The HTC Merge lives! Officially coming to 'multiple' carriers this spring | Android Central

http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-merge-lives-officially-coming-multiple-carriers-spring

Oh...wow...if HTC starts making high end phones with keyboards, this could make me regret the Inspire.  3.8" screen is not going to cut it tho...
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Atrix: no buyer's remorse so far

Took a trip to the AT&T store today to look at the Atrix. Summary: world's most powerful phone in the world's most boring package.

Yes, 940x540 display, 1920mAh battery, dual-core Tegra2, 2600 Quadrant score, 4G...

But it just doesn't look or feel special.  Physically it's just another candybar phone.  It looks like my husband's Droid Incredible from 2010. The body is light and plasticky feeling.  No distinguishing physical characteristics - just a rounded rectangular box.  The toy-like hand-feel is all wrong for a performance phone.

And, the screen resolution doesn't visually look any higher than the Inspire's at 800x480 even tho it has 30% more pixels.  The Inspire's display is also more saturated making the Atrix's display look washed out.    And, the Captivate's Super AMOLED display STILL looks better than EITHER the Atrix or the Inspire.  (Altho I will say the icons were resized smaller on the Atrix.  The icons on the Inspire are really ridiculously huge.  It's a little, um, Jitterbuggy in that way.)

A flagship phone's ID should make a statement.  Remember the first Droid?  The first Blackberry Bold? The Nexus?   The Atrix's ID says "Yawn."  Come on Motorola, you can figure this out!  What happened to your Droid design team?  Couple that with the $199 price, a locked bootloader (i.e. no custom ROM), and mandatory $45/mo tethering package (according to the AT&T rep) -- this phone is not going to be flying off shelves.  Still don't believe me?  Go into an AT&T store and pick one up.

I've just got to have my "i told you so" moment.  I'm over it now.  Really.

FCC study estimates $23.5 billion needed to bring broadband to unserved areas

http://connectedplanetonline.com/residential_services/news/fcc-study-broadband-unserved-0507/index.html

"The study estimated the total cost of bringing broadband at speeds of at least 4 MB/s to the 7 million unserved homes, which house approximately 14 million people, at $23.5 billion."

The population of the US in 2010 was 308 million. So are we really going to spend $3000 per household to bring the last 2% online?
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BestBuy vs ATT

I got burned by ATT one too many times about 3-4 years ago and vowed never to let them near my mobile plan again since they were forever effing it up. Since then I've been having very good luck with BestBuy. Their salespeople seemed to be a higher order of primate than ATT's. But this weekend BestBuy was unable to grandfather me under my old unlimited data plan and it took the ATT store to fix it. The ATT rep tried to give me grief about about shopping at BestBuy but when I explained why, he agreed, and stated that training has improved a lot over the last few years.  This was at a "core" store whatever that means. And when he was in fact able to get my old plan back, I shook his hand and said he'd made a believer out of me and that I'd be back. We both left happy.

But I still have a conspiracy theory - the best network speeds are near ATT stores and their retail partners. Leave the parking lot and all bets are off. I've got the Speedtest.net data to prove it!
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Galaxy Tab vs Dell Streak

The GTab was a beautiful machine, refined and graceful.  I  loved it even more after switching to the Dell Streak. The Streak was laggy especially when too many programs were running. The stock Dell keyboard was terrible - 80 pct of my words were misspelled even with autocorrect on. Plus I could basically out-type the input  buffer. That never happened on the GTab. Swiftkey made it somewhat better but not great. The battery lasted maybe 6 hours - which for something that advertised itself as a phone was completely unforgiveable.

And, it didn't fit in my pocket. And I looked ridiculous holding a paperback book up to my ear.

It was the little things I loved about the GTab.  I had occasion to use the Tab after having the Streak for a few weeks and it was like moving from a Honda Civic to a Lexus. You know the pleasure of a smoothly shifting, powerful engine? The level of haptics feedback was adjustable (i just wanted a tiny buzz). The screen was beautiful and responsive. The keypad just worked. Some lag but not too much. It was truly the sum of all the parts. If you are thinking of buying a GTab you will not be disappointed.
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Surprise upset by HTC

Summary: Poweruser tires of living on the bleeding edge, tries to slip back to leading edge. I can't love phones anymore, there's no payback. They don't love you back. Plus I have gadget fatigue, having chewed thru the Galaxy Tab and Dell Streak in less than 2 months.

I'm posting tonight from my new HTC Inspire 4G phone. A few days ago I would have never have considered buying an HTC but here is why:
- I need to turn in my old Dell Streak since they want to do a teardown of it at work.
- I need to stay on ATT because I travel and i need a GSM "world" phone that will work in almost every country. Also I read that I could keep my $30 unlimited data plan.
- I was concerned that the Motorola Atrix, with its new dual-core Tegra2 hardware, would be buggy. I'm a hardware engineer - I know what first versions of platforms are like. Not stable. Believe it or not, I am actually tiring of living on the bleeding edge of technology. On the bleeding edge there is no just buying a device and enjoying it. You are a guinea pig and have to discover all the faults of the new hardware the hard way. You have to put up with whatever flaws you find in the hideously expensive hardware you just bought. Wait on firmware releases, research workarounds, install new firmware then reinstate my custom environment, etc. Taking up many many hours. When really what I want to do is use the damn thing for the purposes I bought it for. This is why, for example, I am so glad I didn't get the Galaxy S Captivate--i use GPS extensively and would've suffered without it. That phone would have been totally unusable to me. I use Google Maps many times a day, for realtime traffic and searches on retail establishments. And Samsung has been promising Froyo for months and haven't delivered yet. OTOH, The HTC Inspire is Snapdragon based and should be stable. I don't want to buy a phone until I can read some reviews on it. The Inspire reviews so far are reasonable. These "minor" issues that all smartphones have become real barriers for powerusers like me.  I'm sick of having to deal with them.
- the Inspire was available today. I am not an impulse buyer but when I want something I want it Right Now. The Atrix comes out Tuesday but I have an all day meeting Tues and a 9am meeting on Weds. God only knows when I'd be able to get one.
- the other strikes against the Captivate are: no HSUPA, low Quadrant benchmark score (900), laggy performance (fixable with custom ROM), no Froyo. But the superAMOLED display is truly amazing to see.
- the downsides of the Inspire are: no FFCAM, laughably small 1200mha battery, average 800x480 display, 4.3" display (good), but narrow viewing angle with no antireflective coating. Also no HSUPA.

In summary the Inspire bested the Captivate with its wider screen (i don't care for the long skinny screens), 4G network, and higher benchmark performance (Quadrant 1900).  Plus I really liked how it felt in my hand. I think its a good compromise phone, that has no major issues, while waiting for LTE to get fully installed. A year from now when I'm ready for a new phone, hopefully there will be a good LTE phone available.

The big unknown on this phone was of course the so-called 4G (HSPA+) network. ATT is deploying a faster version of their 3G network (HSPA+) this year and is  calling it 4G. These "4G" phones are not actually compatible with the true 4G "LTE" network, but do have about twice the download speed of 3G.  So far I have been seeing download speeds about twice as fast as 3G (1-2.5Mbps) per Speedtest.net, and browsing has been very quick. However it appears ATT has disabled fast upload speeds (disabled HSUPA) so folks are seeing approx 350kbps MAX. Yes. At least half what were used to on 3G which was up to 1Mbps on a good day. Blog uploads will be slow. No video conferencing for us.  But that's OK noone has a front facing camera anyways. Whew.

The bottom line is, all ATT Android phones don't have HSUPA and are stuck with slow upload speeds. So if you need to upload in realtime this could be an issue. And HSPA+ speeds are not going to improve - today's performance is as good as it gets until LTE rolls out (according to the ATT rep).   At which point we'll all have to get new phones if we want the benefit of 4G.

Still trying to understand HSPA+ performance. Supposedly when ATT's backhaul switches over to fiberoptic, network speeds will improve - but for who? What about phones without HSUPA? ATT has shown time and time again that network speed is not a metric they care about.

So for now I'm quite happy to have a phone that fits in my pocket again, is faster than anything I've ever used, and only cost $99.
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Google Android Gains Momentum in 2011 with Top 10 Mobile Products

http://mobile.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Google-Android-Gains-Momentum-in-2011-with-Top-10-Mobile-Products-246466/

"Android enjoyed a fantastic year in 2010, launching on more than 100 handsets and tablets and gobbling market share from Nokia, Research in Motion and even Apple through sheer volume alone...
If CES provided the appetizer for Android, Mobile World Congress was the main course. At the just concluded show in Barcelona, Samsung, Sony, HTC, LG and others introduced a dizzying array of new Android handsets, tablets and game players."
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NYT: digital age is slow to arrive in rural america

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=746402&f=21

" "You often hear people talk about broadband from a business development perspective, but it's much more significant than that," Mr. Depew added. "This is about whether rural communities are going to participate in our democratic society. If you don't have effective broadband, you are cut out of things that are really core to who we are as a country." "

HTC Inspire vs HTC Thunderbolt vs Motorola Atrix vs Motorola Droid Bionic

Thank you wirefly.com for the data. Turns out my employer has an immediate & good use for my Dell Streak and now that I've decided the negatives outweigh the advantages of this device, and with the Atrix landing next Tuesday, the timing is perfect to move to a new phone.  Turns out HTC and Motorola have equivalent phones on both networks - so choose your network and choose your vendor.  See comparison chart.  But watch out for the Inspire, it has a tiny 1200 mAh battery and NO front-facing camera which make it a true outlier among 4G smartphones.  WTF?  The other thing I'm reading is that ATT's HSPA+ network is definitely not performing up to standard - 1-2Mbps downlink, 100-200kbps uplink.  WTF?????  I can only assume this will improve over time.

Right now Samsung is dead to me after the GPS issues on the Galaxy S phones - I'm gunshy around Samsung now.  GPS is too critical for me.  And LG is just a Samsung wanna-be, I don't think their quality is any good.
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PDA (Public Display of Affection) for PDAs

Saw this on the interwebs and had to create my own vanity list & graphic. 15 years of my PDAs...

• What did we do before PDAs???
  
• Palm Pilot - wow what an amazing tool!
• Palm Treo - what an iconic design!
• Palm Treo 270 - color screen! but the most ridiculous flip up screen
• Palm Treo 300 - higher res screen. might have broke.
• Palm Treo 680 - better specs, but no WiFi, no camera, low-res screen
• Blackberry 9000 - Blackberrys were amazing.  Great camera, Wifi, and crystal clear phonecalls.  Early demise in a tub in a hotel somewhere in China but not before racking up $800 worth of international data charges in 2 weeks.
  
• Blackberry 9000 #2 - too slow
• Blackberry 9700 - around this time we got a iPod Touch and all of a sudden the lack of apps on Blackberry was a big hole. Yeah, there were BB apps but the few there were, sucked so bad...
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7" - too big
• Dell Streak 5" - still too big
• Motorola Atrix - hopefully arriving next week!
  

Spec comparison: Then and now...
Palm Pilot specs: 16 MHz Motorola 68328 processor, 128kB memory, 160x160 mono display, 4.5Whr battery (2xAA)
Motorola Atrix specs: 1000MHz dual-core Tegra2, 1GB memory, 960x540 4" color display, 6.4Whr battery
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Google: Nokia ‘made wrong choice’, with Microsoft - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8327677/Google-Nokia-made-wrong-choice-with-Microsoft.html

'Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has confirmed that his company held "confidential negotiations with Nokia that were extensive" before the Finnish company chose to sign up with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform.'

Microsoft had more to lose than Google - and plenty of cash. For Nokia, a deal that they couldn't refuse...

NYT: Search Optimization

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=743916&f=23

'"I think we need to make a distinction between two different kinds of searches - informational and commercial," he said. "If you search 'cancer,' that's an informational search and on those, Google is amazing. But in commercial searches, Google's results are really polluted. My own personal experience says that the guy with the biggest S.E.O. budget always ranks the highest." To Mr. Stevens, S.E.O. is a game, and if you're not paying black hats, you are losing to rivals with fewer compunctions.'

Nokia ‘Pees in the Cold to Stay Warm’ After All | Epicenter | Wired.com

http://m.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/nokia-pees-in-the-cold

'By throwing its lot in with Microsoft, a suddenly desperate Nokia is plainly struggling to remain as relevant in the app age as it was during the reign of the candy bar phone. Something weird is going on: Cellphones are trying to be computers. And Microsoft knows computers.... Nokia plus Microsoft equals market share. Despite all the naysaying in the above video, the resulting platform is going to matter —possible more than HP/Palm's webOS. '

Hmm.  But does Microsoft know mobile computing?  And marketshare comes from Developer mindshare.

I am reminded of a headline from the era of the HP-Compaq merger : 'two aging tech giants stagger off into the twilight. '

Where Have All The Music Pirates Gone? | Epicenter | Wired.com

http://m.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/where-have-the-pirates-gone/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wiredbusinessblog+%28Blog+-+Epicenter+%28Business%29%29

Downloaders want movies over music: at a 17 to 1 ratio,  if you include TV and movies.

Nortel's Web.Alive Brings Virtual Worlds to Business

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/virtual-worlds/nortels-weblive-brings-virtual-worlds-to-business.html

A better description here.  Perhaps Avaya is reselling Nortels solution. And i guess i meant SecondLife and not WoW.

I can see this taking off - virtual interaction is going to seem pretty normal to 'young' folks today.

Avaya web.alive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8l5mWuALnCs

I cant believe my eyes.  I think this is like World of Warcraft but for business where your avatar/Mii meets other avatars for business meetings complete with desktop sharing and powerpoints.  The link is a video of the Virtual meeting space (which can be customized).  I think it would have been cooler if the person 's actual face was projected on the avatar in real time.

Daring Fireball: The Next Six Months

http://daringfireball.net/2011/02/the_next_six_months

Gruber: "But I'm certain that Apple sees the potential and the high stakes. They're not going to leave any gas in the tank pushing the iPad hardware specs forward as fast as they can."

impressive TouchPad from HP

There's a lot of good reasons to buy HP's 9.7" TouchPad.  Unique OS features for usability, dead simple printing, HP Beats Audio, touchstone inductive charging, Touch to Share pairing with Palm Pre phones, and all the apps required of an ereader - Kindle, magazines, facebook... If you aren't a hardcore gamer, and if you use the TouchPad mainly at home (and dont need Navigation/Location aware apps) then the HW and the apps of the TouchPad will probably give you everything you need...and you probably won't miss an appstore with 300k (Apple) or 50k (Android) apps.  And I'm not being snarky at all.
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HP / Palm's "Think Beyond" event

Better live blog here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/09/live-from-hp-palms-think-beyond-webos-event/?sort=newest&refresh=60

Live blog of HP / Palm's "Think Beyond" event: http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/09/live-from-hp-palms-think-beyond-event/

www.bgr.com/2011/01/25/new-hp-trademarks-could-lead-to-horrible-webos-tablet-names/ :
"Several newly uncovered trademark filings could indicate possible names for HP's upcoming webOS tablets. The trademark filings, which were revealed today, include "HP Duopad," "HP Touchcanvas" and "HP Touchslate." Earlier trademarks suggest that one of HP's tablets could also be named "HP Touchpad."  An upcoming tablet codenamed Topaz is expected to be among HP's announcements at the event, and if the company decides to use any of these newly-trademarked monikers, the worst thing about this sleek new webOS tablet could very well be its name."

Griffen Powerjolt Dual Universal micro car charger

This does charge my Streaker at 1A, but seems to charge hubbys Incredible at 500mA. My Streaker reports 1000mA charging in the Android System Info  logfile. But the Incredible reports only "usb" charging not "AC" charging. Other than that "minor " annoyance, this is an awesome car charger. $15.
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Motorola Droid Bionic Vs. Motorola Atrix: Benchmarks!!

http://www.theandroidphone.com/motorola-droid-bionic-vs-motorola-atrix-benchmarks-96780/

Preliminary 2.2 firmware on the Atrix clocks in at 2600 running the Quadrant benchmark.  Currently the world champ! My little Streak gets ~770. He's a slow motion streaker!
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How to fix the stock camera on the Streak

Ditch that piece of junk and replace it with Vignette. I made several shortcuts for favorite settings combos - I have shortcuts for 3MP, 5MP, Polaroid, 16:9, 3:2, toy_camera_framed, etc. (The trick - use shortcuts/vignette not shortcuts/applications/vignette) So with one click I can choose the effect I want. And best of all no annoying shutter sound. Worth every penny of $4.00.

Now _ how to fix the keyboard. For some reason i get tons of errors with the portrait mode keyboard evej with auto correct turned on.  I think the keys aretoo small. I tried a new keyboard but it was worse. I just dont feel like learning Swype, it slows me down.  Haptics is useless - doesnt help you hit the right key, doesit? Key highlight is ok if you want to look at every letter you type AFTER you already typed it. I type a lot and i really want my old blackberry keypad back.  Sob.

I just spent a bunch of time correcting this post. Something wrong with the Streak. This didnt happen with the GTab!
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Dell Streak 5 camera test

Happy with the level of detail, color balance. Able to focus at about 2-3 inches, too.

I think the flash is unbelievably weak. I turned it on and noticed no difference.

Annoying shutter sound

Fixed it. Set Tasker to go to Silent mode whenever Camera app is running. Tasker considers "running" to be whenever Camera is the active app, so the phone doesnt permanently stay Silent after the first time Camera runs -- its only Silent while Camera is in the foreground.  Yay Tasker!!
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Dell Streak 5 Field Test - day 1

Felt like I was carrying a small paperback book in my hand all day (since it was too big to put in my pocket and I refuse to use a holster). Otterbox provided a nice secure grip, tho.

Backlight very weak in direct sun. Has to be almost 100% to overcome daylight. Forces you to compose camera shots almost blind.

Camera Shutter sound is annoyingly loud. I startled several passers-by with it.

Slow responsiveness. The 3 menu buttons dont always respond to presses. The phone takes a long time to return to home, rotate the screen, launch an app, etc. Much more noticeable in the field than at home. (I was also surprised at Streaks low performance benchmarks.)

The photos are pretty amazing (for a phone). High enough resolution (5 MP) to make me discard my point and shoot camera. Not sure whether its truly equivalent to a 5MP digicam, but good enough to not make wish i'd used my digicam instead.

Battery died completely after only 6 hours. The 10 minute backlight timeout didnt help, nor did the screen brightness widget that has too high of a Low setting (40%).
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Dell Streak Impact Series Case // OtterBox.com

http://www.otterbox.com/Dell-Streak-Impact-Series-Case/DEL1-STRK1-20-C4OTR_A,default,pd.html

My Otterbox case arrived today!  Beach Audio got that sucker in the mail pronto.  The Impact is the slimmest case they make. Even so, the additional few mm thickness makes my Streak a bit chubby. And now it doesnt fit in my pocket at all.

The soft rubber is much less slippery and the extra cushioning means my anxiety about dropping it has gone way, way down.

Tomorrow is the first big field trip for the phone, a New Years outing with some other families. It will be a test of the camera and the general mobility of the device.
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What We Use: Lifehacker Editors' Favorite Gear and Tips

What We Use: Lifehacker Editors' Favorite Gear and Tips [Roundup]
LIFEHACKER | FEBRUARY 04, 2011
http://lifehacker.com/5752189/what-we-use-lifehacker-editors-favorite-gear-and-tips

"We've had a great time detailing the hardware, software, desk setups, and productivity tips we all use every day..."

Still digesting all the great tips in this article.
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ROM update for Dell Streak

According to StreakSmart.com there's an official Froyo ROM update for the Streak. So here we go from 12332 to 12821.
Should fix the web browser redirect problem and hopefully also the Launcher Pro "can't connect to Facebook" problem.  Wish me luck.

OK, seemed to work!  Onwards...
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Tablet comparison

Interesting graphic over here comparing the iPad, GTab, Viewsonic G, Dell Streak.

in for a penny, in for a pound (Slippah vs Dell Streak vs Blackberry)

So after a week i'm still enjoying the Dell Streak 5".  Love the big screen, the 800x480 resolution is more than enough for the 5" screen.  Launcher Pro looks awesome on it. With all those pixels I can run a lot of widgets and have a lot of info at my fingertips on the home screens, much more so than on the Blackberry (see previous posts).

Current list of annoyances:

- Size - Doesn't fit in my jeans pocket.

- Battery life sucks big time.

- Terrible phone - Speaker too soft--hard to hear callers.  Output volume to headphone jack is low.  Mic too insensitive--people can't hear me.  Speakerphone calls are pure torture.  Music playback quality is tinny, but the Samsung GTab's wasn't much better.

- Corporate security. Access to corporate email requires secondary password to unlock the screen, so everytime the screen backlight times out, I have to swipe it AND enter a 4 digit PIN AND press enter.  I can still answer phone calls without entering a PIN, however.  I changed the screen timeout to 10 minutes to minimize timeouts, but that sucks battery even more...

- Handleability - Really afraid i'm going to drop it while i'm out and about. Very thin and slippery.  I was used to carrying my BB in my pocket and whipping out my blackberry everywhere, it was small and easy to handle.  Going to try an Otterbox for more drop protection.

- Basically impossible to make/receive a call with one hand.  Take it out of pocket, unlock screen (swipe it AND enter 4 digit PIN required by my workplace), get to home page, click Contacts, click Favorites, click entry.  All the while being afraid i'm going to drop it. 

- Makes a pretty damn big camera.  The Blackberry was much more unobtrusive.  Plus, with Android, the volume of the shutter button is never the same twice (why??) so sometimes there's this huge dorky shutter sound when i take a picture.  Nothing screams dork like "notification volume too loud".  But speaking of dork...

- Almost embarassingly large to place a call on.  As http://www.nag.co.za/2010/06/welcome-to-the-new-world-of-touch/ says, "Please beware, though, of how fast your dork rating will shoot up the minute you take out a small ringing book with moving pictures and start talking to it."  (Thanks to Nag Online for the picture by the way)

Just ordered a bunch of charging cables (which are ONLY available from Dell), a new 1800mAh battery from Mugen, and an Otterbox Impact case.  So $120 later...

Other than that I love it !!  

Mostly.

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Dell Streak - more home page

Launcher Pro Twitter widget, Stock Watcher widgets. Biggest disappointments so far: no ability to capture screenshot (must root), crummy phonecalls (speaker too soft and mic not sensitive enuf), having to give up physical keyboard. But all in all, this is the perfect mobile tablet for me (today). 7″ GTab was just too big for me.

Dell Streak 5"

Spent the weekend setting up Launcher Pro: Preloaded Dell background, Beautiful Widgets time/weather widgets, Evernote widget, Handcent SMS medium widget. 

$399 unlocked, comes with Froyo 2.2 installed.