HTC Sensation Software Review (Video)

After finding the hardware to be typical-HTC (high quality, a bit of the same), we now take a much closer look at the software offering on the HTC Sensation, which comes packed with a lot of Sense 3.0 goodies. 



The fun starts on the home screen, where HTC now gives you the ability to not only launch one of four apps without unlocking your phone, but you can also change the background of the lock screen to reflect the weather, stocks, social networks, photos on your device, or it can just display a simple clock. While we're excited to see the lock screen have some functionality, it would be nice if it were more customizable. What if I want to have eight app shortcuts instead of four? 

Then we jump into the home screens of Sense, of which you can have seven...no more, no less. As before, you can re-arrange your home screens if you pinch and go into the leap feature. Also new is anSpb Shell-like spinning carosoul effect that makes your home screens seem 3D. HTC went above and beyond with the visuals for their widgets, especially weather, where you even get sound effects to represent a certain weather condition. 

Sense doesn't stop there...it touches all built-in apps of the operating system. The application tray is now sub-divided, the mail application is fantastic, the contacts application takes full advantage of the qHD resolution of the Sensation, the notification tray now has two tabs, and so on. 

Once again, HTC doesn't fail to impress with their latest Sense UI offering on Android. It's refined, complete, beautiful, and highly functional. 

Coming up next we'll compare the Sensation with the Galaxy S 2!

Motorola Droid X Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread SBF File Out

The Motorola Droid X has recently received its Android 2.3 Gingerbread update which unfortunately bricked some phone according to reports but that aside it's Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread SBF file is now out so you might want to grab it while you can. 

An SBF file is one you can flash to your smartphone with a special program and that will put your device in a factory out-of-the-box state, should anything bad come out of your tweaking or modding activities. The SBF file for the Droid X is Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread (4.5.596) and once you apply it you will get stock Verizon Gingerbread, unrooted -- and be warned that there's currently no root method available. However, download it to a safe place just in case! 

Motorola Atrix 4G Price Gets Lower At AT&T

There were a couple of issues with the 4.1.83 update for the Motorola Atrix 4G -- nothing that hasn't been fixed already -- and the latest version of Android, 2.3 Gingerbread has been already demoed on the smartphone and we know it's coming soon from Motorola. 

If you go to AT&T's website you can now purchase the Atrix 4G for $99.99, that is with a two-year contract. For this price you get a dual-core Tegra 2 CPU clocking at 1GHz, a four-inch color display with 540x960 qHD resolution, front facing .3 megapixel camera and a five-megapixel main camera on the back with LED flash that supports autofocus and macro mode. Oh, and Gingerbread is coming soon, as we mentioned. 

Motorola Tries To Clarify Earlier Comments From CEO Sanjay Jha

Last week, Motorola's CEO Sanjay Jha blamed Google's Android Market for performance issues on smartphones and said "Android is really truly multitask so you can run 64 parallel apps at the same time. That has an impact on consumer experience and we're beginning to understand it and understand why 70 percent plus of devices that come back are because they're downloading third party applications and the impact that that has on the performance of the device". 

The statement tried to emphasize the lack of quality control with Google Android Market and that everyone can submit an application, good or bad, and Google will only remove it if it's malware or conflicting with the terms. The company followed up on Jha's earlier statement saying "he did not state that 70 percent of smartphone returns was due to third-party applications, but that examples of potential contributing factors are battery life, sluggish operation and third-party applications". 

Regarding the 70% returns "because they're downloading third party applications" statement, a company spokesman said "we're trying to clear up that was not the point he was trying to make". Motorola is trying to implement a new system to its MotoBLUR application which will warn users that a certain application will drain battery or affect performance. 

Truth is any application store, let it be Google's, Apple's, Microsoft's or RIM's, etc. will have applications ranging from good to bad. The only difference is the approach these companies have regarding quality control (or the lack of it). 

Fring Adds Support For Handful Of New Androids

There are several options for setting up video chats on a smartphone now, but if you want something cross-platform that supports more than two parties per call, you'll be checking out Fring. The appintroduced four-way video chat in an update this past April. A new version of its Android release, available as of today, makes several changes, including support for some new phones. 

Fring 3.1.1.1 now lets you make video calls with the Samsung Galaxy S II and Droid Charge, T-Mobile's G2X from LG, and the Nexus S when running last month's Android 2.3.4 release. Even if your smartphone already supported Fring, now there's a chance that more of your friends will be able to get in on the video chat action with you, and isn't that the point of four-way calling like Fring offers? 

Besides new device support, there are assorted, non-specific changes to the app. Those include bugfixes, some "quality improvement", and what the developer claims are clearer-sounding voice calls (after all, the app isn't video-only). The new build of Fring is available for download now, free as always, with the option to buy call credits for calling outside the app's network.