• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Android Hardware Thread - 2010 Edition

Status
Not open for further replies.
Yay, X10 mini pro commin to Rogers soon and for cheap:
http://phandroid.com/2010/04/26/rogers-getting-sony-ericsson-xperia-x10-mini-and-mini-pro-may-or-june/

Im kinda torn right now though, I might pick up the new
iPhone
, I much prefer the android interface and the X10 mini pro as it has a keyboard, and is tiny, but I feal like the
iPhone
is basicaly a full game platform now, and im missing out on a lot of games :(.


I know I could just get an iPod Touch, but having the games built into my phone would mean I actualy play them.
 
Paznos said:
What I don't understand is why Vodafone is still getting the Nexus One when they have the Desire and the X10, did Verizon just say no we don't want the N1 competing with the Incredible?

Might have to do with difficulties getting the CDMA radios to fit/work.
 
Pimpwerx said:
I thought roaming was free, so long as you spend more than 50% of your total talk time on Sprint towers. I wonder if they changed this recently. PEACE.
I think it is, but they just make it a point to say that.
 
So i called my phone company and asked what sort of deal i could get on a HTC Desire, if i renewed on a 2 year plan.

They told me i could get the equivalent of 100 USD off.

I said cool, what price would we land at?

They said $680.

I said "but i can get it much cheaper than that from other retailers, without signing on any 2 year contracts, where is this a good deal"?

They said "well we don't really compete with price".

Well wtf do they compete with?
I would have asked, but i didn't get the chance before i was told that i should probably buy from some other retailer.

I own stock in this company :X
 
OriginalThinking said:
Apologies if this has been posted already...

If Froyo can uncouple these things so i could get a handset which has Yahoo as it's default but i can download Gmail, Search etc from the market then that's the ideal solution. Can you imagine a situation where every Android handset manufacturer strikes deals with other search providers and effectively cuts Google out of their own OS? Or Google has to pay, say HTC to use it's apps on it's own OS? Crazy. The scenario I want to see in the future is the ability to choose your search provider from the marketplace, be it Bing, Yahoo, Google etc. Not to have that dictated by my carrier and/or manufacturer.

For the actual people who understand what's going on and care, you could always root and custom rom, or just buy a better phone. The Motorla Skynet deal should actually make things better. The Samsung Yahoo deal doesn't matter, I mean really, who the fuck wants a Samsung? They have awesome screen tech, but don't buy a phone for a screen...they're running horrid Touch Wiz iPhone Clone 3.0, so if you are getting a Samsung, you should custom rom anyway.

Android is an open platform, and manufacturers are here to partner and make money, and differentiate their offerings, which helps them get noticed and make money. Just don't buy it, I would never buy a Samsung phone again. If Froyo would allow you to download and replace whatever is missing, then awesome, but the majority of users that care can easily avoid the trap. I don't see this as a bad thing or a cry of more fragmentation, this is the nature of the platform, this is the power of what the platform can do and allows, and luckily...we've only lost Samsung, not HTC or Moto.
 
jonnybryce said:
For the actual people who understand what's going on and care, you could always root and custom rom, or just buy a better phone. The Motorla Skynet deal should actually make things better. The Samsung Yahoo deal doesn't matter, I mean really, who the fuck wants a Samsung? They have awesome screen tech, but don't buy a phone for a screen...they're running horrid Touch Wiz iPhone Clone 3.0, so if you are getting a Samsung, you should custom rom anyway.

Android is an open platform, and manufacturers are here to partner and make money, and differentiate their offerings, which helps them get noticed and make money. Just don't buy it, I would never buy a Samsung phone again. If Froyo would allow you to download and replace whatever is missing, then awesome, but the majority of users that care can easily avoid the trap. I don't see this as a bad thing or a cry of more fragmentation, this is the nature of the platform, this is the power of what the platform can do and allows, and luckily...we've only lost Samsung, not HTC or Moto.

http://phandroid.com/2010/03/11/motorola-androids-to-feature-bing/

http://www.gadgetvenue.com/att-motorola-backflip-android-phone-ships-yahoo-search-03022522/

Motorola have been dipping their toes in the water...as for Samsung phones, they aren't all bad. I was really interested in the Galaxy S, particularly the Super Amoled screen. It just cuts down my choice of potential Android handsets as my personal preference is Google.

P.S The Skyhook thing doesn't bother me, it doesn't replace Google Maps it's just a more efficient with location data. ;)
 
I really need to stay out of this thread. Makes me want to replace my N1. Considering how much it cost, I really need this phone to last 1.5 to 2 years.
 
Jamesfrom818 said:
I really need to stay out of this thread. Makes me want to replace my N1. Considering how much it cost, I really need this phone to last 1.5 to 2 years.

:lol :lol :lol

that's ridiculously optimistic given the state of the phone industry at the moment. 2 year old cellphones are practically dinosaurs right now. You're talking pre-G1, original iphone era.

the nexus one is nice hardware, but in no WAY is the unsubsidized cost worth it right now, faster google updates or no.
 
Manmademan said:
:lol :lol :lol

that's ridiculously optimistic given the state of the phone industry at the moment. 2 year old cellphones are practically dinosaurs right now. You're talking pre-G1, original iphone era.

the nexus one is nice hardware, but in no WAY is the unsubsidized cost worth it right now, faster google updates or no.

The main reason I jumped ship from my HTC Touch Pro was Android and having an integrated Google Voice app. As long as the N1 is able to use the most up to date version of Android, I think I'll be fine.
 
Not entirely sure where to post this, I'm trying to use my new every 2 upgrade to get the incredible, but verizon's backasswards site won't cooperate.

I currently have a family share plan and want to upgrade everyone to the incredible. When i go through the new every 2 plan though it wants me to splinter it into individual plans. Has anyone encountered this before, and how were you able to upgrade on a family plan?
 
Andrex said:
Duh, Snapdragon is a SoC. In fact that setup of Cortex A8 + PowerVR is very very similar to what's powering the Motorola Droid right now.
Well, the OMAP3430 in the Droid is also a SoC.

But this thing is clocked at 1GHz and has the new SGX540 that not even the 3GS has.
 
Why Apple is scared/fun Android facts

AdMob numbers show Android overtaking iPhone requests in the U.S.

*Of smartphones in the United States, Android overtook iPhone usage, 46 percent to 39 percent. (In the UK there's much greater disparity, with the iPhone leading 70 percent ot 13 percent.)
*The HTC Dream (G1) and Magic (myTouch) made up 96 percent of traffic in September 2009. Seven months later, 11 Android phones make up 96 perecent of AdMob's traffic.
*In March, traffic was divided between Android 1.5 (38 percent) Android 2.0/2.1 (35 percent) and Android 1.6 (26 percent).
*Motorola scored 44 percent of AdMob's traffic with the Droid and Cliq. HTC had 43 percent of requests; Samsung had 9 percent.
*AdMob requests from Android phones grew at a compounded rate of 32 percent a month, from 72 million requests in March 2009 to 2 billion in March 2010.

http://www.androidcentral.com/admob-numbers-show-android-overtaking-iphone-requests-united-states
 
giga said:
RIM of all companies resorting to ass shaking, cleavage, and dancing to sell their products is pretty damn funny.

I don't know how funny. I guess RIM's market is predominantly males? Personally, all females in my family have Blackberries. That physical keyboard is a God send to women that need to text at all hours of the day (specially when they have long nails :lol ).
 
FCC has a new HTC handset!

HTC-QWERTY-Android-FCC-unknown-2.jpg


HTC-QWERTY-FCC-unknown-550x587.jpg


Except for the AT&T 3G it seems El Papa's prayers may have been answered (assuming it's a Super Phone and not MyTouch Slide+.)
 
Something alot less phone related.
Right now I'm really wanting an ebook reader. I want quality outdoor ink not just lcd, but also want multimedia functions. Looks like the notion ink adam is about my best bet?
They were supposed to have an announcement by the end of this month. Hopefully with release date. I hate it how once you decide you want something waiting becomes so hard.
Tablets are perfect for me as I only need something for around the house and break time at work. Especially considering I could walk to the beach(one street over) or park on my break and watch or read something.
This
28bsba9.jpg

+
116ieed.jpg

Or in e-ink mode depending on how you feel sounds like a good plan. The only thing that worries me is the amount of support.
Has google said anything about tablet support on the marketplace yet?
Will they allow you to use current apps designed for phones?
There are alot of android tablets appearing everywhere, I assume google must be working on something...............
 
Google says that eventually tablet support will come officially, but it's not there right now. For instance, you have to hack the Archos tablets to get the Market on them, but once you do most apps work pretty well (especially since they updated to 1.6 with official resolution support.)

The problem right now is that Google is very insistent on key hardware features like a compass, accelerometer, etc. that not all tablets have, so they can't license Google's apps. An Archos suit recently said Google is going to relax their requirements soon, and the upcoming Dell Streak / Mini 5 does have all of Google's apps, including the Market, so maybe there will be something there for the Adam. However, Notion Ink is relatively small compared to Dell, especially in the US, so there may be cause to worry.

Anyways, hardware-wise the Adam does seem like your best bet.
 
Pixel qi blog got updated.
What timing after my post earlier today. All I need now is an update from Notion ink preferably with release date.
Today Pixel Qi received the 2010 IEEE ACE Award for “Emerging Technology offering the greatest potential for financial success
Our screens are for sale and have been for sale for several months now in products, but in specialized products that aren’t sold in stores yet. These products are for professional use and bundled with, for example, monthly services; they might not ever be sold in stores. Our initial manufacturing partner did get slowed down in the midst of the economic crises and that did effect our ability to ramp to the schedule our higher volume customers wanted. We are beyond this now thanks to strong pull from these customers: some of the largest computer companies in the world and also from the broader community who want our screens now! We are scaling to multiple manufacturers (and beginning to ramp production) to the meet the strong demand.

Look for our DIY partner announcement shortly. We have been working on the details of this and are excited about it.


Also: we have wider viewing angle technology working and will bring that into high volume production as soon as this fall. We have been working with a variety of touch screen suppliers and touch integration/assembly houses. Touch integration with our screens is already working via a variety of solutions including projected capacitance touch and is available now in our products.
Assuming the release the adam before fall it seems a bit harsh for them to announce better versions of the screen tech already. Especially since their current model will have likely only been available to the public for a month or 2. I guess if it really mattered to someone they could grab a newer diy kit and upgrade.
 
I want to see the next android phone on att and see if there was enough consumer pressure placed on them for closing it off and infecting it with yahoo garbage. Will see what samsung does too, I'd rather have bing and live apps on my phone instead of yahoo.

It would be moot if you can just choose once you get it in your hands
 
Remember the ODROID, the first (and currently only I believe) dedicated Android video game handheld? Remember when it was endorsed by one of Google's Android game developers as the best device for playing Android games?

Well they're back with an impressively-specced (and demo'd) tablet.

  • Cortex-A8 1 GHz processor
  • SGX 540 GPU
  • 512 MB RAM
  • Capacitive multitouch screen
  • 10.1 inches, 1366 by 768 resolution
  • Stock Android 2.1
  • HDMI port, 1080p output
  • 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
  • Bluetooth
  • Accelerometer
  • External GPS included
  • 6000 mAh battery

Web Browsing Demo
Gallery Demo
GPS Demo
Aldiko Demo

Looks to be running very smoothly already despite obviously not being in final hardware. Some quotes from the devs:

Justin Lee said:
Price is not confirmed yet. I think it will be very similar to iPad.
If you need polished OS and shining body case, buy Apple's iPad.
If you are a developer who needs full schematics and platform source code,
buy Hardkernel's Odroid-T.

Hope it won't be as overpriced as an iPad but who knows, apparently they've sold out of all three versions of the ODROID already.
 
Ordered my Incredible tonight. I'll have it on hand when I return home on Saturday. Can't wait :D
 
So my wife has been thinking about getting the Moment with Sprint. She says she wants a full keyboard now. How is that phone? I know it's at least a generation old but I was under the impression that of the phones that Sprint has now that the Hero is the best one out there.

I'm wanting to wait for the Evo, and if I end up waiting for that since we'll be getting them at the same time she may just end up getting that too when she sees how much nicer it is.
 
waxer said:
Something alot less phone related.
Right now I'm really wanting an ebook reader. I want quality outdoor ink not just lcd, but also want multimedia functions. Looks like the notion ink adam is about my best bet?
They were supposed to have an announcement by the end of this month. Hopefully with release date. I hate it how once you decide you want something waiting becomes so hard.
Tablets are perfect for me as I only need something for around the house and break time at work. Especially considering I could walk to the beach(one street over) or park on my break and watch or read something.
This

Or in e-ink mode depending on how you feel sounds like a good plan. The only thing that worries me is the amount of support.
Has google said anything about tablet support on the marketplace yet?
Will they allow you to use current apps designed for phones?
There are alot of android tablets appearing everywhere, I assume google must be working on something...............

The adam is an android tablet, IIRC- should run standard apps etc
 
andycapps said:
So my wife has been thinking about getting the Moment with Sprint. She says she wants a full keyboard now. How is that phone? I know it's at least a generation old but I was under the impression that of the phones that Sprint has now that the Hero is the best one out there.

I'm wanting to wait for the Evo, and if I end up waiting for that since we'll be getting them at the same time she may just end up getting that too when she sees how much nicer it is.

The Moment is actually pretty awesome and arguably better than the Hero. The Hero may have Sense UI while the Moment has stock Android, but the Moment screams at 800mhz while the Hero is only as fast as the Magic or G1...the first Android phones and what's considered the unofficial bare minimum spec requirement.

The Moment also has a gorgeous AMOLED screen...and a really good keyboard. The Hero's camera isn't as good, either. And I believe the Moment also has a flash, so there's another point.

The issue with the Moment is that, well, it may not look the nicest, and it's kinda chubby. Other than that, it's a good Android phone. For enthusiasts, it causes nothing more than indifference, as it's not on Android 2.1 yet, it's screen could be bigger, there's nothing that unique or interesting about it (especially in the day of the Droid, and now, Incredible), it's on Sprint and it's by Samsung, who has a reputation of having some bugs and some issues with quality. Which is true..at first, the Moment's battery life indicator wasn't accurate, for example. Now it's fixed.

So yeah, the Moment is a very decent Android phone. It's not the first choice for someone who's so into Android that they want the latest and greatest and will pay any ETF to get it, but it's a very solid choice.
 
Need a little help with the girlfriend's hero, She used a MicroSD as a memory card, which had a load of photos on there. Now we can view the photos fine on the Hero but when you Mount the phone to the computer, or use a card reader, the folders are all hidden. All we can see is '.bookmark_thumb1' and '.mail'. Using OI File Manager we can see the folders are still on the memory card, as well as other Android-related folders, but they do not show up on the PC.

Any ideas how we can get the photos off? (And before anyone states the obvious, 'Show Hidden Files and Folders' is on!)
 
RJNavarrete said:
I think I want an Evo 4g... but I just bought my Droid on a two year contract a couple months ago. What do I do?!?!?! :(
Try to accept that this situation will occur no matter what you do :lol

Really though, there isn't much you can do cheaply, so just enjoy your Droid!
 
RJNavarrete said:
I think I want an Evo 4g... but I just bought my Droid on a two year contract a couple months ago. What do I do?!?!?! :(

Realize that you are stuck on Verizon now.
 
jonnybryce said:
The Moment is actually pretty awesome and arguably better than the Hero. The Hero may have Sense UI while the Moment has stock Android, but the Moment screams at 800mhz while the Hero is only as fast as the Magic or G1...the first Android phones and what's considered the unofficial bare minimum spec requirement.

The Moment also has a gorgeous AMOLED screen...and a really good keyboard. The Hero's camera isn't as good, either. And I believe the Moment also has a flash, so there's another point.

The issue with the Moment is that, well, it may not look the nicest, and it's kinda chubby. Other than that, it's a good Android phone. For enthusiasts, it causes nothing more than indifference, as it's not on Android 2.1 yet, it's screen could be bigger, there's nothing that unique or interesting about it (especially in the day of the Droid, and now, Incredible), it's on Sprint and it's by Samsung, who has a reputation of having some bugs and some issues with quality. Which is true..at first, the Moment's battery life indicator wasn't accurate, for example. Now it's fixed.

So yeah, the Moment is a very decent Android phone. It's not the first choice for someone who's so into Android that they want the latest and greatest and will pay any ETF to get it, but it's a very solid choice.

Thanks for the reply, my wife can't seem to decide what she wants to do. She read yesterday online that it's supposed to be coming out in June, which has been the rumor for a while now anyway (and I tried to tell her in the first place). So now she wants the Evo again. :lol I just really hope that they release it at $250 or less for a 2 year contract. I know it's a really expensive phone to make with a lot of tech in it but my wallet will cry if i'm playing $300+ for 2 phones.
 
Sorry for double post, but last one was this morning and I think this is bump worthy.

The Washington Post has a good article on the Incredible. Some interesting points:

-Lasted 5 hours and 50 minutes on a call with Bluetooth, GPS, and Wifi enabled.
-Noted that switching between screens was responsive with no hesitation

Not much else to see there, but I would think that would also give a pretty similar indication for battery life and performance for the Evo since, from what I hear, it's pretty similar to the Incredible except with a few improvements.
 
sionyboy said:
Need a little help with the girlfriend's hero, She used a MicroSD as a memory card, which had a load of photos on there. Now we can view the photos fine on the Hero but when you Mount the phone to the computer, or use a card reader, the folders are all hidden. All we can see is '.bookmark_thumb1' and '.mail'. Using OI File Manager we can see the folders are still on the memory card, as well as other Android-related folders, but they do not show up on the PC.

Any ideas how we can get the photos off? (And before anyone states the obvious, 'Show Hidden Files and Folders' is on!)

You might give Droid Explorer a try.
http://de.codeplex.com/
 
Jtwo said:
MOTO Shadow is real?
:o

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/02/motorola-mb810-gets-a-wi-fi-certification-might-just-be-the-sha/

If those rumored specs are true and this hits Verizon... oh man I don't even want to think about it. The Droid is still super new.

It's way too early for this to come to Verizon. Verizon's getting a little carried away and needs to calm down, they killed the Eris in 4 months, they just launched the Incredible, the Ally is coming and the Droid is still young and going strong.

It would make a little more sense for this to launch on another carrier, but that would still be a little annoying.
 
I wouldn't say they killed the Eris already... it may be at end of life (if the rumors are true) but they are still selling it and it's going to get the 2.1 update people who are interested in the Incredible aren't interested in the Eris same goes for the Devour vs the Motorola Droid.

Andrex still think the Shadow is 70% not real? ;) It's probably the phone i'll be getting once I come back from Europe either that or the Incredible. To soon to release the Shadow? it probably won't be coming out til July but I'm happy that they just won't have 1 or 2 good phones on their network and there will be a great selection to choose from.
 
jonnybryce said:
It's way too early for this to come to Verizon. Verizon's getting a little carried away and needs to calm down, they killed the Eris in 4 months, they just launched the Incredible, the Ally is coming and the Droid is still young and going strong.

It would make a little more sense for this to launch on another carrier, but that would still be a little annoying.
I was just assuming this thing won't be out until the fall.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom