Archive for January 2010
Announcing the launch of our first Android app: SmarToucans
Today is an exciting day in our lives. We launched our first Android game, SmarToucans. This game is targeted for preschoolers and kindergartners. You can see some screenshots below:
It runs on Android version 1.5 (Cupcake) and above and has been extensively tested on the Droid Eris. It is available right now, absolutely free in the Android Market. So, go ahead, download and make a preschooler or kindergartner in your life a SmarToucan.
Note: If you do download, drop me a comment here letting me know which phone you are using and also I would appreciate any feedback.
Google Nexus One Reviewed
Happy New Year! Here is the first review of the Google Nexus One which will be announced tomorrow at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The reviewer certainly likes the Nexus One with the only downside to it being the camera which does not take as good photos as the iPhone. Also, in their benchmark test against the Motorola Droid, it seems Nexus One is faster. Originally there were rumors that Google might come out with earth-shattering pricing model. But, over the weekend, leaks suggest that Google will follow conventional pricing of $179 with T-Mobile contract or $530 unlocked. This is not a way to take on iPhone, especially launching on T-Mobile, given that the Android Marketplace is still in its infancy.
Google’s Nexus One Android smartphone is, of course, not yet officially announced, but the first review of it has already appeared on the Web.
Sure enough, we’ve seen many leaked photos, videos and previews of the handset, but this is the first time when an actual review is published (at the NexusOne blog) – although it’s missing some important parts.
As you’ve probably heard before, the Google Nexus One is thinner than the iPhone and you have to actually touch it and hold it in your hands to see that it feels “incredible”.
Also incredible is the Nexus One’s 3.7 inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen display when it comes to image quality and crispness. Unfortunately, for some reason Google didn’t include multitouch into this phone.
The Nexus One comes with 10 Live Wallpapers – which you can choose to put on the homescreen. They don’t actually do anything useful, but they’re animated and that’s why they’re cool. Even with an animated wallpaper, the phone is very fast – thanks to the 1GHz Snapdragon processor and the 512MB of RAM.
The handset obviously features a 3.5mm headset jack. It was tested with several headsets, and it looks like “the sound quality is on par with the iPhone” – thus “average.” The Nexus One’s speaker (located on the back) is also “pretty good.”
The Nexus One’s battery is on par with the iPhone’s – it died after 12 hours of heavy usage.
According to the reviewer, the 5MP camera featured by the Google Nexus One is not as good as the iPhone 3GS’ camera, because it doesn’t use “natural colors” and you “have to play around with the settings more to get the perfect picture”.
Even so, the Google Nexus One is probably the best Android smartphone until now. And speaking of which, here’s a benchmark test with the Nexus One vs. Motorola Droid (graphics, CPU, Memory and Filesystem):
A downside of the Nexus One would be the fact that the Android Market still hasn’t got great games – like the App Store has. Anyway, I’m sure that there will soon be lots of iPhone-like games for Android, especially after more awesome hardware like the Nexus One has will be launched.
There are many other nice things included in the Nexus one, like the voice to text option, proximity sensor, and the Car Home app – read about them in the full review found at the NexusOne blog.
And remember, Google is hosting an Android event tomorrow, January 5, 2010, and it’s likely that it will officially announce the Nexus One then.
Similar Posts:
- Google Phone (Nexus One) appears in lots of photos
- Google schedules Android event for January 5 while new Nexus One preview shows up
- Google’s Nexus One to be sold starting January 5?
- Lengthy Google Nexus One video, Nexus vs iPhone photos show up
- Google Nexus One pricing: $180 with contract, $530 without
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