Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Motorola RAZR gets redesigned for China markets

10:12 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments


What do we have here, is this the DROID X3 or just another variant of the newly announced DROID RAZR? We know the DROID RAZR is for the US and Verizon and Motorola was planning just a Motorola RAZR for international markets but here we have a completely redesigned model from the images that were just leaked. Obviously it shares a very similar design with the Kevlar rear and extremely thin 7.1mm body, but clearly things are a bit different here, see for yourself after the break.



Apparently the model shown above has just cleared China’s equivalent of the FCC and will be headed to a few markets across China soon. Shown below is an image of the US model so you can see the difference.

Known as the Motorola MT917 the newly designed model will most likely share the same specs as the recently announced DROID RAZR. With a dual-core processor and the new 4.3″ AMOLED qHD display, 8MP camera on the rear making up that little hump and running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. We’ve been told the DROID RAZR should see ICS very soon in 2012 and would expect the same for this too. From the front it resembles the Motorola Atrix if you ask me and the entire design goes back to the original shape they’ve used in the past instead of what we’ve been seeing from Motorola with tapered edges. Either way we don’t expect to see this outside of China, but was worth a look.
Motorola-RAZR-MT917-China-Android-2 hands money Motorola-Droid-RAZR-MT917-China-Android [via UnwiredView]

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Galaxy Nexus may not be coming until after Black Friday

10:10 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments


Bummer. Some recent internal documents are indicating that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Google’s next developer phone, the first device with Ice Cream Sandwich and pretty much the object of every Android fanboy’s desire, may not be arriving on the carrier until after Thanksgiving. A timeline for Verizon’s advertising campaigns put the Galaxy Nexus in the “Samsung Holiday Portfolio”, which will begin on November 28th, after the weekend of Black Friday.




The news isn’t all that surprising. Verizon has a ton of truly awesome phones landing at the same time: the DROID RAZR hits on November the 10th, the HTC Rezound will (probably) be announced on the 3rd, and according to the advertising calendar, hit retail or at least advertising channels on November 14th. That’s three major phones, any one of which could carry a manufacturer or wireless carrier’s smartphone campaign for six weeks or so. Verizon is probably staggering the Galaxy Nexus to give the DROID RAZR and HTC Rezound some time to rack up a few early adopter sales.

It’s not all bad news – at least we’ve got a more definite timeframe for the Nexus’ release, so those of us who’ll be shelling out $600+ off-contract (like your truly) can have time to soften the fiscal blow. Note as well that the two December campaigns for Samsung and Motorola say “Portfolio”, meaning we’ll probably get to see some other devices along with the current flagships. The DROID 4 and XOOM 2 seem like possible candidates for Motorola, while we can hope (and pray, and cross our fingers and such) that the Galaxy Note may be part of the Samsung portfolio.

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LG Optimus U1 to be first LG phone tasting Ice Cream Sandwich

10:08 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments


This sure looks interesting. What appears to be either an excellent render or some actual images of the new LG Optimus U1 have appeared. The device sure looks thin and apparently may end up being the very first LG phone to run off the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. While the name U1 is most likely just a code name, we don’t have much else to go on so that is what we’re calling this sleek and thin device.



I don’t know about you guys but it looks quite similar to the Galaxy S II with a hint of LG around the edges. According to sources this will be the first device by LG offered with Ice Cream Sandwich, but then seeing that dedicated home button smack dab in the middle has me seriously doubting this already. Why put the big chrome button in the middle then launch with ICS, unless this is a phone coming soon that will get updated to ICS, then it would make more sense.
We don’t have any hardware specs to go off of, but looking at the leaked image I’d say we have a 4.3″ device here. We can clearly see the 8MP camera around back and the extremely thin and sleek design, but then I also see a few dots near that home button so it could be Android, but could also run Windows Phone 7 — just saying. One thing worth mentioning is that just because ICS has built in navigation and home buttons doesn’t mean manufacturers will move to no dedicated home buttons on all devices. So that doesn’t necessarily rule this out for ICS, but I do have my doubts.
What does everyone think? Will we start seeing all devices that ship with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich have no dedicated buttons, or will OEM’s still try to be different from the pack and include a few? We’d love to hear your thoughts or preferences.
[via GSMArena]

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ACER Iconia A100 now available in Red

10:06 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments


The popular little ACER Iconia A100 7″ Android tablet is now available in Red for those that want some brightness to their gadgets. Well, you could call it pink if you’d like. Over at Amazon.de they are now offering a red colored A100 for those interested in something different from the blue model originally offered.



For more information on this 7″ Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet you can enjoy our full review here. The A100 was the first Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet and comes packing a 7″ 1024 x 600 resolution and the powerful NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1.0 GHz processor so you can take advantage of all those awesome THD games like the recently released SHADOWGUN and many others.

Currently available in both red or blue it will run users about € 302 to pickup. The red version is € 3.98 more than the blue for some odd reason but I’m sure that wont be too big of a concern. Maybe the extra colors warrant the higher price, especially if this will be a gift for a wife or mother this holiday season. It appears to only be available in Europe at the moment but hopefully we see this red version hit the US here shortly, more options are always better. Will you be buying the A100 in red, or is that too bright for you?

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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Duke Nukem 3D now available in the Android Market for $1

11:48 PM Simranpal SIngh No comments


Rejoice, Duke Nukem 3D fans! Your favorite game has just become available in the Android Market for less than a buck. This all-time best selling PC game lets you play as Duke Nukem, whose mission is to stop an alien invasion by zapping every weird looking creature that comes at him. According to the description in the Market, Duke Nukem 3D has native support for tablets, it installs directly on your SD card by default, includes Episode 1; the other two episodes can be purchased through Google’s In App Billing. I cannot wait to start playing this, let us know how you like it.
duke_nukem_3D_2duke_nukem_3D_3

duke_nukem_3D_1



Android Market Link



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HTC Raider Now Available through Bell

11:45 PM Simranpal SIngh No comments


If you call Canada home and want to lock into the LTE airwaves currently permeating the Great White North courtesy of Bell, you get your chance today as the carrier has released their first 4G smartphone, the HTC Raider The Raider features a 4.5-inch qHD display, 8MP camera, and 1.2GHz dual-core CPU. If you can stand to give up three years to a Bell contract and one device, the Raider is yours for only $149.99. Otherwise look to spend over $500 for two-year and one-year deals.
[via Bell]

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Verizon rolls out Gingerbread OTA update for the LG Revolution

11:42 PM Simranpal SIngh No comments


The LG Revolution hit Verizon back in May, and contrary to the manufacturer’s suggestion, life was not good for Android fans eager for a taste of Gingerbread. Verizon is now pushing out the Android 2.3 update across its network with the standard upgrades and bug fixes. For the record, the Revolution is getting the update a mere 10 months after the Gingerbread source code was released, and five months after it hit the market with Froyo.


According to Verizon’s update page, additions to the standard featureset include a reworked text selection system, proper HDMI support and an Airplane Mode free of bugs. More under-the-hood fixes like email folder display, better attachment support, SIM card messages, and a SIM card security alert. The software is version VS910ZV7, and you can either wait for the staggered rollout message to appear or initiate a manual update via the Settings menu.
You might want to hold off on that, however. Verizon’s software updates have had a nasty habit of backfiring as of late, as in the HTC ThunderBolt and DROID BIONIC. In the case of the former, a critical bugged caused the carrier to pull the Gingerbread update just days after releasing it months late. Those desperate for Gingerbread can take their chances, of course, but caution might be in order for a week or so. Of course, you could always go rogue and root your phone for some nice custom ROM action, via CyanogenMod 7 or others.

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Volume Rocker puts multiple sound profiles at your fingertips

11:40 PM Simranpal SIngh No comments


Ring, vibrate, silent. Surely that covers every conceivable situation you’re ever likely to need as far as sound goes, right? If you’d like a little more customization in your Android alerts, Volume Rocker is here to help. The free app includes five customizable sound profiles that can be activated at any time, just by tapping your Volume Up or Volume Down.


Like some other customization apps (such as the excellent Brightness Rocker) tapping a Volume button while Volume Rocker is running will activate a small pop-up window, no matter what app you’re currently using. From there you can manually change the volume via further pressing the buttons, or manually sliding the volume on the on-screen display. You can quickly tap one of the five included profiles: Silent, Vibrate, Quiet Normal, or Load. Tap Presets to tweak each of the five profiles in for any volume you like (Ringer, Alarm, Media, etc.) or Settings to change more esoteric options.
A nice assortment of themes are included to match any manufacturer UI, and you can choose to have Volume Rocker live in the notification bar as well. At the moment only an ad-supported version of Volume Rocker is available, but developer Netshop is new, and should have a cheap ad-free app up in a few weeks at least. You can download Volume Rocker in the Android Market now.
[via Lifehacker]
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Android’s native browser beats Opera Mini, still lags behind iOS

7:42 PM Simranpal SIngh No comments

Ready for a whole new set of browser wars? Not content to keep the web browser battle to the desktop space, Google’s native Android browser, uh, “Browser”, is now beating the long-standing Opera Mini for worldwide mobile browser market share. However, both are still far, far behind Safari, which commands over half of the market as of October 2011.


And iOS Safari is still rising: it gained another six and a half percent to take 62.2 percent of all mobile device browsing in October. That includes all browsing from iPhones, iPods and iPads. Android’s browser now stands at 18.7 percent, while Opera Mini dropped almost a third of its total user share down to just 13.1 percent. And in case you’re wondering, no, that doesn’t include the more powerful Opera Mobile, though Opera Mini runs on Android, iOS, Blackberry, Symbian and Java-powered phones.

The numbers aren’t all that surprising, considering that Opera isn’t installed by default on any smartphones. But of the leading mobile web browsers, it’s been around the longest: the initial Java version came out in 2005, a full two years before the iPhone and its mobile browser hit the market, and three years before Android. It’s also got a lot more features than either of the big players, though like its desktop cousin, rendering issues still put some sites off-limits.

It’ll be interesting to see how the mobile browser market shifts once Google Chrome comes to Android, in fact if not in name – many of the additions to the stock browser in Ice Cream Sandwich are already shared with Chrome, and the desktop version now commands an impressive 17.6 percent of the market.

[via Cnet]
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