10 Mar 10 HTC Supersonic – WiMAX Android phone Video Leaked
Watch the video below of the rumoured HTC Supersonic, said to be going to Sprint and would be the first Android phone that supports WiMAX.
The screen is much larger than the Nexus One, said to be sporting a 4.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen display.
1 GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm,
1GB of ROM
Running Android 2.1 with the HTC Sense!
These Android phones just keep coming from HTC and they get better and better.
Tags: AMOLED, HTC, HTC Sense, HTC Supersonic, Nexus One, Qualcomm, Snapdragon, WiMAX
04 Mar 10 Top 10 Favourites from Nexus One
It’s easy to find all the cool features of Nexus One. Within the first few days of using the free Nexus One, I’m glad to present my personal top 10 favourites.
In no particular order, here goes:
Screen size and brightness
The first thing that comes to sight is the larger screen size. Boasting a 3.7″ widescreen WVGA (800×400), it is the biggest screen at the moment to come to a Android phone.
The brightness and clarity of the AMOLED screen also makes reading on the Nexus One extremely comfortable. You just doesn’t feel there will be any strain to the eye after a prolong reading.
Speed
The next thing to realize is the speed of just about everything on the phone. It boots faster and applications of the same version, run much faster compared to any earlier phones.
This of course is undoubted due to the Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz (Snapdragon) processor that is the engine of the phone.
Live Wallpaper
Noticeable running behind the homescreen is the new features that is Live Wallpaper. It’s nothing very fantastic in my opinion, but the interactivity of the screen with users’ touch brings around fun and reduces the dullness of the phone. You can code a new live wallpaper to respond to the phone’s sensors like accelerometer, touch screen and even audio.
Among the few default live wallpapers are audio visualizers the display according to the sound of audio being played.
Slimness
I used to put my phone into the pocket, but with HTC Hero it somewhat requires me to remove it from my pocket when I sit or drive. Nexus One allows me to revert to what I did before, it can just stay put in my pocket even when I drive or squat.
Depth of 11.5mm makes it just a bit thicker than a pen.
SDK – 2.1
Any newer SDK that comes in Android provides new feature and the 2.1 (that was from 2.0 platform) is one that had been look forward to by many.
Interfaces of bundles apps have been improved and Gmail app can now support multiple accounts.
Voice support or Text-to-speech
Voice support although experimental and somewhat not too accurate, is one of the fun features that I valued in the phone. When typing with the virtual keyboard needed some getting used to, speaking to the phone and getting it translated to text is one convenient feature.
Add Google Translate to it and some extension app/bundle, you can even get your speech in English translated to another language and hear it too!
Camera
The camera is only 5 megapixels and the same as my HTC Hero.
However, the same cannot be said of its quality. I’m actually now able to be taking decently vivid photos and recording videos that doesn’t blur until you cannot recognize what you’re recording when I deliberately
shake the phone.
This is so much different as I just couldn’t stand a camera as HTC Hero’s that doesn’t qualified to be called a camera in the first place.
Scratch-proof screen
If you have not watched the making of Nexus One videos, the phone had been through very terrible stress tests and have withstand it.
Compression test and bend test is just pure awful.
Good for the consumers though, that they do not even need screen protector and additional phone cover at all due to the tests performed.
Battery
A fully charged Nexus One can last slightly longer. Although it doesn’t come with a spare, in countries that can purchase the Nexus One, you are also able purchase the spare battery.
I was hoping that the battery can last a day with typical usage of file download, mobile internet, music streaming and such. Although it wasn’t as good as expected, it’s still good considering the processor is higher and it should drain the battery quicker.
Running Applications
This is one feature that I have been waiting for a long time. Under the Settings menu -> Applications -> now appears Running Applications option, that displays the multiple running tasks and the percentage of power usage.
Prior to this you will need to download an app that list the running processes but doesn’t actually show the programs in understandable names.
This task manager is something I welcomed the most to keep my battery draining slow.
So here’s my top 10 Nexus One favourites.
What’s yours?
Tags: AMOLED, Battery, Camera, Live Wallpaper, Nexus One, Running Applications, Scratch resistant screen, Snapdragon, Text-to-speech, Top 10
03 Mar 10 Android Developer Labs World Tour 2010
I went for the Android Developer Labs World Tour in Singapore on 28 Feb 2010.
The Google Android team advocates flew over to share insights and inner workings of the Android platform with developers.
Read about the event on Code Android Malaysia blog.
It was one unforgettable trip, as Google gave every attendee a free Google Nexus One.
The free phone was a real surprise as it wasn’t mentioned in the agenda of the event.
There was extreme excitement and being in a group of around a hundred people unboxing the Nexus One together.
The experience of building and running Live Wallpaper example app immediately after that is so much fun.
To me, the event is a way for Google to market or publicize the Android platform and also indirectly to motivate developers to create more applications using the SDK.
I know I am more motivated to create some Android apps now, but having a idea that would attract many users of the app is more important.
What do you think? What kind of app do you think is important or useful in a mobile phone?
Tags: Android Developer Labs, Code Android Malaysia, CodeAndroid, Singapore
03 Nov 09 LG introduces first android smartphone – LG GW620
LG has released a video of it’s first Android LG GW 620 or Eve, after its earlier confirmation.
It shows a QWERTY keyboard that boasts of fast and easy typing like on a PC. I’m doubting that! 
Among the features highlighted in the video are Social Networking integration in the phone, threaded SMS and face recognizer.
I was thinking the face recognizer is having automatic recognition from photos taken from the camera, but the video only shows that you can do a tagging on the photo and set it as a contact. Actions from the photo is also shortcuts to call or SMS, which you have tagged earlier.
There seems to be nothing to shout about, save for the very nice cartoonish video.
I’m sure Android users or soon-to-be users are expecting more, especially looking at the upcoming Motorola Droid. What do you say?
31 Oct 09 Loading a custom ROM to Android phone
The Original Screen
As mentioned earlier in the HTC Hero experience post, one most important thing missing for South East Asian phones is the Android Market.
To workaround this, there are many geeks who had replace their ROM with a modified version that comes with the Android Market easily.
I have tried the same, using the steps made available from http://theunlockr.com.
What you need to do to have a custom ROM is actually ‘rooting’ the phone and then load the custom ROM.
It is something similar to iPhone’s term of ‘jailbreaking’.
Please proceed with caution if you intend to root and mod your Android phone, you’d probably risk breaking your phone’s warranty and worst, breaks the phone itself.
Do note also, without the Android market, which has tons of applications, you have to source for apps through other means, mostly third party Android app libraries or from the app author’s website.
If you’re still undecided, try spending some time doing some research at the following sites first:
XDA Developers HTC Dream forum
XDA Developers HTC Magic forum
XDA Developers HTC Hero forum
Some guide for you to follow before the rooting process, such as battery and allocating enough time here.
If you still need some reasons to do it, go here.
Well, I found that I had to take the risk and this is what I did to obtain the Android Market (and probably voids my Hero’s warranty too):
1) Backup my SD card content to PC
2) Root it :
http://theunlockr.com/2009/08/27/how-to-root-your-htc-hero-in-one-click/ (First trial failed, due to my HERO version is later than the image recovery, so I had to unroot it first – as specified in the page)
Unroot : http://theunlockr.com/2009/10/03/how-to-unroot-the-htc-hero/
3) Load the custom ROM : http://theunlockr.com/2009/08/27/how-to-load-a-custom-rom-on-your-htc-hero/
The whole process completes within 30 minutes or so.
The only thing that I need to set manually is the Mobile Network APN. You will need to set it if your mobile data connection does not work.
You should also probably be prepared to have all your data in the phone wiped off.
I was prepared for it to format everything, as I have already planned to root/flash it when I purchased the unit.
However, I do notice that files are still there after I did the rooting/loading the custom ROM.
Using USB with HTC Sync to backup
Remember to run the Nandroid backup before running the update
This is the custom ROM, woot!
The custom ROM I used is Modaco, another popular mod is Cyanogen.
After the process is complete and mobile data connection works, the Hero has finally become a real Hero, and the next few hours were used for shopping in the Android market, what else!
Apps in the market that I found to be cool will be coming in the next post, stay tuned.
Tags: Android M, Android Market, custom ROM, Cyanogen, HTC Dream, HTC Hero, HTC Magic, jailbreak, Modaco, root Android, rooting
29 Oct 09 Date announced for Motorola Droid from Verizon Wireless
iDon’t have a real keyboard.
iDon’t run simultaneous apps.
iDon’t take night shots.
iDon’t allow open development.
iDon’t customize.
iDon’t run widgets.
iDon’t have interchangeable batteries.
Everything iDont.
DroidDoes.
This is obviously a competition teaser targetted to iPhone and using iDon’t to highlight things that the iPhone doesn’t do.
Ending it with a DroidDoes makes it sounds like it overcomes the shortchange of the iPhone.
The date for the Motorola Droid has been announced, revealed from DroidDoes website and also from their emails if you have submitted your email address earlier on their teaser site.
It’s 6th November 2009, mark your calendar if you’re interested with Motorola Droid Android phone from Verizon Wireless.
For the first hands-on report of the phone, Engadget has more information. Click here.
Tags: Droid Does, DroidDoes, Motorola, Motorola Droid, Verizon, Verizon Wireless
20 Oct 09 The HTC Hero Experience
The past few days of my HTC Hero experience was quite good. It was only good (and not perfect yet) because partly I was a newbie still trying to adapt to the use of a smartphone.
As I have mentioned earlier that I was having a fun experience with the HTC Hero, I have also compile a non-exhaustive list of the good and bad of the HTC Hero.
Allow me to set things clear that I own and still own a Sony Ericsson K800 Cybershot phone, so my comments probably is a bit biased or the comparison is done with the Cybershot phone in mind. I have also read some reviews on the phone prior to this, so my review might not include those that have been spoken by everyone.
The Good
The best thing with HTC Hero is probably the HTC Sense which allows user to have seven home screens instead of the usual three.
Home Screen 1
Home Screen 2
Home Screen 3
Home Screen 4
Home Screen 5
Home Screen 6
Home Screen 7
I’m not using the HTC Scenes so much, which is a feature to switch into saved profiles. It allows you to change into a selected profile so that you can change between social, work, play and travel arrangement of widgets and themes.
Footprint
Footprints is a nice feature on the HTC Hero, which allows you to geotag your photos. When you visit a new place, you can snap a photo of the location, add the GPS position using satellite or communication towers location and save it. It is also possible to export and import the footprints so I hope to see if someone could create a footprints sharing tool which would be extremely useful.
Twidroid – Twitter Client for Android
Facebook App for Android
Social networking is extremely easy on the Hero, where during the first setup, you would have been asked to setup accounts for Gmail, Facebook, Twitter etc.
Google contacts are automatically obtained here, although I’m slightly annoyed without having the choice to choose addresses. I was a bit amazed on the People app or contact list which alerted me that I can join profiles, linking those with same name between Gmail and Facebook.
It looks like most of the good features I found, tend to be HTC proprietary, but the Android OS is also fun and easy to use.
Browser – Bookmarks
Internet browsing experience would depend on the data connection you are on. I wasn’t particularly satisfied with Celcom’s coverage and speed but if I’m using wifi, it is way better. Downloading apps are much quicker using wifi than mobile data connection (which the Hero tells you so too)
I use the Exchange ActiveSync and it’s a breeze getting mail and calendar sync from the server. It works perfectly with wifi, although sometimes it a bit slow with mobile network, it’s always down to your data connection.
For South East Asia Hero devices (not quite sure about the other regions), you have the option of Chinese input and the Chinese input on this phone is quite powerful in my opinion. Not only it supports recognizing your handwriting, allow input in pinyin and stroke, you can choose your Chinese mode as in simplified or traditional Chinese. Let’s say your selection is traditional Chinese, and you if you input the simplified version of the character, it will automatically change it to traditional Chinese. The same goes for the other way around.
Hardware wise, I selected the while colour Hero. It was running out of stock in most places, and where I found one at The Curve which still has stock, I made my purchase. It has been more than a week and the Hero has been through few hands, and like most other reviews found online, any dirt on the cover can be easily wiped off. Of course, I wouldn’t expect it to stay pure white forever.
The Hero package comes with USB connector and a battery charger, but when you need to charge your phone, you actually need to connect the USB connector to the charger adaptor. You cannot use the battery charger adaptor exclusively. So the USB connector here actually functions as two.
The USB connectors are one you can easily get extra as spare, where one end is the typical USB port and another is the mini USB for plugging to the phone.
The Bad
I’m a good complainer if I want to, and there can be a long list of the bad items to get you bored with which probably isn’t that bad at all.
Keyboard – Vertical
First off, I wasn’t really used to the on-screen QWERTY keyboard. I had a PDA with stylus before but this touch screen isn’t a stylus screen and my finger tips are a bit fat, so I’m very prone to mistype. I might be better off with a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard.
Keyboard – Horizontal
However, I’m starting to get used to it and up to speed with the typing (must use it horizontally) and able to use it fairly well on a couple of Meebo conversations.
The problem with input is also due to the fact that there is no arrow key. So when you found out you had a typo in the middle of your sentence, you can either use your most accurate finger tip to position the cursor there, or use your trackball to scroll to it.
The first problem I encountered while setting up the phone is that it wasn’t able to connect to my wifi router, as I had the key index not set to 1. This is a known issue and somebody else have raised it to Google. So do bear in mind, although the current version of Android is 1.6, there are still issues with it, just like any other software. It is not a show stopper, I just have to change my wifi key index to 1.
The camera that comes with the phone is 5.0 Megapixel and in my opinion, it sucks a lot. Coming from my 3.5 MP Cybershot standpoint, the Hero camera had problem to focus and you better make sure you can take photo standing like a tripod. A camera that doesn’t come with a flash is also a turn off, especially where lighting is not good, you better forget that your Hero part time job is a camera.
The video recorder is also somewhat lag, like the image goes for some processing first before getting displayed on the screen that you see. There is also sound which I think is the shutter opening and closing, when the camera is turned on, of which is a bit scary for me.
I mentioned that it is easy to use the Hero for social networking especially on sites like twitter, facebook, flickr, but if you would like to post your video, bear in mind to not record for too long as the file size might have exceed the allowed limit for the sites. You might be able to use apps like Qik to edit before upload though.
Another disappointment that many reviews missed is the Bluetooth connectivity. Apparently the bluetooth on Hero doesn’t support file transfer! I’m not sure if this is a localized problem to the Hero only or HTC only or the Android but based on this, it should be on Android’s turf.
And here I’m saving the best for the last, or is it worst for the last : Android Market!
No, I’m not hating Android Market, the problem with the Hero I have is it doesn’t come with the Market app at all and that is a real-life problem, a pain in the a$$. You pay for a very expensive phone, and it doesn’t allow you to get applications.
My guess is nobody will get an iPhone barred from Apple’s App Store, no?
This no-android-market thing happens to South East Asia HTC’s Android and to workaround it, there are many resources you can find online which they called flashing a custom ROM, but I’m not too sure if they will break your phones’ warranty.
Android Market main menu
Apps I have successfully downloaded
I have flashed mine though and let me tell you this, the Hero with Android Market is only a true blue white Hero for me.
Tags: Celcom, HTC, HTC Hero, HTC Scenes, HTC Sense
20 Oct 09 Motorola Droid from Verizon Wireless
Hello Moto.
Shortly after the announcement of Motorola’s first Android phone – Cliq for US market and Dext for the rest of the world, Verizon Wireless has released teaser to the next Motorola Android, the Motorola Droid.
The Motorola Cliq has yet to even reach production but the next phone is ready to be announced.
This shows how much hype or explosion we are going to expect out of Google’s Android platform.
The teaser ads can be seen on US national tv, and a video supposedly showing the Droid booting up can be seen below.
The rumoured specifications of the Motorola Droid are briefly covered on Brighthand.com.
The ads or teasers link to the official website of Motorola Droid : http://droiddoes.com/
You are supposed to submit your email for early notification of the phone availability on the website.
It is definitely still early to talk about Android 2.0 and probably what could be seen was in the early demonstrations but this Droid is said to be running on Android 2.0. I’m not sure how reliable but it just seems to me that manufacturers are getting even more desperate to show that they will have phones which are much superior than the newer ones, both released or unreleased, and asking the Android fans to wait some more?
So I guess we won’t be seeing much yet eh?
Tags: Droid Does, DroidDoes, Motorola, Motorola Droid
15 Oct 09 The Blue Cube Celcom HTC Hero Package – RM 1799
Yes, I have finally got myself a Google Android phone, with Blue Cube Celcom HTC Hero Package at RM 1799.
The deal requires you to commit a monthly commitment of either RM 148 (RM 50 for calls and RM98 for unlimited data) or RM 250 (calls and data) on top of the RM 1799 phone price.
There is also an additional charge of RM 300 for new signup and will be deducted from your monthly bill for the first six month.
The package comes with the HTC Hero, USB cable, charger and some manuals.
Free with Celcom’s Blue Cube is Jabra BT 2010 headset and a SanDisk 16GB MicroSD memory card.
At the moment, I’m having fun with it although there are issues I have with it, especially the small keyboard. A Winmo user told me it’s much wider than his keyboard, so it could be my finger tip issues. 
I also had problem connecting to my home wifi if the index key is not 0 or 1. I found that it has been logged by somebody earlier, hopefully a patch gets into the next release or update..
The main turn off is Android Market does not come in it, for the HTC Hero – South East Asian Market.
Other than some minor issues, the HTC Hero is a fun device to have, because it makes me really mobile and connected to the Internet wherever I go. (Of course only where there is Celcom’s coverage)
I’ll share my experience and thoughts using it soon, so stay tuned.
Tags: Blue Cube, Celcom, HTC, HTC Hero, Malaysia Android
