Android!

[TripleDES]

There are rumors of a Droid 2 by the end of the year with a 2 GHz (!) CPU.

The Droid 2 is coming pretty soon with an OMAP CPU, I think clocked at 720MHz.

The 2 GHz "project" has only been announced recently by Moto's CEO. Not sure how far it's underway already. The Tegra 2 was mentioned, so I think it'll be just an 1GHz dual core (probably the old idiotic Cores x Clock, i.e. 2x1GHz = 2Ghz). The planned release date is Q4. So if you've too much money (it'll probably be expensive as hell) and can wait a little longer, I'd skip the Shadow.

--edit: I hope Google calls dibs on it for a Nexus Two. Alone to avoid having Motoblur on it.

[eldaec]

If you haven't had a phone with software keyboard, you should try living with one, especially if you are enough of a gadget whore to be posting in this thread and so will get a new phone inside a year anyway.

I was very sceptical before switching to a soft keyboard, but couldn't remember what all the fuss was about within a month.

[MahrinSkel]

If you haven't had a phone with software keyboard, you should try living with one, especially if you are enough of a gadget whore to be posting in this thread and so will get a new phone inside a year anyway.

I was very sceptical before switching to a soft keyboard, but couldn't remember what all the fuss was about within a month.

My son has one, and I tried using it for about a week.  But I have baseball-mitt hands with thick blunt fingers, and it was completely hopeless.  I wasn't "typing", I was carefully poking at one "key" at a time, often with my pinkies, getting the correct character about 3 times out of 5.  Not even remotely acceptable.

Give me a thumb-board, at least.  I'll still be much slower than on a standard keyboard, but not painfully so.

--Dave

[KallDrexx]

The Droid X is supposed to come out next month, with a better process than the snapdragon and a 4.3" screen.

[Arnold]

The Droid X is supposed to come out next month, with a better process than the snapdragon and a 4.3" screen.

Damn, that's a big phone (says it's 4.4").

[Draegan]

Left to Right: Driod2, EVO, New Iphone? Droid Eris?

[NiX]

Far right is an iPhone in a case.

[Draegan]

Ah, I was right the first time.  I found an article with that picture and it said Eris.  Should of gone with my own two eyes.

[MahrinSkel]

I think I found my sweet spot for jumping in.  The HDMI output is the clincher, as long as it can do more than just play video (IOW drive a full-size display while acting like a computer instead of a media device).

--Dave

[KallDrexx]

I think I found my sweet spot for jumping in.  The HDMI output is the clincher, as long as it can do more than just play video (IOW drive a full-size display while acting like a computer instead of a media device).

--Dave

The incredible has full HDMI display as well so I'm sure the Droid x will as well.  There are bids showing sense UI on a 50"

[Righ]

The EVO has HDMI output - 720p, not 'full' 1080p HD - which is the same as the Droid X will have. Unless something changed, the Incredible is component video (not composite as some sites suggest) output over a USB to component video cable which is currently unavailable and not expected until late this month. At 720p component video should be decent enough. It isn't HDMI though - unless you can find somebody to sell you an EVO, you'll have to wait for that.

[Sky]

Component 720p on a 1080p set would probably not be very sharp! Decent for video, but not for much else, I'd think.

[Righ]

Yeah, I was thinking of movies and not spreadsheets. Silly me.   

[Sky]

(IOW drive a full-size display while acting like a computer instead of a media device)

[KallDrexx]

Droid X preview

Sexy

[TripleDES]

Apparently Google's planning a major facelift of Android's UI, according to the newest rumors that are going around. Stuff like "Matching the iPhone experience" and "Discouraging 3rd party shells" is being thrown around.

[Koyasha]

Droid X looks nice, although I am disappointed that it seems to lack a physical keyboard.

[KallDrexx]

Droid X looks nice, although I am disappointed that it seems to lack a physical keyboard.

The Moto Droid 2 (supposedly coming out in August) will have a physical keyboard, though it will be a 3.7" like the current droid.

[Ingmar]

I kind of hate how fast these things come out.

[Engels]

Stuff like "Matching the iPhone experience" and "Discouraging 3rd party shells" is being thrown around.

First part, ya, not a bad idea. GF got the EVO, and its a busy, cluttered and fairly intimidating first impression. They could fix the first impression by having a geometrically uniform icon lay out instead of a clock with 45 point font and then eenie weenie icons for everything else. Its a bit silly.

Second part, about 'discouraging 3rd party shells' worries me, because it indicates a turn towards an apple-like mentality.

All droid needs is a standardized gui, agreeable to major distributors. Have a little banner spot for your Sprint, Verizon, etc if they whine about it.

[TripleDES]

Second part, about 'discouraging 3rd party shells' worries me, because it indicates a turn towards an apple-like mentality.

All droid needs is a standardized gui, agreeable to major distributors. Have a little banner spot for your Sprint, Verizon, etc if they whine about it.

It's about discouraging, not disallowing. I think the idea is to create a shell and UI theme attractive enough, that third parties will have a hard time creating something better looking.

But as said, it's all word of mouth right now.

[Quinton]

The Droid X is supposed to come out next month, with a better process than the snapdragon and a 4.3" screen.

Snapdragon is a family of SoCs from Qualcomm, not a CPU.  The CPU in Snapdragon CPUs is Qualcomm's Scorpion (ARM V7 Architecture),  which is the same generation of ARM Architecture that the CPU in the OMAP3 SoCs from TI use.

I'd say that the OMAP3440/3460 (not sure exactly what the picked for nextgen Droid)  is roughly comparable to the QSD8250 in NexusOne/EVO/etc.

I wouldn't expect to see significant movement in CPUs for smartphones until the end of this year or early next (most of the SoC vendors are heading toward dual-core A9 or similar CPUs for their next generation SoCs).  The SMP ARM stuff may well be too pricey and power hungry for handsets initially -- possibly we'll see it in tablet/netbook/etc formfactors first.

[Quinton]

Given that the entire platform is open source, we have limited ability to dictate to OEMs and carriers how the UI will be.  That's a feature.  If we're going to encourage more uniform interfaces, the path to that is to lead by setting such a good example that people will want to pick it up, not try to lock down the platform and restrict how it's used (something that's not really possible anyway).

[KallDrexx]

Snapdragon is a family of SoCs from Qualcomm, not a CPU.  The CPU in Snapdragon CPUs is Qualcomm's Scorpion (ARM V7 Architecture),  which is the same generation of ARM Architecture that the CPU in the OMAP3 SoCs from TI use.

I'd say that the OMAP3440/3460 (not sure exactly what the picked for nextgen Droid)  is roughly comparable to the QSD8250 in NexusOne/EVO/etc.

I'm pretty much an idiot when it comes to hardware like that so my bad :).  What's SoC stand for?

Everything I read said that the OMAP (or the complete moto droid hardware) stuff is better than the snapdragon system due to it being able to handle graphics better, which is why a lot of benchmarks have Droid almost to the nexus one is some cases even though the Droid is at 550Mhz.  But again, I"m an idiot when it comes to mobile hardware so that's just random internet ramblings :)

[Trippy]

System on a Chip

On a typical PC you have a motherboard that has some sort of chipset on it to handle peripherals/IO and other stuff. You have a CPU on a separate chip and you have a GPU on yet another chip. An SoC integrates multiple functions like a CPU, chipset and GPU on a single chip.

[bhodi]

So, I saw this article on the incredible; It turns out HTC Sense's bookmark widget saves screenshots of what you're browsing for it's thumbnail use but don't get cleared when you clear your browsing history, and don't get deleted with the factory reset option. Whoops!

It's not a huge deal since you can go and delete them manually, but I hope there's a patch for it soon; After regular use I could see it actually being a space (and privacy, of course) issue.

[KallDrexx]

System on a Chip

On a typical PC you have a motherboard that has some sort of chipset on it to handle peripherals/IO and other stuff. You have a CPU on a separate chip and you have a GPU on yet another chip. An SoC integrates multiple functions like a CPU, chipset and GPU on a single chip.

Ah that makes sense, thanks!

[TripleDES]

If that bullshit from Motorola's CEO has any grounds, there'll be a 2GHz Tegra 2 with SMP and low power footprint by end of the year.

[Quinton]

I'm assuming Sanjay is using CEO Math (tm).

Tegra 2 is dual 1GHz ARM A9 cores.

The SGX GPU in OMAP3430 does indeed do some things faster than the Adreno GPU in QSD8250, though the latter should *technically* be faster (from a pure hardware capabilities standpoint).  Amazing how much difference driver tuning can make.

Good example of how pure clock speed is not the only performance metric to look at.

[Draegan]

Droid X preview

Sexy

I think I'm in love.  I think I might have to break my contract early and not wait for October.  My G1 is having sooooo many issues right now.  My buttons are starting to get wonky and GPS is starting to break.  Not to mention the thing is running slow.  I guess I got almost 2 years out of the thing though.

[MahrinSkel]

No physical keyboard is a deal breaker for me.

Is there anything in an Android phone existing or planned that has, in order of importance:

1) A physical keyboard

2) Video output to an external monitor (with the full UI functionality, not just playing video)

3) USB port with support for external USB hubs (I'm assuming they all have Bluetooth)

4) A mini SD card slot for storage expansion I don't have to remove every time I want to stick it in my pocket.

The first two are non-negotiable, the last two are an "either/or" although USB for external keyboards that don't lag is more important than user-friendly storage, having no removable storage option at all is unacceptable.

--Dave

[Draegan]

I don't understand your need for #2.

[MahrinSkel]

I don't understand your need for #2.

I want to use it as my primary device for web-surfing/writing, replacing my laptop and using my desktop only for programming.  Can't do that with a four inch screen and a chiclet keyboard.

--Dave

[NiX]

I doubt you'll see #1 and #2 in the same phone for a bit.

[MahrinSkel]

I suppose I could get a Bluetooth thumb-board (lag wouldn't matter so much there), but that's another card-deck sized piece of hardware to find pocket room for, and remember to charge (Yay, another wall-wart to keep track of).

--Dave