However, don’t under estimate this low cost Android phone just by looking at the price tag. The specs of the phone is absolutely worth of the cost or even better. Say the 1 GHz processor that’s probably the same with other Samsung Galaxy phones. Other specs include Android 2.x which is most likely Gingerbread, 320 x480 HVGA touch sceen which is the same resolution as the Samsung Replenish, 3.1 megapixel rear-facing camera and VGA front-facing camera. But the most important thing is the WiMAX support and a QWERTY slider keyboard which is probably could become strong selling points.

Well, this phone has yet to be officially unveiled but July 24th seems to be the launch date of the phone.

[via: Electronista]

Huawei just posted the first teaser video of the MediaPad, the new Android tablet from Huawei that’s scheduled for June 20th announcement. Not much we can tell from this video though since mostly taken from behind. But you can expect to see a fancy-looking 7-inch tablet similar to the HTC Flyer. Huawei said that it will be their smartest, smallest and lightest tablet ever.

Huawei MediaPad Sneak Peek Video YouTube Link

What we’ve seen from the video, it’s looks promising so far. But of course it’s all depend on the price and the other marketing campaign from Huawei to be able to compete with other famous names like iPad, Motorola Xoom and PlayBook.

The Motorola TRIUMPH will be available from Virgin Mobile pre-paid lineup. It has a large 4.1-inches WVGA touch screen powered by a powerful 1GHz Snapdragon processor. It will run Android 2.2 Froyo. Other features include a 5 megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording.

Sprint Motorola Photon 4G packed with a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor with 1GHz speed along with WiMax, CDMA and GSM connectivity. It will run Android 2.3 Gingerbread on a 4.3-inches qHD touchscreen, 8 megapixel camera, 1GB RAM and a kickstand. Spec-wise, the Motorola Photon 4G more or less similar with the AT&T ATRIX 4G but somehow with different styling.

According to the data based on 14-day period ending on June 1, 2011, Android 2.2 Gingerbread now used by the biggest percentage of Android handsets with 64.6%. This number is slightly decreased compared to the data one month ago at 65.9%. However, this is solely because many handsets have been upgraded to Android 2.3.3 which is now used by 8.1% of Android handsets. You can see the comparison on the charts below.

Android Honeycomb 3.1 which was announced couple of weeks ago, now has 0.3% share of the distribution indicates that a number of Android Honeycomb tablets have been upgraded to the Android 3.1. While the number of Android 2.2 and newer is increasing, we can see that the older versions including Android 2.1, Android 1.6 and Android 1.5 are slowly decreased. However, the Android 2.1 upgrade for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 which was released few days ago could possibly change this number on the next chart later on.

Well, looking at this Android Distribution Chart, you can probably get an insight about your existing Android handset whether you need to upgrade or get a new one.

[Source: Android Developer]

If you are smartphone users, i’m sure most of you use Twitter apps to access and play around with your friends on Twitter. However, if you open Twitter.com from your mobile browser, you’ll see the mobile version of the website which is not so interesting at least in my opinion. But soon it will be different as Twitter starts rolling out the new version of Twitter.com for mobile devices.

Currently it’s being released to small percentage of users on iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android smartphones but unfortunately i’m not one of them at the moment. Additional folks will get this new version in the coming weeks, so sad isn’t it?

Twitter claimed that this new web app was built from the ground up for smartphones and tablets which have more advance browser supports including HTML5. And looking at the screenshot, it looks like the iPhone version of the official Twitter app, isn’t it? Reportedly, the app is fast, rich and simple just like what you expect from a Twitter application and include all main features of Twitter of course.

Well, this kind of web app is great though. However, i just wonder if it’s also work nice on non-smartphones handsets as good as on smartphones. If not, i don’t see the reason to use this web app since the smartphone apps gives more than enough quality and features to access Twitter.

[via: Twitter Blog]

New top app charts – this section is basically the revamped version of the previous top app charts but now more fresher and include country-specific apps to give more relevant and most current results. In addition to that, it now shows top new free, top new paid and top grossing similar to the one you can find in iTunes App Store.

Editor’s Choice – just like the name, this section contains the very best apps chosen by the Android Market staff.

Top Developers – this special icon given to top developers whenever the developer name is shown. Currently, there are over 150 developers given this icon.

Better related apps – the related app section now shows two groups of apps: “User who viewed this also viewed” and “Users who installed this also installed”. In this way users will get such a suggestion or recommendation best on other users choice.

Trending apps – well, people love trends and will do anything to follow trends i think. So, this section is good for those kind of people.

Well, with over 200,000 apps supporting over 300 Android devices and 4.5 billion downloads so far, this surely a great enhancements both for Google and Android users. And now with the Google Musics and Google Movies coming, i just wonder if Google will release such kind of desktop apps for it’s Android Market integrated with all of these services just like iTunes from Apple or Zune from Microsoft.

[via: Google Mobile Blog]

Google’s mobile VP Andy Rubin during a question and answer session at Google I/O yesterday said that there will be a new Nexus device coming this year. Neither the exact time yet the name of the device mentioned clearly, but possibly Nexus 3 and it will likely coming in December alongside the Ice Cream Sandwich launch.

The Nexus has been the thing that we used to set the bar, and there’s always going to be new ones coming out in the market…we’ll make an announcement at some point in the future.

The most interesting thing to discuss is probably what kind of handset Google will bring on it’s own brand Android smartphone this time. According to some sources, LG is the most possible candidate to manufacture the Nexus 3 powered by Tegra 3 Kal-El which has a five times faster CPU than the Tegra 2. And it’s likely that the Nexus 3 will be the first Android smartphone to run the new Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

So, what else you want from the Nexus 3? Just to remind you about the Nexus S specs, it’s made by Samsung and powered by 1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) and running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Other specs include 512MB RAM, 16GB internal memory, 4-inches WVGA (800 x 480) touchscreen display, 5 megapixel camera, NFC support, Quad-band GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 Tri-band HSPA: 900, 2100, 1700 HSPA type: HSDPA (7.2Mbps) HSUPA (5.76Mbps).

[via: Android and Me]

Part of big announcements from Google during the Android-specific keynote at Google I/O is the Android Honeycomb 3.1. On this first major upgrade to the Android tablet OS, Google brings some tweaks and optimizations over the Android 3.0. These are include resizable homescreen widgets and USB host functionality that will give users ability to plug in their digital camera and transfer file directly to their tablet or even use mice, keyboards, and game controllers. Another enhancements including more robust multi-tasking and app-switching mechanism for more fluid transitions and reduced crashes.

Let’s take a look at the Android Honeycomb 3.1 new features highlights from Android Developers blog for users and developers below.

• Open Accessory API. This new API provides a way for Android applications to integrate and interact with a wide range of accessories such as musical equipment, exercise equipment, robotics systems, and many others.
• USB host API. On devices that support USB host mode, applications can now manage connected USB peripherals such as audio devices. input devices, communications devices, and more.
• Input from mice, joysticks, and gamepads. Android 3.1 extends the input event system to support a variety of new input sources and motion events such as from mice, trackballs, joysticks, gamepads, and others.
• Resizable Home screen widgets. Developers can now create Home screen widgets that are resizeable horizontally, vertically, or both.
• Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) Applications can now receive notifications when external cameras are attached and removed, manage files and storage on those devices, and transfer files and metadata to and from them.
• Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) API for audio. Developers can directly manage on-demand or interactive data streaming to enable VOIP, push-to-talk, conferencing, and audio streaming.

The Android Honeycomb 3.1 is now being seeded to the Verizon-bound 3G version of the Motorola XOOM and should be followed by other devices including Google TV with Android Market support coming this summer.

Google during the Android-specific keynote at Google I/O unveils the next version of Android named “Ice Cream Sandwich” which has been rumored for quite long time. The Ice Cream Sandwich which is scheduled for Q4 launch will combine the best features of Honeycomb which is optimized for Android tablets with the smartphone OS. This new Android will support all Android devices including smartphones, tablets and also Google TV.

The idea of this combination is to have one OS that runs on everywhere and definitely open-sourced. Not much about the Android Ice Cream Sandwich features we know at the moment. But from the Android-specific keynote we could expect to see the following:

• New holographic UI that Google described as state of the art, richer widgets which we currently see on Honeycomb will also become available on smartphones.
• More advanced application framework  that will enable developers to create more unique applications for both phones and tablets.
• Face tracking that can go deeper than just tracking where you move your head, but also knows where your eyes, nose and mouth are. The demo showed how a forward facing camera could recognize parts of a person’s face and distort them, or follow the head’s movement and adjust a 3D model so the perspective changed accordingly.
• Camera enhancements that will enable you to recognize separate callers’ voices in a video call. So when one person talks, the camera will zoom in on their face and will zoom back out once that person is done talking.

Apart from those great features coming with the Android Ice Cream Sandwich, the most interesting thing is that Google announced they have sat down with carriers, manufacturers and other member of the Open Handset Alliance (including Verizon, HTC, Sprint, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola, AT&T, Sony Ericsson and Samsung) to adopt guidelines regarding how quickly devices are updates after an Android update and also for how long they will continue to be updated. And the result for this matter, new devices from all the members of this alliance will receive the latest Android updates for 18 months after the devices has been released, provided that the hardware can handle the new versions.