Technology Android

[THEV1LL4N]

Does anyone care about BBM for Android?

I thought that RIM and Google had made a deal to have an Android App Emulator in exchange for BBM access on the Android platform. So far, I've seen videos and news of Android apps on the PlayBook. Then, I recently read that BlackBerry have had a change of heart and will not licence BBM services to Android and iOS.

 

[masta247]

Android apps need to be converted and they will somewhat work on Blackberry devices. I'm not sure about BBM but I suppose that the only people that will care are those switching from BB devices to Android.

 

[Flipmo]

Sony may not go quad-core until 2013, cites battery concerns as reason​

By Daniel Bader on March 3, 2012 at 10:52am in Mobile News​

According to a product marketing manager for Sony Mobile, the company may not go quad-core until 2013. According to Stephen Sneeden, “We’re going to join quad-core when we feel that the performance matches the battery efficiency. Because right now we don’t feel that is there. What we are going to be doing in the second-half of the year is moving to the Cortex A15 architecture, which we feel outperforms the current quad-core architecture.”
When he refers to Cortex A15, he means ARM’s new battery-efficient architecture that should be debuting later this year. Most current ARM-based chips were designed using the Cortex A9 template, usually with a larger 40-45nm manufacturing process. Many of the improvements seen in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 chips were taken from Cortex A15, though Krait itself was designed independently from ARM. Performance improvements for A15-based chips are expected to be upwards of 40% at the same speeds.
Sony Mobile’s upcoming Xperia S flagship incorporates the aging Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 chipset, which is based on Cortex A9. Many manufacturers, including HTC, are expected to continue on the dual-core path until both software, battery efficiency and thermal dissipation have been improved enough for quad-core chips to be viable in smartphones. While Tegra 3 is a quad-core solution, it too is based on Cortex A9 and its battery life in smartphones remains to be evaluated.
Sneeden continued, “You’ll see in 2013, as we’re evaluating the quad-core performance where it makes sense, where you’re not suffering in quality and the performance truly is there, and there really is something that demanding applications need.” Sony Ericsson maintained single-core processors with its latest Xperia line, including the arc, ray and Play, when Samsung, HTC and LG were pushing dual-core. While it’s true that until recently Android didn’t take full advantage of multi-core chips, they are vital to the hardware-accelerated smoothness of Ice Cream Sandwich and will continue to essential as mobile games advance in complexity.
Source: CNET​

 

[masta247]

Their stance on this matter is really honest, although they take a bit too long to develop their devices and release them with poor timings. The Xperia S should have been powered by Krait since it makes a huge difference.

If it comes to ICS it runs smoothly on SE single core phones, smoother than Gingerbread, and it's still in beta.

If it comes to mobile games and their complexity it seems to lag far behind as far as Android is concerned, so no worries here.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Hey Casey (and anyone who has a Galaxy S2).

What's the battery life like on your phone? Is it better now with ICS (in comparison with Gingerbread)?

 

[masta247]

I'm not sure about Galaxy S2 but I've heard mixed things about ICS on any other devices, mostly the battery life becoming shorter. They were supposed to improve process management and such, so I'm always disappointed to hear poor things about ICS' battery life.

 

[Pittsey]

I'm not sure about Galaxy S2 but I've heard mixed things about ICS on any other devices, mostly the battery life becoming shorter. They were supposed to improve process management and such, so I'm always disappointed to hear poor things about ICS' battery life.

Every device I have seen it on, and these are beta roms.... Fucking rock....! My mate's sensation has 4 times the battery life. I have about 15% improvements on my old i9000.

 

[masta247]

Strange. I've heard bad things about ICS battery life on Nexus S, and it's similar to I9000.

But it's good to hear.

edit: most people seem to be disappointed after all:
http://androidforums.com/nexus-s/470167-ics-battery-life.html
http://www.xoomforums.com/forum/ics...tery-life-diminished-since-ics-there-fix.html
http://www.xoomforums.com/forum/ics-general-discussion/14701-battery-life-down-since-ics.html
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/mtl7w/improving_battery_life_on_ics/

 

[masta247]

Some more problems with ICS:

http://blog.gsmarena.com/android-4-0-4-update-not-found/

Being an owner of the Nexus S myself, I can testify that while ICS bought several major improvement to the the phone, the particular version that was deployed to our handsets also ruined many things, the chief among which is the battery life. While the phone could previously last a day with Gingerbread now lasts a mere hours with regular use. There are other issues as well, such as the vibration feedback of the keys below the display occasionally fading, or the vibration stopping altogether. Then there is also the USB transfer speed, that has dropped from around 5 MB/s to 1.5 MB/s.

Last month we saw a leaked ROM of the 4.0.4 update for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, but nothing official has come out ever since. Frankly, I’m getting a bit tired of Google’s silence over the matter. The Nexus devices are supposed to be running the latest and greatest version of Android and are looked at with envy by those who are using phones with an older version of the OS. But when I look at the state of my Nexus S caused by the latest update, I feel I’d rather have Gingerbread back.

 

[Pittsey]

I don't know... I haven't come across any of these issues. I only know 5 people running ICS though.

 

[masta247]

Eh, I was really looking forward to new HTCs having decent cameras since the sensor appeared to be okay on paper.. but they crippled it in the same way as they did to their audio with beats - making it appealing to an average teenager, sacrificing the quality of a pretty good hardware:

So to prove what it can do, HTC uploaded a slew of pictures on its Facebook account. The description says they have been taken using the HTC One, with no mention of the specif model being used here, although we believe they may have used either the One X or the One S, that have identical cameras instead of the One V, which has a slightly lesser camera compared to the other two.

Unfortunately for HTC, we aren't quite impressed by the quality of these images. Although the details seem fine and we especially liked the blur-free fast motion images, which was possible due to the large f2.0 aperture that lets the camera use a faster shutter speed while still letting in sufficient light, we were disappointed by the high contrast and over saturation of colors. The extreme contrast also meant poor dynamic range, which meant that the images lacked details in the darker areas.

You can tell that they tried the best they could - picking perfect scenes and downsizing pictures to a point where you can see no noise. They turned out real messy anyways, and it's sad because you can see that the sensor is okay.

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_shows_off_some_images_taken_by_the_htc_one-news-3929.php

 

[Pittsey]

I don't buy a phone for the camera. So it wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. But a decent camera is nice to have. My i9000; wank camera, no flash.

 

[masta247]

I like good cameras in phones mainly because when I take snapshots I want them to be the best quality possible. And by that I mostly mean that I don't want details lost.

Anyway the point is that HTC have far overhyped their cameras. It's still a step up from their usual crappy quality but it's not on par with SE or Samsung finest from what I see.

 

[ARon]

They look fine to me.

 

[masta247]

Because they're downsized, and they're made to look well.
They are very oversaturated but the worst thing is the contrast that masks everything. They don't look natural at all. It's not about the camera module, it's their filters that do this, possibly to hide imperfections - they'd rather lose all detail in shadows instead of showing imperfect gradients etc. Basically they thought that making the image "pop" is what casual people want. Kind of like introducing beats audio, because people want bass. Who cares about real quality.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

I think the camera on my G2 (HTC Vision) is pretty decent. I don't know a whole lot about cameras but it has 720p video recording and is better that what i had expected. 5MP is more than enough for a phone, but the quality is pretty good and the flash too. The flash is really bright though.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

just thought i'd share this:

LCD vs IPS vs AMOLED: HTC One X, S and LG Optimus 4X screens compared


http://androidcommunity.com/lcd-vs-...-and-lg-optimus-4x-screens-compared-20120306/

 

[masta247]

Yeah I've just seen this on GSMArena ;(

Pentile panel That means lower subpixel density than SGS2, and we're entering the HD era on 4'3 inch displays. That's also lower subpixel density than Galaxy S and Nexus S.

One X uses Samsung/Sony IPS-ish panel, which is funny - because my TV uses exactly the same technology - Samsung's IPS knock off. My TV was manufactured in 2009 and it was a huge suprise to me that Samsung were working on an IPS panel, since the technology was trademarked and exlusively developed by LG-Philips, Panasonic and Toshiba. When my panel broke and I called Sony to have it replaced they visited me with a brand new Sony-Samsung panel, and it was IPS-ish too, only a bit newer (the red subpixel has been changed slightly to increase warm color saturation).
3 years ago this went kind of unnoticed.

Don't get me wrong, it was one of the best implementations of IPS, my TV is the only Sony TV using the IPS panel and it was suprising that it doesn't show casual IPS shortcomings like blue-ish blacks and low contrast. Now 2 years later they made a few changes and came up with PLS, now they are going back to their original IPS knock-off and manufacture these for mobile phones, and it's not surprising that they're good. Even LG are using the same panel in some of their new phones, and they're second biggest LCD manufacturers, and the ones who send their IPS panels to Apple.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Looks like Android Market has now become Google Play. I noticed this when my Books app changed into Play Books when updating. Then I went to get the Subway app (for my points), and the web interface has changed completely. Nice change, but I liked the name 'Android Market'. It has a more refreshed feel to it though.

Edit: It's beautiful.

Read about the changes here:

https://play.google.com/about/features/

 

[S O F I]

"Play Books"

lame. google truly is just a bunch of engineers who lack creativity lol.

google play has no new features. it's just a name change.