Posts Tagged ‘Android’

Another late Review – Samsung i5700 Galaxy Spica

A couple of weeks ago, we had gotten a hold of a Samsung i5700 Galaxy Spica and tested it with a 2.1 ROM. Same as always, we lack a proper tool to take the pictures (or host it, for that matter)

In this review, we use HTC Hero as the control phone for come comparison. Galaxy Spica is slightly heavier than a Hero, but is slightly thinner.

Speedwise, with its 800MHz processor, we wouldn’t call this a lightning speed, but its Android 2.1 ROM is indeed way more smooth and is noticeably faster than any given custom 2.1 Hero ROM up to date. We proceeded to re-flash the HTC Hero back to Android 1.5 nearly immediately.

There is a lot of buttons for this innocent i5700. Just by bottom of phone we have dial, hook/power, return, menu, search, home, four-way cursors, and an OK button. On the right side, there are also a camera key on the right side which is disabled in the 2.1 ROM, and a Lock-screen button. On the left side there’s volume control. To make things worse, the arrangement of the buttons are not quite easily adaptable, especially the Return button.

On battery life, we have no special complaint since it beats Hero quite comfortably, as we didn’t need to charge it in the middle of the day, while we can’t probably make the Hero pass 4PM even with a brand new official battery (Model TWIN160). Look, we had to recharge the Hero!

The 3 megapixel camera is quite impressive and is comparable with (if not better than) the quality of a 5 megapixel camera of an HTC phone.

With most Android handsets over US$400, Samsung Galaxy Spica’s price is virtually unbeatable – we can get it for below US$250 here, less than half of price of the Google Nexus One. It’s definitely a nice budget choice for new users of Android.

SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Android Handset

SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Android Handset

Best thing is the 8.1 megapixels camera with LED flashlight. The quality of camera is what HTC phones just cannot beat. (Photos of most Android phones were a disaster)

The second best thing is the 4-inch screen. The biggest screen until HTC Desire official launches.

Timescape, X10′s feature of social timeline, is just another HTC Sense. But it’s better than those without (yes, Samsung Galaxy, we are talkign about you)

The worst thing is that Xperia X10 still uses Android 1.6. Hopefully the XDA-Developers can root the phone and mod some Android 2.1 ROM to the phone.

Buy Links:

Amazon (USA)- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Android Unlocked Cell Phone, White ComputerUniverse (Europe) – Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, Black

Some specs for SE Xperia X10:
- GSM 850/900/1800/1900?WCDMA 900/1700/2100
- HSPDA 7.2Mbps / EDGE / GPRS
- Android 1.6 (Donut)
- 1 GHz Qualcomm snapdragon QSD8250 CPU
- 4 inches 854 x 480 pixels Anti-scratch touch screen
- 8.10 megapixel auto-focus camera
- image stabilizer
- LED light for camera and video
- 3.5mm earphone jack, A2DP stereo bluetooth
- SonyEricsson Home, SonyEricsson Timescape, Mediascape, Sync
- GPS with geotagging
- micro USB 2.0 port)
- 1 GB memory
- microSD slot (bundled 8GB, support 16GB)

DroidSansFallback’s Asian Font

For customs Android ROMs there are many chances that the developers are European and thus Asian language is ignoed in their custom ROMs.

To make Chinese/Korean/Japanese possible to display on the phone, we need to find the correct font, which is named “DroidSansFallback.ttf”.  Put the file into the directory of the ADB, and then push it to the phone like this:

adb remount
adb push DroidSansFallback.ttf /system/fonts
adb shell reboot

The file should be 4.14MB.  Smaller ones are missing some of the CJK characters.

This method does not work for Arab fonts, which also needs another files (Tip: Keyword are “libskia.so” and “Arabic”)

Setting for Yahoo! Mail on Android handsets

Yahoo Mail can be automatically configured by Windows Mobile and iPhone handsets, but reportedly many Android-based handsets have problem during the set-up process. Copyright 2010 by http://GeekTechPost.com

When you set up a mail account in Android, you cannot choose “automatic” configuration, since the automatic default will setup the POP3 server connection to Yahoo, which usually deny your access. This is due to Yahoo’s POP3 connection is a feature of Yahoo Mail Plus, which is apparently not free of charge.  Copyright 2010 by http://GeekTechPost.com

To get around the pesky restriction, instead of POP3 connection, you can Read more…

APN addresses for Hong Kong operators

Android handset users in Hong Kong might experience difficulty in setting up phone 3G/GPRS Internet connection.   If you have a data plan subscription, you can add APN in order to make the network available.

The phone will prompt you to set up your Google account during first time bootup, if your phone fails to connect, you can press the Menu button to setup APN (REMEMBER TO CLICK THE MENU BUTTON TO SAVE!)  Here’s the APN list for the popular operators in Hong Kong:

• 3 Hong Kong: mobile.three.com.hk
• 1010/One2Free: hkcsl
• Peoples: peoples.net
• Smartone-Vodafone: smartone-vodafone or *
• PCCW: pccw

Alternately, you can arrive the APN setting page by either one route  (depends on Android version)

• Android 2.1 (Google Nexus One):
  Menu button -> Wireless and Network -> Access Point Name (APN)
• Android 1.5 (HTC Hero, Samsung Galaxy):
  Menu button -> Wireless Communication Control -> Mobile Network Setup -> Access Point Name (APN)
• will update with Android 2.0 setting (Motorola Milestone)