apps...apps...apps...

Been testing out my X10 MP for a couple of days now, and I have to say I'm very impressed.

Been downloading, installing, testing, uninstalling apps for the past 3 days... battery life is about 5 hours of non-stop surfing, chatting, and camera use. Screen on full power. The follwing are apps that I think I'll be keeping on my phone for a while.

GPS - MapDroyd ... amazing little app. Works offline, and has quite detailed street maps of the Philippines. Has other countries as well, taken from OpenStreetMap.org

The X10 Mini Pro's GPS is very decent. Takes a while to get an initial lock, but keeps a lock quite well. I don't have data service active yet, so it was running purely on the data from the GPS, cel-ID, and compass. Under stormy conditions and under an elevated highway, GPS stayed locked while the phone was resting on my center console in my car.

Over-all, I have to say that the GPS is almost as good as a dedicated Garmin unit... although Garmins still outperform mobile phone GPS (regardless of brand, unless it's the Garmin mobile phone) for non-critical applications, it's decent enough.

**Thanks to Mr. Dennis Manzano of SE PH for the tip on this app at the SE Expo!**


SMS - Handcent SMS. Much nicer to look at than then default SMS app. Allows easy access to speec synthesis for reading your incoming SMS to you.








Contacts - Phonebook 2.0 .. still not perfect, but way better than built in phonebook. I wish Android has much better contact management. Sort order can't be changed, and fields are a bit clumsy to edit. This is more inherent in Android than the apps for it. Maybe 2.2 will introduce a much better phonebook app.




Internet - Opera... nuff said. Dunno if the built in browser is a stripped down Chrome (why wouldn't it be) but it's not very pleasant to use. Default browser keeps opening a new window everytime you enter a new page... very annoying. Switched to Opera, much better.




Misc - Tricorder ... for all Star Trek fans... this thing displays all the information gathered from your phone's sensors... Wifi, Blutooth, GPS, cel-ID, accelerometer, gyroscope, electronic compass, etc.

Other neat apps that I like are
PhoneVoice: speaks alerts when incoming calls or SMS are received and says the name of the caller or sender.
Calendar Pad: Much better calendar viewer... gets data from built in cal app.
eBuddy: centralized IM app (although I was never a fan of this, YM for Android isn't official yet and the one out now keeps crashing)

On a separate note, the following Google apps are amazing: Google Goggles, Sky Map & Google Translate.

What apps do you have on your droid phone?

big things come in small packages...

I FINALLY got my X10 Mini Pro (currently the smallest Android phone on the market). Thanks to Sony Ericsson's Expo at the Megatrade Hall, I was able to get a hold of one of the first few units that were sold here.

Will give a much more detailed review once I get all the apps and settings done the way I want.

Granted the most annoying thing is that Sony Ericsson went with 1.6 (Donut) and is still "promising" 2.1 (Eclair)... by the time they release 2.1, (FroYo) will be out already.

Ok, initial impressions:
It's REALLY small. But surprisingly, the screen size isn't that much of a hindrance. Coming from using an iPod Touch as my primary PDA, there are a few things to get used to, but going from iOS to Android opens up way more flexibility.

Oddly enough, the Gmail app is the most limiting app on it... allowing only 1 Gmail Account to be registered. Hopefully future software updates of Android will fix this limitation.

Camera is quite decent, 5 megapixels, LED flash. Response time is pretty good, although video recording is a bit slow to start.

Now, onto the keyboard. It's very well built. Keys are well spaced and feel sturdy. For those that surf the web a lot, or blog, the Mini Pro is better than the regular Mini... but if you only check email, facebook, and twitter... and don't type a lot... the Mini is slightly smaller... a whole lot lighter... and comes in more colors.

I'm also very impressed with the GPS reception on the X10 Mini Pro. Granted, I'm impressed that it can get a decent lock for a phone... anyone who really needs a navigation system, please get a Garmin instead.

If anyone has any tips, or questions about the X10 Mini Pro, or Android, please feel free to post it here.

I will be posting a more in depth review on this in the days to come... so stay tuned...

Touch tip

Quick tip... for iPod Touch and iPhone users running OS3 onwards... the new way to end an app that hangs is to press and hold the power button until the red slider appears (do not turn off the device), the press and hold the Home button until the home screen appears again.

(For those that haven't upgraded to OS3 or higher, the old way was to just press and hold the Home button until the home screen appeared)

...phone home...

The latest craze are all large touchscreen phones... whether it be the iPhone 4, or any of the Android devices... but sometimes less is more... and bigger isn't better... for the people that need new communication devices, but aren't crazy about lugging around huge mobiles, here are 3 new entry level phones from Sony Ericsson that I'm excited about...

The X8 (Although it seems to have less features than the X10-Mini)

The Cedar (The Elm is an amazing phone as it is, I think the Cedar is priced much lower)

And the Yendo (Although the OS looks like Android, it isn't).. another Walkman phone.

3D TV...

A whole new line of 3D TVs has been showing up in stores. Are they really worth it? As with anything at the cutting edge of consumer technology... it depends.

3D TVs look great... I've tried the ones from LG and Samsung, both employ different technologies to achieve the 3D effect. Both require the viewers to wear glasses.

Samsung's uses active (ie:battery operated) glasses... it looks the best, but the glasses are heavy, expensive (approx P5,000 - P7,000 per set), and need batteries.

LG's uses a passive system instead. This makes the glasses much lighter, and cheaper... but the screen itself is more expensive. I also noticed a bit more stutter on the LG set as compared to the Samsung. This may be the limitation of the screen, and not the polarization technology.

At approx P200k for the 46" screens, they're still on the high side for a feature that has very limited media to watch.

They can "fake" the 3D effect from regular programs, but it's not very fun to watch.