T-Mobile myTouch announced: Android 2.2, video calling, and HSPA+
Looking a bit like a myTouch 3G Slide sans slide, the newly-announced myTouch — yes, just “myTouch” — is the latest addition to the consumer-centric side of T-Mobile’s Android lineup, featuring a 3.8-inch WVGA display, 5 megapixel primary camera with 720p capture, and a next-gen MSM8255 Snapdragon core running at 1GHz. Notice how we said “primary camera”? Yep, it’s true: the myTouch features a second, front-facing cam as well, becoming the first phone from T-Mobile (and one of the first in the States, of course) to offer video calling. Looks like it’ll be supported over both WiFi and 3G using Qik and Yahoo Messenger, so you’ll be able to see the beautiful faces of your EVO-sporting friends from afar. Like the G2, it’s got full support for T-Mobile’s up-and-coming HSPA+ network along with 802.11n and Android 2.2 out of the box. We don’t have pricing or a launch date yet, but we’re told it’ll be available “in time for the holidays” in your choice of four scintillating colors: white, black, plum, and red. Follow the break for the full press release.
Android gains on iPhone
According to recent surveys from Changewave, consumers planned to buy smartphones with Google’s (GOOG)Android OS in growing numbers in the period between June and September. Seven percent more people plan on purchasing Android phones in September than the 30% who did in June. That’s up from single digits last year.
The iPhone dropped 12 points from a high of 50% of planned purchases in September, likely a result of a disproportionately large swath of people who wanted to buy iPhone 4s at launch.
Android Market : More countries, more sellers, more buyers
Since we launched Android and Android Market, we have seen the population of Android users and devices expand into many countries. This widespread adoption has brought with it growing interest in Android Market’s support for the buying and selling of paid applications in these additional countries.
We have been hard at work on this and it is my pleasure to announce that effective today, developers from 20 more countries can now sell paid apps on Android Market. Additionally, over the next 2 weeks, users in 18 additional countries will be able to purchase paid apps from Android Market.
Support for paid application sales is now expanded to developers in 29 countries, with today’s additions of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan.
In addition, Android Market users from 32 countries will be able to buy apps, with the addition of Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, and Taiwan. No action is necessary if you have targeted your paid apps to be available to “All Locations” and would like to launch in these additional countries. If you have not selected “All Locations” and would like to target these additional countries, or if you have selected “All Locations” and do not want to launch your apps in these additional buyer countries, please visit the Android Market publisher site regularly over the next two weeks to make the necessary adjustments as the new buyer countries launch.
Samsung Galaxy Tab on sale on November 1
Need some hot new hardware to offset the onset of another miserly winter? Samsung wants the Galaxy Tab to be the thing that keeps you warm and fuzzy over the holidays and has just announced a November 1 launch date for its tablet in the United Kingdom. All major carriers are signed up to offer the Android 2.2 device and usual suspect Carphone Warehouse will also be dishing it out if you have the cash to snap one up. How much cash, you ask? That’s the one important piece of information that Samsung is still leaving to hang in the air, proffering only the contention that it “will be available on a range of attractive price packages.” Never mind, we’ll just let our imaginations do the accounting.
Altek Leo 3.5G Android Phone with 14MP Camera
Before we get started, let us familiarise ourselves with Altek. Founded in 1996, Altek are a Taiwanese corporation that develops digital camera products and technology. In 2008, Altek claim that they are the world’s number one original design manufacturer (ODM) of digital cameras. Apparently this achievement spurred them onto make a high-end camera phone(s) featuring the company’s high-resolution optical zoom lenses.
This device will indeed sport a HD-capable 14-megapixel camera. It will also offer a 3.2-inch WVGA multi-touch capable display and will ship with Google’s Android 2.1 (Eclair). It also offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3.5G (HSPA/WCDMA) wireless and network protocols. “Enjoy high-speed broadband connections via 5.76mbps HSUPA or 7.2mbps HSDPA.” The device also provides built in GPS, accelerometer, digital compass and handwriting recognition. It will support most major audio and video formats and the internal memory is expandable up to 32GB via microSD card.
So, more about the camera. The Leo will provide a 14-megapixel CCD and 3x optical zoom lens. This is capable of recording at 720p HD digital video. As you might expect, it offers smile and blink-detection technology along with the ability to edit the images on the fly.
Spice Mi700 DroidPad
DroidPad Spice MI700 is a cutting edge tablet that enables you to work, play, talk and webcam with this small power packed wonder. It runs on Android 2.2 Froyo, the latest mobile open platform that developed by Google. Android is unique because Google is actively developing the platform but giving it away free to hardware manufacturers and phone carriers who want to use Android on their devices. As of August 2010, there are more than 100,000 free or trial applications for Android users to download from Market.
Android web browsers speed test
Of course, look-and-feel and features aren’t everything–good old speed counts as well. To find out which browsers walk the walk on speed, we compared page-load speeds of Opera Mini, Skyfire, Dolphin HD, and Fennec, and contrasted those speeds with those of the stock Android 2.1 and 2.2 browsers. We tested all browsers on a Droid X phone, except for Fennec; the browser worked only on the HTC EVO 4G.
We chose our test Web pages for their diversity of content. ThrasherMagazine.com is extremely media-heavy, with a mix of video formats. Wikipedia is mostly text-based. PCWorld.com and NYTimes.com contain a mix of text, images, and ads. Amazon.com contains text, small images, and e-commerce elements. In all cases we tested the desktop versions of the sites, eschewing the stripped-down mobile versions.
For each browser we loaded up all five pages, measured the load times of each, and then averaged the five load times. We did this first for live pages (pulling them down from the Web, not from a cache in the browser), then for the cached (or saved) versions of the pages. Our results are contained in the chart below.
Unlock FM Radio in Droid 2
Didn’t know the Droid 2 had an FM Radio? Yeah, neither did we, but thanks to some clever folks over at XDA-Developers, you can now listen to your favorite radio stations at will. As with most things like this, a bit of hacking and command line work is necessary, but other than that it is very simple. Just make sure your Droid 2 is rooted first or nothing is going to happen. For those interested, hit the source link for full instructions!
Source: XDA Developers
HTC Desire HD ROM ported to DROID Incredible, Desire, now EVO 4G
Perhaps you’ve seen the amazing boot time on the HTC Desire HD, which ranges anywhere from 3-5 seconds. A couple days ago, it was announced that the Droid Incredible and Desire had gotten a port of this snappy new ROM, which was showing off the same cool boot time as the original ROM. Now, however, it looks like these two devices aren’t the only ones seeing some ROM porting love, as the HTC EVO 4G has joined in the party.
Keep in mind that these ports should be considered half-baked, as there are issues with camera, wifi, 4G and more. But, if you’re willing to sacrifice those aspects for a speedy ROM, then back up your current configuration, and give it a go! Links to the xda threads are found below:
10-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab coming in 2011?
This one has been grinding around the Samsung rumour mill for a while, but on Saturday Sammy apparently let slip that we can expect a bigger, 10″ version of its upcoming Galaxy Tab some time in the first half of 2011.
Samsung announced earlier this month that it had plans to release a whole host of different sized tablets in the coming months, with head of global sales and marketing, DJ Lee, saying: “people have different desires, so we are definitely going to have different sizes of tablets.”
Samsung also confirmed that they will be releasing tablets in different price ranges, with the current pre-order price for the 7″ Galaxy Tab hovering at around £600.
The new 10″ Galaxy Tab will be released in the Gingerbread (or Android 3.0, to non-Androiders) era of first-half 2011, so smart money’s on it running the updated OS, rather than the current 7″ Galaxy’s Android 2.2 Froyo.
The current incarnation of the Galaxy Tab (the 7″ version) is available for pre-order ahead of its release this November, boasting a Super TFT screen, front and back-facing cameras and the ability to make calls and send texts.
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