Topic: Smartphone Megathread. It's the shit.

[Cobra951]

I saw that.  Must be nice to be so high up that your shit doesn't stink.  At least they're giving out the cases at their expense.

[scottws]

God I hate Apple.

[gpw11]

Giving out the cases had to happen and not something that should have really avoided from a PR standpoint once there was no question regarding the existence of the design flaw.  How they handled the whole thing still blows my fucking mind though.

[scottws]

Yeah, they are stubborn pricks.

[gpw11]

In other news, the Milestone may not be getting the 2.2 update....which would be a huge kick in the pants.  Motorolla has given official confirmation of an update for the Droid so the Milestone would seem like a given (literally the exact same phone), but Moto Europe has released a statement saying that they're "evaluating" it at this time. 

Considering the huge improvements in speed with 2.2, this could be something that would kill the phone for me and make me want to upgrade to an Android 3.0 phone when they are released.

[scottws]

I've been considering a Droid X, but I was reading some reviews and they all describe a lack of polish in Android.  I'll hold out until 2.2 is more prevalent.

[gpw11]

I'd wait for 2.2 or 3.0 (the next update, due near the end of the year). 3.0 is supposed to really focus on improving the UI.

[gpw11]

Asians have the best news programs ever.


Also, this just won't go away for Apple....but they're doing it to themselves.  Know how they basically singled out a few other manufacturers in their press conference?  Big mistake.  Not only has each of those manufacturers released public statements and test results, but tech journalists have been investigating as well and have pretty much unanimously decided that although some of those phones do have problems with losing signal strength when held a certain way (usually in a manner no one would ever hold a phone, hence why people only started noticing with the iPhone 4), none of them loose nearly as much of their signal strength as the iPhone 4. 

You know, if they had just made the announcement without bringing the competition into it this story would have been dead a week ago.

[PyroMenace]

Bahahaha, I couldn't stop laughing at that, that was amazing.

[gpw11]

I just rooted my Android.  Pretty easy and kind of awesome.  I did it so I could install. Some custom versions of the OS, but don't really have time to get into that tonight.  I did, however, get a chance to overclock it and try out some psx emulation.....AWESOME!

[PyroMenace]

Well my whole plan was to switch to AT&T and go for an iPhone 4... but I found out switching over I would have to pay and fucking ridiculous deposit, so I decided to upgrade the phone I had. The new line of iPod touches should be coming up next month and rumor has that it will have a camera and upgraded specs, the same one the iPhone 4 has, so I figured I'd pick that up. However, the phone I upgraded to is a Samsung Moment, wasn't too expensive to upgrade and its a droid. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first, I was pretty hooked on Apple's iOS and never messed with Droid. After spending some time with it I can say it's much better than I expected. I don't think its probably as slick as iOS, but it does some things I am coming to appreciate. The way the browser auto formats to the screen when I zoom in to read is really nice, the texting system is well organized and it always shows your history with whom you are texting with, and there's even an app to download podcasts from. The music player is a little rough and not as nice as how the iPod displays info but still works. But right now I'm thinking I may totally ditch getting a new iPod and perhaps looking into something better phone wise, but I think I'm happy with this one till next year.

[beo]

you know there's somewhere in the region of half a billion different music apps available for free on the android marketplace? i personally like tunewiki best out of the ones i've tried.

[gpw11]

Yeah, that is one of the advantages of Android...they don't have that whole "provides a feature already included in iOS" rule to keep different media players and shit out of the market (not even completely sure if Apple still does that).

There are a shit ton of different music, texting, dialer, whatever apps in the market.  I don't know if anything has as good of an interface as the iOS music player but, as Beo pointed out, there are a lot of options you can try.  Just google "best free android media player" or something.

[PyroMenace]

Daaaamn, check this shit out, its a quicklook at Windows Phone 7 and a bunch of games and best of all, its got Zombies! the board game as one of the games, fuck yes!

[gpw11]

That looks pretty sweet!

[Pugnate]

OK so android users, post some thoughts on the apps you use.

I'd like to say that advanced task killer sucks.

It is one of the most downloaded app on the android store, yet a lot of people report that problems can result, which can be only fixed with a full reset.

I am here to tell you that I had a massive problem, where ATK tried to kill some BBC app which didn't want to shutdown, and it basically slowed my phone to a crawl. Restarting didn't help either, and I had to do a full reset of my phone.

I was looking at some apps, and they have been updated to work with task managers, which suggests to me that this is a compatibility issue, and not all apps like being shut down instantly while running in the background.

and there's even an app to download podcasts from.

Hey, what app is that?

[gpw11]

After having looked into it, it's a giant myth that you ever need to use a task killer on Android.  I used one at first as they seemed to be recommended, but apparently all they do is actually drain your battery and cause stability problems.  Android was built around seamless multi-tasking, and (unlike windows or winmo) should never need a task to be killed. Basically, all the recently used apps and processes are kept suspended in memory, and they get pushed out if they haven't been used recently.  Where task killers fuck things up is by killing shared processes or trying to kill processes which causes a reactivation loop (which kind of sounds like what was happening with you). If you ever come across an app that seems to be poorly coded enough to require a task killer, it's probably just better to unistall it and find an alternative.  I'll see if I can find one of the articles which talks about this.

As for useful apps; everyone needs Astro.  It's a file explorer which makes navigating your SD card a thousand times easier.

[Pugnate]

I will give Astro a shot.

I wish I had known about this before using ATK. The funny thing is that ATK is the no1. app downloaded on Android.

The reason I was using ATK was because some programs were accessing the internet even when WiFi was turned off, resulting in data usage, which is expensive. Turns out, I just had to adjust their level of access.

Anyway, no more task killers for me.

[iPPi]

Widgets in Android drain the battery quickly because if you have them set up to sync and update on a regular basis, it will use 3G or wireless.

I use Advanced Task Killer and it does help the battery out.  You have to set it to aggressively kill apps though... like every time the screen is turned off it will kill apps.

The problem with not killing tasks is that the phone slows down a bit -- some apps are a memory hog and with no way to kill them they can totally bog the phone down.

[Xessive]

It was similar with Windows Mobile 6. It's nice to have some useful apps and widgets open but they can occasionally come at a heavy cost. There are some utilities that help clear up the RAM and close things are just lingering in memory i.e. CleanRAM, I'm sure there will be some available for Android too (if there aren't any already).

[Pugnate]

I just turn off "background sync" when I am not using the phone, and it seems to work much better than using ATK.

Another example is I was looking at the Weather Channel app on the android store, and its latest updated said something along the lines of, 'NO LONGER CRASHES WHEN FORCED TO SHUTDOWN.'

[gpw11]

Widgets in Android drain the battery quickly because if you have them set up to sync and update on a regular basis, it will use 3G or wireless.

I use Advanced Task Killer and it does help the battery out.  You have to set it to aggressively kill apps though... like every time the screen is turned off it will kill apps.

The problem with not killing tasks is that the phone slows down a bit -- some apps are a memory hog and with no way to kill them they can totally bog the phone down.

I need to find the article I referred to earlier, but THIS will have to do for now.

The gist of it all is that Android isn't Windows and it isn't Windows Mobile. "Running" processes aren't actually using any cpu cycles and are killed by the OS as memory is needed (notice how you've never come across a WinMo-esque "Not enough RAM" error).  Besides that, it doesn't have the same memory-leak problems that has plagued Windows mobile.  I haven't really looked into all that much myself, but I haven't noticed any decrease in performance since I stopped using a task killer, and I have far less forced closes.

As for the battery life, what I read is that the task killer will actually cause a quicker drain since programs which are often used (browser, for example) have to start up from scratch every time they're launched rather than just resumed from suspension.  I don't know if this is true or not though, and it certainly doesn't account for poorly coded apps that may run in the backround due to some error.

[Pugnate]

I'd just like to add, that on my Galaxy S, battery has remained at around 85% for the past 48 hours, in which I haven't been using the phone, even though it is still on.

I actually use my sister's old Sony Ericssion as well, and have two SIMS (one for work, and one for personal), -- one on each phone. When I haven't been using the Galaxy S, the battery drain has been minimal, which is incredible, considering that all phones will drain as long as they are on. Again, credit to Android.

What I don't get is why Google hasn't been more vocal, if these task killer programs are ineffective. Many of the top 10 downloaded apps on the marketplace are some sort of task managers/killers.

I think as long as you have "background sync" on off, these programs will have little need to run.

[Xessive]

Skype is now readily available for Android 2.1 or higher. You can download it on PC here, or directly on your Android device here.

Awesome.

[Pugnate]

Man, I had been waiting for this. I use Skype a lot to talk to clients etc., and was really excited.

I think I went to download the moment the news hit...
 



Guess what is the only Android phone Skype is incompatible with?

[Xessive]

Hahaha oh my God! What are the odds? Why doesn't it work? Have they explained?

[Pugnate]

hehe no. All of the Galaxy S variants are having problems. They are saying that once Galaxy S has the Froyo update, it should be OK.

[gpw11]

Yeah, that's too bad.  I tested it a bit last night and will repost with some comments after testing the 3G quality.  I do imagine that the Galaxy S problem will be solved ASAP though.

[Xessive]

New Yahoo App for iPhone and Android to Support Mobile to PC Video Calls

It'll be great if that comes through!

[beo]

i now have the desire hd. it is the best phone ever and all your phones smell like poo.

[Xessive]

Haha That was the push I needed! You've just swayed me and now I'm going to but it too!

[gpw11]

i now have the desire hd. it is the best phone ever and all your phones smell like poo.

Nice, looks like an awesome phone.  The Desire Z kind of tempted me due to the qwerty but I still have no complaints about my droid/milestone especially since Froyo is right around the corner (and leaked roms have already been released).

[iPPi]

Every week I'm hoping to hear some news about the software update for the X10.  The Sony Ericsson team have released some videos showing off a pre-release version of the software update and it looks good.  I'm anxiously waiting for it.

[Pugnate]

Awesome! Congrats Beo. Should be here soon as well. Will check it out.

The Froyo update has come out for some regions for the Galaxy S. Still waiting for Middle East though.

[scottws]

The place I work at is 60% Mac, 40% Windows.  And these designers are all the typical Apple zealots you would expect.  Hell, even the CEO is one.  But, since we have a corporate Verizon contract we have been able to keep the iPhone out of our environment and stick with just BlackBerries.  It is nice because there were only a few different phone models to support and a single e-mail delivery mechanism.  Every once in awhile someone would request an ActiveSync phone, but we would just say we don't supply or support them.

But with the Verizon iPhone rumors, I was able to convince my boss that we need to start testing an ActiveSync phone because it's only a matter of time before we have at least that ActiveSync device in our network and are required to support it.  So he let me order a HTC Droid Incredible and I got it on Friday.

I love the thing.  It blows my BlackBerry Tour out of the water.  I also bought a car mount for it so I can use it as a GPS and told Jennie not to get me one of those for Christmas.  It seems to be a decent GPS, but there is distortion at most of the higher volume levels.  If I had any complaints, it would be that certain screens are not rotatable and that the battery life is very poor.  I really don't get why the car mode screen doesn't have a horizontal mode, especially since you are more likely to use it horizontally if using it as a GPS.  And while my battery in my Tour would last 3-4 days, it is clear I'll be able to get a day at most out of the Incredible.

Still, despite these complaints I am loving the phone.

[Pugnate]

Droid's market share is growing extremely quickly. I think the Galaxy S sold 6 mil., and is targeting 10.

You know, the fact that some many people are moving to Android, restores my faith in mankind somewhat.

[ren]

I can pick between an iPhone 4, HTC Legend (Andriod 2.1), Blackberry Bold and nothing else. Any thoughts? I'm leaning towards the iPhone because the Legend has an old version of Android and the lack of multimedia features lower my interest in the Blackberry.

[Pugnate]

Will Legend not get 2.2?

[Xessive]

Try to break it down in terms of your priorities. The iPhone 4 is the most technically superior of the bunch, so if you're into media and portable games go with that. If you're more drawn to people have Blackberries and you're crazy about Push Mail and general business connectivity then the Bold is your pick. If you're too awesome for an iPhone and not douchey enough for a Blackberry, the Legend will cover your angles in with Android's sleek interface and nearly limitless functionality (helps when you have an opensource-savvy community to back you up).

I really like the look of the HTC Legend but if you can choose between it and the HTC Desire go for the Desire; it's technically superior and the price difference is relatively small ($30~$50). According to several forums the Legend is expected to get an update to Froyo but there's been no official word as of yet (at least I haven't read it yet).

GSMArena's review sums up the Legend quite well, here's their Pros/Cons list:

Key features
-Aluminum unibody design
-Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
-3G with HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps
-Android OS v2.1 with latest Sense UI
-3.2" capacitive AMOLED touchscreen of HVGA resolution
-Qualcomm MSM 7227 600 MHz CPU, 384 MB RAM
-5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and VGA@30fps video recording
-Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and GPS receiver
-Digital compass
-Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and turn-to-mute
-Proximity sensor for automatic screen locking during calls
-Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP); File transfer over Bluetooth
-Standard microUSB port for charging and data
-Standard 3.5mm audio jack
-FM Radio with RDS
-microSD card slot with support for up to 32GB cards (2GB one included)
-USB tethering support right out-of-the-box
-Social networking integration with Facebook and Twitter
-Web browser comes with Flash support
-Multi-touch zooming in gallery and web browser
-Direct access to the official Android application repository

Main disadvantages
-No video-call camera (or videocalling whatsoever)
-No dedicated shutter key or lens cover
-No TV-out port
-No voice dialing
-No DivX or XviD video support out of the box
-Dodgy flash video support

[ren]

Google implies that the Legend will be upgradable to 2.2 sometime this year so that's good. I'm not sure if there's a big difference between 2.1 and 2.2 but I don't like the idea of buying something that's already outdated.

Touch-screen and apps take the blackberry out. Like english-chinese dictionaries/translation tools taking advantage of the touch-screen would save me so much time. As much as I'd prefer push-email and bbm, the blackberry doesn't have enough other stuff going for it to justify the purchase.

How's the Legend/Android for music? I'll probably be using this primarily for music and I already know that an iPhone will be good for that because of the iPod.