Win a Sprint Hero!

Looking to stuff a stocking this Holiday season? Well, Sprint and Yahoo have teamed up to give you a little help. Along with the many other 'Win a free Android" device offers popping up this season, why not? All you have to do is give them your first, last name, email address, and phone number. If you visit your Yahoo mail account from m.yahoo.com/mail you will be entered again, so the more you visit the more your chances raise! I do believe you have to be a Sprint customer to play so if you pay Sprint now check it out!

For the official site and rules you can check out HTC.com or Go to the entry page here.

Lets see if you passed this year...

To be completely honest grading a wireless provider is hard, as we have all know they have many pros over each other as well as having many cons. AT&T and Verizon Wireless can be an example of what I mean! VZW has a HUGE 3G coverage area across the US, but with AT&T you can do multiple actions while on a call (if your device supports multitasking). At DroidHead we are an Android community blog, so why not make it easier and narrow down all the coverages and handsets to one simple thing. . . who treats Android with more respect. Some of you may not be surprised as to who will get the best grade out of the four major US carriers.

T-Mobile was first out of the gate with the G1 so it makes sense to start with them first. T-Mobile introduced the world market place to the Google Android OS with the T-Mobile G1 and later released the MyTouch 3G, Motorola Cliq, and Samsung Behold II. This carrier is a GSM carrier looking to upgrade their signal and strength to HSPA 7.2. With T-Mobile, because they are GSM you can talk, and play with your apps at the same time (apparently that is important). Selection wise, TMo has the most Android devices doubling any other carrier in the US. The problem is the devices they choose to have. . . The G1 is out dated (sorry), the predecessor to it, the MyTouch 3G, is no match for the Hero, or Droid, the Cliq is not a front runner with it's toy'ish feel and adolescent UI, and the Behold II has been bashed in the head with a blunt object by reviewers. There have been many rumors telling us that HTC and Sony-Ericsson is looking to drop two VERY NICE devices Tmo's way, but those are only rumors and we have to grade today. Tmo will get credit for starting the Android race, but will fall a little for not being up to snuff with their hardware. If you have root you can plan to have an "A" here because Tmo has all of the rooted phones (besides the Cliq). As far as stock devices go, Tmo will receive a "B-". For those who have T-Mobile lets all hope they step it up next year with hardware and marketing.

Sprint, being the second carrier to snag an Android device will be second on our list to grade. Sprint brought the US the long awaited HTC Hero with HTC's Sense UI, only Sprint gave us a different look. They also have the Samsung Moment (which I always forget...lol), which runs stock Android and rocks a full QWERTY. Sprint has a CDMA network and trying to push out WiMax which is their version of 4G. As far as Sprint is concerned, they have the Palm Pre with WebOS, we all just saw a commercial (finally) with the Hero in it. Sprint is one of the low men on the totem pole in the US and you would think they would push the Hero and Moment out for those wanting Android on the "Now" network... oh well. For rooted devices you could give them a "B" easy. As far as stock devices go I would have to give Sprint a "C" for the year. Come on Sprint, give us the Android... We don't want the Pre or Pixi!!!

Then comes Verizon Wireless, big red gave us the most anticipated Android device of the year with the coverage to handle it. It also gave the community the best marketing campaign for it as well. VZW has the Droid Eris by HTC (Hero like) and the Motorola Droid (the front runner of Android devices). I have said MANY of times on my Twitter account that the Droid will only be held back by the network it is on,. . . and it is. Unfortunately, Verizon is CDMA (like Sprint) and will not allow you to do anything in the middle of a call, like it's a BIG deal. That is NOT a deal breaker to me. Verizon has also given us the "hands down" best marketing out of all of the carriers with the slogan "In the world of Don't, Droid Does". To the rooters and hackers the world has just began so we will give it a "C" for now. To the common person we will have to give VZW an "A" for the most respect towards Android. I couldn't tell you enough, how much VZW makes me mad with showing up late to the party, but they ran away with it!!!


AT&T, you get an "F" for fail, you know why. Get your heads out of the iPhone's ass and get an Android device!!


So again, our grades for the carriers;
-T-Mobile .......... B
- Sprint ............... C-
- Verizon ............ A
- AT&T ............... F
All I can say is this is the first real good year for Android and the handset makers running them. Let's all hope for an even better one for next year.



If you agree with me on this let me know in the comments below, if you don't agree with me leave a comment on another blog's page. To be serious I would love to hear what you have to say about it, and the only way I will know is if you leave a comment about how you feel below

Finally, Sprint has a commercial with the Hero!

It only took a few months but Sprint dropped a commercial with what they coined, "The most impressive lineup of phones". Along with the Palm Pre, and Blackberry Tour they finally show us their version of the HTC Hero. There is no love with any carrier for "with Android" but they do let the watcher know that the Hero is "with Google", and has thousands of apps. I think if you watch the commercial below you wont really care too much until the end where they show the CG Android "break dancing" in the "Sprint Shelves". That in my opinion is what makes it news to blog about.

Like the commercial from Sprint? Want to be a critic and tell us what you would have done better? Let me know in the comments below!

Android Hack: JACHero 2.5

It looks to be that time for me to take a look at another cooked ROM/Build from XDA Developers.

Stats:
Device- HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1
Radio- H_2.22.19.26I
SPL- 1.33.2005
Recovery- CM 1.3.1

ROM/Build Reviewed - JACHero 2.5

You can find the ROM/Build here

Direction I took to update the ROM/Build on the Dream/G1.

1. Downloaded the build from the link above.
2. Mounted my G1 to the Computer.
3. Open the E: drive or F: drive whatever your phone may be when mounted
4. Copy JACHero2.5.zip to your SD card
5. Change name to update.zip (or "update" only if your comp puts the .zip automatically)
6. Power off your device and reboot into recovery
( The Following steps are what I did or do, if you want to do it the same way it is your choice and DroidHead will not be held responsible for any damage to your device.)
7. Wiped the data, 3 times
8. Repaired ext filesystems
9. Applied SD update.zip
10. Reboot device
11. Setup


JACHero 2.5 is another update in the long line of builds from justanothercrowd (Twitter), this is based off of the official HTC Hero SDK. This is a port for the HTC Dream/G1 so not everything likes to work or move they way you want them too. That is why I am here to help you out. This build does have symlinks apps2sd so you will not need to apply the application to get your apps to work.

At the start:
Already it has taken some time to load the TouchFlo home screen, the HTC emblem has been up for atleast 15-20 seconds. On a mobile device that could be week (lol). Now I like to remove EVERYTHING from the home screens, and on 2.5 there are 7 of them pre-installed with HTC widgets. After removing everything from them the device starts off smooth.... we will see once I get it customized to my likes.

Took me about 20 min to get it where I want it.... that is. . . ok, I would like for that to be faster. I have it now overclocked to 528 Mhz and Swapped 32/60.

Application Tests: I will run a series of test to show speed and will record the findings
(These are in no way official, just done with time.)

Test 1 (Opening Babbler and letting it run for 20 seconds then hitting the home button)-
Findings are that it took about 2 seconds when I hit the home button to show me the home screen then about a half a second to load the widgets. Scrolling between screen became choppy for about 5 seconds, and the applications draw was about the same. So overall on Test 1 I would have to grade it a C, it was good but not great or awesome.

Test 2 (Opening Messaging then hitting phone button then home) - Findings are that it took about 5 seconds for the messaging app to start, 4 seconds for the phone screen and home screen to load. There was no lag on the home screen after words it ran very smoothly. I did shutdown most of my task via Advanced Task Manager. I would have to give that a B, that was great to see it running like it should.

Test 3 (Just locking the phone and unlocking)- I let the phone stand on lock for 10 seconds. After unlocking it ran SMOOTH, and fast. I will deffinatley stamp that with an A, THAT is how it is supposed to work.

Test 4 (Making a phone call)- On the phone for about 20 minutes.... no lag. Another A for 2.5!

Grades:
Camera - B
Web - B (Includes Flash 9)
Contacts - A
HTC Widgets - A (Always with the best)
Speed - B- ( I want it to be faster)
Stability - C+ (Needs to be more stable)
Quality - C (It is what YOU make it, it wont come to you fast)


I like it for it's sexy UI, and HTC makes the sexiest apps and widgets. I wish the device would be snappier or quicker than it is, there is slight lag after normal use of going in and out of apps, locking and unlocking, or just phone usage. I will recomend that you purchase the Advanced Task Manager if you want to go full time with this build, because you will need it I have used it 4 times in this review in 2-3 hours (Lots of use). The bluetooth is not working and on the Dream/G1 you cannot open the device in home to use the keyboard. There are some downs but alot of nice ups. In comparisons to "cupcake" builds (like JF or Cyanogen) it will most likely be slower and laggy, but it will be 10X sexier.

What you have to know is it worth it.... You won't know until you try it.

Link to XDA-Developers
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=534479


(PLEASE KEEP IN MIND I AM TELLING YOU MY OPINIONS, YOU MAY HAVE DIFFERENT RESULTS.... ANYTHING YOU DO TO YOUR DEVICE IS YOUR DOING DROIDHEAD WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR BROKEN PHONES!)


Please feel free to join us all on AndroidandMe.com Forums. You can find me there 7 days a week and tell them DroidHead sent you. :)


-Dh

Some screenshots.....

Google wants your smartphone to be smarter.

Imagine your Android device noticing when you go for a jog every morning and automaticaly launching your music. Google is looking to use the accelerometer in the phone along with other sensors to figue out your daily routeen and conform to your ways. This kind of smarts would come with a training period, most likely 2-3 weeks, but it would get smarter and smarter to your needs and wants the more and more it is used... it's making a personal device, even more personal. The only drag you could see in this is when the next best handset comes out you would have to train it all over again. So, all in all sounds like a great idea, but this might take alittle time to make this happen. . . but hey, it is Google and we are talking about Android here.

-UnwiredView

Could this be the future of Android?

Thanks to Haykuro from XDA, again we have these images of what could be in store for the future of Android. You can see in the video that the UI is completely re-done, widgets and even helping the user with spacing on the home screen. Speaking of the home screen it looks to have more then the standard three, we counted at least 6 or 7 which is capable now but only after hacking.

What we can say now is things are looking up for Android, the future looks bright from here.

Tell us what you think, hit the comment section up.

http://dandan.us/

ISP dabbling in Android for HD video playback for set top boxes.

ISB Corp is currently playing around with everyone’s favorite OS, getting it to power a set-top box. Last week at the Embedded Systems Expo, they demonstrated a reference board with video playback and web browsing. According to Engadget, the company is said to be in the process of optimizing Android for a smooth HD video playback. They’re also reported to be experimenting with wireless keyboard and Bluetooth support.

-AndroidGuys

Samsung Galaxy i7500 To Launch In France Early July

Bouygues Telecom have today announced that they will be the first carrier to launch the upcoming Samsung I7500 Android phone in Europe later this year.

Originally scheduled for a June release, it appears the Samsung handset has been pushed back a few weeks with Bouygues Telecom aiming for an early July launch.

The French carrier have also stated that the device will be marketed as the Samsung Galaxy rather than the i7500.

Samsung Galaxy i7500 specs include:

• HSDPA 7.2Mbps / HSUPA 5.76Mbps (900 / 1700/ 2100MHz), EDGE / GPRS (850/ 900/1800/1900) connectivity
• Android OS
• 3.2” HVGA(320×480) AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display
• 5 MP Camera (Auto Focus), Power LED
• Bluetooth® 2.0, USB 2.0, WiFi, MicroUSB, 3.5mm headset jack
• built-in GPS
• Internal memory: 8GB
• External memory: Micro SD (Up to 32GB)
• Battery 1500 mAh
• Size 115 x 56 x 11.9mm

The Samsung Galaxy will launch across France in early July.

-TalkAndroid

T-Mobile USA delays Android 1.5 rollout by a few days

Looks like it was too go to be true. . . well, semi-too good to be true. T-Mobile has delayed the release of Android 1.5 (Cupcake) by at least a week. Now, everyone will have the OTA update sometime a the beginning of June. T-Mobile has said that it seems that the build is still being "optimized" to "ensure optimal functionality and smooth delivery,". What we find funny is G1 users in the UK have received the update already, so what is this? If anyone knows what is keeping them from releasing it let us know, other then that we will just chalk it up to developers needing to find tune somethings.

Archos could be announcing release of Android device.

Ok, the story. . . There have been rumors of Archos making a Tablet/MID with the Android operating System. Then we all recieved word from Texas Instruments (Which makes most of the parts for Archos) that they will be making such device. With a 5 inch touchscreen and apparent flash support.

Invitations have gone out and people are excited, because they seem to hint to the Android powered device we have all be waiting for. The invites have a subtle hint of Android all over them. They are painted in "Android Green" the font is kind of androidy, and a ghosted in Archos resides in the fore ground. The event will take place June 11th, so we should find out soon enough.