News - 837/946 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Nov

We're Pretty Sure The Samsung February 2011 Flagship Device Renders Are Fake - Here's Why

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News, Samsung

Engadget - whose record on these things is usually among the best in the business - seems to have pulled the trigger on one that's pretty obviously fake. Check it out:

The spec sheet reads like a dream phone (which, again, it very well may be):

Gingerbread (Android 2.3)
4.3" or 4.5" (Depending on which part you read) SAMOLED2 screen
February release
8 MP Camera
1080p video recording
14.4 Mbps HSPA
1.2 GHz CPU
16 GB of storage
Insanely thin

Cool, right? Well, not so fast. Here's the stuff that makes at least the render seem like a mockup done in MSPaint.

Nov

HTC Incredible HD Spotted In The Wild Featuring LTE

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

While everyone else ranted and raved (or, alternatively, raged) about the Nexus S, the folks over at Android Central were busy getting their hands on a picture of Verizon's upcoming Incredible HD:

It sure is a looker with that oh-so-sexy aluminum body... but we already knew about that. The real news here is that, tucked away in the upper right corner of the notification bar, is a promising 4G icon:

It's not as surprising as it could have been since Jeremiah Nelson spilled the beans yesterday, but it's always nice to see confirmation in the form of device pictures themselves.

Nov

[An]Droid Does: Nexus One Controls A Lego Mindstorms Robot That Spins And Solves A Rubik's Cube In Seconds

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News, Nexus One (Passion), Videos

Among all the Gingerbread waiting and Nexus S craziness today, this piece of news from the ARM Tech Conference in Santa Clara caught my attention and reminded me once again just how cool and versatile Android can be.

David Gilday, an ARM engineer, demoed a LEGO Mindstorms kit controlled entirely by a Nexus One quickly twisting and turning a Rubik's cube, solving it on average in 15 seconds. An even crazier demo of a 7x7x7 cube solver, this time using a Droid, follows as well.

I don't know about you but I am highly impressed with what this engineer managed to accomplish with a LEGO kit, an Android phone, and days of tweaking algorithms to perfection.

Nov

Motorola Droid 2 Global Rooted, Bootstrapped

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Droid 2 Global, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, hit up our primers here:

At this point, Verizon probably shouldn't even bother announcing the Droid 2 Global - it's already starred in a commercial, been featured on droiddoes.com, and even been shipped to customers' doors.

Nov

Meet The Samsung GT-i9020, Better Known As The Google Nexus S

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung, T-Mobile

Hungry for even more Nexus S goodness? Looks like you're in luck, for Engadget has just received an entire barrage of photos and other information about Google's next developer device.

Those pictures you're seeing may have been shot about a month ago, but Engadget just posted them now, and they're still perfectly relevant to the Gingerbread-running device.

Perhaps more interestingly, a little digging around on Flickr and Picasa also revealed that the Nexus S will pack a five-megapixel camera and will be known as the Samsung GT-i9020 in the model number world. What's more, the GT-i9020 was recently approved by the FCC as well as the WiFi Alliance, the latter of which confirmed that the device will ship with an 802.11 b/g/n single-band WiFi radio.

Nov

Official Rhapsody App Drops On AppBrain, Sorta On The Market

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, News

Looks like the Rhapsody app has just dropped on the market, only... you can't find it by searching. However, barcode scanners work, so we're not really sure what's going on. The app itself seems to feature, well, just about what you'd expect:

*Download and offline playback of your playlists!
- Download playlists and manage your downloads through the My Playlists menu.
- New toolbar with download and other options on the playlist screen.
- Offline mode displaying unique UI and available menu items.
- Settings: Clear Pending Downloads from the My Playlists menu; Force Offline Mode or Remove All Downloads from the Settings screen.

Nov

Rumor: Best Buy Getting Ready To Set Up Samsung Nexus S Displays By November 14th

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung, T-Mobile

What a barrage of Nexus S news today! First, a brief appearance at Best Buy, then an actual picture of the new Nexus on BestBuy.com, confirming it will run Gingerbread, and now we have a supposed snap of the Best Buy internal Live Mock memo, showing, among other things, the Nexus S getting a dedicated endcap on the November 14th planogram. It doesn't look like it is going to be a live mock just yet, which means it will either contain a dummy unit or various Nexus S promotional material and information.

Let me break this down a bit:

an endcap is the area at the end of a store aisle dedicated to displaying highlighted and featured products
a live mock, from what I understand, is a real demo version of the device, as opposed to a dummy unit
a planogram is essentially a store product location diagram

The picture was taken by @anrblog, who claims he persuaded a Best Buy employee to allow him a quick glance at their system.

Nov

Rumor: AT&T To Launch Samsung Galaxy Tab On November 21 For $649.99 (!)

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in AT&T, Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung

AT&T isn't exactly known for fair pricing schemes - just take a look at their monthly service plans if you need any evidence of that - but frankly, if this latest rumor proves to be true, they've just crossed the line.

At $649.99, AT&T's Galaxy Tab will be about $20 more expensive than the carrier's 16 GB 3G-capable iPad and $50 less affordable than the off-contract options offered by the three other nationals. Additionally, a November 21st launch date doesn't exactly add value to this package, and the fact that AT&T won't be offering an unlimited data plan of any sort (instead, you'll be coughing up $14.99 per month in return for 250MB of data or $25 per month for 2GB) doesn't help either.

Nov

Amazon Wireless Finally Starts Selling Sprint Phones

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Devices By Manufacturer, Epic 4G, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Hero (Sprint, HeroC), HTC, Intercept, Moment, News, Samsung, Sanyo, Sprint, Transform, Zio

Last Updated: February 4th, 2012

One of the best places to buy your next Android smartphone is, undoubtedly, Amazon.com, due to its excellent customer service, aggressive pricing, abundance of conveniently placed user reviews, lack of tax, and free shipping. Even better, a few months ago, Amazon opened up a dedicated Amazon Wireless store to concentrate on competitively selling cell phones and service, including support for existing customer upgrades, family plans, and much more competitive deals.

One obvious omission in the Amazon Wireless store has been a complete lack of Sprint devices and plans. Sprint support was said to be coming for months, and while Sprint phones were available on Amazon.com itself, AmazonWireless.com remained Sprint-free, which means no aggressive pricing, support for existing line upgrades, or family plans.

Nov

T-Mobile Nexus S Pre-Order Ad Briefly Appears On Best Buy Mobile, Quickly Shot Down

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung, T-Mobile

Fear not, stock Android fans - despite a slight delay due to some hardware issues, T-Mobile's Nexus S is still on track, as Best Buy Mobile's website has just confirmed.

The banner you're seeing above is no longer up on Best Buy Mobile's website, and the pre-order link never worked, but there's no denying that this is pretty solid evidence that the Nexus S is indeed real and out there somewhere in the wild. I'd prefer a launch date of "November" rather than sometime "this holiday season," but I suppose it's better late than never. Besides, if Best Buy can hook us up with a halfway decent price tag once the thing is actually ready for us to pre-order, T-Mobile may have one very hot Gingerbread dish on its hands.