Devices By Manufacturer

Apr

Verizon Announces Minor Software Update (v4.5.621) For Motorola Droid 2, Brings Various Improvements And Fixes

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

Last night, Verizon updated their Droid 2 support page to announce a new update (v4.5.621) is ~~coming soon~~ rolling out now. While it doesn't bring anything major (*cough* Android updates *cough*), it does bring a few significant bug fixes and improvements:

Or, in non-image form:

Device Features
+ Device is enabled with the Wireless Alerting System.
+ A Google Security Patch has been added to improve security level.
+ Fixed issue where the device may power ON without user interaction.
+ Adjusted camera settings will be saved, even after the device is powered down.
+ Resolved possible device resets while playing music.

Apr

Pantech Element Rooted, Already has ClockworkMod Recovery

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Element, News

Earlier this week, the Pantech Burst was rooted by jcase, Attn1, and IOMonster. Now, using that same exploit, the Burst's tablet cousin, the Element, has also been rooted.

Like with the Burst, the process is ridiculously easy. In order to root the device, however, you'll need a couple of things:

Pantech drivers (for Windows)
Working ADB and Fastboot
ClockworkMod Recovery and insecure boot image

Once you have that taken care of, navigate to where you downloaded CWM and the insecure boot image, extract the folder, and launch a command prompt (shift+ right click > open command window here; Note: this doesn't work in Windows 7's libraries - you must be in the actual folder).

Apr

Archos 101 G9 Turbo Review: A Good Budget Tablet, Largely Because It Gets Out Of Google's Way

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in 101 G9, ARCHOS, Reviews

Last Updated: April 30th, 2012

Archos may not make the most headlines for its series of mid-range tablets, but occasionally, one of them deserves a mention. The Archos 101 G9 is a strong contender for your money if you're on a tight budget. The savants among you may want to hold off for a Galaxy Note 10.1, or whatever Google is cooking up for its tablet line. Still, with prices starting at $270 for the 8" 8GB version to $330 for the 10" 8GB version, it's difficult to ignore. Oh, and did I mention it runs stock Ice Cream Sandwich?

Hardware And Build Quality

On the inside, the tablet isn't a beast, but it's no slouch either.

Apr

Sony Begins Rollout Of Ice Cream Sandwich To The Xperia Arc S, Neo V, and Ray In Nordic Countries

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Xperia Active (Satsuma), Xperia Arc (Anzu, X12), Xperia Arc S, Xperia Mini / Mini Pro (Smultron / Mango), Xperia Neo (Hallon), Xperia Neo V, Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone), Xperia Ray (Urushi, ST18i)

Sony has done an excellent job at being transparent with its progress on the bringing Ice Cream Sandwich to a number of Xperia devices. It has kept users aware of what's going on throughout the process, as well as shared alpha and beta builds along the way. Now, though, it looks like the beta days are behind them and the build is ready for prime time for a certain Xperia devices.

The rollout will being with unlocked variants of the Xperia arc s, neo v, and ray (seriously, Sony, stop with the lowercase device names. It looks awful) in Nordic Countries and will continue over the next four to six weeks.

Apr

Best Buy Leak Reveals Expected Sprint Galaxy Nexus Stock On April 22nd, Confirms Similar Rumors

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Nexus / Nexus Prime, Leaks, News, Rumors, Sprint

We've long suspected that the Spring Galaxy Nexus will be finally crawling out of the labs and into our hands on April 22nd, with today's Sprint planogram note BGR got ahold of confirming it. To make the case even stronger, we'll throw in a tip from one of our sources at Best Buy who sent us these internal images.

While neither picture explicitly names the devices, they should indeed be the Galaxy Nexus and the LG Viper 4G, the latter of which is officially coming out on the same date as well. "Samsung," "Sprint," "Digital Communication," "Sprint Handsets" - these all could mean only one device, which according to our source is most definitely the Nexus.

Apr

Devs In Poland, Israel, Mexico, And The Czech Republic Can Now Sell Apps On Google Play

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Dev, Google, News

While Android users in Czech, Israel, Poland, and Mexico have been happily buying apps from Google Play for some time now, up till today, devs in these countries haven't been quite so lucky. In fact, they haven't been able to publish any apps -unless they were free.

Today, however, all that changes - Google has decided to expand its list of supported foreign merchants, and Polish, Israel, Mexican, and Czech developers are now included! If you're interested in putting up paid apps and/or in-app products on Google Play, you can sign up now at play.google.com/apps/publish or see whether your country's included in the fun right here.

Apr

Engadget Goes Hands-On With The NOOK Simple Touch With GlowLight - Shipping In May, Pre-Order Now

Posted by David Ruddock in Barnes & Noble, News, Nook, Videos

eReaders have long been plagued with the problem of being damn near useless in low-light scenarios, but thanks to the recently announced NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight, those days are finally past us. Using a front-lit (as opposed to backlit, which doesn't really work with eInk) display, the new Simple Touch eReader allows you to enjoy the pleasure of eInk reading without having to worry about adequate ambient lighting.

This should be especially good news for those who enjoy reading in bed or during long flights. Check out the images and video of the new NOOK in action, and don't forget to hit up Engadget for the hands-on.

Apr

Fun With NFC: Automating Simple Tasks With NFC Tags And An NFC Capable Phone

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy Nexus / Nexus Prime, Other Reviews

More and more devices are becoming available with NFC - but what does that actually mean? First and foremost, NFC stands for near field communication. Basically, when you get your device close enough to something equipped with NFC - like a tag or a mobile payment center - it invokes an action on your device. Google Wallet is a perfect example of NFC in mainstream use; simply touch your phone to the payment terminal and the rest is done for you.

There are more practical applications to using NFC than just Wallet, though. Another good example of this is a feature in Android 4.0 called Android Beam.

Apr

[Updated] Pssst, Sprint, That's Not A Nexus S 4G You Have On Your Front Page [Fail]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Nexus / Nexus Prime, Nexus S 4G (Crespo4g), Off-Topic, Sprint

Everyone screws up at some point in life, but when a company as big as Sprint puts up a front-page banner showing a completely different, highly anticipated phone in place of one that's over a year old, we're going to have no choice but bring it up. And maybe even point the finger. Like so:

I'm sure we all wish the Nexus S 4G looked like that, but that is most definitely not it. I know, you're excited to get the word about the Galaxy Nexus out there (we are too, even though it's almost half a year late), but this is certainly not the way to do it.

Apr

Samsung Announces Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 For $250 On April 22, Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 For $400 On May 13

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy Tab 2, Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, News

Samsung first unveiled its newest duo of Galaxy Tabs back in February at Mobile World Congress, but left one key element out: pricing and availability. That final veil of mystery has now been removed, as the pair are now officially official.