Technology Android

[THEV1LL4N]

those were games. i always thought they were e-books...

 

[Casey]

Peep this guys. No confirmation yet that this is real, but this MIGHT be the Motorola Shadow aka "Nexus Two".

Fan-made render? Very possible, but we're intrigued by the notion. The gang at Mobile01 have laid out two more photos of what is being called the Motorola Shadow (not to be confused with the T-Mobile Shadow), which in a nutshell looks like Droid / Milestone with a white keyboard and wrist strap. Even more interesting is the assertion that this could be Google's next flagship device, here lovingly dubbed the Nexus Two. Now while there is no way to corroborate at this point, we could totally buy this as feasible. After all, what better way to complement the Nexus One slate than with one with physical QWERTY? And who better than the company whose Android 2.0 device increased the platform's mindshare at supersonic speeds, with a CEO willing to signify support even at the launch event for a competitor's product? Color us curious -- wrist strap-laden render after the break

As that article mentions, if it is indeed true that Motorola are bringing out a new Android phone that is going to be branded in the "Nexus" range, that would really explain why Sanjay Jha (CEO of Motorola) was present and on stage at the launch of the Nexus One (which was manufactured by rival company HTC).

 

[Casey]

Also hearing rumors that T-Mobile USA have picked up the HTC Espresso, which is supposed to be similar to the HTC Hero but with a sliding QWERTY keyboard, and they are going to brand it as the sequel to the MyTouch, possibly the "MyTouch Slide".

You heard it here first.

 

[masta247]

Supposedly there's some really low end Android Motorola coming out soon:

http://uaprof.motorola.com/phoneconfig/motomb511/Profile/motomb511.rdf

codenamed MotoMB511 with a small 240x320 screen, Android 1.5 and a qualcomm 528mhz processor. It has a Qwerty keyboard but no wifi or gps.

I guess it will be the cheapest Android phone however unless this one turn out to be really small I'd rather buy myself an older phone with better specs and probably similar price (like the Magic).

 

[masta247]

any info on Eclair upgrades for Magic/Galaxy?
I'm leaning towards Galaxy because of the camera quality and screen plus the price is almost the same as Magic's here but I'm waiting till there's any info about official 2.0 upgrade for Galaxy.
Also, Galaxy has only 128mb of internal ram (+64mb on chip) but it doesn't allow swapping like on HTC phones so it might be just not enough. What were they thinking.

 

[Casey]

any info on Eclair upgrades for Magic/Galaxy?
I'm leaning towards Galaxy because of the camera quality and screen plus the price is almost the same as Magic's here but I'm waiting till there's any info about official 2.0 upgrade for Galaxy.
Also, Galaxy has only 128mb of internal ram (+64mb on chip) but it doesn't allow swapping like on HTC phones so it might be just not enough. What were they thinking.

Magic confirmed to get a 2.1 update, supposedly with Sense UI.

No news on Galaxy.

 

[Casey]

Ninjas unboxing the Nexus One

[youtube]f_ETSvTAo4A[/youtube]

LMAO.

Also hearing rumors about something called the "HTC Supersonic" - supposedly a revamped HTC HD2 running Android 2.1, and get this - it has WiMax (aka 4G). That is serious.

 

[masta247]

Magic confirmed to get a 2.1 update, supposedly with Sense UI.

No news on Galaxy.

crap. I'm officially stuck

I really want that 2.1 update with Sense UI but I also want the Amoled screen and a superior camera with flash.

I'd be pissed if I bought myself a Magic and then it turned out that a 2.1 update was out for Samsung with another custom UI.

There's almost no price difference at the moment since they are selling these Samsungs for cheap.

 

[ARon]

I wonder if the G1 will get another update, itd be nice but I dont know, hardware is getting outdated

 

[Casey]

I wonder if the G1 will get another update, itd be nice but I dont know, hardware is getting outdated

Cyanogen has made a full 2.0 ROM for the G1 which is apparently really good. He hasn't released it yet as the Camcorder is not working (the new 2.0 Camcorder has some new drivers that he hasn't been able to obtain source code for yet).

Once he gets those it will get released. I know some people who have used it and said it's really good.

Rumor has it that there might be an official 2.0 update for the G1, but we'll have to wait and see. But if there is, that'll be the last one.

2.1 (as on the Nexus One) has a whole new architecture that heavily utilizes the 3D graphics chips.....the G1 hardware simply doesn't support it.

I've got 3 months or so left on my G1 contract, if that render of the Motorola Shadow turns out to be a real device and has the same or better specs than the Nexus One, then I'll be getting that.

 

[Casey]

crap. I'm officially stuck

I really want that 2.1 update with Sense UI but I also want the Amoled screen and a superior camera with flash.

I'd be pissed if I bought myself a Magic and then it turned out that a 2.1 update was out for Samsung with another custom UI.

There's almost no price difference at the moment since they are selling these Samsungs for cheap.

Galaxy apparently getting a 2.0 update in Feb.

Samsung Galaxy Spica getting Android 2.0 upgrade next month? -- Engadget Mobile

No confirmation on this however, and they specifically refer to the Samsung Galaxy Spica getting the update and not necessarily the original Galaxy (though it seems logical that both would).

It'll be stock Android though....though personally for me (as I have mentioned a few times before) - stock Android is better than custom UI's - IMO.

It sounds like you're really interested in the flash, AMOLED screen - and another great thing about the Galaxy is the 8GB storage.

I say go for it and get the Galaxy.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

ive got until december until my contract runs out. hopefully as you say they release a true successor of the G1 with a physical keyboard. otherwise im looking at another android phone with a physical keyboard. i dont really like the idea of having numbers as the second function of the top row on the qwerty keyboard.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

any word on the galaxy lite (spica i5700) in the uk? is it going to be released on contract?

 

[Flipmo]

Crap, I'm a bit late ... I was going to post that Ninja unwrapping of the Nexus, but I was beaten by a stealthier ninja

 

[Casey]

No news on the UK Spica launch Sandeep, though since O2 picked up the original Galaxy, perhaps they will also pick up the Spica.

 

[masta247]

Galaxy Spica was supposed to be a Galaxy lite while it turns out that their flagship phone owners are getting shitted on while Spica - a cheaper and "worse" version is getting all the best updates.

I spent a few hours reading about these phones as I'm really stuck and there's no official info about any future updates for Galaxy.
I sense that they totally fucked up with a 128mb ram chip and blocking swapping so there's no way to create a swap file like on HTC phones when you're running low on ram.
I suppose that new versions of Android will be bigger and take more ram so I doubt that Galaxy will get any decent updates.
It's also strange that there are 2 versions of Magic - with 192mb of ram and another one with 288mb. Obviously the first one is equivalent to Galaxy (128mb ram + 64mb on chip) and it's hard to tell which one are you buying.

 

[Casey]

Is there any chance you could get a HTC Hero for a good price? That has good spec.

 

[masta247]

^no, it's almost 50% more expensive than Magic and Galaxy lmao. Prices here are not rational unfortunately.

 

[Casey]

Wow. Could you not import something from a different country and get it SIM unlocked? If you have a data plan you'd just have to get the APN information from the network you're using, which isn't usually difficult.

 

[masta247]

yeah that's what I initially planned to do but right now Magic and Galaxy are quite affordable.
Importing one + unlocking would cost me almost as much.