Android Community |
- Need for Speed: Most Wanted mobile trailer drops
- ASUS Padfone 2 shown off on video
- Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD quad-core tablet hands-on
- Leaked T-Mobile release roadmap gives away LG Optimus L9 launch date
- HTC DROID Incredible 4G update adds global roaming and ISIS support
- 6 billion people now using mobile phones around the world
- Motorola DROID Bionic Android 4.0 ICS update in testing
| Need for Speed: Most Wanted mobile trailer drops Posted: 12 Oct 2012 05:54 PM PDT Console and PC gamers are undoubtedly excited for the reboot of Need for Speed: Most Wanted, but should mobile gamers be? If this new trailer from Electronic Arts is any indication, the answer to that question is “yes.” Of course, we’re not expecting the mobile version of Most Wanted to be as fully featured as its big brother on consoles and PC, but the trailer still makes a pretty good case for picking it up.
The trailer is actually pretty short – only 24 seconds long – but Electronic Arts and Criterion have managed to pack a lot of action in there. In it, we get to see the player doing their best to avoid getting caught by the police, even slamming into the cop cars at points to make the getaway that much easier. We also see the cars taking damage, which is a nice touch, and one that no Need for Speed game should be without. The graphics, while not nearly as good as they will be on consoles or PC, actually look really good for a mobile game. We’re talking PS2-era graphics here, and perhaps even a little better in some cases. Make no mistake, this trailer tells us that mobile phones are on their way to becoming a pretty strong competitor for consoles (at least until the next generation arrives). Have a look at the trailer below. The game is releasing for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on October 30 in North America, and at the moment, we aren’t sure if Android will have the same launch date. If it doesn’t, it should at least be on the Google Play Store soon after the retail release of the game. Pricing information is also presently absent, but keep it tuned here to Android Community and we’ll be sure to update you when we have more information!
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| ASUS Padfone 2 shown off on video Posted: 12 Oct 2012 04:00 PM PDT Today the folks at Bloomberg were lucky enough to get what appears to be the first video and hands-on with the new ASUS Padfone 2 smartphone and tablet convertible. The device hasn’t leaked yet much, but the official announcement is set for October 16th. Today however we’re seeing this newer device with a 4.7-inch display, 13 megapixel camera, and the new design for docking right into the tablet.
The video is rather brief and quite small, so we don’t get a really good or thorough look at the device — but this is the first I’ve seen of it. Overall the aesthetics are almost identical to the first generation Padfone 2 only they’ve added a few changes. Instead of having a dock door, the phone now slides directly into the back of the tablet as you can see from the images and video provided. Not only that but just like the earlier leaks we’ve confirmed a few specs. (skip to 1:40 in video for Padfone 2) The device is still be a 10-inch tablet running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (or Jelly Bean) and come with a beautiful IPS display, but all the internals are in the smartphone — just like the original. We have a 4.7-inch IPS HD display 1280x720p on the new phone, and overall it looks almost the same as the original. In the video above the ASUS CEO confirms a 13 megapixel camera on the rear as well. The new design makes the phone more accessible, the camera easier to use, and you won’t need to deal with that clunky phone cover door for docking as before. Whether this design and device will be something popular, or still just a niche product remains to be seen. The world will know all the details come October 16th so stay tuned for more information. Thoughts on the Padfone 2?    [via NotebookItalia]
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| Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD quad-core tablet hands-on Posted: 12 Oct 2012 03:12 PM PDT Today we have the newest tablet to grace the market from the folks at Huawei. This is their new flagship quad-core HD tablet, the MediaPad FHD. As the name implies, you have full 1920 x 1200 HD resolution on this 10-inch slate, rocking Huawei’s own 1.4 GHz quad-core processor. Read on to see our initial thoughts and first impressions.
Huawei has been stepping it up as of late, and this tablet clearly shows that. While it isn’t available in the US, it shows what their potential is in the hardware business as this is one of the best tablets on the market — at least on paper. Lets take a look at the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD.
As for the spec sheet you’ll get a 10-inch IPS+ full HD 1920 x 1200 resolution display, which is absolutely gorgeous. The colors are bright and vivid, the viewing angles are wide, and the high resolution screen just makes everything crisp and pop. We’re actually really impressed with the display — even if the edges are a tiny bit loose around the aluminum bezel. Under the hood we have Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich being powered by Huawei’s own in-house quad-core processor at 1.4 GHz. No Qualcomm or NVIDIA here. They’ve equipped the slate with a capable 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, GSM/HSPA+ support, and of course a set of cameras.       Being just 8.8mm thick this is one of the thinnest tablets around — especially considering its internals. The rest includes 257x176x88mm in size, an 8 megapixel rear and 1.3 front camera, HDR options, 5.1 Dolby surround technology for awesome sound, and a 6,600 mAh battery under the hood. Weighing 580g it’s certainly not the lightest tablet around either. As you can see from the pics above we have power/wake and volume up/down on the right edge, the 30 pin connector for charging and cutouts for the keyboard dock down below, and 3.5mm headphone jack on the left edge. Up top is occupied by a microphone and the micro-SD and SIM slots. As you can see in the video above the hardware is rather excellent. We’re really enjoying the hardware so far and must give Huawei props for the excellent display. There’s also a slideshow or “screensaver” feature on the lockscreen that brings up some rather impressive artwork that pans every few seconds. Here’s one of many that were amazing on that high resolution FHD IPS display — although I’d be worried about battery after a few hours.
Running an odd version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich here. We have no app tray and everything is on the homescreen pages. Simply swipe to the right and you’ll get everything installed, and you’ll need to long press the screen to add widgets — sort of like Android of old. Nicely they’ve made it so you can hide the menu bar on bottom, and their slight changes to the menu give it some character. Being a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor under the hood here’s a few benchmark comparisons.    As you can see it trades blows with the quad-core powered Transformer Prime and its NVIDIA Tegra 3, loses to the Galaxy S III’s 1.4 GHz Samsung quad-core, but overall is handling its own pretty well. Between the quad-core under the hood and Android 4.0 ICS the experience is quite favorable. The hardware is excellent (although still has very minor build quality issues) and watching videos is a sight to see with this HD screen. For now we’ll reserve our detailed judgement for a full review coming early next week. Check out the equally impressive Huawei Ascend D Quad XL they’ve also recently released, then enjoy the rest of the photos below.         Device Info
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| Leaked T-Mobile release roadmap gives away LG Optimus L9 launch date Posted: 12 Oct 2012 01:51 PM PDT It’s been a revealing day for T-Mobile, at least if the latest leak from TmoNews is to be believed. A new roadmap is giving us possible release dates for a bunch of devices, including the LG Optimus L9. According to the roadmap, the Optimus L9 should be hitting T-Mobile’s shelves on October 31, so if you’re a T-Mobile customer who has been waiting to get their hands on an L9, you might not have much longer to wait before it becomes available.
There’s also a listing for a Galaxy S II Color Refresh in the roadmap, which at first we thought was some kind of typo. T-Mobile does indeed seem to be getting a new Galaxy S II color though, as TmoNews posted pictures of the new device shortly after leaking the roadmap. So there you go – if it’s a Galaxy S II you want, you might have another color option at T-Mobile on October 29.
T-Mobile is apparently getting the Huawei Summit on October 31, which appears to be a new Android handset from the Chinese manufacturer. Other than that, however, details are slim, meaning that we don’t yet have any information on the specs of the device. It looks like we’ll have to wait for those, but we’re not expecting the Summit to be a top-of-the-line phone if that helps any.
Moving right along, we have a listing for what might just be the most intriguing Android device listed in this roadmap: the “Samsung Toba.” No one knows what this new device is, but the folks at TmoNews have a feeling it could be a new Samsung tablet. On the other hand, this could be a codename for T-Mobile’s Galaxy Note II, but with no details on the Toba whatsoever, it’s hard to say for sure. Whatever it is, we’ll find out on November 7, which is when the device is apparently scheduled to launch at T-Mobile. So, it looks like the next few weeks will be pretty busy for T-Mobile, at least as far as new product launches go. The Toba in particular is very intriguing, but the fact that we know next to nothing about it is the main reason for our interest in the device. We’ll be on the lookout for more details as we approach these launch dates, so keep it tuned here to Android Community for new information! [via SlashGear]
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| HTC DROID Incredible 4G update adds global roaming and ISIS support Posted: 12 Oct 2012 01:27 PM PDT Today news has arrived that the folk at Verizon and HTC are sending out a quick update to their mildly popular HTC DROID Incredible 4G smartphone as we speak. It looks like DROID Inc 4G owners will be getting a small update that fixes a few bugs, adds some new features, and will bring support for ISIS Mobile payments — the Google Wallet competitor. More details below.
As usual, the update is detailed over on Verizon’s support page with all the details. Some of the notable changes out of the gate are the fact that they’ve now enabled global roaming on the smartphone. So users going out of Verizon’s reach in another country will be allowed to roam globally — at a price of course. Verizon and HTC have also added support for ISIS Mobile Wallet, which is a combined effort from multiple hardware partners and carriers to come up with an NFC mobile wallet solution much like Google Wallet. Personally we just wish they’d all use Google’s solution — but everyone wants a piece of the pie. Then just like multiple other Verizon smartphones they’ve added the remote diagnostic tool. This will enable customer support to basically help with any issues manually. They can even wipe the device right from their desk. More details are available in the support document below. Then finally but certainly important is updates to 4G LTE. Verizon states that they’ve improved 4G LTE connectivity in general, and the handoff from 3G to 4G should be quicker, more seamless, and as an end result save battery life. They’ve also improved the transition from WiFi and 4G LTE according to the documents. This has just hit the Verizon support page so users with a DROID Incredible 4G should see the update arrive within the next 24-48 hours as usual. Enjoy, and let us know in the comments below should you have any issues.   Device Info
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| 6 billion people now using mobile phones around the world Posted: 12 Oct 2012 12:17 PM PDT The smartphone industry may still be in its infancy, but the mobile phone market as a whole is not. Some of us have been using mobile phones since the early ’80s, and the 30th anniversary of the first commercially available cell phone is actually coming up next year. Knowing that, it’s no surprise that today, the International Telecommunications Union is reporting that six billion people around the world are using mobile phones.
That’s a ton of people, considering that predictions for total world population are currently sitting a little north of seven billion. Of those six billion mobile phone users, 1.1 billion were able to connect to the Internet using their phone at the end of 2011. That’s a sizable amount of mobile phone users accessing the Internet, but it shows just how far the smartphone industry has to go. Google‘s Eric Schmidt is up to the challenge though. He recently said that in one year from now, he expects Android activations worldwide to be at 1 billion. Android has been growing as a mobile platform at a ridiculous pace in the past few years, so 1 billion activations by this time next year is perfectly feasible. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that we told you the Google Play Store had hit 25 billion downloads, just a mere two years after passing the 1 billion download milestone. So, as many of these six billion mobile phone users begin to make the switch to smartphones, it seems that Android will be leading the charge. There’s undoubtedly plenty of room for growth in the smartphone industry, and the fact that six billion people are using mobile phones has to be exciting for the likes of Google and its competition. Stay tuned, because even though smartphones are at the center of attention now, their popularity may have yet to really take off.
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| Motorola DROID Bionic Android 4.0 ICS update in testing Posted: 12 Oct 2012 12:00 PM PDT If you’re the proud owner of Motorola’s popular DROID Bionic smartphone then we have some potentially excellent news for you. Apparently multiple reports have been hitting the wires that Motorola and Verizon are finally ready to start the “soak test” for the Bionic’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update — which I’m sure many are impatiently waiting for.
The folks from Droid-Life are reporting that they’ve received multiple emails stating the usual soak test emails from the Motorola feedback network are being sent to Bionic users. What this means is Motorola is rolling the update out to a select few users for a final testing phase before releasing it to the wild. This is a strategy Motorola’s been using for some time, and appears to be working okay for them. Now that Google has control we were hoping to get some updates in a more timely matter — and hopefully in due time that will be the case. For now however, as long as this soak test goes as planned we can expect Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to be available here soon. Motorola recently missed their update timeline, then later revised their update roadmap and listed the Bionic as receiving the ICS update in Q4. With this soak test finally getting started we could be seeing a mid Q4 update for the aging smartphone arrive. It would be pretty impressive if we saw this land for Bionic owners before the end of October, but that is unlikely. More details on the Bionic and the ICS leak is available below. Who’s excited? Device Info
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