LG Optimus 2x – The first dual-core smartphone!

This monster has a high probability of coming to the Philippine shores. I never thought that dual core processors could be packed in smartphones. Heck, there are still single core netbooks being sold in computer shops. Aside from the beefed up internals, this phone really looks good. It has a very good industrial design and its slim form factor adds to its sexiness.

Specifications:

GENERAL 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA
Announced 2010, December
Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2011, January
SIZE Dimensions 123.9 x 63.2 x 10.9 mm
Weight 139 g
DISPLAY Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches
– Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
– Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
– Gyro sensor
– Touch-sensitive controls
SOUND Alert types Vibration, MP3 ringtones
Speakerphone Yes
– 3.5 mm audio jack
– Dolby Mobile and SRS sound enhancement
MEMORY Phonebook Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records Practically unlimited
Internal 8 GB storage
Card slot microSD, up to 32GB
DATA GPRS Yes
EDGE Yes
3G HSDPA, HSUPA
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA
Bluetooth Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, microUSB v2.0
CAMERA Primary 8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features Geo-tagging
Video Yes, 1080p@24fps, 720@30fps
Secondary Yes, 1.3 MP
FEATURES OS Android OS, v2.2 Froyo, upgradable to v2.3
CPU 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 AP20H Dual Core processor
Messaging SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
Browser HTML
Games Yes + downloadable
Colors Black
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support
Java No
– Social networking integration
– HDMI port
– Google Search, Maps, Gmail
– Digital compass
– YouTube, Google Talk
– MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player
– MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player
– Document viewer
– Organizer
– Voice memo/dial/commands
– Predictive text input
BATTERY Standard battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc – See it in action! [video]

Video of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc:

Courtesy of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFldMC_2dgI Video courtesy of Sony Ericcson Blog

A closer look at Sony’s Reality Display:

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

There were a ton of new Android smarphones announced in the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show 2011 in Las Vegas. Motorola, LG and Samsung have released several gorgeous phones that showcase the latest in display and processor technologies but only one would reign the floor. The new Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, in my opinion, is the best in the army of new smarphones that were announced. Some may argue that the Motorla Altrix should get the praise and I think it’s fair to say that because of the new innovations that it introduced in the mobile segment. But remember that the Altrix will be released as a CDMA phone, meaning there’s a huge probability that it may never come to the Philippine shores. Why the Xperia Arc then? It’s extremely thin and incredibly well designed, it sports Sony’s Bravia technology on it’s display and it runs the latest software Android 2.3 “Gingerbread.”

Specifications:

Display: 4.2” Reality display with Sony Mobile BRAVIA® Engine; 854×480 pixels; 16,777,216 colour TFT
Size: Very slim 8.7mm design; 125.0 x 63.0 x 8.7 mm
RAM: 512
Storage: MicroSD (up to 32g)
Weight: 117g
Camera: 8.1 Megapixels

Press Release

06 January 2011
Xperia™ arc combines stunning design with Sony technology on Android™ platform version 2.3
Newest addition to the Xperia™ range delivers visual brilliance and the ultimate multimedia experience
January 5, 2011, Las Vegas, USA – Sony Ericsson today unveils the new Xperia™ arc smartphone with cutting edge Sony technology and an exceptional multimedia experience on the latest version of the Android™ platform – 2.3. Xperia™ arc is the first of a new generation of Xperia smartphones to be announced in 2011.

Bert Nordberg, President, Sony Ericsson said, “We’re starting strong in 2011 by introducing our most exciting Xperia™ product yet. Xperia™ arc combines state-of-the-art Sony technology with breathtaking design to entertain and wow consumers. All on the latest Android™ release.”

Xperia™ arc takes the stunning design language that Sony Ericsson has become known for to a new level. Super slim and light, Xperia™ arc is just 8.7mm at its thinnest part and has a extra wide 4.2” multi-touch screen. Created from premium materials and with a stunning arc body, this smartphone is sleek, strong and designed to fit perfectly in the user’s hand. The best of Sony technology is inside Xperia™ arc. The Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine delivers exceptional visual brilliance and a crystal clear image which enhances the overall entertainment experience. Furthermore, Sony’s award-winning Exmor R™ for mobile sensor with the f/2.4 lens enables the capture of high quality, bright pictures and HD videos even in low light. All pictures and videos can be shared in HD on your living room TV via the built in HDMI-connector.

Xperia™ arc will launch on the latest version of the Android™ platform providing access to Google Mobile Services and the myriad of applications available on the Android market. Xperia™ smartphones add best in class entertainment on top of smartphone fundamentals such as apps, maps, email and fast Internet to create the most entertaining smartphone experience.

Sony Ericsson Xperia™ arc – Key features

Slim, lightweight and strong, with perfect ergonomics
Extra wide 4.2” multi-touch Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine to ensure ultimate multimedia and viewing experiences
Sony Exmor R™ for mobile: for best-in-class low-light photography and video capture
8.1 megapixel camera and HD video recording capability
Android Market™ – thousands of applications to keep you entertained
Sony Ericsson Xperia™ arc will be available globally in selected markets, including Japan, from Q1 in the colours Midnight Blue and Misty Silver.

Check out the Sony Ericsson Product Blog for more information: http://blogs.sonyericsson.com/products

Sony Ericsson Xperia™ arc at a glance

Camera

8.1 megapixel camera
Up to 2.46x smart zoom
Aperture f/2.4
Auto focus
Face detection
Flash/LED
Geo tagging
Image stabilizer
Noise suppression
Send to web
Smile detection
Sony Exmor R™ for mobile CMOS sensor
Touch Focus
Touch capture
Video light
Video recording, HD 720p
Music

Album art
Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
Media player
Music tones (MP3/AAC)
PlayNow™ service*
TrackID™ music recognition application
* This service may not be available in every market
Web

Bookmarks
Google™ search
NeoReader™ barcode scanner
Pan & zoom
Web browser (WebKit)
Communication

Call list
Conference calls
Facebook™ application*
Sony Ericsson Timescape™
Speakerphone
Vibrating alert
* This service may not be available in every market
Messaging

Conversations
Email
Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync®
Instant messaging
Picture messaging (MMS)
Predictive text input
Sound recorder
Text messaging (SMS)
Design

Auto rotate
Keyboards (onscreen, QWERTY)
Picture wallpaper
Reality display
Sony Mobile BRAVIA® Engine
Touchscreen
Wallpaper animation
Entertainment
* This service may not be available in every market

3D games
Media browser
Motion gaming
Radio (FM)
Video streaming
Video viewing
YouTube™ *
Organiser

Android™ OS
Alarm clock
Calculator
Calendar
Document readers
Flight mode
Infinite button
Phone book
Connectivity

3.5 mm audio jack
aGPS
Bluetooth™ technology
Google Maps™
HDMI
Modem
DLNA
USB mass storage
USB support
Wi-Fi™
Wisepilot™ turn-by-turn navigation *
* This service may not be available in every market
Google™ services*
* These services may not be available in every market

Android Market™ Client
Gmail™
Google Calendar™
Google Gallery 3D™
Google Latitude™
Google Maps™ with Street View
Google Media Uploader
Google Music Player™
Google Phone-top Search
Google Search widget
Google Sync™
Google Talk™
Google Voice Search
Set-up Wizard
YouTube™
Screen

Sony Mobile Bravia Engine
16,777,216 colour TFT
Capacitive multi-touch
4.2 inches
854 x 480 pixels (FWVGA)
Shatter proof sheet on scratch-resistant mineral glass
Accessories

In-Box:
Sony Ericsson Xperia™ arc
Battery (1500mAh)
Stereo portable handsfree
Micro USB cable for charging, synchronisation and file transfer
User documentation
Facts

Size: 125 x 63 x 8.7 mm
Weight: 117 grams
Phone memory: Up to 512 MB
Memory card support: up to 32 GB
Memory card included: microSD™ 8 GB
Operating system: Google™ Android 2.3
Processor: 1 GHz Qualcomm
Availability and versions

Networks
UMTS HSPA 900, 2100
GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900
UMTS HSPA 800, 850, 1900, 2100
GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900
Colour

Midnight Blue
Misty Silver
Legal
1) Facts and features may vary depending on local variant. 2) Operational times are affected by network
preferences, type of SIM card, connected accessories and various activities e.g. playing games. Kit contents and colour options may differ from market to market. The full range of accessories may not be available in every market.

© Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, 2011

The Liquid Identity logo and Xperia are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB. Sony is a trademark or registered trademark of Sony Corporation. Ericsson is the trademark or registered trademark of Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson. Additional information regarding trademarks may be located on our website at: http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/common/legal/disclaimer.

Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved. All terms are subject to change without prior notice.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, SE-221 88 Lund, Sweden.
Printed in January 2010, R1A

Sony Ericsson is a 50/50 joint venture by Sony and Ericsson established in October 2001, with global corporate functions located in London and operations in major markets around the world. Sony Ericsson’s strategy is to become the industry leader in mobile Communication Entertainment, through new styles of interaction across the internet and social media. Sony Ericsson offers exciting consumer experiences through innovative and feature rich phones, accessories, content and applications. For more information, please see: http://www.sonyericsson.com/press

Restoring your data to a new/clean wiped Android smartphone!

Now that you have properly backed up your Android smartphone using my guide, there will come a day that you will need to restore the data to your phone

This guide is written with the assumption that you have followed the instructions of backing up properly.

Let’s start:
NOTE: Remember that in backing up your phone you’ve used several free applications for the Android Market? Then you should re download them first before proceeding with this guide.

1) Contacts and Calendar – The first time you power on your new android phone it will ask for your Google account credentials. Simply input your username and password and your good to go. Wait for it to finish syncing. It may take a couple of minutes or more depending on your connection. This method is also true if you performed a factory reset to your phone. It will act as if it’s a new phone. Now, if in any case you’ve skipped the first step and don’t know how to back to it again: On you homescreen, press the menu button and tap on settings. Go to Accounts & Sync and there you will find an option to add a new Google account. After doing so wait for it to finish syncing and your contacts and calendar entrees should be in their right places. Remember you should be connected to an internet source for this to work.

2) Contacts (Alternate) – The first step should do the trick for you. But if you find yourself in a scenario wherein you don’t have an internet connection, this should help you restore your contacts. Just go to your contacts application, press the menu button and tap on import/export. Select “Import from SD Card” and wait to it to finish. It’s important to note though that the backup is not automatically updated every time you add/change something in your phone book. For you to be able to restore your most recent contact list, you should perform your backup at least once a week.

3) SMS/MMS – SMS Backup+ should have backed up all your SMS and MMS to your Gmail account assuming that you’re frequently connected to the internet. As the texting capital of the world, by now you would have backed up thousands of messages to the cloud and it will be a bit ridiculous to re-download all your SMS/MMS back to your phone. It will consume a lot of data and time. Here’s where Mybackup shines. Open the MyBackup application and hit on the “Restore” button. Your SMS/MMS will be located on the “Data” sub menu. From there everything is straightforward.

4) Data – A) [For New Phone Owners] – Connect your phone to your computer where you backed up your SD card using the supplied USB cable. Mount your phone as a “Mass Storage Device” by pulling down the notification menu and tap on the USB notification. Just copy the contents of your backup to the SD Card. IMPORTANT: Your new SD card should be the same or has a bigger data capacity than the previous card or else your data will not fit into the new one. During the transfer process, don’t interrupt the connection of your phone to your computer. Remember to always safely remove your device from your computer.
B) [For owners who performed a factory reset] – The micro SD in your phone is not affected by the data wipe. Only the phone is wiped not the Micro SD card. Your data should be safe.

5) Applications – You could be asking yourself by now “why not just re downloading all apps from the apps store instead of restoring from backup”? Well you could really and you can also have the benefit of downloading the latest versions of the apps. But did you keep a list of the apps that you’ve installed over the course of the time you have your phone? I don’t and I think most people haven’t done it also so let’s use the apps to help us out. Open up Astro File Manager then hit on menu and tap on tools. Then select “Application Manager/Backup” then tap on the “Backed Up Apps” tab. There you can select all and restore everything or you can browse and select only the apps that you actually use. Remember space is golden to choose only the ones that you want to keep.

By now, your phone should be running like brand new but with all the your important data in it.

How to properly backup your Android smartphone! The Complete Guide!

People do a lot of things with their smartphone these days and they just keep adding and adding data into it and not minding the fact that one day a fatal problem with phone may come up (or people just loose their phone either stolen or left behind) and they hopelessly loose ALL data. Good thing is that backing up your Android phone cannot be easier and half of it is already done by Google for you without you even knowing it.

One thing to remember though, all apps mentioned in this tutorial are free. The Android Marketplace paid apps are not year available legally in the Philippines. Of course there’s a workaround but we’ll tackle that in a separate post. Right now we’ll focus on backing up your Android phone.

So what are the contents that you need to back up?

1) Contacts
2) Calendar Entries
3) Email
3) SMS/MMS
4) Data – Pictures, Music and other files
5) Applications

What do you need?

1) Google account – This is a must. You probably already has one because it’s the first thing that your Android phone asks from you when you power it on the first time. If you’re a Gmail user, you already have a Google account. As what I’ve mentioned earlier about Google doing half of the backing up for you, this is it. Your contacts, calendar entries and Applications (shady) will be backed up to your Google account. Creating a Google Account is easy. Just go to http://www.gmail.com and create a new account. That’s it.
2) SMS Backup+ – Free in the Android Marketplace. As what the name suggests, it will backup your SMS and MMS.
3) USB Cable – It comes with your phone.
4) Astro – Free in the Android Marketplace. It’s a very good file manager application and it can also backup your applications.
5) MyBackup – Free in the Android market. It’s an all in one backup solution but I still prefer using the ones mentioned earlier.

Now let’s backup your Android Smartphone!

1) Contacts and Calendar – For me, these data are the most crucial and I think I can speak for everyone. But thanks to Google backing up these two is the easiest. Remember the first time you powered on your Android phone and it asked for your Google account? If you have entered your credentials right, by default Google will backup all your contacts and calendar entrees in the cloud. Every time you’re online (wifi or 3g) it will automatically sync your contacts and calendar entrees together with the changes and additions that you made. Now, to check that you have done it correctly you can go to Settings>Account & Sync. You should see your Google account singed in there. If you don’t then just add it by tapping on Add Account and select Google. Remember, you must be online for the sync to work and it takes a little bit of time depending on the speed of your connection.

2) Contacts (Alternate) – Another way to backup your contacts is through exporting the list to your SD card. Simply to your your Contacts application, press the Menu button and select Import/Export. Just tap on export and it will backup all your contacts to your SD card.

3) SMS/MMS – I personally use SMS Backup+ to backup all my SMS and MMS to the cloud. When you launch the app, it will just ask for your Gmail account and you’re all set. It actually uploads all your SMS/MMS to your Gmail account and automatically labels all as SMS so it won’t show up in your main inbox.

4) Data – This is simple. Just hook up your phone to your computer via the USB cable that came with it. Make sure that you have enabled the “Mount as Disk” mode so that your phone will show as a mass storage device. By default when you connect your phone to your computer via USB a notification will show up and it will ask you wether you like to use your phone as a disk drive or just charge it. Just pull down the notification bar and select “Disk Mode” or “Mount as Disk.” Just copy all the contents of your SD card to any folder in your computer. You can name it “Android Phone Backup.” Now depending on the size and amount of data that you are transferring, it may take some time to complete the task. By no means at all, NEVER turn off, disconnect or do anything that will disrupt the connection of your phone to your PC. There’s a great amount of risk that you may damage the SD card and/or corrupt the files. After the transfer is finished, remember to safely remove the phone just like any other USB device.

5) Applications – I assume that by this time you have already downloaded Astro File Manager from the Android Marketplace. Open the application. At first glance it will look like Explorer or Finder. It actually performs that way and you do almost anything to manage your file system. Now to backup your applications: Press the Menu Button, tap on tools and finally tap on Application Manager/Backup. After all your applications have loaded, just select the apps that you want to backup by tapping on their corresponding check boxes. When you finished selecting the apps just hit the backup button at the top, wait for it finish and you’re done.

6) Everything – There’s a very good app called MyBackup that you can download for free from the Android Market. It basically backs up everything that we’ve mentioned in this post. The application is pretty straight forward. You just have to select the items that you want to backup and it will backup everything in your SD card. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I really prefer doing the methods I’ve mentioned above. You can use this app just for alternate backup. Hey, the more backups the better. Also this does a very good job restoring your SMS inbox. I don’t usually restore all my SMS when I do a factory reset but if you’re the person who likes every bit of their messaging history in their phone, this is the app for you.

By now, you have already backed up everything that’s important in your Android smartphone. You can now sleep tight and worry less about your data. Now if the dreaded event did come and you loose everything, you just have to restore everything from backup. I’ll have another post discussing the right way to restore your date. Also, I highly recommend that you frequently backup your phone so that you’ll keep your data up to date. Your contacts, calendar and SMS/MMS are automatically backed up in the background. I recommend backing up your other files and applications in a weekly fashion.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb demoed at Verizon’s CES 2011 Keynote [VIDEO]

The latest Android operating system demoed running on the newly announced Motorola XOOM tablet.

Android 3.0: “Honeycomb” announced at CES, Las Vegas

One of the main highlights at this year’s CES is the announcement of Google’s latest version of their highly popular mobile operating system Android. Now at version 3.0, aka “Honeycomb” was created to focus on giving the best mobile operating experience in tablets. This is Google’s answer to the vastly popular Apple iPad. Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” was showcased at CES running on the new Motorola XOOM which will be the flagship tablet device upon its release within the first quarter of 2010. Detailed videos of the new operating system after the break:

Google Maps:

Gmail:

GTalk with video chat:

Books:

Browser: