Technology Android

[Casey]

HTC Magic in some territories is getting a full Android 2.1 update.

So although it'll come with likely Android 1.5 or Android 1.6.....if you root it, you can flash an update manually.

I would recommend the Magic because it is supported by the modder/hacker Cyanogen and his ROM CyanogenMOD. He develops his own custom builds of Android that are simply amazing. Much faster than stock with a bunch of new features.

Cyanogen makes cross compatible G1/Magic ROM's and has recently started working on the Nexus as well.

Cyanogen's HTC Magic ROM is currently based on 1.6 with a ton of backported 2.0 goodness. As soon as 2.1 becomes open source he will be backporting stuff from that as well.

Definitely worth getting the HTC Magic IMO.

 

[Casey]

If you get the Magic, this forum is your new best friend.

Sapphire Android Development - xda-developers

 

[Casey]

YES!

Word has it that there might be an "Enterprise Edition" of the Nexus One - with a physical keyboard! I'd be down to get one of those, for sure.

Nexus One Enterprise Version Could Have a Physical Keyboard, Bigger Battery - Nexus one enterprise - Gizmodo

 

[THEV1LL4N]

^^ saw your tweet and status.

@masta. get the magic because if you can get it for cheaper and mod it or update the firmware version you'll still be getting the majority if not all of the features on the other phones with 2.1.

 

[masta247]

It's cool that Android phones are getting all these updates. Sense UI looks cool.
Technically Magic looks okay, on par with modern competition I'd say.
I was just wondering if it's a good phone since the price here is on par with higher mid-end non-os phones.
How is the on screen keyboard in these phones? Is it acceptable/at least as good as on Iphones?

I'd get tattoo but it's more expensive and has a resistive touchscreen. I hate resistive touchscreens.

 

[Casey]

Magic is better than the Tattoo.

On screen keyboard is great. And fortunately, like everything on Android, if you don't like it, you have options. You can download third party on screen keyboard apps from the Android market such as "Better Keyboard" which is fully skinnable and has lots of customisation options.

 

[masta247]

^ Awesome! I always disliked these small on-screen keyboards on touchscreen phones. A customizable qwerty seems perfect to me.

Last questions - are there any Android phones with a smaller/slimmer form factor without sacrificing the screen size much?
A phone size is really important to me and I'm a bit worried that Magic would still feel bulky in my jeans pockets. If there's nothing smaller in a similar price I'll probably still be getting it since it's slimmer than my current phone anyway. I'm just asking because there might be something even more appealing to me.

edit: I found out that Samsung I7500 Galaxy is just slightly more expensive. Worth it? Or is Magic better?

edit2: lmao at Nexus One costing almost 1000$ here (as compared to ~280$ for a 192mb ram Magic and ~350$ for Galaxy) - prices for new phones from the cheapest finished online auctions today.

 

[Casey]

well, the Nexus One is the thinnest Android phone to date.....and of course you could buy it unlocked from Nexus One Phone - Web meets phone. - but it'll cost you a fair amount.

 

[masta247]

Sorry, I edited my last post after you posted yours.

"Sorry, the Nexus One phone is not available in your country" and:

lmao at Nexus One costing almost 1000$ here (as compared to ~280$ for a 192mb ram Magic and ~350$ for Galaxy) - prices for new phones from the cheapest finished online auctions today.

I found out that Samsung I7500 Galaxy is just slightly more expensive. Worth it? Technically it has a better camera and AMOLED screen but it's a Samsung and it looks a bit worse imo.
Is it worth the additional money in reality though?

 

[Casey]

Personally I prefer HTC phones overall.....but between those two I'd probably go for the Galaxy due to the 8GB of internal storage (more than ANY htc android phone) the better camera. the 3.5mm headphone jack and the LED flash.

However, the fact that you can run CyanogenMod on the Magic gives it an advantage.

Having said that, there is already a fairly stable hacked Android 2.0 ROM for the Galaxy.....see here:

[UPDATED]: Samsung I7500 mustymod ROM (Android 2.0) - Android @ MoDaCo

Which is very cool.

It's really a very, very, close call.

Either way, I'll help you out with it. It's up to you to decide whether it's worth it.

 

[Casey]

Actually, having poked around a little bit it seems that the Samsung Android developer/hacker community is nowhere near as big as the HTC one.......so with that said, I'd go with the Magic.

As soon as you get it.....ROOT it.....overclock it.....partition the sd with a 500mb EXT3 partition and install CyanogenMod.

Then you'll be running at lightspeed.

 

[masta247]

Thanks. So I'll be buying any of these 2 depending on wherever I get a better deal.

I really like Samsung's camera with flash and AMOLED screen. About modding I guess I'd care about UI the most. I don't really like the generic Android one. I know I can install Sense UI on Magic. I don't know about Samsung though.
Supposedly Samsung also doesn't offer multi-touch.

 

[Casey]

The thing about custom UI's is A) they usually aren't open source so don't have community support and can't be tweaked, B) they run on top of the existing interface thereby using additional CPU and RAM.

Generic Android is the best! They don't tend to show it off much, in fact in press pictures you'll generally only ever see that same analog clock and blue background, but it's really customizable and you can make it look WAY better than how it comes. In fact I might put up some shots later of my homescreens and you'll see how cool it can look.

 

[Casey]

Inbrics M1 Android slider phone with 3.7" display!!!

Inbrics M1 is the thinnest Android slider we've seen, probably everything we ever wanted -- Engadget

We don't know what everybody else in the phone business has been doing lately, but Inbrics has just unveiled what looks to be the near-ultimate Android phone. The Inbrics M1 is a slider handset with a (great) 3.7-inch WVGA OLED display, 3 megapixel camera, front-facing VGA camera, 16GB of built-in storage, microSD slot and all the other usual trimmings, but what's particularly stunning is that the phone is not only half an inch thick, but it has a full QWERTY keyboard that's surprisingly clicky and typable. The phone is running Android 1.5 right now, but it should be up to Android 2.0 by the time it hits the market in March. The biggest concern is the 800MHz Samsung processor, the same chip that's in the Samsung Moment, but the interface (as demonstrated in the video after the break) is smooth as butter, and they demo'd it playing back 720p video just fine.

Inbrics actually has a lot of custom UI and software running on top of Android, but the most interesting part is what they're doing with video calling and beaming media from handset to videophone to TV to laptop over DLNA or through an access point device that plugs into the TV over HDMI. Inbrics also has a Cover Flow-style media browser that isn't super deep in functionality, but still puts the stock Android stuff to shame, and some rather sexy custom widgets.

The plan is apparently to get a carrier to bite and rebrand this phone in the US, so price and availability are still pretty hard to pin down, but if this phone can hit the market soon it sure could give the rest of the QWERTY Android sliders out there some body image issues.

More pics:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-01-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-03-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-04-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-05-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-06-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-07-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-08-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-08-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-10-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-11-hands.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/inbrics-m1-12-hands.jpg

Check out the screen in that second to last pic!! Resolution looks insane!

 

[SiGh]

Aw man Does that mean my droid sucks?

 

[THEV1LL4N]

this is iphone hell and casey is the devil.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

casey. do you have any issues with GTalk on your phone?

all my contacts seem to have disappeared and do not come up no matter what.

also, i want to get rid of the GTalk contacts from the phonebook menu. i deleted some GTalk contacts from the phonebook and left others. so im pretty sure deleting them from the phonebook has not deleted them from GTalk.

Also, i cannot update Google maps from the market. it always fails. is this a known problem with you?

 

[Flipmo]

Aw man Does that mean my droid sucks?

A month after whatever you may buy, technologically speaking, sucks.

So no worries.

 

[Casey]

Aw man Does that mean my droid sucks?

far from it. DROID rocks and I still want one.

 

[Casey]

casey. do you have any issues with GTalk on your phone?

all my contacts seem to have disappeared and do not come up no matter what.

Strange. Haven't had this issue. Do they still show up on when you use GTalk on the computer?

also, i want to get rid of the GTalk contacts from the phonebook menu. i deleted some GTalk contacts from the phonebook and left others. so im pretty sure deleting them from the phonebook has not deleted them from GTalk.

not sure about this one. Why not just leave them in the address book?

Also, i cannot update Google maps from the market. it always fails. is this a known problem with you?

No...I would suggest backing everything up using myBackup Pro and doing a wipe from the recovery menu.