Posted by Ken S. on June 8, 2014 in
Android,
Google,
Nexus,
Root,
Smart Phones |
∞
With the Recent release of 4.4.3 and yesterdays release of 4.4.4 for Nexus devices, all of you Nexus 5 owners running fully stock software will be getting a notification to apply the patch soon, but what about those of us with rooted phones?
The over-the-air update that comes directly from Google will not install on a rooted phone. The script that it uses to patch your OS to the newer version performs a check that will abort installation if any changes to the system partition are detected. And since the Superuser binaries are installed on the system partition, rooted phones cannot pass this checkpoint. Read more...
Posted by Ken S. on April 26, 2014 in
Android,
Smart Phones |
∞
The new OnePlus One phablet promises a Galaxy S5-class experience for a mere $299. We check out an early model.
It’s promising, that’s for sure. The new OnePlus One smartphone has been bubbling through social media for a few weeks now, helped by a slow drip of official details and the buzz behind its cult CynaogenMod 11S Android operating system. With specs similar to the Samsung Galaxy S5, a price under $300 unlocked, and LTE on the AT&T and T-Mobile networks, the OnePlus One could shock the entire Android market. Read more...
Posted by Ken S. on April 24, 2014 in
Android,
General Tech,
Google |
∞
Today, Google’s Vic Gundotra announced that he would be leaving the company after eight years. The first obvious question is where this leaves Google+, Gundotra’s baby and primary project for the past several of those years.
What we’re hearing from multiple sources is that Google+ will no longer be considered a product, but a platform — essentially ending its competition with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
A Google representative has vehemently denied these claims. “Today’s news has no impact on our Google+ strategy — we have an incredibly talented team that will continue to build great user experiences across Google+, Hangouts and Photos.” Read more...
Posted by Ken S. on November 5, 2013 in
Android,
Google,
Smart Phones |
∞
When you’re shopping for a smartphone, what do you expect to get for less than $400 without a contract? Certainly not a top-of-the-line device, right? Until recently, that kind of price has been reserved for devices that were mid-range at best, or entry-level at worst. Ever since the gorgeous and powerful Nexus 4 came out last year for $300 on the Play Store, however, it’s been clear Google is trying to give the high-end, $600-plus Android flagships a run for their money. Now the company’s back with the Nexus 5, a power user’s dream that sells for $350 and features some of the same specs you’d expect to see in a top-shelf device. Read more...
Posted by Ken S. on April 27, 2013 in
Android,
Hacking,
Root,
Smart Phones,
T-Mobile |
∞
The Nexus 4, being a smartphone geared towards Android developers, is relatively easy to root; the whole process requires the use of some simple fastboot commands, which even novice users can master relatively quickly. Here’s how to get started.
To root your Nexus 4, you will first need to unlock the handset’s bootloader, which means wiping all of your data. With that being the case, make sure you’ve backed everything up first so that you can transfer it all back to your device when you’re done. Once that’s done, follow the steps below. Read more...
Posted by Ken S. on December 19, 2011 in
Android,
HTC Sensation,
T-Mobile |
∞
We had some
hands-on timewith HTC’s new European Android flagship a short while back, but it wasn’t nearly enough to answer all our questions about how the 4.3-inch, 1.5GHz dual-core XE compares to the original 1.2GHz Sensation, or whether the implementation of Beats Audio was anything more than a cunning scheme cooked up between the manufacturer’s marketeers and Dr. Dre’s agent. Now, though, this phone has been our closest companion for long enough to reveal its true colors. They’re red, primarily, but there’s a whole rainbow of detail right after the break.
Hardware
In many respects this is not a complete review, because we’ve avoided covering the same ground we already trod extensively in our review of the
Sensation. Instead, we’ve focused only on those areas where there have been significant changes, or where the passage of time has altered a particular spec’s standing with respect to the ever-eager competition.
In particular, we spent a great deal of time looking into Beats Audio — far too much time, perhaps, if you’ve already convinced yourself that this Dre hookup is nothing but a gimmick. But we felt that since HTC has invested untold dollars in Beats in order to differentiate itself from the competition, and since it plans to bring the this technology to many more devices in the US and around the world, then we ought to try to come up with something definitive and — if at all possible — scientific. By all means, if you’re just curious about this phone’s musical prowess then skip down to the Software section, but for now we’ll start off with the key hardware features.
Just like the original Sensation, the XE is well-built and beautiful to behold. Its tapered edges and smooth wraparound aluminum case conspire to make it feel thinner than the 11.4mm statistic might suggest. Of course, the XE differs in its coloring and when we first heard about the red accents we were worried they might look cheesy, like a
Qosimo gaming laptopor something, but our fears were misplaced. The coloring of the navigation button back-lights, the speaker grill and the ring around the camera lens all helped to lift this phone above the plain black and silver hordes. The speaker grill and front-facing camera both have glinting chrome borders which make them look extra special. Add in the bold red headphones with the Beats logo on the back of each bud and it’s an all-round good look — unless you prefer your gadgets to be more discreet.
If you grip the phone hard you’ll feel and hear slight creaks from the plastic-aluminum hybrid construction, but it’s far less than what you get on purely plastic phones. We should also mention that no matter how we held the device, we failed to encounter any of the so-called “death grip” issues that people complained about with the first Sensation.
Perhaps the only nits we’d pick — and they’re much smaller than your average nits — are the tendency of the border between glass and aluminum around the panel to collect dirt which cannot easily be cleaned, plus the strange slant of the power button. We should probably disregard this latter flaw, since the device in our hands-on didn’t have it and it could simply be a factory error or a result of transit damage. Nevertheless, if wonky power buttons turn out to be an issue with this phone, then remember: you heard it here first.
Processor
We didn’t have an original Sensation to compare against the XE side by side, but we did have an EVO 3D to throw into the mix, which has a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8660 processor that’s very similar to the Sensation’s MSM8260. The comparison isn’t perfect, because the EVO 3D has 1GB of RAM instead of 768MB, but it’s nevertheless sufficient for an indication of what 1.5GHz delivers in terms of real-world advantage — which turns out to be not a great deal. The EVO 3D actually booted much quicker than the XE, taking just eight seconds from ‘Off’ to snapping a picture on the camera. Meanwhile the XE took 11 seconds to do the same thing — possibly because the extra Beats Audio logo animation takes a few extra seconds at boot up.
Our Quadrant Standard benchmark scores clustered around 2080, which was significantly more than the EVO 3D (1800) but only slightly more than the original Sensation (2000). Linpack gave us 43MFLOPS for the XE, versus 41 for the EVO 3D and 46 for the Sensation — so nothing worth shouting about there either. Meanwhile, the Sun Spider javascript benchmark for browser speed timed the XE at approximately 3,300ms, which was much healthier than the strangely slow 6320ms time from the EVO 3D, but not a great deal quicker than what you’d get from the single-core iPhone 4. Forgetting benchmarks for a minute, the fact remains that webpage rendering on the XE was impeccable.
Our impression was that anything the XE could do, the EVO 3D could just about as well, so the extra 300MHz doesn’t count for much at all in practice. We can’t help but notice that the chip in the XE is identical to that in the original Sensation and has merely been overclocked — something savvy Sensation owners are perfectly capable of doing themselves.
Battery Life
HTC bumped the battery up to 1750mAh in the XE instead of the original 1520mAh, ostensibly to let you listen to more tunes but also perhaps also to compensate for the 300MHz bump to the original Sensation’s clock speed. The lower part of the case heats up whenever you put the processor under any serious load and you can just imagine how those two cores must be gulping down energy. After a 14-hour day of heavy use, including tonn of music, a few photos and a bit of video, the battery fell to eight percent by the time we got on a train home. It subsequently fell to three percent after listening to about 30 minutes of music and then finally died after taking four final night-time photographs. In other words, there’s no forgiving fuel tank here; when the battery says it’s nearly dead, it really is. However, just like with the original Sensation, the phone is frugal with power while it’s idle and on a less busy, more normal day we’d still find around 30-40 percent of the battery remaining when plugged the phone in to charge.
In our regular battery test, looping a standard def video with low-to-mid connectivity and push settings, the phone died somewhere between five and six hours, which is slightly below average for a large screen device. For the sake of reference, the 3.7-inch single-core BlackBerry Torch 9850 lasted 20 percent longer in this test — which merely shows that the Sensation XE pays for its specs in battery life.
Camera
The camera hardware in the XE is identical to that in the original Sensation, so check out that review for a full appraisal. All we really have to add is that the slight increase in clockspeed with the XE might translate into a minor improvement in the time it takes to load up the camera app and start capturing video or stills, but it’s nothing particularly noticeable — after all, the original Sensation was no slouch in this regard to begin with.
On the other hand, one thing has changed significantly since the XE’s predecessor, and that’s time. As the months have progressed and new handsets have come to market, we’ve become less forgiving of XE camera’s flaws — particularly with video. The auto-exposure isn’t particularly smart, and it adjusts too quickly when filming video, with ugly results compared to the camera in the HTC Titan and Sensation XL — which have far better camera units. Moreover, as you’ll hear in the sample video above, the sound recording is terrible: its default sensitivity of the mic is way too high, resulting in clipped audio whenever the person holding the camera speaks, or when there’s a gust of wind or any other sharp noise.
Posted by Ken S. on September 10, 2011 in
Android,
HTC Sensation,
Root |
∞
HTC is committed to listening to users and delivering customer satisfaction. We have heard your voice and starting now, we will allow our bootloader to be unlocked for 2011 models going forward. We plan on releasing the updates that will allow you to unlock your bootloader in the coming months, please keep an eye on this website for more details on which devices will be adding this feature. We are extremely pleased to see the energy and enthusiasm from our fans and loyal customers, and we are excited to see what you are capable of. HTC eagerly anticipates your innovations.
It is our responsibility to caution you that not all claims resulting or caused by or from the unlocking of the bootloader may be covered under warranty. Please note that unlocking your bootloader does not mean that you will be able to unlock the SIM lock. Unlocking your SIM lock is at the discretion of your operator/carrier and is not part of the bootloader unlocking scope. Read more...
