Jul

AT&T’s Samsung Captivate Unboxing And Initial Hands-On!

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in AT&T, Captivate, Carriers, Devices By Manufacturer, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Samsung, Videos

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Our friendly neighborhood FedEx employee stopped by this morning with our Samsung Captivate, so I figured I’d do a quick unboxing video, snap some pictures, and give you guys our initial thoughts before our review in a couple days.

The box itself is fairly boring, sticking with a generic “You bought a cell phone on AT&T!” design rather than trying to shake things up a la the EVO 4G’s eco-friendly box design, or Apple’s sleek iPhone packaging. Still, though, it’s what’s inside that counts, right?

Sliding the top off reveals a ‘quick start’ guide under which lies the phone itself, and below that, the charger, USB cable, and an above average set of ear buds.

Jul

Nexus One Finally Receives FM Radio Support, Not Thanks To Google But The Android Community. Coming To A ROM Near You!

Posted by John Thompson in Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News, Nexus One (Passion)

Ever since HTC released its version of Google’s Nexus One, the Desire, people have wondered why Google haven’t given the N1 any FM Radio capability. The HTC Desire uses the same Broadcom chipset as the Nexus One, so why does one have FM Radio and the other doesn't?

Official Word

Asked about this at their I/O conference, a Google rep said the company had no plans to bring FM Radio to the Nexus One and told everyone to turn to the hacking community for support, as there are a number of custom ROMs out there for the device.

Android Community Steps In

After six months of waiting, it appears that our wishes have finally come true, as a member at xda-developers, named intersectRaven, has released a kernel which, when utilized by ROM developers, gives us FM support on our Nexus Ones!

Jul

HTC Aria Now Able To Side Load Apps Thanks To Sync Update

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, Aria (Liberty), AT&T, HTC, News

Nobody was happy to learn that the HTC Aria would be locked down in the same way as its predecessor, the Backflip, and be unable to install non-Market apps. Fortunately, HTC has given Aria owners a sort of “fix” through an update in their desktop client.

The newest version of HTC Sync for Aria (which you can download for Windows here) gives users the ability to load an APK onto their phone, which means they now have access to a host of new apps that are not available on the Market. However, HTC did previously stress that the update would not include this feature, so you may want to update in case this feature is removed in the near future.

Jul

Droid Eris Update Coming July 17th - Bringing Various Bug Fixes (But No FroYo)

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Eris, News, Verizon Wireless

As usual, Droid Life has come through with some Mr. Blurrycam photos. This time, they’re from Verizon and show that the Droid Eris will be receiving a software update on July 17th at midnight (ok – techincally, it’s July 16th at 11:59 PM – but for all intents and purposes, that’s the 17th). The update isn’t Android 2.2, but that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given that the phone has been discontinued. Still, when the 2.1 update rolled out to users, it brought a number of issues – most significantly:

Numerous syncing issues
Weather widget instability
Bluetooth compatability problems

Thankfully, the update looks to fix all that, as well as improve various other aspects of the phone.

Jul

Sprint Launches 4G In Rochester, Syracuse, NY; Merced, Visalia, CA; Eugene, OR; Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Epic 4G, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News, Sprint

Because it was previously leaked, today's announcement of 7 new metropolitan areas lighting up with Sprint's 4G signal didn't quite come as a surprise. Still, we want to congratulate Sprint users who will now be able to enjoy 4G speeds in these areas:

Rochester, NY
Syracuse, NY
Merced, CA
Visalia, CA
Eugene, OR
Tri-Cities (Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland), WA
Yakima, WA

With the 7 new additions, Sprint's 4G coverage now includes 43 markets.

HTC EVO 4G is currently the only 4G phone on Sprint's network, soon to be joined by Samsung's Galaxy S Epic 4G. The users of these powerhouses, who are charged an extra $10 "premium data" fee, will finally be able to see exactly where their money has been going.

Jul

Acer beTouch E130 – The Least Exciting Android Phone To Date - Hits FCC

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Acer, News

Acer’s new beTouch E130 has passed the FCC. Check this thing out – it looks like they just slapped together some hardware they had left over in the 2005 parts bin, and the specs aren’t much better:

QWERTY keypad
2.6” 320 x 240 screen
416 Mhz CPU
256 MB RAM
512 MB Memory
3.2 MP Camera
WiFi (likely topping out at 802.11g)
Android 1.6

I have no idea what Acer is shooting for with this phone. We’ve seen budget Android phones before - such as Sprint’s Intercept and Verizon’s WX445 – and this thing looks be crap even compared to those.

Jul

Rooted HTC EVO 4G Users: Use SetCPU To Extend Battery Life

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News, Tips & Tutorials

For many people, the EVO is an excellent phone, but extremely weak battery life is a huge detractor. Now, however, always-helpful user Pingpongboss has posted some instructions over at XDA-Devs for how to use the SetCPU app to significantly increase battery life. How significantly? He estimates that he could get 64 hrs with the screen off on a full charge. Pretty impressive stuff. Before and After graphs:

The key is disabling Perflock – a bit of code by HTC that keeps the CPU running at a set speed, regardless of usage. By disabling this and setting custom profiles, the CPU can underclock when its use is lower.

Jul

HTC Incredible Receives Some Froyo Love With Sense Via Sky Raider ROM Beta 1.0

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, Froyo 2.2, HTC, Incredible, Verizon Wireless

Last Updated: July 13th, 2010

While its author openly claims the ROM is far from perfect, most Incredible owners would probably be happy to give this new ROM, codenamed Sky Raider, a whirl simply to see what Froyo+Sense feel like on their rare, practically extinct, phones.

While have not yet tested Sky Raider ourselves, the installation should be familiar to most rooted Incredible owners who have flashed a ROM before.

Note: this ROM appears to require a full wipe (system/user data or “factory” reset).

Download

Sky Raider 1.0 Beta for HTC Incredible:

Original: http://www.multiupload.com/WPEA12PICE
Mirror: http://www.mediafire.com/?woga5n4m5dc

Directions:
1. Download the ROM from the link above
2.

Jul

CyanogenMod 6.0.0 Release Candidate 1 Hits The Streets For Nexus One, Dream and Magic Devices (Download Links In Post)

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, Dream, Magic, News, Nexus One (Passion)

The long-awaited first beta (release candidate) of CyanogenMod 6 is available for download on the HTC Nexus One, Dream, and Magic devices as of 10:15PST this evening. While Cyanogen’s site is experiencing some seriously debilitating traffic, we’ve managed to get links to all the downloads for those of you eagerly awaiting a taste of what CyanogenMod 6 will bring to your phone. Additionally, Cyanogen has said it will be available via ROM Manager very shortly.

Download Links

Download Links For HTC Dream/Magic

http://kanged.net/mirror/download.php?file=update-cm-6.0.0-DS-RC1-signed.zip CyanogenMod 6 ROM For Dream/Magic
http://kanged.net/mirror/download.php?file=gapps-mdpi-FRF91-signed.zip Google Apps FRF91 Addon (Required, flash after ROM)

Download Links for Nexus One

http://kanged.net/mirror/download.php?file=update-cm-6.0.0-N1-RC1-signed.zip CyanogenMod 6 ROM For Nexus One
http://kanged.net/mirror/download.php?file=gapps-hdpi-FRF91-signed.zip Google Apps FRF91 Addon (Required, flash after ROM)
http://android.chemlab.org/android/nexus/radio-4.06.00.12_7.img Radio Image (This must be flashed before the ROM)

Instructions For Installation

Here are the instructions for the Dream and Magic, ala XDA Forums:

It's important to know that the "DangerSPL" (or DeathSPL or Haykuro's SPL or whatever you prefer) is a prerequisite for Dream/G1 users.

Jul

[Instant Discount] Pre-order Your T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant Galaxy S Series Phone At Wirefly For $149.99 - That's $50 Cheaper Than T-Mobile

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Samsung, T-Mobile, Vibrant

Wirefly's Offer

Wirefly - one of the biggest online phone retailers - has put up their preorder offer for the upcoming T-Mobile's version of Galaxy S - the Samsung Vibrant.

Yet again, they didn't disappoint on the pricing and are now offering the best price on the market - $149.99 after an instant $50 discount off the regular price of $199.99.