Welcome back to the 20th issue of Android Community Weekly! We finally have have a quick video demonstration of Android 2.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) in action, Amazon has realized an amazingly affordable tablet, and more devices continue to emerge before this holiday season. T-Mobile recently announced their version of the Galaxy S II to launch October 10th for $229. Though, more expensive than the Galaxy S II Epic Touch 4G on the “Now” network, it hopefully ships without many of the Epic Touch overheating problems.
We finally have an extensive review for the AT&T Galaxy S II available! Consistently scoring higher benchmarks over any Galaxy S II device thus far, we dub this device king over the others. Most different in this version than the others is even higher quality materials used giving a less-plastic feel. Tuesday, SanDisk 64GB micro SDXC cards were reported working on multiple Android devices. Unfortunately, having a smartphone available to readily access that amount of external memory will set you back $219.00.
Android 2.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) was demonstrated on video this Wednesday. The UI and lockscreen went through a complete overhaul from 2.3 (Gingerbread). Hopefully, an application for face recognition will be available upon release! An amazing Nexus Prime concept was recently previewed, and I’m sure we all hope the actual device will resemble even some of these design concepts. Yet another device planning to debut with Android 2.4 on board will be the Sharp Aquos 104SH.
We were also able to attend Amazon’s debut of the Kindle Fire the week! Fortunately, we were able to get some hands-on time with the device – and most noticeable was the inclusion of the vibrant IPS display. Amazon did not skimp in the least when manufacturing the Kindle Fire. Though it was announced for $199, the actual tablet costs Amazon $209 to manufacture! The company is surely banking on users to purchase books and subscriptions from Amazon’s App/Kindle Store to come out of this with some profit. The Fire will indeed run Android OS and be compatible with the many apps available in the Android Market.
RIM has recently enlightened the public with details on their Blackberry Runtime project to run Android applications. This will only improve Blackberry’s chances in retaining those of their customers with second thoughts in their non-versatile OS. Finally, the Motorola Xoom 2 tablets have been confirmed for a November launch just in time for the holidays!
