Posts Tagged ‘ Android ’

Motorola Atrix 4G

At this years Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, NV, all the major tech companies were showing off their latest tablets, smartphones, 3D devices, or all three. My favorite thing that came out of CES was the Motorola Atrix 4G (above). Not only is a great Android smartphone, it also has the ability to be docked to a PC, laptop, or home theater system. Typically, when a smartphone is docked to a PC, it is either syncing media or charging it’s battery via USB. The Motorola Atrix, however, will be the PC / laptop / home theater system when docked. When docked to a PC, the user will be presented with the desktop version Android OS on their monitor, and will interact using their keyboard and mouse. Additionally, the user will see an on-screen representation of everything on their phone, including all home screens, apps, and widgets. The laptop dock is similar to the PC dock, but it also retains the accelerometer functionality. This would make playing accelerometer-based games on a larger screen possible. Lastly, when docked to a home theater system, a media center like interface is shown on-screen and can be used with its included remote similar to any other set-top box. I’m looking forward to this docking functionality making its way to other Android smartphones eventually, especially those on Verizon.

Check out the video and article at Engadget for more info:

Engadget – Motorola Atrix: another look (video)

Essential Service: Rhapsody

When it comes to modern music services, few are exemplary as Rhapsody. It offers plenty of features, is available on a wide range of devices, and comes at a price that very hard to ignore. Rhapsody’s music streaming element is what originally caught my attention and turned me into a paying customer. However, I’ve decided to stay a paying customer because of its other features, such as Rhapsody Radio, the Music Guide, and the ability to download playlists. Rhapsody Radio allows users to create custom radio channels that will play music based off of either a single artist / band or a group of different artists / bands. Users can also choose to listen to pre-made Radio channels, such as those based on a particular genre or time of years. The Music Guide is where users will find the vast library of Rhapsody’s musical content. This content can be browsed in multiple ways, such as with the search box, by new releases, by top charts, or by genre. My favorite feature that Rhapsody offers is its ability to download playlists. When I use Rhapsody on my Android phone, I’ve gotten used to streaming music from my library. However, doing so depends heavily on my cell phone signal strength. Being able to download playlists removes this road block, since music is then played locally from my cell phone itself. On top of all these awesome features, Rhapsody also has apps available for a wide array of smartphone platforms, which includes Android phones and the iPhone. One more thing….all of this comes at a cost of just $10 per month. Not a bad deal at all.

If you’re an avid music fan, I would strongly suggest you subscribe to the Rhapsody music service.

Find out more here: http://www.rhapsody.com/welcome.html

 

 

HTC Droid Incredible Review

I’ve had my HTC Incredible for about a month and a half now, and there are plenty of things about it that I really like, but at the same time there’s also a few things about it that I believe could use some improvement. The following is a list of this smartphones pros and cons.

Pros:

  • 8 MP camera with flash
  • 720p video recording
  • 8GB of internal memory
  • Micro-SD expansion slot
  • Slim and light form factor
  • Universal headphone jack
  • Snapdragon processor
  • Intuitive HTC Sense user interface
  • Easy to use on-screen keyboard
  • Accurate voice recognition system
  • Available on Verizon

Cons:

  • Short battery life
  • No front-facing camera
  • Have to remove phone-back to access micro-sd expansion slot

As you can see, the pro’s heavily out weigh the cons for the HTC Droid Incredible, meaning that it is worth every penny of its $250 price tag. However, the cons I’ve listed are debatable. For instance, the battery life depends on the apps and services that are currently running. The fewer apps / services that are running, the longer the battery will last on a charge, up a a full day.

Verdict: If you are looking for a small, light, and snappy smartphone, I would highly recommend the HTC Droid Incredible.