Longer battery life for your Android

The guys over at PCMag managed to compile a list full of useful advices concerning the improvement of the Android’s battery life. These advices will work on any Android Phone starting with T-Mobile G1 and going to the latest Motorola Droid X.

Please find their findings below but remember to check their page too for the full article:

Set display brightness to adjust automatically. Turning down the brightness is obvious. But the automatic adjustment setting is less well known. Activating it means the OS will automatically dim its display in darker environments, including seemingly well-lit indoor rooms.

Reduce e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook polling. This is a big one. Even handset manufacturers like Motorola don’t necessary get this. Set your various messaging apps to “manual” and you’ll instantly extend your device’s battery life by a significant amount.

Kill extra tasks. This one is controversial, because Android does its own task management. Each new version of Android has improved automatic task management. But some programs still misbehave, especially social-networking apps that like to poll the Internet frequently. Having a task killer like Advanced Task Killer around can help neutralize unexpected network access and lengthen your battery life.

Turn hardware features off. It’s great that today’s phones have GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, but do you really need all three activated 24 hours per day? Android keeps location-based apps resident in the background. The constant drain on the battery will become noticeable, fast. If you’ve got an HTC EVO 4G, you can turn off 4G mode separately—a good thing, since WiMAX consumes extra power but has yet to blanket the country. On AT&T and T-Mobile phones, you can even turn 3G off when you don’t need speedy Internet access.

Dump unnecessary home screen widgets. Just because they’re sitting on the home screen, seemingly inactive, doesn’t mean they’re not consuming power. That goes for widgets that poll status updates in the background, as well as ones that just sit there but look pretty and animated.

Reduce RSS feed update frequency. Staying current with the news is fine, but why update feeds constantly in the background? Plenty of third-party apps set their defaults to poll at a set period of time. Others may offer a choice, but give no indication to the user that battery life will suffer as a result.

Android Market can help. Power Manager is a powerful Android app that helps you manage many of the settings we discussed in this article. It also can add a few features here and there when necessary, such as the ability to tune the screen timeout while on a call (although the effect of that one can be miniscule). If your Android device lacks a task manager, try the free Advanced Task Manager.

Nokia Kinetic has Lift Off

Shawn Spencer from The Daily Tech News made a short review on a new Nokia phone but this time it does not focus on it’s smart-phone capabilities but more on the coolness factor of the phone.
This one can literary stand up whenever you receive a call and you can reject it by simply taping it down.

Read more

Motorola Charm

Hello wifi-ers!
This week’s surprise is the Newest Device with MOTOBLUR™: Motorola CHARM™
We have a fresh out of the oven press release from Motorola with some teasing info on the most charming android yet!

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) today announced the upcoming availability of Motorola CHARM™, a touch screen smartphone that packs a social networking punch with Android™ 2.1, MOTOBLURTM enhancements, a compact design and a BACKTRACK™ feature that makes screen navigation even more intuitive.

Read more

Virgin Mobile UK announces HTC Wildfire

We now know the first carrier to announce the HTC Wildfire: Virgin Mobile UK.
There’s no exact release date but we know it’s gonna happen sometime during the third quarter of this year.

Wildfire comes into the market at a time where HTC’s Desire and Legend are already hot sales, but it’s coming at a cheaper price so it’s expected to fly off the shelves even faster.
The estimated price is 250 Euros (215 quid)
Read more

Windows Mobile 7 details leaked

Looks like some of the details of Microsoft’s highly-rumored and much-anticipated Windows Mobile/Phone 7, have already leaked ahead of its supposed introduction at Mobile World Congress (MWC) on Feb. 15, 2010 in Barcelona.

Ironically, so far Microsoft has never made any public statement confirming or denying the existence of Windows Mobile/Phone 7 or that it will be launched at MWC.

However, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer and other Microsoft officials have hinted indirectly that the device will be released some time in 2010.

Market reports also suggests that Microsoft might end up showing only the user interface at MWC and will leave the actual developer/functionality stuff for the later date.
Read more

Synaptics’ 3D Smartphone

Looking beyond touchscreens, an alliance of companies including Synaptics and Texas Instruments is trying to exploit unused surfaces to make smartphones interactive and easier to use.

The companies on Monday announced a concept smartphone that users can interact with by squeezing and tilting it, the companies said. Interacting with the phone usually occupies both hands, but the Fuse concept phone makes it possible to select and load applications using just the one hand holding the smartphone, the companies jointly said in a press release.

The phone’s input functionality is based on accelerometers and sensors that make single-handed interaction possible, the company said. Users can tilt the phone up and down to navigate a list of applications and squeeze on the sides to stop the scrolling. Rolling the finger on the back of the phone helps select an application, and squeezing it can start the applications. This reduces the need for placing the finger on the touchscreen to run applications, Synaptics said.
Read more

Motorola Milestone to launch on December 7

The Motorola Milestone will go on sale in the UK next week through the Expansys online store.

The handset, known as the Motorola Droid in the US, is the first mobile phone to run on the Android 2.0 operating system (OS) from Google - also known as the Eclair OS.

Motorola Milestone running on Android 2.0 OS

The Android 2.0 operating system will be the first OS to allow for turn-by-turn navigation when using the Google Maps application. However, this application won’t be available to UK consumers at the time of the Milestone’s launch next week - and neither Motorola or Google have been able to confirm when this service will launch in Europe.
Read more

HTC HD2 Review

Thought the original HTC HD was a bit of beast? Then how about the spanking new HTC HD2. It has a massive 4.3-inch screen which makes the original 3.8-inch effort look paltry by comparison. But does this capacious Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone cut it against the very best phones out there? Read our HTC HD2 review now and find out.

Let’s cut straight to the chase. The HTC HD2 is the best Windows Mobile phone we’ve ever used. That’s not thanks to the OS hidden underneath the stunning HTC Sense skin last seen on the HTC Hero and HTC Tattoo, more down to the manner in which HTC has built this mobile from the ground up.

That 4.3-inch screen is nothing short of magnificent and dominates the HTC HD2. However, it’s never overpowering and really helps take this phone ahead of its competitors. See, this bad boy has a capacitive touchscreen with multitouch capabilities for zipping about web pages and snaps. It’s every bit as good as the iPhone and thanks to the size, this is one of the best browsing experiences we’ve ever had on-the-go. Admittedly Safari remains top dog, but this pushes it very close indeed.
Read more

Motorola Droid specs leaked on Motorola website

Motorola has managed to leak the full deets of its second Android phone, the Droid, on its own website.

Spotted in a few spy shots last week, we now know we can expect a slider phone with a 3.7-inch, 16:9 touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera with zoom, autofocus and dual LED flash, full QWERTY keyboard and a connectivity trio of Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS.

The specs also said the phone will have 385 minutes of talktime, or 270 hours on standby, and will come with a 16GB pre-installed microSD card.
Read more

Giorgio Armani Smartphone

The much talked about Giorgio Armani phone from Samsung was finally announced by Samsung following the official release of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.5 platform last week.

The announcement came in Italy, where the phone will be initially released. Incidentally, the phone was released by none other than Steve Ballmer who felt, the phone was “the most fashionable phone he’s ever had a chance to talk about.”

The new phone is only known as the Samsung Armani phone as Samsung hasn’t given it a specific name. Hardware wise, the device is similar to existing WinMO phones from Samsung — especially the W820 and the W8200. On the features front, it comes with a 3.5 inch AMOLED touchscreen display, GPS, 5MP camera, 8GB of internal memory, MicroSD card slot, and a full QWERTY keyboard.

When released, the phone is expected to cost $1032 (approx. Rs. 47,913) which is the price you pay for owning Armani branded stuff. There is no word as to when the phone is expected to be released worldwide. Glimpses of the phone can be seen in the video below.

Credits: TechTree

Next Page »