Devices By Manufacturer - 413/547 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Mar

[Update: Study Seriously Flawed] After 45,000 Page Loads, Extensive Study Determines Android's Browser Is 52% Faster Than iPhone's

Posted by Will Shanklin in Android OS, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju)

Last Updated: March 18th, 2011

Update: After getting a lot of initial press, experts are weighing in and crying foul with the methodology of this study. Apparently the custom app the researchers used relied on Apple's UIWebView, which doesn't utilize recent optimizations made to the actual Safari browser.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball says:

"That's not to say it isn't interesting that Android's WebView for apps is faster than iOS's UIWebView for apps, but it just isn't true that these results are indicative of anything regarding Mobile Safari's performance. It's easy to see that Mobile Safari is faster than UIWebView - just run something like the SunSpider benchmark twice, once in Mobile Safari and once in any app from the App Store with a web content view.

Mar

[Update: Back To $599.99 Now] HTC Thunderbolt Now Live At VZW's Site, Shows Off-Contract $444.99 Price. Wait, What?

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in HTC, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

After months of anticipation and weeks of delays, we kind of lost faith and thought this day would never come. However, the HTC Thunderbolt just went live on VZW's own site, including free overnight shipping, which means you can get your hands on the first LTE phone by the 18th (unless you go to a local store, of course).

Just as @VerizonWireless tweeted yesterday, the 2-year contract price is $249.99 (which is not nearly as good as the $179.99 Amazon or the $199 Wirefly deals, but much better than the post-20th $299.99 Best Buy rip-off), 1-year is $319.99, but when I saw the month-to-month off-contract price, my eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

Mar

[Deal Alert] Amazon Wireless Now Selling HTC ThunderBolt For Just $179.99

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

Excited for the ThunderBolt? If so, you're not alone; but if not, you've got even more companions.

However, thanks to Amazon Wireless, haters now have one less reason to pick on the ThunderBolt: the online retailer is selling Verizon's first LTE phone for just $179.99 - $70 less than the official $249.99 price.

When you add free two-day shipping and no taxes (in most states) to the mix, this immediately becomes the best ThunderBolt deal available - in fact, it's $20 lower than WireFly's offer. Additionally, the $179.99 price also applies to upgrades - definitely a huge bonus for existing VZW customers.

Mar

Samsung Set To Deliver Android's Answers To The iPod Touch - The Galaxy Player 4 And 5

Posted by Will Shanklin in News, Samsung

While it may not grab the headlines of the iPhone or iPad, Apple's iPod Touch has been a very successful "kid brother" of sorts to their touchscreen smartphone and tablet. I often wondered if we would ever see an Android-powered equivalent to the Wi-Fi-only media device. Today Samsung announced that they will be giving customers just that with their upcoming Galaxy Player 5. A smaller (by 1") version, the Galaxy Player 4, will be released simultaneously

The media player runs Android 2.2 'Froyo' with Samsung's Touchwiz UI, and 1GHz Hummingbird processor. The larger Galaxy Player 5 will have a 5" WVGA display, and the smaller Galaxy Player 4 will feature a 4" screen.

Mar

HTC Flyer Tablet Launching Mid-April In UK, Clove Taking Pre-Orders For £500

Posted by Will Shanklin in Flyer, HTC, News

While there are certainly tablets on the way that are more anticipated than the Flyer, HTC's 7" slate is coming nonetheless - and now we know when. It will launch "mid April," according to UK site Clove, which is now taking pre-orders for the tablet. Accessories that will be available for purchase along with your flyer include a spare digital stylus (£40), a Micro USB to HDMI cable (£24), and a car charger (£17).

Previous rumors suggested the stylus-toting tablet would set one back $600 in the US, and the £500 price point Clove has set totals out to £600 after VAT, so take what you will from that.

Mar

Device Info For "HTC Shooter" Pops Up On GLBenchmark - It's Possibly The EVO 3D

Posted by Will Shanklin in EVO 3D (Shooter), HTC, News, Rumors, Sprint

Site GLBenchmark showed a very interesting log of a phone, dubbed the HTC Shooter, checking in recently. As this is the device's development codename, the speculation is that this could be Sprint's sequel to the EVO - the EVO 3D - that we will likely hear about at CTIA next week.

As you can see in the screenshot taken below, the Shooter sports 960 x 540 (qHD) resolution (the same as the Atrix) and is running Android 2.3.2 'Gingerbread.' The model is listed as PG86100 and it is clearly setup for Sprint's network.

The phone also sports a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor (probably - this is based on the known Qualcomm chipsets with the Adreno 220 GPU that the benchmark indicates) and looks to be nearly identical to the HTC Pyramid, renders of which turned up just yesterday.

Mar

Samsung Teases 8.9" Galaxy Tab In Video, Thickness Estimated Again

Posted by Will Shanklin in Galaxy Tab, News

Samsung is doing all they can to release just enough information about the upcoming 8.9" Galaxy Tab to create some buzz ahead of its announcement next week at CTIA. After several promo images surfaced on their Facebook page, they have now released a short video.

As you can see below, the video consists mostly of people (I'm guessing Samsung employees), in micro-edited sound bites, talking about how great something is. Then for the last few seconds you get some nano-edited images flashed across the screen of the upcoming mid-sized slate:

After the last Facebook teaser, an overachieving tipster analyzed the image and estimated the measurements based on the headphone jack.

Mar

No More Rumors, It's Official: Wi-Fi XOOM Will Be $599 Starting March 27

Posted by Will Shanklin in News, XOOM

It's another day, and we have yet another bit of news about the Wi-Fi-only Motorola XOOM. Only, this time, the news is nothing less than concrete and final, as Moto themselves announced that the carrier-free version of the the 10.1" beauty will be hitting store shelves on March 27 for $599.

The manufacturer lists the retailers who are lined up to carry the slate later this month, including:

Amazon.com
Best Buy
Costco
RadioShack
Sam's Club (select locations)
Staples
Walmart

While they tell us it will have a $599 price tag, we would recommend keeping an eye on Costco and Sam's Club (if you have a membership already), as they generally sell their goods at lower prices than other retailers.

Mar

Download: Excellent LG Revolution Goodies - 13 Wallpapers, 31 Ringtones, And 20 Notification Sounds

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, LG, News, Revolution

The Netflix app wasn't the only good thing that came out of the LG Revolution system dump posted earlier today by Android Spin - feast your eyes (and your ears) on 13 beautiful wallpapers ripped right out of the Revolution's entrails, together with 31 ringtones and 20 notification sounds.

Having looked and listened to the goodies, I must say - LG did a great job, especially with the last few wallpapers and the 08_Episode.ogg ringtone - for some reason, it's really stuck in my head now and will be making it to my EVO shortly.

To see if the wallpapers are unique or not, I ran some of them through the TinEye image search and came up with nothing (although this one produced a few existing results).

Mar

Pics Of Slimmed-Down Droid 3 Leaked

Posted by Will Shanklin in Droid (Sholes), News, Verizon Wireless

A couple of super-sneaky members over at Howard Forums have leaked some photos of the upcoming Droid 3, and it's looking much thinner than its most recent predecessor. The Verizon phone, which has not yet been officially announced, popped up in three different pictures today.

As you can see below, the second sequel to Motorola's popular Droid has a thinner top piece to conceal the customary full QWERTY keyboard. Not much else is known about the phone at this point, but this could be shaping up to be a much more attractive offering than its ancestor in the Droid line.