News - 869/938 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Sep

Getting Down And Dirty With IDEOS: Tech Specs On Huawei's Sub-$200 (Retail) Android Phone

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Huawei, News, T-Mobile

Admittedly, posting news on a comparatively lame Android phone is somewhat out of character for us; even more so, nerding out over the hardware of yesteryear. That said, there's a lot of value to be found among the masses in cheap, capable goods such as the upcoming Huawei IDEOS, a 2.8" Android 2.2 phone. The kicker? Rumor pegs the price at less than $200 - conceivably low enough to be used for prepaid plans.

Typical prepaid user.

We didn't see the tech specs anywhere, so we pinged Huawei for additional details. They aren't necessarily mind-blowing, but again, for less than $200, what do you expect?

Sep

Google Voice Widgets Break Out Of G2's Deathgrip, Now Available In The Market

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Applications, G2 (Vision), HTC, News, T-Mobile

To nobody's surprise, the G2, announced this morning, features a Google Voice widget.

What may be surprising is that there are not one, but two of these widgets: a widget that shows the messages you have in your inbox:

as well as the same widget for managing your Voice settings that was leaked a few weeks ago:

What may be an even bigger surprise is that Google has now made both of these widgets available to non-G2 devices through the Android Market. The widgets are available today via an update to the existing Google Voice app and allow users to:

See messages in their inbox (Inbox Widget)
Open the full Google Voice app by clicking the Google Voice icon (both widgets)
Compose and send text messages (Settings Widget)
Change dialing preferences (Settings)
Enter "Do Not Disturb" mode to send calls straight to Voicemail (Settings)
See credit balance (Settings)

Google Voice has always been a great service (and certainly one that I and other members of the Android Police team use on a daily basis), and it looks like it just got quite a bit better for owners of just about any Android device.

Sep

14 Motorola Droid 2 R2-D2 Static Wallpapers Leak Out

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Droid 2, Motorola, News

Hot on the heels of yesterday's live wallpaper leak for the Droid 2 R2-D2 edition, today MyDroidWorld continued the system dump disassembly by releasing 14 static JPG wallpapers that will make any Star Wars fan feel nostalgic (and some maybe teary-eyed).

Non-Star-Wars-fans will find these boring, weird, and psychedelic at times - although, what are you doing with the R2-D2 edition anyway?

Download

You can download these wallpapers as a single zip archive from our mirror: AndroidPolice mirror or hit up individual ones below (right click > Save Link As...).

Install by unpacking and copying the files to your phone, then selecting Menu > Wallpaper > Gallery.

Sep

Official Samsung Galaxy Tab UI Walkthrough [Video]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung, Videos

Remember the nice Galaxy Tab site that Samsung launched on September 2nd during the official Galaxy Tab unveiling? At the time, the video section of the site only included the official commercial and a very brief teaser.

Now, however, Samsung posted another addition - a video walkthrough of the Tabs main features - ones you would potentially use on a daily basis. The video was completely silent and embedded in their Flash site, so I "borrowed" it (I promise, I'll give it back) and uploaded it to Youtube for your more comfortable consumption.

It's also vertical due to the Tab's natural aspect ratio, so it may look kind of weird in the Youtube player - just maximize it, max out the quality (480P) and you should see everything pretty well.

Sep

Dell Streak Source Code Released, World Shrugs

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News, Streak

Not a whole lot to see here, folks: Dell has honored its obligation and released the source code for the Streak (sans the proprietary bits). The benefits of this are the same as they were when Samsung released the source code for the Epic, so I'll just quote what I said then:

What does this mean to you? That devs can begin to tweak the software based off the stock build, and it can make developing a custom ROM a bit easier.

Exciting? Not really, so here's a picture of a cat:

_{Because it's relevant.}

[Source: Dell via Android Central]

Sep

T-Mobile Officially Announces G2, Available First To Existing Customers

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in G2 (Vision), News, T-Mobile

T-Mobile sent out a press release this morning to officially announce the G2. We've been hearing about (and seeing) the G2 for some time now, especially in the past few weeks. Now, however, we have the official word - and it seems to confirm most of what we've heard.

MSM7230 CPU @ 800 MHz
3.7" screen
HSPA+
Slide-out four row QWERTY keyboard
720p video recording (with automatic upload to Photobucket - nifty)
5 MP Camera with LED flash and autofocus
8 GB mSD card pre-installed (support for up to 32 GB cards)
4 GB ROM
Swype

Interestingly, T-Mobile says existing customers will have first dibs at the device - an interesting move considering how many customers a new high-end phone can bring in, but understandable for customer loyalty.

Sep

Qualcomm : Dual-Core 1.5 GHz Chips Coming … At The End Of 2011. Yay?

Posted by Brian O'Toole in News

Looks like Qualcomm, the company responsible for the cherished Snapdragon and not-so-cherished MSM7200, is having a bit of a press event today.

While the prospect of 1.5 GHz dual-core processors in our smartphones remains a tantalizing one, the news that we’ll have to wait for what looks like it could be another 12 months is enough to dampen our spirits. Still, we should be seeing the 1.2 GHz dual-core MSM8X60 some time in early 2011, even though that itself is still quite a wait.

With Samsung and Texas Instruments having already made their next-gen intentions clear with the Orion and OMAP4 respectively, it looks like things are gradually coming together for the impending Cortex A9 chipset battle.

Sep

Motorola Droid 2 R2-D2 Special Edition Live Wallpapers Leaked, Available For Download

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Droid 2, News, Videos

The R2D2 is coming later this month, but in the meantime P3Droid from MyDroidWorld ripped apart the system dump and weeded out the special edition Star Wars themed live wallpapers. He was also kind enough to shoot a few handy videos demonstrating them, and I must say, they're pretty cool and will definitely be appreciated by any Star Wars fan. Kudos, P3.

Update: The static wallpapers have now been leaked as well.

Millennium Falcon Asteroid Field

Download: AndroidPolice mirror

Jump to Light Speed

Download: AndroidPolice mirror

Interactive R2D2

Download: AndroidPolice mirror

Space Slug

This one has no video because P3Droid thought it was too crappy.

Sep

The King Lives! Nexus One Developer Phones Back In Stock

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

The Nexus One died for the general public, sadly, but continued to live on with the help of Google's own ADP (Android Developer Phone) program.

For an unsubsidized but reasonable price of $529, registered Android Market publishers (anyone can be for $25) could purchase this masterpiece, even though it was canned by Google and sold out pretty much everywhere else... until it sold out even as the ADP 3 weeks ago.

Nexus One Stock Update

Developers grew sad but Google got to work and started pestering HTC for more units. Happily, I can tell you that the Nexus One developer phone is available once again, this time with this friendly note:

Please Note: The limit of phone purchases has changed to 10 phones per transaction.

Sep

Samsung Fascinate Buy-One-Get-One-Free Deal Now Available On VZW.com

Posted by Brad Ganley in Fascinate, News

The wait is over, folks! The buy one get one free deal for the Samsung Fascinate has just gone live on Verizon's website. We know you've been holding out for it and it doesn't get any better than paying for one and being handed two. It's time for you to replace your old crappy phone with two Super AMOLED Android powerhouses. Get on it!