I’ve yet to own a Xiaomi/Redmi phone and always thought that I can buy any Xiaomi phone that comes with a China-based ROM and just flash it to global, having always seen xiaomi.eu MIUI roms mentioned as a “global” alternative.
Turns out I’ve always been wrong, as these ROMs are technically custom ROMs based on the Chinese releases, but with added languages and much more features.
Yes, you got that. The rumored HTC device that’s been keeping many Android fans excited, codenamed the “Pyramid,” has just been officially announced the HTC Sensation. It just might be as good as how it looks.
It will come with a 1.2GHz dual–core Snapdragon processor paired with 768MB of RAM. And with a 4.3-inch qHD Super LCD display, this phone should make HTC’s “Sense 3.0” user interface appear as great as they’ve planned.
An 8 megapixel camera makes this a good sub for your point and shoot camera. With its 1080p Full HD video recording, there should be no reason to carry another camera–enabled device at all.
The HTC Sensation will be coming Q2 2011.
Android–powered phones have long been touted as “hacker–friendly” mostly because of its open–source roots. However, not all of them are truly open to widespread hacks and customizations, just like Motorola’s recent handsets. Among today’s high–end handsets, the Nexus One leads the pack as the most hacker–friendly with countless third–party ROMs.
Now here’s something that’s the opposite of most phones: the GeeksPhone One. With a Certified Community Release (CCR) Program, the GeeksPhone One aims to:
- Special rewards for developers and people who are making a great effort to contribute to the community. Basically, free phones for developers so they no longer need to rely on their primary phone for development and in some cases, sponsorships.
- For the first time in the industry, Geeks’Phone will officially certify and approve community ROMs that are stable and offer real advantages over stock ROMs. The ROMs will be credited entirely to their developers.
- Support and help from Geeks’Phone engineers to developers, especially ROM builders, for their specific needs. Already, 100% of the kernel and drivers of the One are open and documented.
- Easy to follow logo and identification guidelines, so end users will see which ROMs have been tested and approved. Both “Stable” and “Experimental” logos will be used.
- Technical support for users of these builds.
- Geeks’Phone technicians will flash customers’ phones with CCRs if the customer requests it.
- CCRs won’t void the warranty.
Though this phone isn’t exactly a looker, it would be nice to have it for the modifications it allows for.
With the exponential growth of the Android platform, Samsung has finally released what could be today’s best Android–powered phone, the Samsung Galaxy S. Building upon their previous Android phones, the Galaxy S boasts of features only slowly becoming available in other phones:
I’ve personally held this phone at the local launch here in Manila more than a week ago. Looking at the Super AMOLED screen, “super” seems to be not good enough—it is that beautiful. Apparently, it beats the screens from other current high–end smartphones:
Samsung’s Hummingbird processor clocked at 1GHz may seem like as good as the Snapdragons on the Nexus One and similar devices, but it has a significantly better GPU that’s capable of respectably running a Quake 2 test. That’s on a mobile phone!
16GB (or 8GB) of internal storage is also rare for Android devices, to the point that some apps fail to recognize and take advantage of what it offers. Preemptively, Samsung had the foresight to allow for removable microSD storage, in case you still need the extra space, or for those apps that insist on saving their data on the microSD storage. And because this phone records HD video at 720P, you’ll be needing all the space you can get. I got to try video recording and it was surprisingly good for a mobile phone, even in dimly lit situations. Too bad we didn’t get the chance to record the launch using a Galaxy S like they did at the NYC launch event.
If you want a Samsung Galaxy S now, carriers around the world are scrambling to carry it so you just might find it in your city soon. For us here in the Philippines, the Samsung Galaxy S will be exclusive to Globe only, but offered in reasonably tempting deals! A postpaid suscription at 2499 pesos a month gets you this phone for free, with a 36–month contract. If you’d rather go prepaid, the kit comes at 32,995 pesos, a bit steep, but liberates you from any contractual obligations.
Google has finally unwrapped Android 2.2 “Froyo” and Gizmodo has a screenshot tour of what’s new. Unfortunately, this also means new features we’re missing in older Android devices as it might take a few months before phone manufacturers produce the updates for previously–released phones, if they ever do at all.
The Google Nexus One is one mighty phone, so it wouldn’t be so bad if someone built a mini version of it, right? HTC did just that. Being the company that Google commissioned to build their first official phone, HTC has just released the HTC Wildfire, the Nexus One’s smaller sibling. The specs shows that this should be a decent Android phone:
This phone is expected to be in the Asian and European markets in the 3rd quarter of 2010; let’s just hope that HTC decides to officially sell it here in the Philippines.
The Google Nexus One is already a great phone but it would be nice if it could borrow some of the eye candy from HTC’s Sense UI, right? jkOnTheRun did just that, based on this guide, and Kevin tells us about it.
I’ve been waiting for an easy and safe way to acquire a Google Nexus One that I silently wish Globe would offer it themselves, or even some other Android–powered goodness in a smartphone. I can actually just go for an iPhone 3GS that’s already available without the worries, but why settle for something older? After all, I think the future of mobile phones will be powered by Android and Linux in general.
I was pleasantly suprised when I saw this on the paper last Saturday:
Finally, an Android–powered phone available directly from Globe! The Samsung i5700 Galaxy Spica appears to be a good enough phone with a very attractive price. On paper, the specifications suggests that it’s not as good “advanced” compared to a Nexus One. It has an 800MHz processor instead of 1GHz, and the camera does not have a flash. On the other hand, it has the native capability to play DivX and XVid videos, something the Nexus One cannot do just like many other smartphones.
At less than 15,000 pesos, I don’t mind this phone being not as good as the Nexus One. If it can do the basic things a phone should do along with the niceties that come with Android, as long as it’s not built on buggy hardware, I’ll gladly take it. The Nexus One costs almost twice as much if you decide to order from the US now, even more if you buy from gray market importers, so this is a really viable alternative.
This should be a bit cheaper under my retention plan since I’ve yet to renew my postpaid contract; I think I’ll be visiting a Globe Business Center later today to ask. It would be nice to play with one for a thorough review though before I commit into this. But since it’s got Android and Samsung’s no slouch in building phones anyway, I just feel this will be worth the money.
Google’s Android project has been known for use in mobile devices like cellphones, but hardly was it mentioned before that it can be used for ultraportables and netbooks. To their credit, they never said it wasn’t for portable computers, we just assumed it was going to be for phones that will give the iPhone a run for its money. Now here’s the big surprise.
The guys over at Mobile-facts (via VentureBeat) took four hours to compile Android for the Asus Eee PC 1000H. They had the graphics, sound, and wireless internet working, so it’s a very functional hack.
Knowing that Google has the Chrome browesr and the backing of the OHA, it wouldn’t be a wild guess that we will be seeing phone/netbook hybrids pretty soon. More importantly, it could also mean another major factor in the netbook market now with a new OS thrown into the mix. We have Linux and Windows variants, and now we just might have Android. This will definitely be a big push for the netbook/ultraportable market in the coming months.