Ice Cream Sandwich ROM comes to HTC Sensation. Rooting unavoidable.

Want a taste of Android latest dessert Ice-Cream Sandwich on your HTC Sensation, here it is in the form of a custom ROM. The ROM comes skinned with the ever-so-popular Sense UI at its latest release Sense 3.5 which somewhat covers up all the visual candies ICS has for us. Face Unlock is among the many new features working in this ROM. Since this is still in its beta stage, don't expect things to be sunshine and roses while using this ROM. You may download the ROM and other required files at the XDA thread. Head on past the break for some screen shots.

HTC Sensation SLCD manufactured by 2 companies

The SLCD displays on the HTC Sensation are manufactured by 2 companies namely Sharp and Acer. The latter was commonly found in many HTC Sensation, which is also suspected to have manufacturing defects leading to the infamous dust under the screen problem. However, the Acer display gives a whiter white than the Sharp display. It also maintain the colour when viewed at an angle. Many HTC Sensation which have been sent in to HTC for a screen replacement had their screens replaced with Sharp displays. The move to Sharp displays may probably did not solve the dust issue. There is also noticeable improvement in contrast and flickering when compared to Acer's. Severe flickering as seen on Acer displays are not present in Sharp displays. However, do note that the Sharp display has a serious colour shift when viewed at an angle. The display suffers a great yellow tint when viewed at an angle and the white is more yellowish compared to Acer's. Head on past the break for more info and the workaround to adjust the colour on Sharp's SLCD.

Samsung Galaxy Note Lands on Malaysia

Celcom is offering the Samsung Galaxy Note now with a price as low as RM1368 with an 18-month contract. Grab yours now from any Samsung Elite Partner Stores, Celcom or Digi outlet. The first 100 to buy from Pavilion (near Esprit), Kuala Lumpur will get a free Galaxy Note Cover with Swarovski crystals. To people living in the far north or south, head on to Queensbay Mall (South Side), Penang or Aeon Tebrau (near Harris Bookstore), Johor Bahru respectively to get the Cover with Swarovski crystals if you are the first 50 buyer. Do note that the first 9999 Galaxy Note buyer through Samsung Elite Partner Stores, Celcom and Digi outlets will be given a complimentary Galaxy note Leather Flip Cover.

HTC Sensation XL has arrived on Malaysian shores

With the announcement of HTC teaming up with Beats Audio earlier this year, HTC Sensation XE have been launched with strong emphasis on audio capabilities and a faster processor coupled with a Beats earphone. HTC Sensation XL was announced during October this year. While it does pack a larger 4.7-inch screen over the Sensation, the hardware specs are lower witha single-core processor, no memory card slot and lower WVGA resolution. The Sensation XL comes out-of-the box with Sense UI 3.5. UPDATE: And it's confirmed to be available in HTC Retail Stores at a recommended retail price of RM2099. For those of you who're planning to sign a contract, Digi is offering the device from as low as RM1399 if you sign for a 2-year contract at RM48 per month.

HTC Edge: First Quad-Core Phone

4.7 inches. 720p resolution. 8 megapixel camera with f/2.2 aperture. Beats audio. Sounds good? But the best feature has to be the Tegra 3 supposedly powering this beast. Four 1.5 GHz cores which is double the core count of current generation smartphones. Whether it offers double the performance remains to be seen.

Android version is currently unconfirmed but it might come with Gingerbread considering that Ice Cream Sandwich has no need for the capacitive keys at the bottom. But HTC has promised to bring Ice Cream Sandwich as an upgrade to users soon.

We can expect to see this beast arriving in the 1st half of 2012.

7 Apps to Metro"lise" Your Android Device

Let's face it. The Metro UI of the Windows Phone is one of the simplest and slickest interface. However, it's mostly a love it or hate it situation for everyone. Android lover will criticise the lack of home screens and widgets. The lack of apps is another reason users does not opt for a Windows Phone. But what if we get the best of both world. Let's say, we have the vast amount of over 250000 apps offered in the Android market and the simple and slick Metro UI. Read on to find out just how you can do that in some short simple steps.

Sony Ericsson : Android 2.3.4 Update "Gesture Input"

As most of us know, Sony Ericsson released the Gingerbread 2.3.4 update way later than other manufacturers. The update will be available for all unlocked phones and most operator variants but there will be local deviations.  There are also some deviations on feature upgrade depending on phone model. Google Talk video chat will only be available for phones with front facing camera. Xperia™ PLAY will not get 3D panorama sweep but it will get HD video recording and the other goodies below. Most phones released this year comes with Android 2.3.4 out of the box.

Among the highlights of the update are:

• Google Talk with Video Chat for smartphones with front-facing cameras
• Updated Facebook inside Xperia™ functionality for enhanced like, share and discover abilities.
• Xperia™ smartphones introducing world’s first 3D Sweep Panorama functionality powered by Sony.
• 16x video zoom
• The software upgrade will enable consumers to turn their Xperia™  smartphone into a mini-mobile PC by connecting USB peripherals (mouse, keyboard or game controller) to Sony Ericsson LiveDock™ multimedia station. Connect the smartphone to a TV via HDMI to get a big screen experience.
• Gesture input – text input by swiping the finger from one letter to the next
• WiFi DLNA
• Screen capture – allows the user to share a screen grab from anywhere in the phone.

Does the highlighted feature ring a bell? Sounds like Swype right? You can judge for yourself after the break.

Maxis Malaysia to offer Samsung Galaxy S II at RM799 for the first 300 customers

An advertisement was on today's copy of The Star paper. Maxis is offering the first 300 customers the all new Dual-Core Samsung Galaxy S II at a promotion price of only RM799. The offer will be held on 22nd June at Midvalley Megamall Centre Court Concourse area. While this seems like a pretty good deal, there're terms behind it. However, nothing is shown in Maxis website. Apparently, customers wishing to get at this price will have to sign up to a minimum voice plan of RM80 coupled with 3GB monthly internet at RM88 for a contract period of 24 months. The above promotion price is offered during the press launch at 3pm. Make sure you head down to Midvalley Megamall to be among the first to grab this mighty beast at such a low price considering you actually want the plan.

Asus shipping 300,000 Eee Pad Transformers following closely behind the iPad

While many of you may be enjoying iPad 2, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer has made quite an impression for the Android fans in the tablet segment. Besides having the unique keyboard dock, it contains nothing less than what you would expect from current tablet. Packing a dual-core Tegra 2 processor, it's undeniably at top notch in terms of hardware specifications. One thing Asustek didn't quite succeeded is to sustain the market demand with enough supply. Shortage of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer is happening al around the globe. This may well be thought to be an unexpectedly high demand but according to Softpedia, Asustek managed to ship only 10,000 units of these lovely gadget instead of the supposedly 300,000 units in the month of May due to component shortage. Jerry Shen, CEO of Asustek says that he expects to sell 300,000 of these devices this month, totalling with 400,000 units ship in April and May to be the second most shipped tablet tailing the iPad 2. Let's just hope they solve the component shortage for such demands.

SOURCE  Softpedia, Taiwan Economic News

Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab getting Gingerbread update in mid-May

After encountering a little hitch with its mid-April Gingerbread delivery, Samsung is now ready to boot up Kies for another try. The company has this morning released word that it intends to update its entire Galaxy S family line, starting with models in the UK and Nordic countries from the middle of this month. The rest of the globe, including North America, will follow suit "according to the regional plan." Also benefiting from a Gingerbread upgrade will be the 7-inch Galaxy Tab, which already got a taste of Android 2.3 in Italy, and the company's bevy of budget Galaxy devices, the Ace, Gio, Fit and mini.




SOURCE  Engadget

Samsung's Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 and 5.0 now rolling out to certain countries

While Samsung has yet to announce an actual date for its new Galaxy Players in the US, their international counterparts are already heading towards other parts of the world for a head start. The Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 is said to be debuting in Russia followed by other countries, whereas its 5.0 sibling will be launched in Switzerland. In terms of specs, not much has changed since we last saw these 1GHz, DivX-friendly Android PMPs, and yes, they'll still be shipped with Froyo "with a possibility to upgrade to 2.3 Gingerbread." To be frank, we'd rather just go for the beefier Galaxy S II instead.

Samsung Galaxy S II review

If you don't already know all about the Samsung Galaxy S II, where have you been the past two months? The successor to one of the most popular Android handsets to date carries a burden of expectation almost as sizable as its 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen. It promises to be thinner, lighter, and faster than the Galaxy S that preceded it, while garnishing Android 2.3.3 with a set of TouchWiz customizations that might actually enhance, rather than hinder, the user experience. As such, the Galaxy S II earns Samsung full marks for ambition, but does this slinky new smartphone live up to its interstellar hype? Continue your read here. 

SOURCE  Engadget

Dell's 10-inch Android and Windows tablets get names, specs, release dates

Well, well, what have we here? A pair of 10-inch Dell tablets, one running Windows 7 on those fancy new Oak Trail chips from Intel and the other pushing Android 3.0 with a Tegra T25. We already saw these devices leaked in February, but now we have some specs and release dates. The Wintel powered Latitude ST boasts a resolution of 1366 x 768, 2GB of RAM, up to a 128GB SSD, GPS, an accelerometer, both front- and rear-facing cameras, an 8-hour removable battery, and "1080p video output," which we assume means HDMI-out. The Android-flavored Streak Pro opts for a 1200 x 800 panel, but keeps the pair of cameras (and two mics) for video chats, while adding an unspecified mobile broadband radio and slathering Dell's Stage UI on top of Honeycomb (whether or not that's a good thing is purely a matter of taste). Pricing is still up in the air, but the leaked roadmap indicates the Streak Pro will land in June, followed by the Latitude XT3 convertible tablet in July, and the Latitude ST in October.


VIA  NetbookNews, Engadget
SOURCE  AndroidCentral

Apple spent nearly $5.7b on Samsung parts in 2010, faces 'strong' response to its patent suit

Want some numerical context to last night's revelation that Apple is suing Samsung Electronics for copying the iPhone and iPad? How does $5.7 billion sound? That's how much Apple spent on buying up parts from Samsung last year, according to the AFP, which cites the Cupertino company as Samsung's second-biggest client after Sony. Given the breadth of Samsung's component manufacturing, these expenditures can and probably do span everything from flash storage and RAM to processing chips to displays. What's fascinating here -- and illustrative of the psychopathic nature of corporations -- is that in spite of this massive interdependency, Apple's lodged a broadly worded patent assault on a major prong of Samsung's business (smartphones and tablets) and now Samsung's been quoted as saying it has "no choice but [to] respond strongly." A company official has apparently expressed the belief that Apple may be infringing on some of Samsung's wireless patents, which means we can probably look forward to another fat batch of papers being submitted to the Northern District of California court. Lovely.


VIA  Engadget
SOURCE  AFP (Yahoo! News)

Samsung promises a dual-core 2GHz smartphone 'by next year'

Are you ready for a scorching-fast future? Samsung sure is, as today the Maeli Business Newspaper reports "a high-ranking" company official has disclosed Samsung's intention to deliver a dual-core smartphone that runs at 2GHz. That's 2GHz for each core, not the specious 1GHz multiplied by two mathematics that Sanjay Jha likes to dabble in. ARM already has a dual-core Cortex-A9 design capable of scaling such speed heights, which is most probably the basis on which Samsung is building its future processor on. The report goes on to state that Samsung will consider selling the chips separately, so you wouldn't necessarily have to buy a Samsung-branded handset in order to have what's being described as desktop-class performance in the palm of your hand. Man, just as we prepared one dual-core comparison chart, here comes the next next big thing.


VIA  Engadget, Daum.net, Mashables (Yahoo! News)
SOURCE  Maeli Business Newspaper

World's 1st Carbon Fibre Bluetooth Headset

The aptly named Carbon by Bluetrek is claimed to be the 1st carbon fibre bluetooth headset. It weighs in at a mere 5.9 grams, touts Bluetooth v3.0 support, and allows for four and a half hours of talk time or five days on standby. For those wanting to match your bluetooth headset with your sporty spoiler on your car, you are welcome to place an order at Bluetrek. For USD70 (RM212), it might just be the thing to fulfill your desire for all things carbon fibre.

SparkFun intros IOIO for Android, a hack-free breakout box to get your mind spinning (video)

Meet any seasoned techie, and they'll likely spin whimsical tales of computing's early days, and the challenge of finding a practical use for a device with seemingly limitless potential (you know, like feeding your cat while you sleep). A new product from SparkFun promises to bring this old-school awesomeness into the smartphone age: introducing IOIO (pronounced yo-yo), a breakout box that enables any Android 1.5+ device to control electronic circuits from within Android's applications. Designed in collaboration with Google, Spark's PCB connects to your phone over USB, working its magic through a Java library that hooks into your apps. This DIY paradise will begin shipping in a few weeks, and can be yours for $49.95 on pre-order. We've already witnessed some clever mods with IOIO, and when it sent a real alarm clock ringing, we couldn't help but smile. Crack one yourself after the break.

Acer Iconia Tab A500 released: dual-core Tegra Honeycomb Android tablet for $450

Acer Iconia Tab A500 has just been announced by Acer, and is a Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet that has similar specifications to the Motorola Xoom. More specifically, Acer Iconia Tab A500 comes with a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 250 CPU, a 10.1-inch 1280×800 screen, 1GB of RAM memory, 16GB storage, dual cameras (5 megapixel back and a 2 megapixel front), HDMI-out. Powering the Iconia Tab A500 is a pair of 3260mAh Li-ion batteries that according to Acer grants the A500 8 hours of battery life when playing HD video. If you’re in the States, you can have all this for a mere $450 USD (approx 310 EUR), with preorders starting today through Best Buy’s website.


VIA  thegadgetsite

Packard Bell Liberty Tab announced, a Tegra 2 tablet which looks suspiciously like the Acer Iconia A500

Packard Bell has announced the Liberty Tab. It has a 10.1 inch capacitive touch screen, runs on Android 3.0 Honeycomb and has a Nvidia Tegra 2 SOC. It looks exactly the same as the Acer A500 Iconia. The screen of the Packard Bell Liberty Tab has a resolution of 1280×800 pixels and can be connected via HDMI to an external display. 1GB RAM and 32GB storage capacity, which can be expanded with SD cards. The tablet supports 3G, WiFi-N and Bluetooth 2.1.
In addition, a micro-USB interface is available for connection to external equipment,  and GPS is also supported for positioning. Its front camera has a resolution of 2 megapixel, and the rear facing unit 5 megapixels. The Liberty Tab will be available in red and white. It appears that Packard Bell has used a custom UI on top of Android Honeycomb. Its pricing is yet unknown. The Liberty Tab should be available around June.


VIA  thegadgetsite

Editorial: Android's problem isn't fragmentation, it's contamination

This thought was first given voice by Myriam Joire on last night's Mobile Podcast, and the simple, lethal accuracy of it has haunted me ever since. All the hubbub and unrest about whether Google is trying to lock Android down or not has failed to address whether Google should be trying to control the OS, and if so, what the (valid) reasons for that may be. Herein, I present only one, but it's arguably big enough to make all the dissidence about open source idealism and promises unkept fade into insignificance.