Devices By Manufacturer - 479/547 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Sep

DroidRover: Ubernerds Team Up To Create Android-Controlled Rover

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, News, Nexus One (Passion)

We received a tip in the wee hours of the morning that we managed to miss until now, despite its overwhelming awesomeness. In short, it's a video demonstration of a Senseta rover running with custom hardware and controlled by a Nexus One, although it looks like it will run on any Android device with Bluetooth.

The combination of Android and the simplified hardware allows for a simpler setup that saves weight, and in a little bugger like this, any lost weight counts for a lot.

The DroidRover was built by volunteers working out of a NASA lab. According to the YouTube description:

Work completed by volunteers Andy Boyett, Andy Lee, David Lehrberg, Paul Mans, led by NASA Contractor Geoff Chu, and assisted by the Droidcopter and AndroidSat teams.

Sep

Lucky XDA User Gets His T-Mobile G2 Early, Discovers Trackpad LED And Posts Videos

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, G2 (Vision), HTC, News

Over at XDA-Developers, Hitorii just got his sweet new T-Mobile G2. Naturally, before even opening the box, he went and told everyone about it. Wouldn't you? I am super jealous, anyway.

He also made a neat new discovery that we had not heard of before: the trackpad has an LED surround, which glows white on new notifications. He wasn't able to get it to glow any other colour, even using apps that do have coloured notifications, so it looks like the LED is not the same as the RGB light of the Nexus One. It's still a nifty looking feature, and must have been a pleasant surprise.

Sep

Orange San Francisco - £99 WVGA AMOLED Phone - Unboxed On Video And Already Rooted

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, Orange

Here's a device that's been making some waves in the UK Android community. Over at MoDaCo.com, founder Paul O'Brien picked up Orange's rebranded ZTE Blade for £99 ($160) with a pre-paid SIM. Judging from his video, it seems that you get quite a lot of device for your money, including that aforementioned 3.5" AMOLED screen. Despite being burdened with a silly name and an abundance of network shovelware, the Blade/SanFran's 600 MHz CPU appears to run Android 2.1 pretty nicely.

As is his wont, Mr O'Brien has cracked the Blade right open, with root being achieved pretty much immediately, and the tantalizing prospect of an AOSP Froyo ROM hanging in the air.

Sep

2.2.1 Update For Nexus One Breaks Universal Androot, Swype, And Other Aftermarket Keyboards

Posted by Brad Ganley in Android OS, News, Nexus One (Passion)

A few days ago, the code for the Nexus One's 2.2.1 update went AOSP (Android Open Source Project), meaning that the source code became available to developers. It was comprised mostly of bugfixes and other things that weren't major... oh, and it also patched the exploits that allowed Universal Androot to unlock your device. We had a short conversation about it on Twitter with Cyanogen (the conversation starts at the bottom and goes up):

As if breaking Universal Androot wasn't enough, apparently the new update also prevents existing installations of Swype and some other aftermarket keyboards from working. An easy solution exists though - just uninstall your existing keyboard and reinstall it.

Sep

Sony Ericsson Outs The LiveView Remote For Android Devices, Good Luck Using It With The Xperia X10

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Donut 1.6, Eclair 2.1, News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia X10 (es209ra), Xperia X10 Mini / Mini Pro (Robyn / Mimmi)

Somebody over at Sony Ericsson headquarters must have had a tad too much beer last night - the company has just announced one of its best products yet: the LiveView, which is essentially a Bluetooth remote control for your Android device. The catch? It requires Android 2.0 or above, which is something SE's own Xperia X10 family of phones don't currently have.

Regardless, the square little OLED-packing device does look pretty nice, with functionality that is said to make it a "micro display that mirrors the phone," although it is not yet clear how a 4.3 or even 5-inch 800x480 display will be mirrored on a tiny 1.3" device with a physical resolution of 128x128.

Sep

G2 Arrives To T-Mobile Retail Stores - Are You Picking One Up? [Photos + Poll]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in G2 (Vision), HTC, News, T-Mobile

The T-Mobile G2 is one of the most anticipated Android devices to hit the market this fall, and while the release date is still a bit over a week away (October 6th), T-Mobile stores are already receiving their stock.

The following pictures appeared on TmoNews today showing the G2 in its full glory. Feast your eyes on this bad boy (oh, why must it look so sexy?) and then grab your own via the best deal on the web: the Wirefly preorder for $150 out the door (no tax or shipping charges).

Who's picking one up?

Sep

Millennial Media: Android Still Growing Like Gangbusters: Increased Market Share 7% Month-Over-Month, Now Accounts for 26% Of Smartphones

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Devices By Manufacturer, Motorola, News

Millennial Media, one of the largest mobile advertisers in the US, has released their August MobileMix. Based on their ad impressions, they estimate that Android now commands 26% of the Smartphone market - up 7% month-over-month. If accurate, that puts Android 7% ahead of RIM - but still 22% short of iOS.

Other tidbits: smartphone impressions gained 3% in the last month, up to 51%. The original Motorola Droid surprisingly still holds 9.44% of the market as the second most popular phone (obviously, the iPhone is first); based largely on the success of the Droid, Motorola is now the third largest device manufacturer.

Sep

Motorola Defy Can Take Anything You Throw At It (Or Throw It In)

Posted by Brad Ganley in DEFY (Jordan), Motorola, News

Last Updated: November 22nd, 2010

A video has come to our attention the shows just how harshly you can treat the Motola Defy. It can take all the Hulk-smashings that inevitably result from using Motoblur for more than 10 minutes - in addition to being flushed down a toilet when you're done.

The video is about 3 minutes long, but all the action happens in the first 45 seconds.

The phone gets unapologetically dropped from shoulder-height then thrown into a glass of water, followed by a long length of having Motoblur. Those are the three worst things you can do to a phone, and the Defy takes it all in stride.

Sep

HTC Merge Shots Emerge: Complete With Brushed Metal Keyboard...And Bing

Posted by Brian O'Toole in HTC, News, Verizon Wireless

BoyGeniusReport just got a nice clear photo of the HTC Merge, a device we may or may not have seen pass through the FCC with a red keyboard, better known as the dual-mode QWERTY slider for Verizon. The phone appears to be running Sense, and is now rocking a rather svelte brushed-metal style keyboard - one with a markedly different layout to the G2.

There's also the whole Bing thing. It seems that Microsoft have a deal with Verizon to shove Bing onto any phones without the DROID branding. Which is pretty strange, considering the whole black-and-red colour scheme the Merge has got going on, making it look like it really should be a DROID.

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?