After neglecting to even have a mobile optimised website for ages, India’s biggest multiplex chain PVR Cinemas has finally gotten around to releasing an app to make lives of its customers much easier. As you would expect, both Android and iOS users are the first to receive the app and it seems Symbian and Windows Phone users are out of luck for now.

The free apps are available from Apple’s App Store (optimised for both iPhone and iPad) and the Android Market. The app lets you perform all the actions you would expect including booking tickets, checking show listings and showing previews of upcoming releases.

You need to enter your email address and phone number the first time you launch the app, after which it sends you a confirmation code which you can enter to start using the app. It automatically finds your location and selects the appropriate city.

While booking tickets you can select your seats and choose to pay via a credit card or opt to collect the tickets one hour prior to the show.

[via: Twitter]

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We’ve heard from the major Android manufactures on what they feel about Google’s Motorola Mobility acquisition, but it would be interesting to hear what Nokia has to say about this. After all, pre Feb 11 Nokia was contemplating putting its eggs in the Android basket. Lets look at their official statement:

“This further reinforces our belief that opportunities for the growth of Nokia’s smartphone business will be greatest with Windows Phone. This could prove to be a massive catalyst for the Windows Phone ecosystem. Additionally, with our respective intellectual property portfolios, Nokia and Microsoft are working together to build and nurture an innovative ecosystem that benefits consumers, operators, developers and other device manufacturers.”

Nokia seems to believe (hopes?) that Google’s owning Motorola would drive a wedge between them and players like HTC and Samsung who already make Windows Phone devices. May be if Nokia had gone the Android way, then Google would’ve cross licensed Nokia’s treasure trove of patents and have not needed to buy Motorola Mobility, but then again Google wasn’t willing to cut Nokia a special deal so may be Nokia would’ve repaid them in the same coin and asked for a pretty steep price.

Meanwhile, Nokia’s stock has risen by over 12.5% since the news of Moto’s acquisition first broke. This looks like a recognition of how undervalued Nokia’s stock is and the rise is perhaps being fulled by speculation that Microsoft might just follow in Google’s lead and buy Nokia. It could also mean that the market seems to think that today’s deal might just benefit Nokia and its Windows Phone decision.

Nokia’s statement also underlines Nokia’s strong patent portfolio, which combined with Microsoft is as strong as any. Infact, even without adding Microsoft’s patents into the mix, Nokia has already forced Apple to pay up in a licensing deal.

[via: TIMN, ZCJ]

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In a very interesting development, Google has just announced that it will be acquiring Motorola Mobility, the handset and tablet division of the company for a cool 12.5 billion dollars. As you can probably guess the primary driver for Google was its inherent lack of patents and Motorola’s 17,000 patents with another 7000 in the pipeline were too good to pass. Motorola will be run as a separate business and will remain an android licensee and Google promises that there will be no change on how Android is run.

While this will provide some cushion for Android manufactures who were getting sued left, right and center, it will also sow a seed of distrust. While Google may still be calling Motorola just another Android licensee, make no mistake it will be the first among equals and that cannot make Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson or LG happy. While all of these companies has put its game face on and given a public hurrah! to the deal, I wonder how they actually feel.

“We welcome the news of today’s acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem” Peter Chou, CEO, HTC.

“I welcome Google’s commitment to defending Android and its partners” Bert Nordberg, President & CEO, Sony Ericsson.

“We welcome Google’s commitment to defending Android and its partners” Jong-Seok Park, Ph.D, President & CEO, LG.

“We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem” J.K. Shin, President, Samsung, Mobile Communications Division.

In the conference call following the announcement, Google did make it clear that rights to make the next Nexus device are still up for grabs for all partners and that Motorola would also participate in the bidding process just like Samsung or HTC. The current winner for the Nexus lineup was selected last Christmas, so we’ll only know the real outcome of this deal when its time for the next Nexus.

At the end of the day for Google, a large part of the 12.5 billion was mainly spent for patents, but it would be foolish of them not to effectively utilize the newly acquired hardware arm of theirs only for set top boxes, but for cutting edge smartphones as well. This represents a huge challenge for them, as no one has really successfully licensed a platform and competed with licensees, all at the same time. A slight hint of favoritism could push Samsung and HTC towards Windows Phone and that’s certainly not what Google is hoping to achieve.

The deal still needs to clear regulatory hurdles across the world, but once that happens it will be definitely be a very interesting time in Android’s growth story.

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Nokia recently made it clear that other manufactures of Windows Phone based devices would also have access to their famed Ovi Maps, slightly surprising, but I guess that was part of the deal they struck with Microsoft. But what’ll come as another pleasant surprise is that users on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android will not be left bereft either. Nokia’s soft launched a brand new HTML5 powered, mobile optimized Nokia Maps website that as you will see below works perfectly on Android and iOS.

The website (m.maps.ovi.com) is still very much beta (read basic), with the last update being carried out on July 7, but you can still browse worldwide maps on the go and plan a route, both driving and walking. Coupled with access to the GPS, it lets you track your movement accurately. On Android, you get small zoom keys to let you zoom in and out, but on iOS pinch to zoom works perfectly making the experience a tad better. This is probably down to better support for HTML5 technologies on iOS v Android.

Here’s a quick video overview Nokia Maps on Android and iOS:

With the speed at which Nokia’s Maps team works, I can imagine that the website will get pretty regular updates, perhaps incorporating POI and other goodies soon. This move marks a clear assault on Google Maps which for a long time were the sole runners when it came to cross platform deployment. In a lot of countries where Google doesn’t offer navigation, Nokia Maps via their HTML5 foray have the opportunity of matching the functionality the native Google Maps app provides.

I can see Nokia going the Google way with this, offer everyone your Maps so they get hooked but keep the best experience for your own platform. If you’re wondering this is how it looks on the iPad 2.

Check out the video for the full blown overview of Nokia Maps on Android (Galaxy S2) and iOS (iPad 2).

Finally before you start making your mind about it, remember this is a soft launch, a first step so to speak.

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Google Maps for Android just got a pretty impressive update that adds transition navigation into the mix, this means that your phone will now be able to tell you when its time to get off the bus, great when you don’t speak the local language or if your attention waivers. But more than that, it also brings a little hidden gem that a lot of people have been looking forward to in the form of downloadable maps.

The feature is tucked away in the labs option and once you enable it, you can download 10×10 mile patches of maps around a particular point. You can have more than one area downloaded and you can choose any point in the world to download 10×10 mile maps around it. But there’s a catch, it seems the maps are for exploratory purposes only and will not help you in navigation. That being said, it shows that slowly but surely Google is getting there and beginning to challenge Nokia’s Ovi Maps (now Nokia Maps). Ovi Maps still let you navigate in a large number of countries around the world and Google Maps is failrly limited that way (no India navigation) but it is certainly that will give Nokia something to think about.

Here’s how everything works:

• Enable maps downloads in the Labs option. Once you do that, settings can be managed in the ‘Cache Settings’.

• Pick a spot, you needn’t even be in the same country. Click through and select download map area.

• Its a fairly light download, a little over 10 MB perhaps. You see what part of the map you’ve downloaded, giving you an option to see if you want another download to cover more area.

• Finally, you can manage the downloaded areas, delete and rename them.

The new version 5.7 also brings improved search suggestions, updated directions and a photo viewer for places. if you are wondering which countries get transit navigation, look here. More details at the Google Blog. If you are curious about transit navigation, here’s how it works:

So what do you prefer Google Maps, Ovi Maps or a combination of the two?

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The Galaxy S was a runaway success for Samsung, infact they couldn’t make enough of them. It went off the shelves for a little while and only returned with a Super LCD display, Samsung clearly wanted to concentrate somewhere else and the only thing that would make a company divert its attention from its most successful smartphone ever, would be its successor.

That’s exactly what the Samsung Galaxy S2 is, Sammy’s new superphone that aims to rule them all, if the original Galaxy S sold 10 million units, they want to sell even more of these. So does the Galaxy S2 live up all the expectations? We find out in our review.

Lets start with a quick unboxing and overview to give you an idea of the box contents of the S2, it comes with a pretty nice leather case that doesn’t add to the bulk too much, check it out in the video below. The device also comes with a microUSB cable and stereo in-ear headphones which will suffice for casual playback.

HARDWARE

The Galaxy S2 is Samsung’s premium smartphone, their most expensive and most powerful, so you would expect they would want to cram in everything under the sun. A 4.3” Super AMOLED Plus display, a dual core Exynos 1.2 Ghz processor, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB of inbuilt storage with a microSD card slot, an 8 Megapixel Camera with an LED flash along with the usual set of connectivity options like WIFI, GPS, Bluetooth and so on. When announced, the Galaxy S2 was supposed to have NFC chips as well, but that’s been left out from the current batch of Galaxy S2 i9100 models that have hit shelves the world over.

Building on such great hardware means that Samsung could add a bunch of features most other Android manufacturers haven’t incorporated. Things like 1080p HD video recording at 30 frames per second, WIFI Direct, support for USB on the go, Bluetooth peripherals like mice, and DLNA support that’s continued from the original model. To keep all the above humming along nicely, Samsung’s put in a 1650 mAh battery.

DESIGN

The Galaxy S line of phones from Samsung is focused on making fast, elegant and slim smartphones and the S2 has started from where the original left off. The device is slightly larger on account of the bigger 4.3” screen as compared to the 4” on the original, but is surprisingly even slimmer at just 8.5mm, compared to the 9.9mm on the S1, making it the thinnest and most powerful smartphone on the market today.

The design language is still very similar, a front occupied mostly by the screen with a physical home button at the bottom, flanked by the menu and back keys. No place for the search key means that the menu key doubles up to perform those functions as well, a long press on the menu touch sensitive key and it begins to work like the search button, working across all applications. Personally I like this setup as that makes for a cleaner design, and you won’t accidentally press any keys as the touch sensitive keys are separated by the physical home button.

The sides have minimalist buttons with the left packing the volume rocker and the right holding power/lock key, there is no camera key. The positioning of the power button is perfect, it is much easier to hit, immaterial of whether you are left handed or right, compared to a position on the top of the device where you’d generally find the power button. Reaching across a 4.3” display won’t have been a joy if it had been placed on top. Speaking of the top, all that it carries is a 3.5mm jack for plugging in your favourite headphones, while the bottom of the device holds a solitary microUSB port, which can also be used with the HDMI connector to connect to an HDTV.

The back of the device holds an ever so slightly protruding 8 Megapixel camera with an LED flash. The bottom of the device bulges out towards the back and holds a mono loudspeaker. As you can imagine, keeping the device faceup blocks the loudspeaker and can cause you to miss calls, this problem is however mostly evident on soft surfaces.

SOFTWARE

The S2 runs the Gingerbread 2.3.3 release out of the box, with Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz 4 overlay. The latest version of Gingerbread is 2.3.4, and the Galaxy S2 is expected to receive the update in the coming weeks, even otherwise 2.3.4 isn’t something you would miss dearly.

TouchWiz 4: What deserves special mention is the TouchWiz 4 interface that adds a lot of value to stock Android. A lot of people prefer a stock UI, but TouchWiz 4 really makes you reconsider that stand. It brings quick WIFI, GPS, Rotation and Bluetooth toggles to the pull down notification bar. Also present there are forward, back and pause buttons while the music is playing, you can even control music from the lockscreen without having to unlock the device.

Next, it gives you upto 7 homescreens and plenty of widgets to play around with including agenda widgets with month and today views along with a bunch of clocks etc. Some widgets are resizable, so you can decide how much of the screen should say the weather widget occupy, or if you want to make the today view larger. You can quickly jump between homescreens by pinching out or dragging your finger across the dots on the bottom to glide between homescreens.

The apps are presented in a page based format, much like iOS and I am personally a huge fan of this approach. No need to keep scrolling up and down, and you can organize your apps by moving them across pages or within folders. You can glide between pages in the same way as homescreens. TouchWiz also has bunch of other tricks up its sleeve with a brightness control that can be activated to holding the pull down notification bar for a second and then dragging right to increase and left to decrease.

TouchWiz 4 also introduces motion based gestures, for example you can move widgets between pages by holding them and then moving the phone left or right to jump pages, or holding down two points on the screen to zoom in and out of the browser, pictures and so on. These things are more for fun than actually helping you save time, but nevertheless make for a great way to show off your new device to friends.

All in all, I’m a huge fan of the TouchWiz 4 interface and as surprising as it may sound to some of the Android purists, it adds a lot of value to the device. If you don’t like it, you always have the option to choosing a new launcher from the Android Market and forget about TouchWiz completely. Here is a video that takes you though some of the lesser know tips & tricks that are available of the Galaxy S2.

The one things that I don’t like about Samsung’s software is that they want to control how I use my battery once it is running low. Beyond a certain point, the camera kicks you out because the phone is running low on battery, or the music player shuts down and so on. Samsung does it to protect the basic function of the phone i.e. make and receive calls, but if I want to take a picture, the phone can simply warm me and then let me take the shot instead of blocking me completely. Fortunately, there are workarounds to this problem. A camera app from the Market solves the purpose, so does a third party music player.

Flashing: But if that’s not enough, you will be pleased to know that the SGS2 comes with an unlocked bootloader and is one of the most mod friendly Android devices on the market. There are already custom ROMS and hacks available, so if you ever feel something is amiss or you that would like to try something new, the modding community will keep you satisfied.

Some custom ROMs and hacks also let you get rid of the battery limitations I described earlier.

On the software front, as I mentioned earlier, the S2 brings new functionality such as USB on-the-go, so that you can plus in flash drives, portable hard disks etc to copy data across without needing a PC. There is also support for WIFI Direct, a technology that lets you copy data wirelessly, much like Bluetooth but at much faster speeds using an adhoc WIFI connection. Find a detailed write up here, and following is a video showing it in action:

PERFORMANCE

Considering it runs on a dual core processor and a gig of RAM, you would expect this thing to fly, and fly it does. Despite the days of rigorous tests, app installs and non-stop use, the SGS 2 has performed with flying colours. Everything is fast, there are no lags whatsoever, and even after days of use you do not need to reboot. The booting time for SGS 2 is a breath of fresh air and it takes about 10 seconds to get upto speed from a cold boot. The annoying Android file keeping on boot is also a matter of seconds.

The device has about 833 MB of RAM available and on a fresh boot you will generally find that around 650MB is free, more than enough for anything you might want to throw at the phone.

If you had worries about TouchWiz slowing things down, you can get rid of them. The browser is fast, most apps load almost instantly, the camera takes 2 seconds to get ready to shoot, the scrolling is smooth and you don’t see jerks.

The browser despite being blazing fast to load pages, does manage to show a few check boxes while scrolling, this is a software bug and I would think that Samsung would be working to get it fixed with subsequent firmwares. Otherwise it handles flash just fine and that doesn’t really affect the overall smoothness of the phone. The Gallery app sometimes take a second to load, but once inside, flicking though pictures is instant.

But if you really cut to the chase, I’m yet to come across a single app that actually needs a dual core processor to show its true potential, the dual core chip is more for about being future proof than being a requirement for today. Still you feel good knowing its there.

CAMERA

The auto focus camera on the S2 is an improvement from the 5MP shooter on the original, and possibly one of the better ones across all Android devices. The S2 does not have a physical camera button, so all the controls are on the screen itself. You can touch a particular area to focus or use the camera key and let the phone take that into its own hands.

With stills, there are a lot of options available, right from taking panoramas, to an action mode for fast shutter speeds and even a cartoon mode. Also present is a macro (close-up) mode, a Face Detention mode and the usual auto mode. For most documents scans and closeups, the auto focus mode is enough and you are saved from the bother of having to switch to macro each time. When you exit, the camera remembers your settings.

The UI of the camera app is clean and simple, you can select which controls to show on the left hand side while the right holds the toggle for switching to video, taking a picture and jumping into the Gallery.

The S2 also has a 2 Megapixel front facing camera that is a very welcome improvement from the VGA shooters that we see on most smartphones. It is passable for portrait shots and will help improve video call quality if our networks and apps are upto it.

ISSUES?

When the Galaxy S2 launched there were quite a few rumors surrounding the screen, heating and WIFI performance, so its best to put those to rest as well.

First the screen, the alleged problem being that there is a slight yellow effect on the left hand side of the display. I have played with two Galaxy S2 devices and on both occasions I had a very hard time locating the yellow batch, sometimes I see it, sometimes I don’t. It is allegedly visible in low brightness with a solid grey colour in the background. But for me it is not a problem, the screen looks great, even better than the original Super AMOLED display on the S1 and I am yet to see any the issue in any real world scenario.

Next is talk that the Galaxy S2 gets excessively hot. In peak of the Indian summer, my device has held up well, it does get a little warm at times, specially when you are charging it and using it at the same time, but this is no deal breaker and expected to an extent. Bottomline, don’t worry about it.

Next, some people are having problems with WIFI reception. In my tests using the default India firmware, the SGS2 performed well enough. My N8 and the the iPad 2 had better reception at the edge of my router’s range, but the SGS2’s performance is still passable. You’ll only have problems if you try and leech off your neighbour’s WIFI.

Last, the original Galaxy S had problems with GPS performance and it looks as if Samsung has gone to great lengths to make sure that the GPS performance on the S2 is stellar. Infact after the using the device as my primary smartphone for the last 4 weeks, I am yet to see a show stopping bug, or even something that is a minor annoyance.

Battery Life: Finally lets talk battery life. After a few recharge cycles, the Galaxy S2 possibly has the best battery life of any similar device in its class. With 4 email accounts, WhatsApp, Gtalk and Tweetdeck running continuously in addition to a few calls, a bunch of texts, moderate browsing and 20 minutes of light games I still get a day’s usage from the device.

So if you leave the house at 8am with a full battery, you should still have some juice left over when you get back at 8 in the evening, it might even get you through the after work parties unless you really hammer it. Considering the S2 has a 4.3” display, it manages to last for an impressive amount of time.

GALAXY S v GALAXY S2

At this point a lot of original Galaxy S owners are wondering if it is worth it to update to the successor, here is what I think:

CONCLUSION

The good: While the S2 excels in most aspects, the following stand out:

• Screen, the colours really pop out and the blacks are seriously impressive.

• Size, super thin and very light.

• Blazing fast, with a useful TouchWiz overlay.

• Great call quality, one of the loudest in, in-call volume.

The bad: There’s hardly anything bad, but the following things would have been better:

• The camera while being one of the best ones on an Android device, still doesn’t match up to the likes of Nokia’s N8. The single LED flash could have been brighter as well.

• Some people would have preferred a more metallic finish, but Samsung’s compromised on that front to keep the weight and antenna performance better.

• A loud enough mono speaker, let down by the placement on the bottom where it gets muted easily. The same plastic bottom is also prone to scratches if you aren’t careful.

• The TouchWiz overlay will mean that updates come to the SGS2 a little later than the Nexus series of smartphones, but Samsung’s been stepping up its game recently with their speed of updates and judging by how popular the S2 will be, you can rest assured about getting the updates sooner, than later.

One the whole the Samsung Galaxy S2 is a superphone, to call it a mere smartphone would be an understatement. It has its niggles, but they are far outnumbered by the overwhelming positives in its favour. It is without a doubt the best Android smartphone on the market and depending on how you feel about Android, perhaps even the best smartphone today, certainly the most powerful.

So if you were in the market for a high-end smartphone, would I recommend the Galaxy S2? Definitely.

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HTML5 seems to be the new buzz word for the cool kids, with most manufactures moving from Flash to HTML5 for their video streaming and other needs. So with that in mind, I though it’d be good to see how MeeGo/Harmattan, Android and iOS perform in an HTML5 faceoff.

The devices used for the purpose are an N9, the Galaxy S2 and Apple’s iPad 2. Here is how each of them perform. The tests were done by pointing the browser to html5test.com and noting the score out of a maximum of 450 points. You might be surprised by the results!

Lets start with iOS and the iPad 2, running iOS 4.3.3:

Followed by Android and the Galaxy S2 running Gingerbread 2.3.3:

And finally the MeeGo/Harmattan and the Nokia N9 running pre-release software:

Winner!

Surprised by the results? Its some times hard to believe that Nokia is the same company that makes the Symbian browser! To recap:

1. MeeGo/Harmattan: 283 and 14 bonus points.
2. iOS: 217 and 7 bonus points.
3. Android: 184 and 1 bonus point.

Finally some trivia, the latest Firefox 5 turns in a score of 286 and 9 bonus points, Safari tuns in 253 and 10 bonus points and the Symbian^3 browser, barely manages 36 points!

The Nokia N900 had a great browser and it seems Nokia’s made it even better with the N9!

[Update: Some people will say that its unfair to compare existing products with upcoming ones, and I agree. So for some perspective, as @coolkamio informs me on Twitter, iOS 5 manages a score of 304 + 9].

[Update 2: I've updated the N9 scores, based on the results from the Nokia Conversations post].

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One of the brand new features that the Samsung Galaxy S2 brings is the support for WI-FI Direct. WI-FI Direct, if you remember, is the technology that lets you transfer data between other WIFI Direct devices by creating an adhoc WIFI connection between them. In other words, it allows WIFI devices to talk to each other without the need for wireless routers.

It works much like Bluetooth, just faster and has better range. Symbian is supposed to get WI-FI Direct this year as well, but Samsung beat everyone to the chase with the Galaxy S getting certification last year itself and now the SGS2 becomes one of the first smartphones (if not the first) to ship with WIFI Direct support out of the box this year.

I have played with WIFI Direct for a while and it is definitely a very welcome feature, one you probably wouldn’t be able to live without once you get used to it. Transferring an mp3 (5-6 MB) is virtually instant and very large files also take mere minutes. For example, you could transfer a 700 MB movie wireless in the middle of the desert in under 5 minutes using WIFI Direct.

Here’s a demo of WIFI Direct on two Samsung Galaxy S2 devices:

That’s not all, if two Galaxy S2 devices were connected to the same network, then I could also send files between them without having to activate a peer to peer network which meant I didn’t have to disable the WIFI connection from my router and could browse the web meanwhile.

Impressive.

I cannot wait for WIFI Direct support to other devices. What do you think of it?

Further reading – Our In-Depth Samsung Galaxy S2 Review.

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The Samsung Galaxy S2 just hit the global markets a few days ago after having sold in the millions in Samsung’s own country, South Korea in under a month. A lot of people are looking at what is essentially a superphone, as their next smartphone and why not! It packs a 1.2 dual core processor, 1 GB of RAM, a beautiful 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus display, is thin as you like, feels extremely light and is power by the latest in Google’s software.

But there are also a lot of people who still like the predecessor to this device, the original Galaxy S. Some would wonder if it is worth the upgrade if they already own a Galaxy S and some would wonder if it makes sense getting the now much cheaper Galaxy S original if it meets their needs. In this post I’ll attempt to put the two Galaxy S devices head to head to see if the successor has enough extras to make it a compelling upgrade. You can jump directly to the all encompassing video, or get the background in text below.

Physical: The all apparent physical bits first, both devices have essentially the same design with the S2 going a little easy on the curves. However, the S2 is slightly larger on account of the bigger 4.3″ display as compared to the 4″ display on the original. But the thing to note is that despite the boost in specs, its now much thinner 8.5mm v 9.9 mm and is also lighter by 3 grams, 116g to the original’s 119g, making it the thinnest and most powerful smartphone on the market.

Finally, because of the light weight and the slim profile, the Galaxy S2 doesn’t feel much bigger than the original. If you are used to the S1, you shouldn’t have any problems adjusting to the S2.

Display: Its not just the size of the display, but the technology behind it that’s improved as well. The 4.3″ screen on the S2 is ‘Super AMOLED Plus’, compared to the original’s ‘Super AMOLED’. Does this make a difference? Yes. Everything is better, the colours, the sunlight visibility, the viewing angles, the blacks. When you first move from a Galaxy S to a S2, the difference isn’t obvious, but when you move back to the Galaxy S, it then that you realize that Samsung’s new display does deserve the ‘plus’ moniker. That’s not all, the sub-pixel count has improved from 8 to 12, so this means that despite having the same resolution 800 x 480, the S2′s display will be sharper and the corners smoother than the original.

Power: The S2 is powered by a 1.2 Ghz dual-core exynos processor that literally blows the competition away on benchmarks. It also comes with a gigabyte of RAM with about 833 MB being useable. Compare this to the 1 Ghz processor on the original and the 329 MB of available RAM on S1.

Camera: The S2 comes with an 8MP auto focus camera with a single LED flash. It also shoots in video in 1080P at 30 frames per second. The S1 on the other hands has a 5 MP AF camera without any sort of flash and shoots at video at 720P, 30 FPS. Needless to say, the camera on the S2 is better, but the one thing to note is that when shooting at 1080p, the frame is slightly zoomed in, watch the video below to get a better idea of what I’m taking about.

Software: The S2 runs Gingerbread 2.3.3 out of the box with a TouchWiz 4 overlay. The S1 originally ran Eclair, but with the recently leaked 2.3.4 Gingerbread release, the S1 runs the absolute latest in Google’s software, even bettering the S2, which is supposed to get 2.3.4 is the coming weeks. Officially the S1 now also runs Gingerbread and newer units ship with it. TouchWiz 4 on the other hand is a very welcome improvement over TouchWiz 3 that runs on the S1, making it my favorite Android launcher/skin by far. A bunch of things have changed, the messaging app has skins, the memo app is better, the homescreen layout and switching is faster, you have music control from the lockscreen which itself has improved and looks much better. See the video to get a better idea.

Battery: The S2 comes with a 1650 mAh battery (compared to 1500 mAh on the S1) and slightly better battery life than the original running the latest Samsung ROMS. Also, the back on the S2 is matte and non glossy, giving it a premium feel. However, removing it does show you how thin it is and that can cause some anxiety. Overall, its still a definite improvement.

Connectivity: The S2 immensely benefits when it comes to connectivity. First it has HSDPA support for speeds upto 21 MBPS, compared to the 7.2 MBPS cap on the original. It also has USB on-the-go and WIFI direct support (more on that later today), not to forget the HDMI out with the microUSB adapter.

So these are the broad difference/improvements that the Galaxy S2 brings compared to its predecessor, I have outlined all of these and more in the video below. What is my final conclusion? Watch the video to find out!

Already have a Galaxy S2? Then check out some little known tips & tricks or our In-Depth Samsung Galaxy S2 Review.

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The Galaxy S II is Samsung’s latest and greatest superphone and judging by the rate at which these things are selling, very soon millions around you will have a one. The device packs a dual core 1.2 Ghz processor, a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus display, runs Android 2.3.3 out of the box with Sammy’s TouchWiz 4 on top.

TouchWiz is Samsung’s custom UI layer that differentiates the SGS 2 from the myriad of other Android slabs and Samsung has managed to add enough value to it to make it a very welcome addition. Some of its benefits become obvious, but some tweaks and shortcuts that can make your experience even better are tucked away. This post aims to showcase a bunch of tips and tricks that every SGS 2 user should know. Some of these might even work on older TouchWiz devices.

Hit play and tell us in the comments section if you think I’ve skipped any must know shortcut/tip!

If you can’t see the video embedded above, hit this link to go to YouTube. If you’d like to read instead of watch the video, read on.

• Quick Calls & Texts: Once you have the contact you want to call or text in front of you, instead of entering it and then carrying out the operation, you can simply swipe left to place a call or swipe right to enter a text.

• Homescreens: TouchWiz supports upto 7 homescreens and jumping between them can quickly become a problem, but you can easily pinch to get an overview and then quickly jump to the screen you want.

• Screenshots: Taking screenshots on Android devices is a pain, but on the Galaxy S2, you can simply hit home button and then the power key while holding onto home to take a screenshot. You can then see them in the Gallery.

• Brightness Adjust: The notification bar can serve as a brightness scroll on the Galaxy S 2 if you are not using the  auto brightness option. Just hit the notification bar, hold for a second and swipe left to decrese and right to increase the brightness. This is one of my favourite tweaks.

• Browsr Text Wrap: Out of the box the Galaxy S2 doesn’t automatically reflow the text in the webpage if you zoom in. But if you just goto settings and check the ‘auto-fit pages’ option, all is well again.

• User Agent Change: The browser lets you change the user-agent without needing an extra app, just type ‘about:useragent’ and you can choose between the iPhone, Nexus One, Desktop, Galaxy S or even enter a custom string.

• Pinch Based Tab Switching: While you are viewing a webpage, just pinch out and you will be shown the other tabs that are open, or you can even open a new one. Handy, finally possible on the Galaxy S2.

• Custom Fonts: The Galaxy S2 comes with inbuilt support for custom fonts. Just goto Settings -> Display -> Screen Display -> Font Style and choose from the three options or follow the link to download more from the Android Market.

• Change Bottom App Drawer: Its just easier to explain if you watch the video, around the 03:28 minute mark.

• Quick Slider: Whether you are in the homscreen or the app list, just roll your finger over the dots at the bottom of the screen and see the screens fly by. Beautiful and functional.

• Video Lock: Pressing the power button in video player locks the screen, now you can hold the device any way you like, no accidental presses.

• Testing Mode: *#0*# in the dialer enters the LCD test mode, useful if you are hunting for dead pixels or a few other things.

• Search Key: The SGS2 like the SGS doesn’t have a dedicated search key that all other Android devices have, but if you long press menu, it doubles as a search key and pulls search up, wherever you need it.

• Quick Dialing: On the dial pad spell the name of your contact and see it popup, great when you need to make a quick call.

• Bluetooth Mouse: The SGS 2 supports using a bluetooth mouse, the functionality is more of a proof of concept vis-a-vis being actually useful. TV out presents a useful senario.

Any others you would like to add? Let us know in the comments section below!

Further reading – Our In-Depth Samsung Galaxy S2 Review.

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Swype for Honeycomb is still in development, but early indications point to a all new experience which will better the default Honeycomb keyboard by far. Swype for Honeycomb not only brings the ability to swype to enter text quickly, but will also include the option to use it as a normal keyboard that supports predictive text and auto corrections. Add to that the fact that it can be resized and moved left or right on the fly and you have the makings of a truly wonderful offering. Swyping on a large display doesn’t make sense as you hardly save time, but with the resize options, it becomes relevant once more.

I caught up with Brian Lysak of Swype and he was kind enough to give me a demo of the yet unreleased Swype for Honeycomb offering running on a Motorola Xoom.

Just like other versions, Swype is looking to enter into deals with manufactures to pre-load Swype onto their devices, and I am hoping companies like Samsung carry forward their partnership with Swype from smartphones to tablets. It is that good.

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In what should come as great news for millions for Galaxy S owners, Samsung has started rolling out the Gingerbread update for their widely successful device. But before you get too excited, do keep in mind that this is a staggered release and it may take some time before an official version hits Kies in your region.

That being said, if you cannot wait for the update to reach your shores, you can flash the new firmware via Odin and get a piece of an official Gingerbread ROM as opposed to leaked Gingerbread ROM that has been floating around.

The Gingerbread on the Galaxy S is still based on the RFS file system, but early reports indicate speed improvements in startup times, and general phone behavior. The RFS lag only creeps in after the a while, so it may be a few days before we know the engineers at Samsung have finally be able to get rid of the lag, once and for all. The build date for the firmware is April 8.

Do keep in mind that downloading the ROM and then flashing via Odin, may void your warranty. I suggest you wait for an official release for your region which will also come with all the operator data, MMS etc settings for your region. But if you cannot wait, follow the XDA Developers thread below.

You can also spoof your product code and force Kies into believing that you are entitled to the update, tutorial here and reports suggest that these settings work.

[via: XDA Developers]

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It appears that the shit just hit the fan as far as malware for Android is concerned. Redditor lompolo has found that someone has taken 21 popular free apps from the market, injected root exploits into them and republished. What makes it even more alarming is that those apps have accounted for a total of 50k-200k downloads in just 4 days.

The good news is that Google pulled the apps within 5 minutes of being made aware of it. Android Police, based on their own investigation, suggests that the compromised apps have the ability to download even more code, making their potential to do harm virtually limitless.

Here’s the explanation:

Link to publishers apps here. I just randomly stumbled into one of the apps, recognized it and noticed that the publisher wasn’t who it was supposed to be.

Super Guitar Solo for example is originally Guitar Solo Lite. I downloaded two of the apps and extracted the APK’s, they both contain what seems to be the “rageagainstthecage” root exploit – binary contains string “CVE-2010-EASY Android local root exploit (C) 2010 by 743C”. Don’t know what the apps actually do, but can’t be good.

I appreciate being able to publish an update to an app and the update going live instantly, but this is a bit scary. Some sort of moderation, or at least quicker reaction to malware complaints would be nice.

EDIT: After some dexing and jaxing, the apps seem to be at least posting the IMEI and IMSI codes to http://184.105.245.17:8080/GMServer/GMServlet, which seems to be located in Fremont, CA.

The offending apps from publisher Myournet:

• Falling Down
• Super Guitar Solo
• Super History Eraser
• Photo Editor
• Super Ringtone Maker
• Super Sex Positions
• Hot Sexy Videos
• Chess
• 下坠滚球_Falldown
• Hilton Sex Sound
• Screaming Sexy Japanese Girls
• Falling Ball Dodge
• Scientific Calculator
• Dice Roller
• 躲避弹球
• Advanced Currency Converter
• App Uninstaller
• 几何战机_PewPew
• Funny Paint
• Spider Man
• 蜘蛛侠

Looks like you can’t be too sure even when you are downloading apps directly from the Android Market. It will be interesting to see if Google now starts to implement some sort of screening process to prevent such incidents in the future. Head over to Android Police for more details.

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The behind the scenes stories about what goes on in the dark corridors of billion dollar politics is always an interesting read and the Wall Street Journal has just put together a compelling read about how Microsoft went all out to woo Nokia. As it turns out, Android was very much on the table till the very end.

“Mr. Ballmer and his lieutenants headed for Helsinki in January to show how serious Microsoft was about cutting a deal. The plan was for Mr. Ballmer to fly privately into Helsinki, where he would then travel to a private Nokia facility, Mr. Elop added.

Mr. Elop said he instead got a call from Mr. Ballmer informing him that because of snow and fog, the plane wouldn’t be able to land in Helsinki. About to run out of fuel, Mr. Ballmer instead landed in Stockholm. At that point, the fastest way for Mr. Ballmer to reach Helsinki was to fly commercially, Mr. Elop said, despite the greater risk that he could have been recognized.

While Mr. Ballmer was waiting quietly in the lounge, his cover was nearly blown when he was paged by name over the loudspeaker because of an error related to his plane ticket”.

Its a recommended read – “Nokia’s Flirtations Put the Fear of Google Into Microsoft“.

[Image Credit: TOI]

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The Cricket World Cup is about to kick off this Saturday and ESPN Cricinfo has just launched its official Android and iOS apps just in time. Cricinfo which has recently been taken over by ESPN, is a website that brings us the most comprehensive cricket coverage from around the world. The good news is that the app, featuring a special World Cup section includes all of ESPNcricinfo’s in-depth coverage including ball-by-ball commentary, breaking news, incisive opinion pieces from the World’s best cricket writers and audio and video features.

There is no widget to give you a live scores at a glance, but there are push notifications to keep you updated when major events like a wicket occur in the game. The app is pleasing to the eye and customizable. Once you select your country, it tailors the news to your taste.

(Options for selecting when push notifications will be triggered, the homescreen of the app)

(You can keep up with multiple games at the same time, also use the dedicated World Cup section to stay on top of current standings)

Highlights include:

• Live game coverage – Commentary, scorecard, match graphics, photographs, reports and player profiles from every international game.

• ‘Lean back’ mode – Switch the app to lean back mode, place your device  on your table and follow live scores throughout a busy work day.

• Push notifications – Get instant alerts for wickets, batsman milestones and score updates during live matches.

• World Cup 2011 – Dedicated cricket World Cup 2011 section featuring squads, standings and stats and exclusive video content.

• Personalisation – Customise news, results and fixtures by your favourite team.

• Video/Audio – Watch and listen to the latest ESPNcricinfo video and audio podcasts.

• Magazine – Read from a selection of the best features from ESPNcricinfo Magazine

• News, Results, Fixtures, Records and Rankings

The above screenshots are from my Android powered Galaxy S, however a visually similar app is also available for iOS. Unfortunately, there is no similar ‘official’ Cricinfo app on the Ovi Store, but you might find lesser equivalents.

The ESPNCrininfo app is a free download on both iOS and Android and if you follow cricket, is a must download.

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A very promising press release hit my inbox today morning, the Myriad Group has announced Alien Dalvik, a solution that will let users take advantage of applications made for Android devices on their MeeGo smartphones. According to the press release, Alien Dalvik ‘enables the majority of Android applications to run unmodified, allowing application store owners to quickly kick start Android application store services by simply repackaging Android Package (APK) files’.

The best part about the solution is that Alien Dalvik applications will appear as native and can be seamlessly installed on devices, as you can see from the demo video below, they appear just as any other native Maemo app would.  Myriad Alien Dalvik is slated to become commercially available later this year on the MeeGo platform with support for other platforms to be announced in the coming months.

The press release only mentions MeeGo, however the demo video has been shot on the N900, running Maemo 5 and other documentation also mentions it, so chances are N900 owners might get some love as well. Alien Dalvik will also be demonstrated publicly for the first time on the Nokia N900 at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 14th-17th at the Myriad hospitality suite located at The Avenue, Stand AV91.

Myriad claims that the Alien Dalvik solution will let Android apps run on non Android smartphones with the same speed and performance as they would on a native Android device. ‘A very tight integration to both the Android SDK and the MeeGo SDK (QTCreator) makes it very easy to modify, package and test applications. Most Android applications can run unmodified as the vast majority of Android APIs are supported and tight integration with the QT framework leads to a seamless user experience.’

The bottomline is, if the solution can do what it claims and Nokia can churn out a great looking UI for MeeGo, people will stop their demands for a Android or WP7 device from Nokia.

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Mozilla has just rolled out Beta 4 of its Firefox browser for Maemo and Android devices. Beta 4 promises to be noticeably faster, improve start-up and page load times and responsiveness to panning and zooming.

Also advertised is compatibility with 100 add-ons to customize the features, functionality and look of your Web experience. According to Mozilla, tests on JavaScript benchmarks show Firefox 4 Beta is faster than the stock Android browser; roughly three times faster on Kraken, about twice as fast on SunSpider and slightly faster on V8.

Other advancements in this release include increasing stability, reducing installation memory usage, improving readability with zooming, and fixing some keyboard issues. The latest beta is available to download from the Android Market and if you use a Nokia N900, visit this link to get downloading.

Despite Mozilla’s claims, the browser doesn’t feel as fast in the real world and I found myself going back to the N900′s stock MicroB and the stock Android browser on my Galaxy S.

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If you have ever tried moving from a Symbian based device to Android you would have noticed that getting your contacts, messages and other data across is not as easy as you may think. Unlike switching from a Nokia to another Nokia, there is no switch app to copy data across and importing .vcf cards on Android doesn’t always work, even if you use third party clients.

Enter SPB Software’s Migrate To Android tools, that help you copy text messages, contacts, call history and bookmarks to your shinny new Android phone. In order to transfer data, you need to install the SPB app on your Symbian device as well as on Android. Then it is only a matter of running the apps and moving data either over the air via SPB’s server or using a memory card.

When you first visit the Migrate To Android website you will be asked to enter your ‘From’ and ‘To’ devices and then its a simple matter of following the details on screen instructions.

When using the online method, the data is secured by a PIN and encrypted. It also deleted from the server completely after 12 hours. The SPB Migration Tool is simple and very to use, it will however set you back by US$9.95 (449.64 INR) when you buy the app from the Android Market.

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The rumors about Nokia making an Android or even a Windows 7 phone (now that they have an ex-Microsoft CEO) never seem to die because there is always someone fueling the fire. Soon after Ari Jaaksi’s resignation, TechCrunch put out a story about how Eric Schmidt and Stephen Elop were talking about a ‘possible’ Nokia Android device.

“We’ve heard from a good source that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has called Elop to discuss the possibility of Android running on Nokia phones. We actually heard this information about a week ago, but today’s news makes it potentially more interesting. Around the time Jaaksi was resigning, Elop and Schmidt were talking.”

You have to admit, it makes for a very juicy story and an interesting point to mull over. But before you waste time thinking about this, let me put some things in perspective.

Nokia for years has now said that it wants to be a internet/services company and they have spent millions of dollars trying to do just that. They didn’t get off the floor too well, but now their services are beginning to take good shape. If they put Android on a Nokia device (lets call it the N10), where does Ovi go? Lets look at it in the light of their most successful Ovi services, Maps and the Store. Will the N10 suddenly run the Ovi Store instead of the Android Market? Will Google let Nokia replace Google Maps with Ovi Maps? People will say sure, they are free to load their own version on top, Android is ‘open’ you see. But does it make sense for Nokia to try and compete with Google on its own turf? An Android device needs you to sign in with your Google Account to get started. Will Google let Nokia replace that with an Ovi sign-on? Even if they do, it’ll be a huge mistake for Nokia to plan into their hands.

Now lets look at applications. Nokia recently spent over $150 million to acquire a company called Trolltech. Why? Because they were the ones behind Qt, the cross platform development environment. Nokia is telling developers, ‘make your app with Qt, here’s our toolkit and deploy to millions of Symbian, Maemo and MeeGo devices’. They are literally throwing millions at developers. With my own eyes I saw Stephen Elop handover the $1 million prize at Nokia World. Not to mention the $10,000 for this and $10,000 for that kind of awards that handed out in addition. One thousand free N8′s? Who can forget that.

Forum Nokia has been having developer conferences all around the world and they’re targeting America hard. Just yesterday, they gave all attended of the Nokia Developer Day a free N8 as well. You will not see it today, but the developers are really warming up to the idea of Qt and developing for Nokia in general. If Nokia even makes one Android device, all of that is gone. No developer will ever come back. Millions wasted.

Assuming Nokia does make the N10 (our fictitious Android device), what would it be like? Like a Nexus One or a Galaxy S with a better camera? Or perhaps like the new HTC QWERTY Android device with a better camera? Is there anything else they can add to the experience? Lets assume they hire Android engineers and put them to work on a slightly custom Nokia UI for Android. It will take at least 8-10 months before something even remotely usable can come out. Also by then, Nokia would have relegated themselves to being virtually a box manufacturer.

In the time that happens, MeeGo will be ready to take on the world anyway, backed by Qt. Making the apps that devs have already written for the N8 and other Symbian ^3 devices run on MeeGo is not a huge jump at all. They will also have sold a ton of Symbian ^3 devices, with Symbian ^4 on the way. After using the ‘new’ Symbian, the general distaste people have for it these days would have died down as well. 2011 is a perfect time for Nokia to reap results off their long term strategy.

Symbian ^3 for the low-mid end, with devices like the new C6 announced at Nokia World. Symbian ^4 for the mid-high end, debuting with the N8 successor perhaps. MeeGo for the absolute high end with Qt bridging the gap, and seamless Ovi Services keeping people happy.

Why would anyone want them to go Android is beyond me. Aren’t similar device from Motorola, Samsung, HTC enough? Anssi Vanjoki already told the world what he thought of other manufacturers using Android, ‘Like young boys peeing in their pants for warmth’. Sadly, he will soon be gone.

[Image via Engadget, Quote via TechCrunch]

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After what seems like ages, Skype has finally made to Android devices running Android 2.1 and above. To download Skype you will have to visit skype.com/m from your mobile phone or hit the Android market. The app brings the ability to make Skype calls via WIFI or 3G, but if you are in the US your calls will be restricted to WIFI.

In addition to calling phones, you can make Skype-to-Skype calls and send and receive IMs, one-to-one or with a group. The app has been tested on HTC and Motorola devices with Android OS 2.1 and above and should work on most other devices. Skype notes some problems with the Samsung Galaxy S, and they’re looking to address these in the future.

On a side note, Google has brought paid applications to the Android Market in a number of countries including India. The prices are displayed in INR and this opens up a whole new section of quality applications for you to browse through. Let us know what you think on the payment process and if you have the chance to compare it to purchases on the Ovi Store.

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