Droid 2 - 2/5 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Oct

[How-To] Motorola Droid 2 Overclocked To 1.2-1.3GHz; T-Mobile G2 Says "Welcome To The Party"

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Droid 2, Motorola

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

Today must be some sort of national overclocking day - first the T-Mobile G2 went down to the force of xda-developers, and it looks like Motorola's Droid 2 is next up in line (albeit getting its treatment from the AndroidForums). While the speeds aren't quite as impressive (users have only been able to achieve 1.2-1.3GHz from 1GHz as opposed to G2's 1.4GHz from 800MHz), the improvement will still be very much welcomed by Droid 2 owners, especially since the instructions are so straightforward (they really are):

You need to be rooted before proceeding.

Oct

Amazon Now Selling The Motorola Droid 2 For Just A Penny

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Droid 2, Motorola, Verizon Wireless

Android smartphones you can buy for as little as a penny on a new two-year contract tend to be few and far in between, but it looks like Amazon's looking to change that. The movement started with them selling all US versions of Samsung's Galaxy S phones (save for Sprint's Epic 4G) for $0.01 on contract a few weeks back, and now they're taking the same approach with the Motorola Droid 2. Not a bad deal at all, especially now that the device has seen its first AOSP ROM. Hit up the source link to grab one of these beasties for yourself.

Oct

Motorola Droid 2 Gets Its First AOSP ROM - FRF91 Vanilla Android

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Droid 2, Froyo 2.2, Motorola

The Motorola Droid 2 may ship with a pesky eFuse bootloader which has been designed specifically to prevent rooting of the phone, but little things like that have never held back the truly talented and passionate (and nerdy). The FRF91 Vanilla Android ROM - the Droid 2's first AOSP (Android Open Source Project) ROM - has just made an appearance on DroidForums.

What does this mean? Well, in and of itself, not much, but it's a huge step up from the device's previous ROMs, which brought little to no customizations. At this early stage, core Android features like downloading apps from the Market still haven't been worked out, but it does open quite a few doors.

Sep

Droid 2 R2-D2 Edition Breaks Free Of The Tractor Beam September 30 For $249, Pre-Loaded With Star Wars Themed Goodies. Do You Think It Will Be A Flop? [Poll]

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

Not many phones come at the on-contract price of $249, save for the Epic 4G, and now, the latest addition to the Droid family - the R2-D2 edition of the Droid 2. At $249 it's not exactly cheap, but then again, that buys you not just the Star Wars-themed phone itself, but also:

a box designed to look like carbonite
a special Star Wars dock
the interactive live wallpapers we caught sight of earlier
a bunch of custom sounds, photos, and widgets
a "binoculars" app (your guess is as good as mine as to what that's for)
an Empire Strikes Back app that will be available from the Android Market for $2.99 for this device and all other Android phones on Verizon running Android 2.1 and above

Of course, the software side of this phone should be ported over to other Android devices soon enough - look no further than the clever ~~hackers~~ developers over at xda-developers for proof of that - but who could say no to an R2-D2-themed phone?

Sep

[How-To] Get FM Radio Working On Your Rooted Droid 2

Posted by Brad Ganley in Droid 2, News

This article deals with rooting. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, hit up our primer here: Rooting Explained + Top 5 Benefits Of Rooting

There was initially some doubt as to whether or not the Motorola Droid 2 actually contained the proper hardware for FM radio. We can safely lay that discussion to rest because, as of today, the developers at XDA have gotten a fully working port of the FM radio app from the Droid X onto the Droid 2. While it takes a good amount of knowledge to get this done, it doesn't take very long. In reference to how well it works, you are going to have to decide that for yourself.

Sep

Battery Lives Of 8 Flagship Android Phones Tested And Compared - LCD Wins, AMOLED Loses, Droid X Takes Home The Crown

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Captivate, Devices By Manufacturer, Droid 2, Droid X (Shadow), Epic 4G, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Incredible, News, Streak, Vibrant

Here’s something to get your teeth into. Over at LaptopMag, a whole host of Androids have been put through their paces in a grueling battery life endurance test. The goal was to keep the phones’ screens on while doing a moderate amount of processing, namely cyclically browsing a collection of web pages. Despite the supposed power savings afforded by AMOLED screens, the phones employing that screen technology fell quite a ways behind in comparison to the traditional LCD phones.

Why is that? AMOLED is supposed to only use up power on non-black pixels, right? Well, as LaptopMag points out, the majority of webpages are actually dark text on a light background, a scenario in which AMOLED actually uses more power than an equivalent backlit LCD.

Sep

Motorola Droid 2 World Edition May Have 1.2 GHz CPU, Hit Quadrant Score Of 1709

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Droid 2, Droid 2 Global, News, Verizon Wireless

Just over a month ago (before it launched), the Quadrant scores of the Motorola Droid 2 leaked. We called it a monster when it hit 1,458. Today, Droid-Life has scored a few more leaked benchmarks, this time of the Droid 2 World Edition (which is rumored to be replacing the D2). The results: a Quadrant score of 1709 thanks to a CPU clocked at 1.2 GHz. For perspective, keep in mind that a stock EVO manages around 1100.

Just a note: the first Quadrant run yielded a score of 1566, while the second hit 1709. I'd guess the score on the screenshot above was a new set of runs, as it seems like an uncached score.

Sep

Droid 2 World Edition To Make Droid 2 Obsolete? Already?

Posted by Brad Ganley in Droid 2, News, Verizon Wireless

The world of smartphones moves fast. How fast, you ask? So fast that a device that is just days over being a month old is already apparently getting phased out. The Motorola Droid 2 was just released in August but it's possible that this Droid lived fast and will die young.

You'll notice that underneath the words "Droid 2 by Motorola" it states "while supplies last," indicating that there are a finite number left. According to BGR, the word on the street is that this could be to make way for the rumored Droid 2:World Edition which, as its name suggests, is simply the Droid 2 with world capabilities.

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

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.