Motorola DROID 3 Review

Posted by dblogz Thursday, August 11, 2011 0 comments


The Motorola Droid 3 is the latest successor in a line of powerful handsets that have helped define Android smartphones. Like its predecessors, the Droid 3 takes on an angular physique but with thinner profile and a larger footprint. It launched on Verizon in recent weeks and although it does not support 4G LTE, it does have the advantage of being a world phone with SIM card included.



Hardware

The Droid 3 features a larger 4-inch (960 x 540) qHD display and a five-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Inside, it runs on a 1GHz TI OMAP 4430 dual-core processor with PowerVR SGX540, which is rated to be twice as fast as the previous SGX530 GPU. RAM remains at 512MB, while internal storage is now bumped up to 16GB, expandable with up to 32GB microSD.
External ports include the usual micro-HDMI, micro-USB, and 3.5mm headphone jack. It has the physical power button centered on top, volume rocker on the side, and the standard four capacitive touch buttons of Android devices.
Camera specs have been boosted to an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, capable of 1080p HD video capture. However, the LED flash is now replaced with a single LED that seems to do the job of the dual-set used previously. A front-facing camera has also been added, but only of VGA quality.

Software & Performance

Motorola’s customized interface runs on top of Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread. It’s no longer called Motoblur with a rather nice, clean look and some new icons along with new animations between windows. Five windows are available for adding your favorite widgets and apps, and the included widgets are nicely minimal. There is also a dock at the bottom of the screen with four customizable icons.
Preloaded are around 60 apps, which include a selection of Google apps, GoToMeeting, BlockBuster, and Skype to name a few. At the top right corner is a shopping bag icon that takes you directly to the Android Market, while to the top left is dropdown menu that lets you sort and filter your apps by Recent, Downloaded, All, or any custom group that you’ve created.
Benchmark scores for the Droid 3 are decent. The synthetic benchmarking tools we used include Quadrant Pro, Vellamo, and Smartbench 2011.




Battery & Camera

The Droid 3 will last you about a day given average use. It’s 4-inch qHD screen and dual-core processor will put a drain on the small 1540 mAh battery, but if you charge nightly, then it shouldn’t be an issue.
The camera quality boost to 8-megapixels is a nice bonus, offering crisp image stills and sharp 1080p videos. The below image and video were shot very close-up to some dry brush full of prickly thorns sitting in lava rock and demonstrates how nicely the camera captures all these tiny details. However, after video compression, the short clip you see below doesn’t really do the Droid 3 camera justice.

Wrap-Up

The Motorola Droid 3 is a good upgrade from the Droid 2. The overall design has remained mostly unchanged, which will be good for fans of the original that are looking for the same form factor but with boosted specs.
You will especially like the larger 4-inch qHD display, a thinner profile, and redesigned QWERTY with an extra row dedicated for number keys. There’s also the better 8-megapixel camera capable of 1080p HD video capture and the addition of a front-facing VGA camera—although that will be good only for video chatting.
The new “not Motoblur” interface is clean and snappy without too many custom widgets that get in the way. Performance is excellent with the new TI OMAP 4430 dual-core processor and battery life is decent though not great.
The only gripe perhaps is that the device does not support 4G LTE on Verizon’s network. But it is a world phone with dual bands and even comes with a SIM card inside. For those hoping for a 4G LTE handset, then perhaps wait for the Droid Bionic that should arrive sometime in September. But the trade-off then will be no QWERTY and no use abroad. So it really depends on your priorities.
The Droid 3 is currently available through Verizon for $199.99 with a new two-year service agreement. Off contract, the phone is selling for $459.99.

Read More
, ,

Windows Phone 7 Series: Everything Is Different Now

Posted by dblogz 0 comments

Windows Phone 7 Series: Everything Is Different Now

It's astounding that until this moment, three years after the iPhone, the biggest software company in the world basically didn't compete in mobile. Windows Phone 7 Series is more than the Microsoft smartphone we've been waiting for. Everything's different now.
Today, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft is publicly previewing Windows Phone 7 for the first time. The brand new, totally fresh operating system will appear in phones this year, but not until the holidays. All of the major wireless carriers and every likely hardware maker are backing it, and they'd be stupid not to. It's awesome. We've got a serious hands on for you to check out, but here is everything that you need to know:
The name—Windows Phone 7 Series—is a mouthful, and unfortunately, the epitome of Microsoft's worst naming instincts, belying the simple fact that it's the most groundbreaking phone since the iPhone. It's the phone Microsoft should've made three years ago. In the same way that the Windows 7 desktop OS was nearly everything people hoped it would be, Windows Phone 7 is almost everything anyone could've dreamed of in a phone, let alone a Microsoft phone. It changes everything. Why? Now that Microsoft has filled in its gaping chasm of suck with a meaningful phone effort, the three most significant companies in desktop computing—Apple, Google and Microsoft—now stand to occupy the same positions in mobile. Phones are officially computers that happen to fit in your pocket.
Windows Phone 7 is also something completely new for Microsoft: A total break from the past. Windows Mobile isn't just dead, the body's been dumped, buried and paved over by a rainbow brick road.

The Interface

It's different. The face of Windows Phone 7 is not a rectangular grid of thumbnail-sized glossy-looking icons, arranged in a pattern of 4x4 or so, like basically every other phone. No, instead, an oversized set of bright, superflat squares fill the screen. The pop of the primary colors and exaggerated flatness produces a kind of cutting-edge crispness that feels both incredibly modern and playful. Text is big, and beautiful. The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone's interface feel staid.
If you want to know what it feels like, the Zune HD provides a taste: Interface elements that run off the screen; beautiful, oversized text and graphics; flipping, panning, scrolling, zooming from screen to screen; broken hearts. Some people might think it's gratuitous, but I think it feels natural and just…fun. There's an incredible sense of joie de vivre that's just not in any other phone. It makes you wish that this was aesthetic direction all of Microsoft was going in. Another, sorta similar interface, in terms of data presentation, is this Android Slidescreen app, which gives you a bunch of info up top.
Windows Phone 7 is connected in the same sense as Palm's webOS and Android, with live, real-time data seamlessly integrated, though it's even smoother and more natural. Live tiles on the Start screen, which you can totally customize, are updated dynamically with fresh content, like weather, or if you've pinned a person to your Start screen, their latest status updates and photos.
The meat of the phone is organized around a set of hubs: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office. They're kind of like uber-applications, in a sense. Massive panoramas with multiple screens that are each kind of like individual apps. People, for instance, isn't just your contacts, but it's also where social networking happens, with a real-time stream of updates pulled in from like Facebook and Windows Live. (No Twitter support announced yet, it appears—a kind of serious deficiency, but one we're sure will be remedied by ship date.)
As another example, Music + Video is essentially the entirety of Zune HD's software, tucked inside of Windows Phone 7.
A piece of interface that's shockingly not there: A desktop syncing app. If anyone would be expected to tie their phone to a desktop, you'd think it'd be Microsoft, but they're actually moving forward here. All of your contacts and info sync over the air. The only thing you'll be syncing through your computer is music and videos, which is mercifully done via the Zune desktop client.

Hello, Connected World

The People hub might be the best social networking implementation yet on a phone: It's a single place to see all of your friends' status updates from multiple services in a single stream, and to update your own Facebook and Windows Live status. Needs. Twitter support. Badly. But you have neat things going on, like the aforementioned Live tiles—if you really like someone or want to stalk them hardcore, you can make them a tile on your Start screen, which will update in realtime with whatever they're posting, and pull down their photos from whatever service. There's also your very own profile page, where you can scan your current social state and post updates to multiple services simultaneously.
All of your contacts are synced and backed up over-the-air, Android and webOS style, and can be pulled from multiple sources, like Windows Live, Exchange, etc. Makes certain other phones seem a little antiquated with their out-of-the-box Contacts situation.

Holy Crap! The Zune Phone!

Microsoft's vision of Zune is finally clear with Windows Phone 7. It's an app, just like iPod is on the iPhone, though the Zune Marketplace is integrated with it into the music + video hub, not separated into its own little application. It's just like the Zune HD, so you can check out our review of that to see what it's like. But you get third-party stuff like Pandora, too, built-in here. Oh, and worth mentioning, there will be an FM radio in every phone (more on that in a bit).
Pictures is a little different though, and gets its very own hub. That's because it's intensely connected—you can share photos and video with social networks straight from the hub, and via the cloud, they're kept in sync with your PC and web galleries. The latest photos your friends post also show up here. Of course, you get around with multitouch zoom and zip-zip scrolling stuff.

Xbox, on a Phone

I'll admit, I very nearly needed to change my pants when I saw the Xbox tile on the phone for the first time. Obviously, you're not going to be playing Halo 3 on your smartphone (at least not this year), but yes, Xbox Live on a phone! It's tied to your Live profile, and there are achievements and gamer points for the games you can play on your phone, which will be tied to games back on your Xbox 360.
If Microsoft's got an ace-in-hole with Windows Phone 7, it's Xbox Live. Gamers have talked about a portable Xbox for years—this is the most logical way to do it. The N-Gage was ahead of its time. (Okay, and it sucked.) The DS and PSP are the past. The iPhone showed us that the future of mobile gaming was going to be on your phone, and now that just got a lot more interesting. The potential's there, and hopefully the games will be plentiful and awesome enough to meet it.

Browser and Email

Yes, the browser is Internet Exploder. And yes, the rumor's true: It won't be as fast as Mobile Safari. Not to start. But it's not bad! Hey, least it's got multitouch powers right out of the box. Naturally, you've got multiple browser windows, and you can pin web pages to the Start screen, like any other decent mobile browser.
The Outlook email app makes me question how people read email on a BlackBerry. It is stunning. I never thought I'd call a mail app "stunning," but, well, it kind of is. It's the best looking mobile mail app around. Text is huge. Gorgeous. Ultrareadable. Of course, it's got Exchange support too.

Apps, Office and Marketplace

Remember what I said earlier about Windows Mobile being dead? So are all the apps. They won't work on WP7. Sorry Windows Mobile developers, it's for the best. Deep down, we all knew a clean break was the only way Windows Phone wasn't going to suck total balls.
Apps will have some standardized interface elements, like the app bar on the bottom for common commands. But here's a question: Will they multitask? Um, that depends on your definition of multitasking! When we asked Joe Belfiore, the guy running Windows Phone, he alluded to live tiles and feeds as some ofthe ways that third-parties will be able to "bring value to the user, even when their apps aren't running." Which sounds to us like a big ol' "shnope," but we'll see more next month at Microsoft's developer event MIX.
The Marketplace is where you'll buy apps. Since we've got like 6 months 'til Windows Phone 7 launches and people should be excited to develop for it, hopefully there'll be plenty of stuff to buy there on day one.
Naturally, Bing and Bing Maps are built into the phone as the default search and maps services. They're nice, smartly contextual, and very location-oriented. Bing's also used for universal search on the phone, via a dedicated Bing button. (There is no search but Bing search, BTW.) Bing Maps is multitouchable, with pinch-to-zoom. It's rich, with built-in listings with reviews and clever ways of searching for stuff. And yeah, Office! It's connected to that cloud thing, for OTA syncing and such. Business people should be happy.

Hardware and Partnahs

Another way the old Windows Mobile is dead is how Microsoft's handling partners and hardware situation. With Windows Mobile, a phonemaker handed Microsoft their monies, and Microsoft tossed them a software kit, and that was that. Which is why a lot of Windows Mobile phones felt and ran like crap. And why it took HTC like two years to produce the HD2, the most genuinely usable rendition of Windows Mobile ever.
Microsoft's not building their own phones, but they're going to be picky, to say the least, with Windows Phone 7. Ballmer phrases it as "taking more accountability" for people's experiences. There's a strict set of minimum hardware requirements: a capacitive, multitouchable screen with at least four points of touch; accelerometer; 5-megapixel camera; FM radio; and the like. There are serious benchmarks that have to be met. And only chosen OEMs get to build the phones now, not like before, when anybody with $20 could get a license. The OEMs that Microsoft's announcing they're working with at launch are: Qualcomm, LG, Samsung, Garmin Asus, HTC, HP, Dell, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. AT&T's their "premiere partner" in the US (dammit). (Take note people! Premiere does not mean exclusive!)
Every phone will have a Bing (search) button and a Start button. Custom skins, like the minor miracles HTC worked, are now banned. The message to hardware makers is clear: It's a Windows Phone, you're just putting it together. Basically, phonemakers get to decide the shape of the phone, and whether or not there's a keyboard.
One other word on hardware, in a manner of speaking. Hardware it won't work with? Macs. Which is kind of stupid to us—a lot of the people Microsoft wants to use Windows Phone 7, like college students, have been going Mac in droves. You wanna lure them back Microsoft? Let them use your phone with any OS.

The Big Picture

Windows Phone 7 Series is, from what we've seen, exactly what Microsoft's phone should be. It's actually good. It brings together a bunch of different Microsoft services—Zune, Xbox, Bing—in a way that actually makes sense and just works. But there's a real, lingering question: Are they too late? The first Windows Phone 7 Series…phone—goddamn that is a stupid name—won't hit until the end of this year. That's more than three years after the iPhone, two years after Android, hell, even a year after Palm, the industry's sickly but persistent dwarf.
History is on Microsoft's side here—we know what happened the last time Apple had a massive head start. (Update: To be clear, in computing.) Microsoft is, if nothing else, incredibly patient. Remember the first Xbox? Back when it was crazy that Microsoft was getting into videogames? It's cost them about a billion dollars and taken nearly 10 years, but now, with Xbox Live, Project Natal and their massive software ecosystem, they arguably have the most impressive gaming console you can buy. That was a pet project. Now, mobile is the future of computing. What do you think Microsoft will sink into that?
The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The same people who dominate desktop computing. Everybody else is screwed. Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan famously said a few years ago: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." That's precisely what's just happened. Phones are the new PCs. PC guys are the new phone guys.
[Microsoft]

Read More
,

GETM to Release ‘iRoo L-Series,’ Slim Leather Case for Galaxy Tab 10.1

Posted by dblogz 0 comments



GETM (representative Gyu-Woong Han, www.getm.co.kr), a premium mobile accessories maker, announced the launch of 'Galaxy Tab 10.1 Leather Pouch (model name – L-Series)' and protection film on August 9.

iRoo Galaxy Tab 10.1 Leather Case, introduced to the market swiftly for keeping pace with launch of Galaxy Tab 10.1, reduced increase of bulk to the maximum by ultra slim design. It's perfect for users who want to decorate their own Galaxy Tab 10.1 with vivid color arrangement.

Particularly, iRoo Galaxy Tab 10.1 Leather Case maximizes simplicity since there's no need of additional devices like snaps. And the front cover can be opened and closed just as SmartCover.

iRoo Galaxy Tab 10.1 Leather Case is available in 5 colors – black, pink, green, orange, and purple – and the price is 69,000 (KRW) including VAT. The protection film launched along with the case costs 24,800 (KRW).

Inquiries: +82-2-3442-5552




Read More
,

Facebook to Introduce Separate Messenger App for iPhone and Android

Posted by dblogz 0 comments

It's not clear if its recently acquired group messaging firm, Beluga, had anything to do with it or not, but Facebook has branched out further into the increasingly crowded messaging space on August 9 with the announcement of a separate Facebook Messenger app. Available for iPhone and Android, the app lets you send messages directly to individual friends or groups, which they'll of course receive instantly (a la BBM, Huddle for Google+, and Apple's forthcoming iMessage).
You're also able to share your location if you choose, and attach photos to your messages, but the app is otherwise streamlined and barebones -- which Facebook says is just the point. You can grab it from the App Store or Android Market now.
Source engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/09/facebook-introduces-separate-messenger-app-for-iphone-and-androi/)

Read More
,

Design an Android Shirt and Win!

Posted by dblogz 0 comments

Hi Gals! We are excited to announce that we have teamed up with AndroidSwag.com to bring you an awesome girly contest. I have always been sad that all the Android shirts seem to be aimed towards men. So we have decied to let the Gals out there design an Android shirt of their own.

We are accepting submissions for the next week, and maybe even longer determining on the interest that is shown. After we gather all the entries, we will get them up on the site and all of us gals and guys will vote on their favorite one. I'm counting on all you artistic girls out there to design us one amazing Android shirt!

The winner will receive a free limited edition shirt that they designed, and also will be paid $ 1 for every shirt that is sold! (12 shirt minimum needed for this to happen).

This shirt will never be sold again, and will be a limited edition, designed by you. Brought to you by your Android community,  AndroidGals, and AndroidSwag. The shirt will be sold for $ 20 and there will be sizes from small to 2XL available.

This is the shirt that was selected for the custom design to be printed on, so please design accordingly. The color will be chosen after the design is selected.


The submitted designs will need to have the following prerequisites:
  • Maximum of 6 colors
  • Front chest location with a maximum size of 15 x 19 inches
  • Images need to be 300dpi
If this goes over well, we can start doing this contest monthly. That way, every month there will be a limited edition AndroidGal shirt that is offered to the community, made by the community.
You can submit your entries to contest@androidgals.com.
Please let us know in the comments below what you think about this contest. We always love to hear your feedback!

Read More
,

Premium Directory Listing Boosting Your Traffic

Posted by dblogz 0 comments

Premium directory listings can be hard to find for free, and often don't provide you with enough coverage. Often you'll find that the only quality backlinks you can get from directories are paid for, which Google, Bing and other search engines HATE. Paying for links is not an effective method of SEO, and can sometimes lead to your site actually being banned from search engines.

Quality backlinks can be built through several different methods, but the greatest and most abundant source for free backlinks are Directories. Although the majority of high PR directories are expensive and not worth the money, you can easily gain free premium backlinks without having to go out of pocket!

When attempting to improve a sights SEO, it is important to involve several steps.

These include:

- Generating backlinks from high PR sites links with a dofollow tag, allowing search engines to crawl and locate the links

- Creating an effective anchor text and description wrapped around the link, meaning that your keywords will be associated with your link, and thus improving your ranking

- Not to spam! Spamming is the worst possible method of SEO as you can often find that Search Engines such as Google, Bing and more will actually ban your website, meaning that all traffic has to be generated manually and through direct links.

- Continue with your SEO no matter how old your site is. No one site will stay on top forever, high ranking sites have CONSTANT SEO done to them to ensure that their traffic is generated effectively. Sales, downloads and recurring customers are all generated by Keyword Research and linking your site to those keywords.

Effectively generating traffic is not a quick solution, but with the right websites and tools by your side, you can immediately increase your Google rankings without having to pay for any services!

Remember, any paid service that is available is completed by a human, which means you are completely capable of doing it yourself! Ensure you do all the research you possibly can to begin increasing your Google, Bing and Yahoo search engine rankings, and beat all of your competitors to it!

Many services that are available today are done through spam blog comments and forum backlinks. These are often not approved or deleted before you gain any rankings. Writing genuine articles. blog comments and using your link in a forum signature is the best possible answer to your SEO needs!

Read More
, ,

Try Online Open Beta Test to Start, Featuring European and North American Servers

Posted by dblogz 0 comments

ALT1 Games officially announced the schedule for their open beta test and official service. The open beta test will start at 11am PST on August 11th and end at 10pm PST on August 18th. The commercial release will begin at 11am PST on August 19th.

ALT1 Games has plans to release new updates during the open beta test, as well as run a number of events including beta key giveaways for new and current users. For the open beta test, ALT1 Games has changed the game engine to enhance the quality of game graphics and improve game. If you participated in the previous test, you can check how much the graphics have changed. You can view the updated graphics at the Troy Online official homepage.(http://troy.alt1games.com/)




ALT1 Games has placed a server in Europe to solve the lagging problems which plagued international users. The strong point of the game was that the battle system allowed more than a hundred users to fight at once and thelag did not allow players to experience these wars. The lag issues should slow down if not cease entirely with the implementation of a European server.

ALT1 Games has also announced that they will continue to update the game to reduce further lagging issues and place servers in other territories in accordance with user distribution.

To participate in the open beta test, players need to sign up at the Troy Online official website and download the client. All players, even those with the closed beta client, must download the new client. Don't miss the open beta events, starting August 12th! Check out more details at the event page.

For more information, please contact support@alt1games.com. 


Read More
,