Holiday Android Roundup!
Yesterday we wished you a happy holiday and promised we would catch up sooner rather than later. We’ve still got New Years on the calendar and X-ed off the obligatory recovery day, but we’ll try to pump you full of robot goodness rather regularly from here on out. Can’t make any promises but hey – this is a start:
Nexus One Hands-On (Best One Yet)
The guys at Gizmodo have some inside sources that allowed them to get hands-on time with none other than the Nexus One. They couldn’t get any pictures, but we’ve seen enough of those anyways. What they DID get were detailed impressions, saying things like:
- “Google’s Droid killer. It’s thin, it’s fast, it’s better in every way.”
- “slightly thinner than the iPhone 3GS, and slightly lighter”
- The anti-Droid: “smooth, curved, and light, instead of hard, square and pointy.”
- “This is probably the best screen we’ve seen on a smartphone so far”
- “Nexus One is astonishingly faster than the Droid”
Head over to Gizmodo for the full hands-on impressions.
Nexus One UI Walkthrough
While the guys at Gizmodo couldn’t get any picture/video action of the Nexus One, others felt at liberty to record in depth videos like the one below. The YouTube video already has 350,000+ views so I think its safe to say people are pretty interested in this phone – would you agree?
Nexus One – By Invitation Only?
Engadget has the skinny that in order to get the Nexus One – at least initially – you’ll need an invitation. How will you get an invitation? Who will get invitations? I have no clue… but I DO have a clue about the Nexus One specs which were also uncovered by Engadget: Android 2.1, 11.5mm thick, 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 4GB microSD in-box expandable to 32GB, 5 megapixel camera with mechanical AF and LED flash, 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display. They’re on a roll… read the deets here.
Google Nav on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
The folks at SE-First.com must have some inside connects because they’ve got a nice little video of the not-yet-released Xperia X10 running Google Navigation and also hooked the world up with a demo of the X10 with Wikitude and X10 camera samples. Here is the Google Nav vid:
Over at Wired.com they have a pretty interesting article about how HTC has gone from relative obscurity to smartphone powerhouse in a pretty short period of time. But they don’t finish without admitting that there is a danger to the HTC Android movement. Head over to Wired to read all about it… pretty interesting stuff.
LG Prada 3 with Android?
This isn’t a “likely” rumor but it is certainly a possibility. At the beginning of January the Consumer Electronics Show happens in Las Vegas. LG and Sprint have an event planned for the night of January 7th and we can only think that they’re announcing a new handset. While most think its probably the LG Lotus 2, there have been grumblings that it could possibly, potentially, maybe, might be the LG Prada 3 with Android. Don’t get your hopes up… but don’t count it out either. [Via MobileRoar]
Motorola CLIQ Gets Rooted
Over at ModMyMoto a user named TheDudesAndroid posted steps on how to root the Motorola CLIQ, calling it “The Dudes Root For CLIQ“. Over at Engadget Mobile they found plenty of Big Lebowski references to fuel their coverage. The Dude thanks Skrilax_CZ among others, as these Rooting solutions are usually a collective effort. In any case… if you’re a CLIQ owner who lives on the edge… be my guest. Just don’t sue me if your phone gets pummeled by the laws of nature.
Droid Rooted For Wi-Fi Tethering
Over at the Droid Forums they’ve got a solution – that is anything but simple for the novice – to enable Wi-Fi tethering. You’ll have to root it, install a custom recovery image, install a custom kernal, and do some dirty dancing. If that doesn’t scare you in the least, you kind find all the info here. But you’ve been warned.
Stay tuned ladies and gents… more Android news on the way!