Android Community Weekly : June 11, 2011

It’s another issue of Android Community Weekly! This past Sunday, we stumbled upon a few leaked “How-To” videos for Verizon’s Droid 3; from the clips we can confirm it runs the same Gingerbread version of Motoblur as the newly updated Droid X. The HTC Sensation and Sony S2 tablet hit the FCC this week, both headed toward the AT&T network.

Monday, the HTC EVO View 4G and HTC EVO 3D were priced at $400 and $200 respectively; both should be available June 24 as previously rumored. Owners of the Galaxy S II, Droid Charge, HTC Flyer, and Nexus S (2.3.4) are now all capable of make group video calls with the Fring Mobile Group video chat application. Those of you that own a Galaxy S II and enjoy making the most of your devices will be thrilled that Samsung has sent a complimentary Galaxy S II over to the CyanogenMod team; hopefully we’ll see an official port of CM7 soon! In other development, the 2nd-init was ported to the Atrix 4G from the Motorola Defy; could we be seeing CM7 on the Atrix soon?! If so, you may want to snag one soon at AT&T – now on sale for $99.

After seeing Looxcie up close during the CES at the start of the year, I can’t wait to see the new sleek Looxcie 2 in action; from the photos it looks to be both smaller and lighter. Malware within Android software seems to be on the rise again according to NetQin; to protect your device either download the NetQin protection application, only download from trusted sites, and check your cellular bill closely and frequently. Consumers unite in a complaint to the FCC in hopes of unblocking tethering applications on the Verizon Wireless Android Market. If unlimited 4G LTE tethering on Verizon doesn’t seem enticing enough, then its available use on the upcoming phones like the Droid Bionic would be remarkable. The Bionic was recently benchmarked and does indeed seem to be the first dual-core 4G LTE soon to be available on Verizon.

A leaked phone teaser by LG very well may be the Nexus 3, yet no contour display seems to be present; after using the Nexus S, I sure hope it’s incorporated into future models. This May’s HTC sales figures proved to have more than doubled over last year’s numbers; this shouldn’t be too surprising — their smartphone lineup just keeps getting better. HTC is also working towards unlocking the bootloader for the Sensation 4G. I would love to see some overclocked dual-core benchmark comparisons against the Galaxy S II — especially if/when vanilla Android is ported to the Sensation 4G. News hit that the Sensation 4G will be available at Walmart for $148.88 with a new contract.

Don’t feel like purchasing some of those costly Android games from the market? The public may find interest in WildTangent’s plans towards renting games to Android users; as of now this may only be available on T-Mobile. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 was confirmed to hit Verizon in July and became available for pre-order this past Wednesday. There is still no date available for Verizon’s Galaxy S II, but a confirmation of it appearing on its network is comforting. Thursday, Motorola revealed three new smartphones; the Titanium for GSM networks, Triumph on Virgin Mobile (hands-on), and Photon 4G debuting on Sprint. A nice hands-on with the Photon 4G proves that it may be a nice alternate option to the EVO 3D after release (especially with some of the extras that will be available). Unfortunately, Motorola seems to have locked down its bootloader.

Our own Vincent Nguyen performed yet another hands-on/unboxing Thursday afternoon with the all-new NOOK e-reader; this new model is much more polished than its predecessor. An official SlashGear review was put into place by Chris Davies for the HTC Salsa, a phone centered around accessing Facebook information the most efficient way possible. Chris Burns graces us with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Wifi Only Edition) hands-on; this “official” edition of the device has proved to be more complete than the one handed out during Google I/O. Chris Burns also gives us the rundown on how his HTC ThunderBolt handled three months of daily use.

Rumors suggest an improved GTalk application may be in the works by Google that may allow Android owners to bypass SMS and MMS altogether. The original Galaxy S has an official Gingerbread 2.3.4 build floating around the net as of late for European users only. The Xperia Play is now available for $0.01 at Amazon, it doesn’t really get much better than that. Don’t forget to check out our reviews for the games available for it! My personal favorite is Asphalt 6: Adrenaline.