This holiday shopping season is dominated by Android. Smartphones running Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s mobile operating system are flooding the market, and we really couldn’t be happier. The latest Android smartphone to find its way into our eager hands is the Samsung Behold II. Just in time for the holidays, T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) is offering the Samsung Behold II for $229.99 when purchased with new 2-year contract. It’s slightly pricier than the iPhone and the Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid, but with a sleek design and a quirky new 3D Cube UI, you might not mind shelling out the extra bucks for the Behold 2.
Unlike the original Samsung Behold, the Behold II sports Android 1.5 OS. It sports an impressive 5-megapixel camera (with LED-flash), 3G data, WiFi, GPS and microSD card slot. But, the one feature that outshines them all is the Behold 2’s 3.2-inch capacitive AMOLED touchscreen. The display doesn’t need a backlight, so it draws less power than traditional LCD displays, but manages to deliver a brighter, crisper, more color-rich picture.
The camera is a bit laggy, but serves up some impressively crisp and well-balanced pictures. The 3D Cube UI is quirky, to say the least. We’re sure some people will find it useful, but we just don’t see ourselves using it for more than just showing off to our friends. But, with a speedy browser and an incredible OLED display, the Behold II will more than make up for its confusing UI.
Heavy-duty social networkers will be familiar with the name “Seesmic“, a desktop and web Twitter client. It has officially gone mobile for Android and BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), with the expected features such as home screen notifications, picture sharing, timeline viewing, saved searches, and basic tweeting. The one thing I haven’t seen elsewhere on a BlackBerry twitter client yet is lists support; more specifics can be found on the BlackBerry page. The Android version has a few cool tricks, like saving tweets as drafts and video sharing, but to get a closer look, check out Seesmic’s Android page. To get downloading, point your mobile browser to seesmic.com or find it in the Android Market.
Sprint (NYSE: S) users with BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) and Android smartphones can now use YouMail-powered visual voicemail service free of charge. You know how it works, right? Just like on the iPhone, plus more:
You can scroll through incoming voicemail messages to see caller information including caller name, time of call, and length of message
Play voicemails by simply clicking on them
Share and forward voicemails as an email or post to a blog
Delete, archive or save voicemails, forever
In order to use YouMail on your phone, you’ll need the YouMail application. Search for it in the BlackBerry App World or Android Market, depending which device you use. Then go to YouMail’s website, sign up for a YouMail account and follow the brief instructions for forwarding unanswered calls to YouMail. It’s that easy.
Those who use GMail regularly be familiar with the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Talk sidebar showing which of your friends are online, as well as the wide variety of customization options available. A new one fresh from the labs is Android icons that let you know if your contact is currently online thanks to an Android device, complete with yellow Away robots, and red Busy ones. This would be a great option even if it were just extra eye candy for the Android-obsessed, but knowing someone is mobile definitely helps contextualize the conversation, and potentially avoids anyone getting offended at short, terse replies. You can enable the option in GMail over here.
Ow, did anyone else feel like their wallet just got kicked in the crotch? At a Swedish press event, Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) revealed that their Android-powered X10 to be released in February will be costing 6,000 Swedish kroner (which works out to $US 860 at the current exchange rate). Even among high-end smartphones that’s pretty steep, and considering SE’s history with selling the xperia brand unlocked, odds are we won’t see X10 carrier-subsidized for awhile. We’ve seen the super-slick user interface built on top of Android, 8 megapixel camera, slim profile, 1 Ghz processor, and 4-inch display, but it is a very small niche that will shell out that kind of money for this device. Anyone out there unfazed by the pricetag?
Hey all of you Canadian Android-lovers, looking for a good price on a first-gen Android device? How about the Rogers HTC Dream? Sound good? The folks at Canada’s ‘Big Red’ have dropped the price on the HTC Dream (about time) to $49.99 on a 3-year contract. If you don’t mind being locked-in to a device that is already passé, then throw down your Mackenzie King and pick one up.
The Rogers (NYSE: RCI) HTC Dream features a 3.2″ touchscreen (320×480), built-in accelerometer, full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, GPS, 3.2MP camera with auto focus and video… and much more.
I’ve no idea why it took so long for Fring to embrace Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s mobile platform, but whatever the reasoning is, it’s good to see them jumping on board. Yap, Fring is now an Android thing, too — joining the likes of the iPhone/iPod Touch, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, Linux (Maemo) and Java ME-enabled devices.
Just like that’s the case with other smartphone platforms, Fring for Android allows users to chat with their buddies across multiple IM networks, make free calls, post status updates, as well as make calls to mobile and land-lines using SkypeOut or some of the available SIP VoIP services — either via WiFi or 3G.
And that’s it. Simply search for “fring” in the Android Market and take it from there. And check out the introductory video after the jump.
Rhomobile announced that its Rhodes smartphone app framework now supports Android 2.0, allowing interested companies to utilize their HTML and Ruby skills and create native applications for the Android platform. As a result, using the company’s RhoHub, development costs can be reduced by up to five times.
Among the RhoHub features we highlight:
Support for multiple platforms — including iPhone, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android
Developers can write apps in HTML and simultaneously build for all smartphones
Generate UIs and sync source adapters from a high level object description
Collaborate with other users by sharing projects
Hosting of synchronization server for backend app integration and availability of offline data
As for the availability information, RhoHub comes in three “flavors”: the Free tier is for public apps with 3-runtime users and 50MB disk space; the Basic service allows for 3 private apps, 3 private collaborators with 100-runtime users and 2GB disk space; and RhoHub’s Premium service which offers 100 private apps, 100 private collaborators with 1000-runtime users and 20GB disk space… Additional information is available from Rhomobile’s website.
You see the handset in this here blurry spyshot? It’s apparently the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Motus that was rumored in a leaked roadmap not too long ago. We know, it looks like it was taken by Mr. Blurry-cam’s drunken step-brother after a booze-fueled night of fun, but Engadget Mobile has confirmed that what we’re looking at is another Android-powered smartphone from Motorola.
The Motus looks like a respectable smartphone from what we can see in the spy pic, but we’ll have to wait until we put hands on it to really get a feel for it. That keyboard might prove to be a sticking point, but, again, that’s us just talkin’ to the wind. The Motus has a lot to live up to…
Those with an iPhone, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, or any Android device will be happy to hear about some new changes to the mobile Google (NSDQ: GOOG) News. The new version allows you to add custom keyword, local, and recommended sections, as well as shuffle and move the sections as you like. That’s the main thing, but it looks like there are a lot of optimizations in terms of layout and navigation that make Google News on mobile all the better. Personally, I’m still waiting for an official Google Reader application, which would make News pretty much a moot point, but you might as well go ahead and check out news.google.com in your mobile browser in the meantime.
Those who use GMail regularly be familiar with the Google (
Ow, did anyone else feel like their wallet just got kicked in the crotch? At a Swedish press event, Sony Ericsson (
