The Connected Circuit » Android http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog Connecting To My Online Life Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:59:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 LG joins the Android fray with the GW620 http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/09/14/lg-joins-the-android-fray-with-the-gw620/ http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/09/14/lg-joins-the-android-fray-with-the-gw620/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:59:01 +0000 Peter To http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/?p=481 This has been an exciting week for Android fanboys. First Motorola unleashes their Android device, the CLIQ aka the Dext and LG announces their first Android device, equipped with a 3″ touch screen and a horizontal slide out keyboard. Spec details are scarce, and it isn’t known whether or not LG went as far as to make a custom UI a la Sense from HTC of MOTOBLUR from Motorola, but it’s assurdedlly a very exciting time in the mobile landscape.

LG-GW620SliderHorizontal (Medium)

]]> http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/09/14/lg-joins-the-android-fray-with-the-gw620/feed/ 0 HTC Hero coming exclusively to Sprint http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/09/04/htc-hero-coming-exclusively-to-sprint/ http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/09/04/htc-hero-coming-exclusively-to-sprint/#comments Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:18:37 +0000 Peter To http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/?p=458 It’s official Sprint will be the exclusive US carrier for the hot device that is the HTC Hero. Featuring a new svelte chinless design and HTC’s in house built “Sense Experience” UI. This marks the first non-T-Mobile Android headset to reach this part of the shore. Sprint is sure hitting it out of the ballpark, first the exclusive carrier to the Palm pre and now they’ve got the hottest Android phone. Expect this to drop on October 11th at $179.99 with a 2 year contract. Presser is here, Sprint sign up is here and the specs (with pictures to the Jay Leno-chin version) is here.

In case you missed it, here is a drill down of what you can expect:

  • Built in GPS with digital compass
  • Exchange Active sync support
  • 3.2″ 320 x 480 capacitive touchscreen
  • Android
  • ROM: 512 MB
  • RAM: 288 MB
  • Qualcomm MSM7200A, 528 MHz CPU

Just also keep in mind, since HTC heavily modified this device, this won’t come stock with any of those Google Apps you’ll see in full Google Experience phones, such as the G1 (HTC Dream) or the myTouch (HTC Magic), but be sure that someone like Cyanogen or someone from XDA will be able to hack it in there somehow.

htc-sprint-hero-2009-09-03_06-49-46-rm-eng-1251986298

]]> http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/09/04/htc-hero-coming-exclusively-to-sprint/feed/ 0 HTC Hero: The Android Cometh http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/06/25/htc-hero-the-android-cometh/ http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/06/25/htc-hero-the-android-cometh/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:00:43 +0000 Peter To http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/?p=348 When Google first announced that they were creating a mobile platform, I was decidedly very excited. But almost year later, there is still only one Android device out, the G1 by HTC. The extremely open solid platform that Google created, free for everyone to use was out and about and no one was taking advantage of it save one, HTC. Many companies have promised to have Android devices out by the end of this year, but HTC is the first one up to show off a real device running Android. Today marks a pretty big day for Android with the official announcement of the HTC Hero and the highly customized Sense UI and a first for mobile devices with built-in Flash support.

htc-hero

Hardware-wise, the specs of the device are not mind blowing, but they are not unspectacular either. It has a teflon coated back, a 3.5mm jack, 3.2″ HVGA (480x320) capacitive touchscreen, a Qualcomm® MSM7200A 528 MHz CPU processor, 288 MB of RAM, 5 megapixal autofocus cam, GPS, quad band GSM phone (900/2100 MHz for HSPA), and a digital compass, but lacks a physical keyboard.

Reminiscint of Touch FLO3D for Windows Mobile devices, Sense UI is the new skin created by HTC. Both very slick and stylish, the new UI has the ability to add widgets, HTC’s own or a third party, moves relatively seamless and has highly customizable home screens. HTC also went through the trouble of creating their own virtual keyboard that seems to rival that of the iPhone’s and has haptic feedback. The biggest news is that HTC with the help of Adobe has built a Flash player into the browser and is capable of playing videos straigt from Youtube, though it isn’t 100% yet. Seemless is hard to the describe how Sense UI actually works, so check out the embedded videos below.

Read more here, here, here, here, and here.

]]> http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/06/25/htc-hero-the-android-cometh/feed/ 1 CES Afterthoughts http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/03/04/ces-afterthoughts/ http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/03/04/ces-afterthoughts/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:00:28 +0000 Peter To http://electricsleep.wordpress.com/?p=134 So CES is over and after looking at what came out there are some pretty strong themes at this year’s CES. For those who don’t realize, but CES is pretty much the precursor of this year’s trends in products and tech. What happens at CES usually, though not all the time, comes to full fruition in the upcoming year.

Let’s start with the what stole the entire show away, Palm. Palm’s press event was by and the large the runaway hit of the show. Weeks ago, Palm queitly invited some of the top tech heads to a conference they were holding at CES with a teaser ad for the “newness” of Palm. Not many people knew what it was going to be, but many people expected that this was going to be the make or break for Palm; if they didn’t do something amazing here, they would never have the chance to do it again EVER. There was much speculation of what they were going to do, but it was for sure that this was going to be their big reveal of their five year in the making redo of their dated Garnet OS. Low and behold, Palm pulled it off. They not only pulled it off by stunning people with a marvelously slick OS, but an equally slick device to complement the very polished, though still in alpha, OS. I am definitely looking forward to the Palm pre come June and may jump away from crappy AT&T and back into the arms of Sprint.

It seems as if companies are finally embracing the cloud with Apple putting their iLife suite into the cloud, Microsoft realizing that having all your information in a common place does matter to people and Palm having their entire platform revolve around premonition and the notion that your information does not only live on your phone. The year 2009 will definitely be the year of the cloud.

What was decidedly absent at the show was the number of android phones. Although CES was never known for great phone releases, I was surprised to not see even one phone from any manufacturer. The lone android phone that was supposed to be roaming the show floor, the Kogan Agora. Apparently Google went to the man behind the effort to push this phone out and asked him to not release the phone as there were features that the phone lacked that would gimp compatibility of applications. We did see one android device, the Giinii Movit, which is essentially the Nokia N800 with android instead of Maemo. From what I saw, it seems like a sweet little MID that I would gladly trade my N800 for. Hopefully, now that Google released the full source code of android to the masses, we’ll start seeing more android devices start to trickle down.

]]> http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2009/03/04/ces-afterthoughts/feed/ 0 T-Mobile G1 (aka Google Phone) Review Round Up http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2008/10/16/t-mobile-g1-aka-google-phone-review-round-up/ http://www.theconnectedcircuit.com/blog/2008/10/16/t-mobile-g1-aka-google-phone-review-round-up/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:17:23 +0000 Peter To http://electricsleep.wordpress.com/?p=49 Now that the gag order has lifted, reviews have simply been pouring in for the T-Mobile G1 aka the first Google Phone. Here is the list of reviews thus far, in no particular order. I’ll update it as more reviews come in.

Official T-Mobile G1 website

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