, if you had $60 USD to spare, you could find yourself to be a proud owner of a genuine Nexus One Car Dock.