Root your Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700

So you’ve been hearing that you need to root your Android phone for making the most out of it. In our opinion it depends on your usage and Phone model. If you have a Nexus One running the latest Froyo, there aren’t as many benefits you get out of rooting. But for most other models you can get alternate firmwares which remove the bloatware loaded by Manufacturer/Carrier and provide lots of extra features.

Take Spica for example, without root it’s an above average budget Android phone. But root it and it turns into an excellent Android phone. The amazing developers at Samdroid especially Leshak, antibyte and Gabriel-LG are totally pushing it’s capabilities beyond limits.

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Tata Docomo launches HTC desire Smartphone in India

Tata Docomo has launched the HTC Desire Smartphone in India at a price tag of INR 28,900. The company, in a press conference held in Delhi on 16-Aug-2010 announced a partnership with HTC to launch the highly anticipated Android powered Smartphone in India.

Vodafone launches solar powered mobile phone in India

In order to tap in rural customers with little or no power supply, Vodafone has launched a solar power mobile handset VF 247 in India at a price of INR 1500.

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Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700 – Android sans frills

No matter what I said before I’ve always been a hardcore iPhone fan. But I just couldn’t invest a laptop worth of money in a warranty-less iPhone 4 sourced from abroad. So I decided to shift camps, temporarily.

The biggest problem in my opinions with Android devices is the that there are too many to choose from. It’s surprisingly difficult to find a no-frills, budget Android phone (If you’re ready to increase your budget Nexus One is the best option in my opinion). After lots of reviews and spec comparison I decided to buy a Samsung Galaxy Spica. Now that I’ve spent some time with the phone, I’ll jot down a list of points that may affect your decision to buy this phone. The first part of the review deals with the hardware.

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Airtel launches iPhone 3GS in India, no surprises

Looks like iPhone 3GS is finally hitting the Indian shores on 26 March 2010. Bharti Airtel announced the availability of the iPhone 3GS on its network in a press release on 24 March 2010.

As expected, the price of the phone is absurdly high. Here is a run down:

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A cheaper nexus one for India?

Apparently, Google is planning to launch a cheaper, stripped down version of their nexus one phone in India. Here is a tweet by CNBC-TV18 reporter Ankit, who  met Google India head Shailesh Rao in an editorial meet:

Nexus One will not come to India in its US avatar, the India specific Google Phone may be a stripped down version and priced lower!

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Tata Docomo launches first Android powered handset in India

Looks like Tata Docomo is all set to compete with the big players in India. After starting the per second billing war, they are now getting into the Smartphone market in India with the launch of Android powered Samsung Galaxy (I7500) handset.

Here is a run down of the features:

Android 2.0 is here and it’s good

Google has revealed the new Android 2.0 API and the video below is not only a great introduction, but it actually looks very good. Now if Droid does what all it says, I’m leaving the Apple camp.

Features in brief:

• Accessible anywhere Contacts and with something they call Quick Contact.
• Support for multiple screen sizes in a write-once run-anywhere sort of way.
• Full Bluetooth 2.1 support for those awesome games.
• Exchange support
• Full multitouch and many other tweaks and improvements.

[via Gizmodo]

Palm Pre Intro Movie

Palm Pre was recently launched under much speculation. It has received good reviews from most of the popular blogs. It is a good choice for people who do not like the iPhone. Here is the movie which plays when you switch on the phone for the first time. It shows you what all you can do with the awesome gestures on the Pre:

Is it just me or does the island really look like the one in the famous TV series Lost?

How Nokia tests for durability

I’ve always appreciated how durable those plasticky Nokia phones are. I appreciated that even more when I broke my iPhone while playing iBaseball

Nokia Test Labs

Now after watching the Nokia Labs tour video by AAS guys, I’ve become even more of a fan of the build quality of Nokia’s phones.

A few facts to get you interested:

• On an average they break 2000 pieces to test each model.
• 2000 different mechanical tests.
• Temperature range from -40° C to 85° C.
• Super slow motion cameras for drop tests. 100,000 frames/second!
• All keys/buttons/sliders are tested almost a million times.

You can see many more pictures from the labs at Gizmodo. Make sure you watch their brilliant slow-motion drop test video too.

[via All About Symbian & Gizmodo]