In-development Ice Cream Sandwich ROMs haveleaked for plenty of Android smartphones, giving us early looks at what some official updates may hold in store, but there's been very little in the way of authorized distribution of such pre-release code. One notable exception is Sony, which back in December announced an early alpha build of ICS for a selection of its Xperia models. Today we get to see what the company's been up to since then, upon the release of a new beta version.
Like the alpha release, there's a lot of functionality missing here that's going to detract from the phone's usability. That means that while you might want to poke around this build to get a taste for ICS, it's still a way's off from being ready for daily use. This release enables the phone's modem for GSM operation, for instance, but WiFi and Bluetooth still don't work. You'll also notice the ROM doesn't include the standard assortment of Google apps.
If you've got an Xperia Arc S, Neo V, or Ray, and you've already used Sony's tool to unlock your phone'sbootloader, you're ready to check out this new beta release. Sony says that it's very interested in getting feedback on this build, so don't hesitate to let the company know what you think of your experience.
The latest in Verizon's Droid family is the Droid 4. Its rear-facing 8MP camera is set at the factory to 720P, but is capable of 1080P.
To give you an idea what kind of video you can expect when you get your Droid 4 I bumped up the resolution to 1080P, headed to my front yard, and shot a varied assortment of close-ups and distance, land and sky, all while holding the phone at about 18-inches away.
Take a look and let us know what you think of the quality in the comments below.
Cloud storage provider Box normally hooks users of its unpaid accounts up with a free 5GB. For a lot of users, that much will be plenty, but for those of you with some heftier storage needs, we've seen a couple promotions so far that gave owners of certain phones a big bump in how much free space they're allotted. While you could have gamed the system by having your handset misreport its manufacturer, today there's a far more legitimate way to get your hands on that same kind of storage space; along with releasing an update to its app, Box has announced that Android users who log-in between now and March 23 will see their Box accounts permanently upgraded to 50GB.
The big news here is clearly the order of magnitude increase in free storage capacity, but the Box app itself gets a few tweaks, too. There's increased language support, the ability to move the app to your microSD card to save space, and a new comment system. You'll now be able to upload files from your phone in batches, as well as invite other users to collaborate with you on a file.
Box 1.6.0 is available in the Android Market now. We haven't heard of any plans for Box to run a similar promotion for iOS users.
A couple weeks ago, we learned that the "Smoked by Windows Phone" smartphone speed runs the company introduced at the CES were making their return, with Microsoft's Ben Rudolph bringing the competition to Microsoft's retail locations across California. Just like before, Ben would put the platform's reputation on the line as he faced-off in challenges against other smartphone users, seeing who could complete certain common tasks the fastest. Beating Rudolph would net the winner $100, but losers would have to admit their defeat on-camera. Now it's time for Microsoft to share some of those showdowns with the rest of us, announcing plans to turn Smoked by Windows Phone into its next advertising campaign.
When Windows Phone faced-off against challengers at the CES, Rudolph managed to come out on top 88% of the time. After going up against the public in Microsoft's retail stores, his win-rate has climbed even higher, and Rudolph's been managing to emerge victorious 19 times out of 20.
After hearing from Windows Phone fans that they'd love to see these contests featured more heavily, Microsoft has decided to make them the focus of its next ad campaign. Over the next several weeks, we should have plenty of opportunities to see confident Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry users go home with their tail between their legs after making the mistake of challenging Ben Rudolph.
With the Mobile World Congress just about to commence in Barcelona, it should be no surprise that the companies preparing to demonstrate their latest handsets have been getting their gear together in preparation of the show. That much smartphone hardware all together in one place is just making it more and more likely that bits and pieces will leak out a little early, giving us some teases of what we can hope to see once things really get started. Italian site Telefonio recently found itself with just such an opportunity, and has managed to capture plenty of pictures and video of LG's recently-announced lineup of Androids.
LG's been very busy this week, formally revealing phones like the Optimus 4X HD, 3D Max, Vu, LTE Tag, and its trio of L-series phones; maybe "busy" is actually a bit of an understatement. As such, Telefonio really lucked-out with getting access to these LG handsets, and managed to snap more images than we could ever hope to show you here. For the highlights, though, check out the video clips below, giving us some of our first hands-on looks at these just-announced models.
We'll be bringing you our own first-hand reactions to these LG phones as we start our MWC coverage, and with commentary in English, to boot. If you just want to get a quick first look, or you happen to speak Italian, here's a good starting place:
