Samsung I7500: Samsung's First Android Phone Out in June

Yes, you heard it right. It's not Samsung S8000 as previously rumored to be Sammy's first Android phone. It's the I7500 instead. Another full touchscreen handset from Samsung due to be out this June. The latest Android handset is definitely packing the best spec sheet any Android powered phone in the market has. Check out the stats:

* Android 1.5 OS
* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, dual-band UMTS/HSPA
* 528 MHz Qualcomm MSM7200A CPU
* 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive OLED touchscreen display
* 5 megapixel camera with LED flash
* Wi-Fi
* Bluetooth
* GPS
* 8GB internal flash memory
* microSD slot
* 3.5 mm stereo jack
* Metal case, 11.9 mm thick



The Samsung I7500 will be available exclusively from O2 in Germany from June 2009. Pricing for the handset itself has not been announced, but the carrier has confirmed that no specific tariffs or service plans will be required; buyers will be able to choose any from O2’s range.

Official press release:

The Company’s First Android-Powered Mobile Phone

Samsung sets its leading position in Android, the mobile industry’s emerging operating system

April 27, 2009, Seoul, Korea - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a leading mobile phone provider, today unveiled the I7500, its first Android-powered mobile phone. With a launch of I7500, Samsung became the first company among the global top three mobile phone manufacturers to unveil an Android-powered phone.

“Samsung is among the earliest members of the Open Handset Alliance and has been actively moving forward to introduce the most innovative Android mobile phone,” said JK Shin, Executive Vice President and Head of Mobile Communication Division in Samsung Electronics. “With Samsung’s accumulated technology leadership in mobile phone industry and our consistent strategy to support every existing operating system, I believe that Samsung provides the better choices and benefits to our consumers” he added.

The Samsung I7500 is a cutting-edge smartphone, featuring a 3.2” AMOLED full touch screen and 7.2Mbps HSDPA and WiFi connectivity, giving users access to Google™ Mobile services and full web browsing at blazing speeds.

The Samsung I7500 offers users access to the full suite of Google services, including Google Search™, Google Maps™, Gmail™, YouTube™, Google Calendar™, and Google Talk™. The integrated GPS receiver enables the comprehensive use of Google Maps features, such as My Location, Google Latitude, Street View, local search and detailed route description. Hundreds of other applications are available in Android Market. For example, the application Wikitude, a mobile travel guide, allows consumers to access details of unknown sights via location-based Wikipedia articles.

Based on Samsung’s proven product leadership, Samsung I7500 comes with latest multimedia features. The large and vivid 3.2“AMOLED display ensures the brilliant representation of multimedia content and enjoyable full touch mobile experience. Along with supporting a 5-megapixel camera and various multimedia codec formats, the I7500 also provides a long enough battery life (1500mAh) and generous memory capacity up to 40GB (Internal memory: 8GB, External memory: Up to 32GB) to enjoy all the applications and multimedia content. The phone also boasts its slim and compact design with mere 11.9mm thickness.

The Samsung I7500 will be available in major European countries from June, 2009.

Skytone Android Netbook: Cheapest Netbook at $100

Anroid on netbooks are slowly gaining grounds these days. The latest and cheapest among Google OS powered netbooks is the minimalistic Skytone Alpha 680, with 7-inch 800 x 480 display, 533Mhz ARM11 processor and 128MB of RAM (256MB max).



Other lightweight specs include 1GB of storage space (4GB max), WiFi, 10/100 ethernet, two USB 2.0 ports and an SD/SDHC/MMC card slot. There is also an optional 3G connectivity, though no word on whether it’s integrated or external. The display has a convertible hinge to rotate it around for slate type use. However, specs indicates that Alpha 680 has a "capacitive touchpad", which could mean that touchscreen function could only be limited to the trackpad beneath rather than the full display.

Skytone Alpha 680 Specifications


The low-end Android netbook from China-based Skytone, which is also famous for making Skype handsets and low cost children's computers, still looks justifiable by its price of around $100. Personally, I'm still hoping to see more exciting ARM Netbook Android powered products from major players to come out over the next few months.

Lenovo's Android OPhone Surfaced Once More

Lenovo's OPhone surfaced once more after dipping the Android waters last December, giving everyone their best glimpse yet at its China Mobile branding. Seems like an official release is just around the corner. Latest buzz is that the phone is on track for a launch this quarter. While some are speculating that it'll roll out immediately after China Mobile's other Android handset, the Dopod G2 (a.k.a. HTC Magic).

In addition, OPhone has a 5MP camera with auto-focus and flash, Wifi, microSD slot, TD-SCDMA(China's 3G standard) and CMMB(China's TV streaming standard).

Below are a few pics including a closer look at the phone's slightly familiar-looking UI in action.

Google Mars Now Officially Live

Google Mars is now officially live. Using this service, you can browse for martians on the landscape, er the martian landscape I mean, pretty much the same way as using Google Maps. Google has included three different types of data in Google Mars.

* Elevation - A shaded relief map, generated with data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. This map is color-coded by altitude, so you can use the color key at the lower left to estimate elevations.
* Visible - A mosaic of images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. MOC is like the digital camera you have at home. Basically, this is what your eyes would see if you were in orbit around Mars.
* Infrared - A mosaic of infrared images taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Warmer areas appear brighter, and colder areas are darker. Clouds and dust in the atmosphere are transparent in the infrared, making this the sharpest global map of Mars that’s ever been made.

Users can access the images from the Themis camera onboard the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, as well as older images from up to a century ago. You can explore the surface, watch for orbiters, and wonder exactly where the little green men are hiding. Go check it out at Google Mars.

Anroidized Palm Pre: Can Android Really Run on Palm Pre ?

It reminded me of Radiohead's song Paranoid Android. I don't know why people would would want Android on a Palm Pre considering how fantastic WebOS looks. They claimed that after a jailbreak (meaning, after hacking), you could possibly install Andriod on a Pre and/or dual boot with WebOS. This is pretty cool, but I’ll probably just stick with WebOS.

The crazy people are even claiming you could run Android inside WebOS much like you can run Windows inside a Mac, which would be interesting to say the least.

Full story quoted below from mypre.com

The Palm Pre isn’t even in users’ hands yet, but already there’s work afoot to Jailbreak the smartphone and load alternative mobile platforms onto it. High on the list of potential OS candidates is Google’s open-source Android, and thanks to some sleuthing around the Texas Instruments OMAP34x SDK it looks like it’s one step closer to feasibility. The route to replacing webOS with Android starts with porting the new OS to the OMAP 3 system, then requires two-stage bootloading before, some further tinkering down the line, you end up with a Pre that’s dual-bootable into both webOS and Android.

In fact Android has already been ported to OMAP 3, by the OmapZoom team. To get around the Pre’s lack of microSD card slot - as the T-Mobile G1 is bootloaded via memory card - the suggestion is that the smartphone’s support for USB Mass Storage mode could allow hackers to place the Android OS in the user storage section, and merely point the initial bootloader to those files.

All this will require a serial over USB driver to access the Palm Pre’s bootloader and Linux core; you can guarantee that such a project will be a key priority when the Pre finally launches. Not only would it allow for dual-booting or alternative operating systems, but native software such as has been written for the iPhone and iPhone 3G. Alternatively, you could even load an instance of Android within webOS.

Battle of the Mobile OS's: A Short Roundup

I still remember the days of Palm vs. Pocket PC, Palm OS vs. Windows Mobile. They're back, but this time, it's a four-way battle. The stakes are higher, and the operating systems are more powerful than ever. Who do you think will win the race? or at least the race to your wallet.



iPhone OS X
A slimmed-down version of Apple's OS X is at the core of every iPhone and iPod Touch. With such a powerful operating system, the iPhone can run apps that belong more on your Mac than on a mobile phone, and play games that belong more on a gaming console.



Google Android
Yes, typical of Google, the version of the Android operating system found in the HTC G1 is practically still in beta development. Despite this, all the nerds are a-buzz with the possibilities of Android. Its open architecture -- familiar to Linux fans -- allows anyone to develop applications for Android phones, as well as make improvements to the OS itself.



Palm WebOS
Palm's brand new operating system. WebOS is slated to power all Palm devices for the foreseeable future. Comparisons to the iPhone have been drawn with WebOS's familiar navigation, but crucially, WebOS is capable of a few things OS X can't do: multi-tasking with its "cards" system, and cut and paste.



Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is the self-same operating system that ran your old Pocket PC PDA. Since then it has undergone radical cosmetic surgery, a heart replacement and about a gazillion nip tucks here and there. Still going strong. Windows Mobile is your first choice if connecting to enterprise networks is your priority. Word has it that WinMo 6.5 has some nifty visual tweaks.

What is Android?

You've probably heard about Android and thought it was something like a cyborg from a science fiction book or film. The latest Android I'm talking about is the latest wireless technology also knowned as The Open Handset Alliance, developed by a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies lead by Google Inc, T-Mobile, Intel, HTC, Qualcomm and Motorola. They developed Android: the first complete, open, and free mobile platform.

The Open Handset Alliance's common goal is to foster and develop a new breed of innovation for mobile devices allowing a far better user experience than today's current mobile platforms. The OHA will provide a far greater degree of openess that will enable developers to work and collaborate in ways never before seen, Android will greatly improve and speed up the process in which new and innovative mobile services are development and made available to the end user.

Through the development of Android, developers, manufacturers and operators will be far better positioned to ship out new and innovative products far quicker and far cheaper than todays standards. The Android platform will consist of an operating system, middleware, a user-friendly interface and powerful applications. This fully integrated bundle of software will sgnificantly lower the current costs of developing mobile devices and services.

The Android playform will be licensed under one of the most progressive open-source licenses available giving operators and manufacturers unprecedented freedom to design, build and distribute their own products. The OHA have recently released and early Android Software Development Kit (SDK) which provides current developers with the necessary tools to begin experimenting and creating unique applications for the platform.

Some unique Android features are:

Apps without borders
Apps on Android can access core mobile device functionality through standard APIs. Through intents, apps can announce their capabilities for other apps to use.

Apps are created equal
Any app on the mobile device can be replaced or extended -- even core components such as the dialer or home.

Apps can easily embed the web
Apps can easily embed HTML, Javascript, and style sheets. An app can render web content through a WebView.

Apps can run in parallel
Android is a complete multitasking environment where apps can run in parallel. While running in the background, an app can produce notifications to get attention.

We will feature more Android related news and gadgets here in Technomindz. Do watch out.