Penny Mobiles – Mobile phone news, reviews & information

It was just a matter of time. With the growing sophistication of the Android OS now in its v2.2 Froyo iteration, the world’s 2nd largest mobile phone maker Samsung just stepped into the tablet war zone to challenge Apple’s iPad now looming as the undisputed leader in a pack of one. Welcome the challenger – the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Samsung seems to be playing its cards right with a product that straddles the line between the mobile phone and a full tablet device in terms of size. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a hefty 190 x 120.5 x 12 mm and weighing 380g but is just half the size of the iPad. It’s certainly larger than the largest smartphone in the market and you know it is with its 7-inch capacitive touchscreen display with multitouch, Swype, accelerometer and 3-axis sensor. Is it any good? We’ll let you be the judge, read on:

Trumping the iPad

The Samsung Galaxy Tab wins points over the iPad for having a 3.2 megapixel shooter with autofocus, LED flash including a video recording feature with D1 (720 x 480) resolution at 30fps. 3G video calls are also supported with its front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera.

There’s also Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP and MicroUSB v2.0 local data connectivity support. External memory expandability of up to 32GB adds to its internal memory capacity which comes in two flavors of 16GB and 32GB. Lastly, you have a true multitasking OS in the Android v2.2 Froyo as well as Adobe Flash 10.1 support you won’t find in the iPad.

So what other features does it have that is at par with the iPad? It’s a Tri band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA on 3G and a Quad band GSM on 2G with class 10 GPRS/EDGE. It also has WiFi 802.11 b/g/n for hotspot surfing and a GPS receiver with A-GPS support.

The 4000 mAh Li-ion battery powers up to 7 hours of movie playback and really makes this a superb feature set.

Android smart phones are the best answer to many mobile phone needs. It handles basic internet browsing, casual gaming, social networking, media recording and playback, document processing and of course, all the fun Google extra features.

And while it may seem like an easy task to simply go out and grab the latest Android smart phone from any major phone maker, there are certain devices that truly stand out over the rest. With that said, the HTC Desire is as ‘Android’ as an Android smart phone can be. The device rivals Google’s Nexus One in terms of both specs and user experience, providing users with the best that the Android OS has to offer.

A Close Look

The spec sheet on the HTC Desire is basically the new standard for what many other mobile phone makers consider as the basis for high end devices. First off, the Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 CPU; clocked at 1GHz, this processor is responsible for keeping the handset running fast and smooth.

But even with the speed and the power of the chip, there is one more important feature that the Snapdragon has: better energy consumption rates. Even with its top level performance, the handset will last for hours on a full charge.

HTC has also provided the phone with a 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen display, giving it high quality visual output and of course, serves as the primary user input. This multitouch capable display supports gestures such as ‘pinch to zoom’ which allow users a more convenient way of browsing the phone’s contents.

Wrapping Up

While the HTC Desire is pre-installed with the Android 2.1 Éclair, it is recommended that users upgrade to version 2.2 Froyo. This installment provides the handset with ever higher quality video recording, improved apps and most importantly, a massive boost to the performance in terms of speed and stability for the UI and in web browsing. The upcoming HTC Desire Z and HTC Desire HD are expected to ship with Froyo pre-installed.

A rumor has been started from a Russian tech podcast that speaks of the upcoming Android 3.0 operating system. While the new features that were detailed are definitely impressive, there is a large part of the news that would have many Android smart phone owners worried regarding the arrival of the new OS. According to the rumors, the new OS will only be compatible with high-end smart phones.

Considering that Microsoft has already taken this route with the Windows Phone 7, one would think that Google might also try the same approach –determine a minimum hardware requirement for a new OS. In this way, the overall user experience is standardized throughout all devices. At the moment, the Android OS is suffering from cross-handset compatibility issues for some features and apps due to the fact that the hardware used for Android handsets vary depending on the manufacturer.

The podcast goes on to point out that the new OS will only be compatible with mobile phones that have 1GHz CPUs or higher.

While this move makes sense, it is unlikely that Google would actually go in that direction. Unlike the Windows Phone 7 which is an entirely new OS from Windows Mobile, the upcoming Gingerbread is still an update of the current 2.1 Éclair and 2.2 Froyo. Jumping to an entirely new OS would leave a vast majority of Android’s users alienated and that is something that Google cannot risk. After all, it would very likely upset a large number of people if Google brought out an update that made, say, the Samsung Galaxy S obsolete, but supported the HTC Desire.

One of the key topics that Google discussed in the I/O conference and is constantly tackling is the compatibility issue with the Android OS. Their goal is to make the upcoming Gingerbread a standard OS for all the Android smart phones –to set a compatibility standard so that apps and features have no problems running.

Naturally, Google’s newer operating systems would indeed adapt to newer technology, but right now, cutting off any smart phone with a CPU slower than 1GHz is not a viable solution for Google.