droids

We already know that the Nexus One and other HTC phones will get a Froyo update, but what about other phones? Well, Motorola Droid owners wondering if their beloved handset will be getting Android 2.2 need not worry.

The handset-maker already plans to make Froyo available via an update before too long. Slashgear reached out to Motorola over the weekend in hopes of getting it to open up about the latest version of the platform. Not surprisingly, the company was somewhat vague in its response.

Now that all the juicy details of Android 2.2 "Froyo" are out, the question for current Android phone owners inevitably turns to "When do I get it?" Well, there is good news for some, bad news for others, and no news for the rest.

Starting with the good, Google announced via its Google I/O Twitter account that Froyo will be served to Nexus One users in the next few weeks. Not terribly surprising that the N1 would be one of the first to get the update considering its direct ties to Google (though that … Read more

I was never a fan of the original Dolphin browser for Android, but when DolphinHD was released for Android 2.0 and above I figured I'd check it out for the feature set alone. Little did I know that within a day I'd make it the default browser on my Motorola Droid.

Much like the Skyfire browser, which boasts unique in-house Flash video playback, DolphinHD's feature set gives users significant feature enhancements over the default browser. There's tabbed browsing, link sharing via your installed social networking apps, add-ons, themes, smoother in-browser multitouch, a generally high level of customization, the ability to save your cache and history to the SD card, and one of the most logical features for a touch-screen phone browser, customizable gesture support.

There used to be one other awesome feature: YouTube video downloading. But lest you think that only Apple played hardball with its application developers, Google forced Dolphin's publishers to remove the feature for a Google and YouTube Terms of Service violation within a week of the browser's release.

For me, the gesture support is Dolphin's killer feature. It comes with several default actions, including jumping to your bookmarks, moving forward and backward in site navigation, jumping to the top or bottom of the page you're on, reloading the page you're looking at, and sharing the page you're on. You can also set gestures to load specific sites, open new tabs, or add a bookmark. In all, Dolphin comes with 20 gesture options. A few have been wedded by default to predetermined gestures, but you can overwrite them easily with motions more to your liking, or move the gesture hot corner around. … Read more

I'm sure many of you thought this day would never come, but all you HTC Droid Eris owners are finally getting your Android 2.1 update.

Verizon announced via its VZW Support Twitter account that it has begun rolling out the over-the-air update and will continue to do so over the next couple of weeks until it reaches all customers. The update is being released in random batches and you will receive a notification on your phone when it's ready for download.

Once installed, you'll be able to enjoy new features and improvements, such as pinch-to-zoom support … Read more

When the news first hit that Verizon Wireless would offer the HTC Droid Incredible, the reaction was fast and furious and I received an inordinate amount of e-mails about the smartphone. Clearly, the Android device struck a chord with many of you.

Since then, we've had a chance to review the Droid Incredible and it truly is incredible, but, if we're being completely honest, we definitely underestimated the smartphone at first. Sure it had a better camera and more internal memory than some of its competitors, but it's not like the Incredible was offering any new, groundbreaking … Read more

Thanks to a computer glitch, a handful of lucky Verizon Wireless customers found themselves getting the HTC Droid Incredible more than a week before its official launch date.

According to a few users in AndroidForums, their new Verizon handset arrived on Tuesday and Wednesday, days ahead of the scheduled April 29 date. After a little nay-saying and provocation, a user by the name of SoSmarmy decided to film himself powering up the phone. As I gather it, the number of users who have received their Droid Incredible was minimal and the glitch has since been fixed.

While many of us … Read more

Recently, AT&T announced an eco-friendly cell phone charger called the AT&T Zero Charger.

The allure of this device is it automatically shuts down when not in use, offering what AT&T claims is "zero vampire draw" from the wall outlet. Vampire draw is a term for the power that devices draw out of outlets they are plugged into while they are turned off. AT&T's charger will be USB-compatible, making it practical for many of the phones on the market today.

Sure, a zero-draw charger sounds helpful. With that said, we … Read more

The HTC Droid Incredible is available for pre-order, and no lie, we drooled a little bit over it. We also uncover the Google conspiracy to rid the world of http://. But the weirdest of all was our discussion of the dramatic weekend rumor mill involving the purported iPhone 4G found on a bar in either San Jose or Redwood City. Or maybe it's a fake.

HTC Droid Incredible solves the Verizon Wireless tethering conundrum http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=33207 … Read more

Motorola has shed some much-needed light on the timing for Android 2.1 updates to its product line. The Droid recently got its 2.1 update, but T-Mobile's Cliq has picked up only a minor maintenance release in recent weeks. As such, owners of MotoBlur-equipped devices are wondering when they'll get their turn. The simple answer is they will--at some point.

Looking through the chart, I find it interesting that AT&T's Moto Backflip isn't slated for 2.1 until the third quarter of this year, yet T-Mobile's Cliq XT, which was released a … Read more