Which Android Phone Should You Carry This Summer? Best and Budget.

 Remember the good ol' days of smartphone yore, you had your iPhone on AT&T, your proprietary quasi-smart/feature-phones on each carrier, You had your Blackberry, and you had one or two emerging Android devices on each carrier. Now that question is not nearly so cut and dry, with over a hundred devices of all shapes and sizes world-wide, ChicagolAndroid tries to sort it all for you and give you our 2 best picks for each of the big 4 providers. One a high range latest greatest "Super Phone", and a good deal bang for your buck phone that will still have all Android can offer. 

   ** I debated on whether or not to include phones that are scheduled for release this summer but are not as of this writing available to purchase and decided to add a section for a personal wishlist of yet to be released Super Phones. This makes me wonder if this article is a bit  premature as what appears to be what I deem Android's "3rd generation" of phones are on the verge of release. Stay tuned for my next post, A first look at the next gen devices.

  We'll start this one off with Sprint:

 Right now if you want their best phone get the Nexus S 4G. 1Ghz Hummingbird processor, 512 Mb RAM, 16GB onboard flash memory for storage. It's sleek and sexy and fast. For one of the last of the single core top of the line phones, it's the best out there. It's a pure Google phone which means it is Android untouched by other manufacturers. I don't say this to bad mouth what manufacturers do to Android but only because you will get OS updates as fast as Google releases them. I actually like some of the things other manufacturers have done to Android, I just hate waiting for updates. A couple things to consider however if you are on Sprint is if you have a large media collection the Nexus S does not have a removable SD card. Also If you prefer a slide out qwerty keyboard consider the Epic 4G. It is so close to being as good as the Nexus as to have almost won me over in this comparison.

    For those looking for the best deal and can't quite see spending that kind of dough on a phone, don't worry Sprint also has a great line of entry level Android phones that do about everything the above do in a slightly smaller package.
 My pick would be the LG Optimus S.

This is a steal at $19.99 with a contract $299 without. It comes in black or purple has a 3.2 inch display and runs Android 2.2 froyo need I say more? 600Mhz processor, 512 mg RAM, comes with a 2GB Micro SD card expandable to 32 GB. for your storage needs. The 3.2 display is plenty big enough to use a virtual keyboard. We have an old MyTouch I use to test apps on for screen size and have no problems navigating the buttons. But once again if you prefer a hard keyboard I would suggest spending a little more and getting the Samsung Transform, even though I still think the LG a superior device.

   Keep reading though if your willing to wait because Sprint has a soon to be released phone that will be one to watch for.

    Moving on to T-Mobile:

 For the Top Dog, this is the LG G2X shown above. the first dual core nvidia Tegra 2 powered phone for T-mobile. This thing is sweet all the way around. Comes with an 8MP rear camera and a front facing camera for video calls. The screen is 4 inch Gorilla Glass which is non-scratchable. Most phone tech blogs agree that 4 inches is the sweet spot for screen size. I am one of them.   This phone will run on T-mobile's HSPA+ which they call 4G, and will work on AT&T just fine if the merger goes through.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
It is advertised to come with Froyo 2.2 but will be upgradeable to gingerbread 2.3.

I had a very hard time in choosing a recommendation for the budget device as T-mobile carries such a wide selection of phones running Android.

My pick was once again an LG Optimus but this time with the "T" label for "T-Mobile" I've inserted a side by side above of both the T-mobile version and the Sprint version. They have very minor differences in look but are both  great devices. This one shows a few colors ranging in price from free with contract to $39.99 with contract but all appear to be $189 off contract which in my mind is a steal.

  -As an aside, before doing research for this story I had not considered LG as having such a solid Android line-up. I'm surprised to find they are making great phones and even a tablet you should check out called the "T-Mobile G-Slate"

Next up in the comparison is Verizon Wireless:

    Verizon's winner in the Super Phone category has to be the Droid Charge by Samsung (above). This device is a bit pricey at $299 on contract but worth it if your on Verizon as they are by far the most expensive of the 4 for handsets. It has the 4G LTE that everyone is banking on to be the next technology in high speed long range wireless data, along with all the bells and whistles a Super Phone of today should have. I'm talking 4.3" display, GHz hummingbird processor, 8MP rear camera with a front facing camera also. My only disappointment is that it is not shipping with a dual core chip.

   Now onto the entry level device. Once again I am all but blown away at the shear number of phones that run Android! especially on the last two carriers T-Mo and Verizon. Verizon is kind of the odd one here because as of this writing the only inexpensive devices are the Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate at a whopping $49.99 on contract or the Motorola Citrus for free with contract. I'm sorry folks but that has to go to the  Fascinate (below)

This one however is by no means in the same ball-park as the other entry level devices. I own a Samsung Galaxy S phone on T-mobile and it is still a monster by today's standards. It's slim, sexy and fast with a 4inch super Amoled display and 1GHz hummingbird processor. Now granted some of the first Galaxy S phones were "laggy" but updates have fixed that problem mostly. My personal phone is highly modified and uses a Linux EXT 4 file system thanks to the Supercurio at XDA, and is arguably more responsive than any but the Nexus S. Bottom line is this is an unbelievable deal.

   Ok now for AT&T:

    I present to you folks the Samsung Infuse 4G*! this one you can pick up for $199 on contract, $549 out right. I actually went into this thinking the Atrix was was going to win. But after many times mulling all the info over and taking my reader's best interests to heart I just have to concede that the single core Infuse wins over the dual core Atrix. Why? it has a better camera, a 4.5 inch Super-Amoled display and you have not seen these you Super-Amoled screens you do yourself a disservice. Nothing looks so clean and pure. Blacks are actually true black with no power at the crystal. saves battery and creates a very high def plasma-like experience that actually is viewable outside. Storage was another selling point. Much like my Vibrant it comes with a healthy 16GB internal with an SD slot to add up to 32GB more. It also has an 8 MP camera rear, front camera, HDMI capability and tons more features.

For the budget Android I chose the Sony Xperia X10 (below)

This phone originally caught flak because at the time of release it still had Android 1.6 while the rest of the world had at least 2.1 or 2.2. It now runs Android 2.1 and has a lot of great hardware specs that make the $29.99 on contract price tag well worth it. I like the look of this phone. It is not the cookie cutter iPhone replica we see a lot of lately and It's no slouch. It has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and plenty of on board storage for all your apps. It also has an SD card slot . One thing that really sets this apart for the price is the camera. It comes with an 8MP camera so if photo's are your thing, this would be a good bet:)

I hope this article has helped some of you find a great Android companion. It is truly amazing the world we live in and Android has sure made my life much more enjoyable. Of course I'm a tech head and major geek.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter and try out my new android apps in the Market  if you would like to support this site or my learning to develop Android Apps purchase a paid version of my new app Here

Thanks again everyone for all your support!

Gift Helper for Android out of Beta!

 

  I want to thank everyone who gave me the great feedback while my App was in testing! I am writing to announce that I have released the first full version and recommend everyone go install it. you can find it here:
Gift Helper , or just search for "Gift Helper" in the Android Market. It's from AuroraQuest Software of course.

 It is still very early in this applications  life-cycle so expect many awesome additions and changes as I learn more. I'm working on Amazon's shopping stuff now so that will be a great addition later.

  For now the free version is ad supported and I will upload an ad free/donate version for a couple bucks later today or tomorrow. Since you cannot transfer your information from one to the other, I recommend keeping the beta if you already have people on their in order to manually copy the data over. Sorry folks but that is a limitation of Android I cannot figure out how to get around.

  Once again thanks everyone for putting up with my seclusion while I did all this work:) as well as all those who gave me great input.

Android's Backbone for Android and Java Beginners

 

 I just wanted to throw a few words down to those people who are interested in Android as I am.  Not only into using the devices and many apps that make life so much easier, but those that want to go a step a further and   learn to write apps in Android's Java or perhaps work on the Linux Kernel for specific devices or just in general. What kind of community is behind development?

    The further I get into learning Java, the more I am impressed with the helpfulness of those who are involved.
A couple examples would be the Java Posse and CommonsWare. Both spend many hours devoted to furtherance of software development, community bonds and overall making the Java space a great place to be. I also found many answers  to little questions along the way from Anddev.org and probably a hundred other forums like it using Google search.

   That's just my point. So many folks are out there ready to help people to learn. All the good sites I visited showed me how much people care by using their valuable time to answer questions or collaborate on new ideas. I encourage anyone interested in Java or Android, beyond just using the great applications built with these technologies but who actually want to CREATE with them to check them out.

Huge thanks to those people willing to help and open to melding ideas to create such great ideas in Java and mobile!

  If you have not yet also check out my beta app called Gift Helper in the Android Market It is the first of hopefully many applications to come as I get more proficient in the language.

Thanks to:
 Mark Murphy for Android Programming Tutorials, The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development, and the names it had before that:) ,The Busy Coder's Guide to Advanced Android Development,


Mitchell Waite for Object Oriented Programming with Java  this book was actually old when I got it but taught me the basics of both programming and Java better than anything else. -excuse link to Amazon only place I could find a description, I'm not trying to sell you something.

Reto Meier for Professional Android 2 Application Development. this was my main "second opinion" when I struggle to make something work. Great book but if this will be your only book, maybe better for a non-beginner programmer.


Patrick Neimeyer for Learning Java. second edition.This is another easy to understand book and very big. I have it in digital format on my Android phone from the Market so I could still study Java while away from home.

Ed Burnette for Hello Android third edition. This was my first step by step. good book.

I've learned from so many other sources in forums also. Thanks to all those  great people.

My First Published Android Application!

  Sorry folks for the long break from writing, but I've been busy both renovating the house as well as programming    
my first Android application called GiftHelper. I finally released my first beta test version tonight after months of hard work. I even refused to cut my beard in these last few weeks until I got my app into the Android Marketplace.I'll be trimming the beard straight away after posting this article.

  Here is a link to the market and I urge all you Android fans to give it a try and leave a comment so I can work on making it better: GiftHelper_beta .

 Now that the main work is done I'll be covering more  Android news. Lots has happened lately especially with Google I/O this month and the announcement of Ice Cream Sandwich.

  Thanks for all the support and hope to hear from you all soon! -Quest

Google Delays Android Honeycomb Source Code Drop

  Google is delaying the release of the sweet Honeycomb source code until more work is done. Before all the conspiracy theorist or elitist open source purists begin  to cast their eternal judgement on the "Evil technology machine which is Google", lets analyze the said reasons behind the delay:

  Since the new version of Android has been pretty much re-written from the ground up, the team still needs more time. A spokeswoman for Google said in an emailed statement: "While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones. We're committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it's ready," reported reuters.com earlier today.


  This defiantly seems very vague to me. A better clarification comes later from Andy Rubin: "To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design trade offs," the Vice President of Engineering says: "We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut." Fair Enough no? I am not too familiar with Android's release agreement so I decided to see exactly what Google agreed to when the Open Handset Alliance was first formed. In my research I found this in the Android FAQ. It says in a nutshell that some parts of Android are private, such as the included Google apps that ship with most devices. It also states that some parts are released right away or in some cases early. Sure enough, right their in the document it also clearly states that some parts of the code will be released "when it's ready".


  Doesn't sound like they are holding out on people, or backtracking from a previous agreement. I am right there with you when I say I want to dig into that monster and see just what they changed. I want to see the source be made into custom ROMs for my phone as well as other phones and tablets. But if the Android team is still writing the damn thing to run on phones I say let them write. I understand a working version has been released on a production device, so shouldn't Google drop the source? Maybe that is not a typical open source way to do things. Maybe Android is not your typical open source project. I truly believe given the nature of mobile and the world of telecommunications It's as open as it can be.

 For those who know me well already know I take nothing at face value and am usually very skeptical when a large corporation has an excuse for this or that. I want you to know that while there have been times I have questioned Google's actions, like the Google/Verizon net neutrality issue for example, I happen to know that of the world's corporations there is none who's business model ensures the wealth, prosperity and well being of the everybody like Google's. I also happen to be of the opinion that the unwritten motto of Google's: "Don't be Evil", is probably felt and upheld by most of it's employees. That being said, sure I would love to get my hands on some custom software built of the Honeycomb source. I also trust the Android team to release the source when it's ready. which is just what they promised to do.

AT&T Acquires T-Mobile in a $39 Billion Dollar Deal !

                                             

   Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest telecommunications company and owner of T-Mobile USA, has signed a deal with AT&T to recieve 25 billion US dollars in cash and 14 billion US dollars worth in AT&T shares and in return will fork over 100% ownership of T-Mobile. Deutsche Telekom will in effect become AT&T's largest shareholder.(Source)

  For those of you who are loyal T-mobile customers, as my wife and I are, I'm sure you have many questions. Fear not for I've compiled a quick FAQ from the Official T-Mobile website:

  1) When will we be affected? There is  no need to panic...yet looks like the acquisition will take 12 months to complete and T-mobile says until that time they remain a separate company and no changes will be made. This applies to service, rates, billing and customer service.

  2) Why Is T-Mobile Doing This? Because of the compatibility of the 2 networks, the merger will be able to provide 4G LTE to 95% of the US population. For those who don't know, LTE is "Long Term Evolution". It is a very high bandwidth infrastructure with claims of theoretical download speeds of up to 100+mbps. 

3) Will T-Mobile's Quality Be Reduced? T-Mobile says no, the merger will in fact "strengthen the service to customers".

4) Should You Wait To Sign Up With T-Mobile or Upgrade? Once again T-Mobile says no, now is a great time to be a T-Mobile customer, they will still offer great devices and plans.

5) Will My Plan Change as a Result of This (Meaning After the 12 months)? T-Mobile says they will continue to honor any deals entered into before the change of ownership.

6) Will T-Mobile get the iPhone? who cares? If I wanted to overpay for an inferior product, I would be an Apple customer already;)

Here is the original Press Release from T-Mobile.

  How exactly will this effect customers that pay for the off contract "Even More Plus" plan? That was one of many great features of T-Mobile that you just can't find anywhere else.

 Also, will the grandfathered "Unlimited" plans remain truly unlimited or with the fine print grow ever decreasing data caps?

  I have to say this comes as a shock. I am upset by this to say the least, as I am sure many other people are. Aside from AT&T's known network congestion, maybe they can bring LTE to nearly every American who wants it? Maybe this is what America needs to start to catch the rest of the world in wireless bandwidth? Then again, maybe it's another way for wireless companies to get even more money from consumers. What do you think? Leave comments below.

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A New Look

 Hello and Welcome Android fans! I'm very excited to announce a little bit of a new look here at ChicagoLAndroid! As some of you already know, we are a fairly new addition to the community and would love to hear any feedback and requests for articles, reviews, tips, tricks and how-to's for Android.

My name is Quest and as a long time computing buff, hardware specialist, handy-man of technology and fresh programming student I will be happy to take suggestions. What is it you, my fellow Android fans want to know and if I don't know already, we can learn together!

-Cheers

friend me or follow me

Wi-Fi Xoom vs.Wi-Fi iPad 2!

Moto Xoom

iPad 2

Now that Apple has announced the upcoming iPad 2 and Motorola announced the March 27th release of the Wi-Fi only Xoom, It's about time we really looked at the options you have as a potential consumer in the tablet market. This applies to everyone who wants a tablet without 3G connectivity and carrier data charges, weather you are new to tablets, trying to decide between Apple and Android or even if you bought an iPad or Android tablet last year and are considering upgrading. 

  

  First off lets start by saying what the actual options are by price and storage capacity. In the Apple corner you have 3 storage options 16GB for $499, 32GB for $599 and 64GB for $699. A very easy to remember Apple-ish pricing scheme.

   Motorola is offering the Xoom in a 32GB version for $599 but with a microSD slot giving you the option to add up to 32 GB more.

  Based on price and non-volitile storage both are on par with the midrange 32GB at $599. I give the edge to Motorola based on the fact that you can add more with a very handy and portable microSD card.

  Lets move on and dig into the meat of these devices and see how they stack up hardware wise:

Comparison of Specs Xoom vs. iPad 2:

Specifications                                 Xoom                                              iPad 2

Screen Size (physical)                  10.10 inches                                   9.7 inches

Screen Resolution                        HD 1280 x 800 pixels                               1024 x 768 pixels     

Screen type                                 Multi-touch /                                  Multi-touch/

                                                   Capacitive                                      Capacitive

Processor                                    Dual-Core NVIDIA                     Dual-Core A5                                          

                                                   Tegra 2 1000 MHz                       1000MHz

                                                      

Memory (RAM)                          1024 MB                                      512 MB                         

Memory (Storage)                       32 GB Internal  +                           32 GB Internal

                                                   (MicroSD 1-32GB 

                                                       Expandable)

Cameras                                        Front 2.0 mp                               Front 0.3 mp

                                                      Rear 5.0 mp                                 Rear ?? 

Video                                             720p Record/                               720p Record/

                                                      1080p Playback                          720p Playback

Sensors                                         Accelerometer/                              Accelerometer/                                                             

                                                     Gyroscope/Compass/                     Gyroscope/                                      

                                                        Barometer                                 Compass

OS/Web                                     Android 3.0 Honeycomb/                   iOS 4.*/

                                                   Android Webkit w/Adobe                 Apple Webkit                                            

                                                    Flash 10.1

  *Both systems come with all the other expected features such as Bluetooth (although 2.1 for some reason), high end audio and video codecs HDMI output . 3.5mm headphone jacks.

  The Xoom outright demolishes the iPad in the hardware arena. I can't help but wonder now after reading articles on some of the popular tech blogs just what they are talking about when they say Apple has an unfair hardware price advantage over the competition? If Apple is able to offer better prices due to a bulk component purchasing plan, I fail to see how this saves the consumer any money. One thing I cannot stress enough is RAM. The Xoom offers double the RAM and that my friends will equal the biggest noticeable speed difference. Think I'm wrong? Reach in your computer and pull out one of your memory sticks and see how smooth and responsive your computer is. For a touch/mobile device that truth is even more so. 

  Now lets look at the operating systems. Apple's iOS 4 is a very refined and polished system. No doubt about that. The only problem is that it doesn't offer a true way to multi-task. As these tablets get more powerfull you really need the system to be able to run multiple apps simultaneously. You shouldn's have to leave your music player to reply to texts, or not be able to surf the web and play music while downloading a video. Android can do these things already.

  Apple argues that Android doesn't have as many applications to run on the Xoom yet. Fact is all the great core apps have been optimized already as well as hundreds of others. More are being built very quickly, and I mean very quickly. Don't be surprised if there are 20,000 by late fall. Any app that is already in the Market for phones will work on the Xoom right now anyway. 

  Another concern lately has been security. Google removed some 50 apps as being malware. The culprit exploited some security hole and could potentially send your serial number to a web server. For  those people 

who drank the paranoia cool-aide and don't understand Android internals I'll sum up with this: Unless you have rooted your phone and specifically given some unknown app Superuser access, your phone is secure. If you don't know what that means your phone is secure. Each application runs in it's own Linux process without    

access to other applications data. want to know more? read HERE.

  Who is the winner? I am a biased Google fan so please forgive me if my judgement is clouded by some mystical shroud pulled over my eyes by unicorns swimming through the skies. I believe the answer to be obvious but then again. It's all about choice. I am grateful I have the option to choose a highly powerful, highly customizable Linux/Android tablet. For my money It would be crazy any other way:)

want to know more about the author? click here or follow me on Twitter. 

Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi Coming March 27th!

Motorola has announced that yes indeed on the 27th of March they are bringing the Xoom tablet in Wi-Fi only version to various retailers such as Amazon.com, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Sam's Club, Staples, and Walmart. The sexy tablet will retail for $599 without a contract of any kind. For those of you waiting for a tablet carrier free and running Honeycomb now is your chance!
   The thin 13mm powerhouse will feature front and rear cameras, full HD 720p recording and 1080 playback, has a dual core Tegra-2 1 GHz processor which featues integrated graphics by Nvidia,
1GB RAM, 32GB on-board storage with an SD slot capable of another 32GB of storage. It also will have all the expected hardware such as GPS, gyroscope, barometer and accelerometer  Honeycomb's slick new interface is just breathtaking. If you think $599 is too much for a Wi-Fi only tablet, stay tuned for my comparison of the new iPad 2 and see just what your money buys you..

learn more about the author Here or follow me on Twitter

Angry Birds Seasons St.Patrick's Day Review!

  
  Seems people can't get enough Angry Birds these days, and I'm no exception. As an avid MMORPG gamer and of the generation that better graphics = better game, I have to concede to the avian flinging frenzy that took the world like an epidemic. Something  about the simplicity, meets intuitive physics, meets deadpan hilarity that makes each update better than the last. So without further delay, let us see if the St. Patrick's addition can keep us all enraptured or if this will finally be the release where we all go "meh...".


 A little tap on the new leprechaun icon and the first thing I see is that we have a new secondary splash screen all done up in the green colors and shamrocks of the season. Click on the little pot o' gold and I'm greeted with the usual added square indicating more levels to play. "Go Green, Get Lucky" I read as I tap the square. Now let me digress just to say that there are two people in this world. Those that think Angry birds is pure luck and those that think in order be an Angry Birds Ninja, like myself,  you must possess skill, patience, and highly dexterous side finger muscles. That being said a four leaf clover never hurt anybody. Click play and I soon discover that unfortunately there are only 18 new levels in this update. That is substantially less than the previous update and way less than the one before. I do see a trend here, but a couple things to consider: 

A) The game is free



and,

 B) The update frequency is well spaced apart, leaving enough time to complete the levels and just enough down time to make the update anticipated.
 
Above the last three levels there is a huge Facebook "like" button. One thing to mention however is that on display in what I like to call the "swag section" is a Facebook ad to send Angry Birds St. Patrick's Day themed cards to your friends. I decided to bite because I was just about to text someone and inform them of the update anyway and thought what a much better way to tell someone to get over to the Market and download the update. Sending the card was painless. Took all of 10 seconds to chose a friend and hit publish to post to their wall.

  How does it play? On my Samsung Galaxy S it plays perfectly.
   Other than the addition of pause screen adds I cannot tell if the game's physics have been changed or if the graphics are any better. The game does not feel any more difficult either and on that front I'm torn. I would love to be progressively challenged with harder levels in each update, but that would make the seasons levels unrealistic to the newcomer. That could be fixed by adding more levels.

 Overall, Angry Birds Season's continues to be great fun. I would like to see more levels and more challenging content but I guess that can be left for the main title. That's it for the App Factor! Until next time!


About the Author Quest: Click Here or Follow me on Twitter: Here

What is This?

I'll start by saying welcome to my blog! If you are wondering what this is about just read the subtitle. Bear with me as I'm slowly putting it all together. I hope to see you back soon and hope you enjoy your time spent here! I will have all kinds of usefull Android information so stay tuned.

Android lovers welcome to ChicagolAndroid!