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HTC Evo Shift 4G Phone Review

September 9th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Price: $449.99 no contract
Contract price varies on customer profile

Battery: If you’re heavy phone users like we are, then it’s really all about the battery. That’s why we usually start by looking at the battery. The best phone in the world with a bad battery just won’t last very long, which is why we really strive to make sure that we’re using a phone that isn’t going to let us down. You’ll get 6 hours of talk time and about 5-6 days of standby time. Naturally, those are just estimates and if you end up using certain services on the phone heavily (we’re looking at you, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi), you’re going to see those numbers get cut down quite a bit.

Memory and Processor Speed:

We love the idea of 2GB of ROM and 512MB of RAM, but we’re not really all that happy about 800 MHz processor speed. It kind of feels like a weird compromise on an otherwise great phone, you know?

Still, they do give you a free 2GB card that comes with the phone, and you can always upgrade to 32GB if you really needed to. Then again, we don’t know too many people that have maxed out a 32GB card. Yet the presence of so much capacity shows HTC’s ability to think about the future. Even though people love moving from one phone to the next, there are some of us phone freaks that want to keep a phone for a few good year sand even pass it down to someone else. This means that you’re going to need more capacity — remember when phones only went up to say, 2GB? That feels like a long time ago compared to know, and it’s amazing to really see how far we’ve come in the world of mobile technology.

Please — if you want to get that big 32GB card, you shouldn’t let us stop you from doing that. Jump right in and get the card, you won’t regret it. Also, it gives you m ore space to store apps, which is a good thing too.

Screen:

When this phone was still being heavily promoted by Sprint, the screen definitely got a lot of attention. It’s a touchscreen phone, which means that duh, the screen is going to be a huge factor in everything. You’re going to want to have a nice screen if you’re going to have to look at it all the time. We were really glad that the HTC Evo Shift 4G really doesn’t disappoint here. Yes, it’s a 3.6 inch screen, 480×800 dimensions. The colors are nice and bright, and we really did realize we were looking at Gorilla Glass.

The touchscreen supports auto-rotate and even auto-shut off. We like auto-shut off for battery saving, and auto-rotate is nice when we literally need another angle on things.

Form:

The phone slides open for a full keyboard, which is something that we really like. Yes, we love touchscreens and virtual keyboards aren’t so bad, but sometimes we need something that we can actually hold onto. That’s where the magic is, people. This phone’s keys are easy to hit, and that makes texting a lot more fun all the way around.

Camera:

Some would argue that HTC really dropped the ball on the camera, but we would like to respectfully disagree. You see, having a 5MP camera isn’t a bad thing on a phone. You’re never going to get a phone with an amazing, make-the-angels-sing-and-dance camera. It’s a phone, not a professional camera. If you want to unleash your inner Ansel Adams, you’re going to need to get a good professional camera and stop expecting your poor Evo Shift 4G to fill in the gap. It’s a great phone, even an incredible phone, but it’s not going to be everything to everyone.

Still — the camera on this phone is pretty nice. Anyone that doesn’t think so only needs to remember one term: Sidekick. That’s all we’re going to say on that.

Conclusion:

There’s a lot to love in this phone. You’re going to have a full out Android phone that is easy to upgrade — we can upgrade to 2.3 with no problems, and we can also take full advantage of the Android Marketplace to make our phone even more amazing. Even if you didn’t want to add any apps to this phone, this is a phone you’ll probably keep for a long time.

Get this phone — you really won’t regret it. And that’s a statement we don’t get to make often!

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5 great Facebook and Twitter clients for Android

August 9th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Most people who own a smartphone, no matter what operating system it runs on, will probably want to use the 2 most popular social networks online: Facebook and Twitter. There are already a lot of client apps created for these networks for the Android operating system. In fact, there are so many, it’s confusing.

So, to make things easier for you, here’s a list of the best Twitter and Facebook client apps, as voted by users. They’re also the ones that are regularly updated and maintained, so you don’t run into the risk of having the application suddenly stop working.

Twidroid.

The leading Twitter client for Android. It has most of the features you need and is fast and stable. You can view and publish tweets, videos and images, shorten URL’s, share tweets using SMS or Email, reply (including reply-to-all for the paid version), and do a lot of other things. The free version has no support for multiple backgrounds, no reply-to-all and no desktop widgets, but should be enough for most users. If you need those features, you can get the paid version for $5. Of course it comes with lifetime support and a few additional phone-dependant features like shake for refresh, offline tweets scheduler and multiple accounts.

TweetsRide.

Formerly named TwitterRide, this is a simple, fast and light Twitter client application for Android. It has all the basic features one might need and nothing else. This makes it perfect for people who just want to read and publish tweets and images/photos. The latest update also includes support for video uploads through TwitVid, which is great, but can use up all your allocated bandwidth pretty fast.

Facebook for Android.

Many people thought this was an official Facebook app when it launched, but that turned out to be false. Still, Facebook seems to officially endorse it (they list it on their Facebook mobile page), so you can be sure that it works well. It is a good application with all the basic features you might need. It actually comes pre-installed on a lot of phones and you can also install it yourself if you don’t have it.

Bloo.

The name doesn’t imply it, but this app is actually a Facebook client for Android. It provides all of the basic features like status updates, viewing photos, comments, and others. That is probably enough for most users. People have reported a lot of problems with the free version, and even the developer posted a message saying you should get the paid version (which is only $1 and has no problems), but you can still try it before buying.

fooBook.

This is another client app for Facebook. It has the most features of all, but users are reporting that it doesn’t work right, so you need to try it for yourself. The free edition is missing only the comment posting feature and does not have on-demand re-syncing, while the paid version has those features and is only $1.50, so it could be worth it if the free version works on your device.

The above apps are some of the best clients for Facebook and Twitter. I’m sure they’ll be improved with the next updates, so you can safely download them knowing they’ll work. What would be really nice is one single app that would provide all the features of both these networks. Maybe we’ll see one someday, but for now we just have to wait.

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5 great 3D games for Android that are worth checking out

July 21st, 2011 Admin No Comments »

A lot of people buy smart phones like the iPhone with the intent to play some good games when they’re bored or have nothing else to do. As a completely new operating system, Android had very few games a couple of years ago, and was mostly used by software developers and geeks. There were a few arcade games like the ever-present Tetris, but nothing came close to the games selection of the iPhone, for example.

Fast forward a few years and Android is quickly becoming more popular than Windows Mobile and Palm WebOS, with a lot of new handsets running it and a few tens of thousands of apps, a lot of which are free, available on the Marketplace.

Having a Linux core, it is only natural that Android should have good 3D capabilities, and the latest games are using them to their full extent. Here are some of the best 3D games for Android phones that have the potential to make you stop carrying a Nintendo or PSP around.

Wave Blazer

This is an excellent game, in which you race some nice, futuristic-looking boats at break-neck speeds in a lot of beautiful locations. This game is like Need for Speed, only on water (though I remember an old desktop game that looked just like it, but I can’t remember the name). The graphics are great, the racing is fun and you can compete with other players using the multiplayer mode.

The only bad thing is that the battery will last quite a lot less than usual (a few hours at most), but this is true for all games, which use all of the available resources and therefore reduce battery life significantly.

Armageddon Squadron

This is an amazing flight simulator and shooter, which gives you control of some of the most well-known World War 2 fighter planes. You are given missions like bombing ships and bases, finding submarines, dog fighting other planes, and generally unleashing hell on enemies. The weapons arsenal is pretty standard – bombs and machine guns. The game is very similar to the desktop Pacific Warriors, if you ever played it. With this game, time flies as fast as your planes :-) .

Raging Thunder (1 and 2)

These two games (which are very similar, just with different cars and a bit better graphics in the 2nd one) are a great alternative for Need for Speed. It’s beautiful, the racing itself is fun and the controls are good, which is all you need for a good racing experience on your phone. If you like racing games and have an Android phone, you’ll most definitely like this game. (more…)

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Top 5 GBA games for your Android device

July 3rd, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Android is an amazing operating system, it already powers over two dozen different handsets and tablet PC, and its future looks great. There are already over 50,000 great apps on the marketplace, a lot of which are free, but the one thing that it lacks is good quality games. This is actually a problem for all the smartphone operating systems, as there are simply no developers that would create truly good games for them. Sure, it’s possible, but nobody thinks of these phones as gaming consoles.

Well, here’s where console emulators come in. There have been a lot of great gaming consoles around for more than a decade, and all of them feature some truly amazing games – it’s their specialty, after all. Emulators have been around for desktop PCs for a long time, and now, our Android devices have become powerful enough to run them, too. Here are some of the best Gameboy Advance games you can run on your Android phone using an emulator.

Fire Emblem.

The Fire Emblem series of games are some of the best RPG turn by turn games on any gaming console, and this Gameboy Advance port is no different. The graphics and sound are pretty standard, but the storyline and gameplay is what really shines. Once you get used to the 2D interface and controls using the touch screen, you’ll enjoy a long and pretty interesting gameplay that will hold your attention for hours at end.

Final Fantasy VI.

Everyone knows about Final Fantasy by now, and the 14th game is already in progress. Final Fantasy VI for Gameboy Advance is actually a remake of the older Super Nintendo Final Fantasy 3 game, with better graphics and sound. The gameplay and story are the same, though, and that’s a good thing as this game is recognized as one of the best 2D Final Fantasy games and one of the best of the series in general.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series is very popular on all gaming consoles, and the second Gameboy Advance game is the best on this console. The developers have really pulled a miracle here: the game is fully 2D, yet it looks and feels like 3D, and you even get all o the special effects when skating and jumping. It’s really a must have if you have an Android phone and like this game series. (more…)

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Go Ahead, Make Our Day – Google Voice Search for Desktop Is Here, Plus a Little Extra

June 30th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Who doesn’t love Google these days? Between a host of supercharged web apps that are offered for free all the way up to their work on the Android platform, some would say that there’s really nothing left for Google to innovate.

Incorrect. The next new thing is really improving the services that everyone uses constantly, like the search experience itself. Indeed, the search experience is already excellent but Google decided they wanted to bring something new to the table.

Google Voice Search for Desktop does exactly that, as you can see from the video below:

What we like is that it’s definitely a simple improvement, but a powerful one. As long as you have Chrome 11 and a microphone, you can make your searching a lot easier. For some people that tend to forget things easily, this is amazing news. Just saying a search term takes you right to where you need to be, giving you fewer delays between you and getting the answers you’re looking for.

Of course, one of the other things that helps about the culture around Google is that it’s one of open source. Check out this video that BreakfastNewYork created — open source work at its finest:

The devboard is actually a hardware solution, which is interesting because it merges software with hardware in a way that regular people can use and enjoy. The geekier set will also have fun playing with BreakfastNewYork’s solution as well — especially if they have access to the tools needed to create the hardware portion. It might take a little more know-how than the average web surfer wields on a daily basis, but the fact is that the technology is there — we just have to reach out for it.

What is equally telling here is that this is the perfect way for Google to remind people that they’re still in the game, in more ways than one. Even though Android is getting all the love lately, they’re still committed to making the search experience fun and exciting with little improvements that you have to play with in order to see just how convenient they really are.

It may take some getting used to before you’re really rocking out voice-style instead of keyboard-style, but trust us — it’s definitely worth making the transition. Try it out today!

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5 cool apps for Android that you need to check out

June 21st, 2011 Admin No Comments »

The list of Android apps available on the marketplace is growing every day and currently counts over ten thousand apps. Android phones and tablets are being released and sold like fresh bread, and the number of users is getting bigger and bigger every day. Here are just a few very neat and interesting Android applications that you should really check out.

Google Voice.

This app comes preinstalled with a lot of the new Android devices. It allows the user to make inexpensive calls over the Internet (using the Voice over IP protocol) to any phone number in the world and send SMS messages to any mobile number. You get a phone number from Google for absolutely free, which you can then use like any other regular number, i.e. call from it and receive calls. A great benefit is that you can make these calls using any Wi-Fi network, which makes calls literally dirt cheap. A neat feature of Google Voice is its automatic transcription that transcribes your voice messages into text, which can then be sent to your email address and read instead of listened. This can save you a lot of time and bandwidth.

Layar Reality Browser.

This is an AR (Augmented Reality) app that is vey neat and cool to use. You get the feeling that you’re in one of those movies about the future where computers tell people everything they need to know about their surrounding areas. Layar achieves it by using all of the information provided by its huge database of users, as well as its integration with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. So, when you arrive in a new town and want to get some food, you can search aimlessly :-) , ask other people or just hold your phone in front of you, search for “best pizza or restaurant” and you will get a list of indicators (that are superimposed on top of real time camera footage) for the closest pizza places. You can also use your GPS to navigate anywhere, see the LinkedIn profiles, latest Facebook updates or Tweets of the people near you (using Layar’s database and some pretty advanced face recognition), check out the main landmarks and events that you can attend and do a lot of other cool stuff.

Talk to me.

This is a great free application that translates anything you say into another language. Basically, it is a real time speech-to-speech personal translator! Of course, it is not as accurate as a human yet, but it can still save you in quite a few situations like when you’re in a foreign country or are talking to a tourist whom you don’t understand. You might be thinking, “How come such a powerful app is free?”. Well, it is technically not that powerful by itself. It is just a very smart automated interface, which uses Android’s Voice Recognition, Text to Speech feature and Google Translate to achieve the translation. And it works pretty well, too! The only thing you will need in order to be able to use it is a fast and stable 3G connection. (more…)

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Capturing Video on Your Android Phone

June 12th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Taking pictures on a phone is something that even non-smartphones seem to be capable of doing these days. However, there is something powerful about being able to take video. This is something that’s worth upgrading to a smartphone to be able to do, and the good news is that many Android phones are capable of taking video.

However, if you’ve never taken any video with your Android phone, you might wonder what you will need to do in order to get things started.

It’s really not as hard as you think. Here’s what you need to do:

To get started, you just need to open up the Camera app and flip into the video mode. Make sure that while you’re getting ready to capture video that you actually turn the phone sideways. There is not a portrait mode for video, so this could be the reason why you were never able to take video before.

As you begin recording video, you might wonder about quality. The quality of your videos will be dictated by the overall quality of your camera. If you have a higher end Android phone, your videos are definitely going to be pretty crisp. on the other hand, if you have one of the lower end video-enabled Android phones, you will not be able to take stunning video — but you will still be able to make decent clips that can be sent via MMS messaging, you know.

Taking video is one of the top reasons to go ahead and max out your phone’s overall SD card capacity. This means that if your phone can afford a 32GB SD card, you should definitely get one. Video takes up even more space than pictures do, and you can fill up a small SD card fast if you’re not careful.

The good news about this is that as time passes, the higher capacity cards go on sale a lot more often. This means that you will be able to pick up a 32GB SD card without too much fuss. Chances are also good that the capacity for SD cards will go up even more, to the point where a 32GB card will be considered small someday.

Now, if you’re someone that likes to stay organized, you might want to get a bunch of smaller cards that are just devoted to your videos. This can be a good option if you need to take video for business, but you also want to take videos of you and your friends out on the town. That’s definitely a time where you don’t want to mix the videos together!

Sharing the videos that you create is just the next logical step. Thankfully, you already have an app for this — it’s within your Gallery app. You get the opportunity to share your videos directly from the app. All you have to do is go to the video that you want, hold the video until the context menu comes up, and then select Share.

From the Share link, you’ll have a few options to choose from. You can go with getting your video on YouTube (as long as it’s under 10 minutes, of course!), or even going to put your video on Twitter. It’s just a matter of figuring out where you want your video to go.

If you’re really trying to share with your friends through MMS, you will need to make sure that you focus on a lower quality setting than if you were going with YouTube.

Overall, there’s something interesting about capturing a slice of our collective lives with video. The handy nature of Android means that you should have no problem really capturing all of the things that matter to you — don’t miss a single moment!

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A Close Look at the Android App Market

June 12th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

If you just bought a nice new Android phone, you might think about getting a few apps for it. There’s nothing wrong with picking up new applications for your Android phone. In fact, it’s definitely encouraged. The culture of Android doesn’t assume that the phone will be able to do everything you want with no need for applications. Instead, the entire foundation of the Android platform is designed to encourage people to come up with solutions to make your Android phone run a little nicer, a little cleaner and a lot whole better.

It all really starts with the Android app market, a place where you can pick up the latest apps. Now, keep in mind that the Android market hosts both free and paid apps. Every program hopes to change your phone for the better, and the open source nature means that you can always count on yet another developer coming up with a program to make your phone does something cool. This is a lot different than the iPhone app market, which is tightly regulated. The apps in the Android market aren’t controlled very much at all, which means that you could end up getting a bad program here and there. This is where the community steps in to highlight the best apps. You can bet your phone that a bad app won’t stay in the market for long, considering how many people are addicted to all things Android.

Ready to jump in? Great! A few points:

One, you need to decide whether or not you want to upload apps to your phone from your computer or if you want to actually download them from the Android market directly on your phone. To go with direct downloads, you will need to open the Android Market application that’s already on your phone. You will be able to browse the market and download anything that looks interesting to you.

If you want to use an outside file manager to do this, there are some options as well — like AppBrain, Apps Installer and Astro File Manager. This will let you manipulate the “raw” APK file and install your application quickly.

If you’re not sure what programs to begin with, you might want to just spend some time navigating the market. Keep in mind that any file that you want to get is going to definitely to take up space on your phone, and that’s space that could be used for another program or even to store your personal files. If you really want to make sure that you’re balancing the space question properly, you will need to keep your apps on the SD card as much as possible. You can always swap out SD cards when you urn out of space, which is what a lot of Android users do.

Overall, the Android app market is definitely here to stay. You can be assured that no matter what Android phone you get, you will find something in the app market to make it work even better than the day you bought it!

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Android Game Review: Abduction 2

June 7th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

If you were a fan of Doodle Jump, the classic game for the iPhone, then you will definitely not be disappointed with the Android game Abduction 2. Many people, myself included were highly disappointed at the fact that Doodle Jump was once unavailable for the Android phone. However, the good news is that Abduction 2 is incredibly similar. Although it is similar, it is not just a cheap copy it really is a highly addictive game that has some great features.

So, we start the game as a bouncing cow. Well, a bouncing cow, a bouncing walrus, or a number of other bouncing animals. What is the aim of the game? Well, you have to tilt your Android phone in order to control the direction that you jump in. You are bouncing from platform to platform in an upwards direction. However, it is not that simple. There are numerous things that are going to get in the way and make this game more difficult. Remember that once you fall, that is it you are right at the bottom of the game again. So, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of Abduction 2.

Firstly, there are several good things about this particular game. First of all, the characters are a definite bonus. There are a lot of different characters to choose from, and it can be a great distraction from day to day life. Another good thing about this game is that it is frustratingly addictive. Once you start playing the game, you will find it hard to put your phone down, especially if you are an avid gamer. It can also be a great game to play when you have some time to kill, for example, on a long train or car journey.

Now to the negatives. First of all, the game can get very repetitive. If you are playing for a challenge then you are probably not going to get much of one from this game. However, this is the only real negative that you will see with this game. There are a lot of good things about Abduction 2, so if you were or area fan of Doodle Jump then you should definitely consider downloading this game and having a go, because you definitely will not be disappointed.

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Android App Review: Seesmic

June 7th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Twitter apps for Android phones are certainly not hard to find. However, some of them just don’t cut it unfortunately. It is very much a trial and error process when it comes to finding a Twitter client that works for you. This is why we hope to narrow your search with this review. One of the many Twitter clients that you may have heard of is Seesmic, and this is one that you definitely want to consider. Let’s take a look at why.

Firstly, here are some of the pros of the app itself. The first thing that you will notice about this Android app is the fact that it is incredibly fast. A lot of Twitter clients out there at the moment are sluggish and tend to lag when attempting to give you real time Tweets from the people that you are following. Another thing that you will notice about this app is that it has been very well put together. It has been designed to offer ease of use and convenience when it comes to the home page. Finally, there is the Twitter lists feature that you do not get with other apps.

Now, the cons. Are there any? Well, yes. Considering this is supposed to be one of the top business models from Seesmic, you would think that they would have integrated Facebook as well. However, this is not really a con as such. There are many ways to remedy this, because there are a lot of different Facebook apps for the Android phone out there that work just as well on their own. The only other negative thing that can be said about Seesmic is the fact that it does not support more than one Twitter account, so you will not be able to use all of your business accounts at the same time.

So, now we go to the features. The first thing to point out is that anything that you can when using Twitter on a PC or laptop, you can still do on Seesmic. Obviously, this is a huge plus point, because some Twitter clients for the Android phone do not allow you to access certain features, but everything has been integrated into Seesmic.

So, as you can see, there are a lot of good things about this app. If you are looking for something professional, with a sleek, easy to use interface then this is one that you should definitely be trying out before you even look at any others.

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