Its been another great week of news here at Android Community, so let me sort out some of the high points for you. Most important to many, our sister site SlashGear had taken the time to extensively review both the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 (ice Cream Sandwich). Android 4.0 has been steadily making its way to many devices (unofficially of course) since its source hit the net, and so will CyanogenMod 9 in due time.
For those of you that may have missed it, be sure to give the official Ice Cream Sandwich keyboard a try on your Android device. There is no rooting required, and all it takes is a quick download from the Android Market. Unofficially, Ice Cream Sandwich is currently being ported to the HTC HD2, Samsung Galaxy S II [AT&T], original Galaxy Tab, and the HTC Hero. I’m sure many more are in progress, and its safe to say that if the HTC Hero can successfully pull off ICS – then hardware requirements shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
Though the Galaxy Nexus hasn’t made its way to the United States quite yet, Bell Mobility should be seeing theirs on December 8th. A Verizon Wireless launch date is nearing rather quickly, as an advertisement tips the device to be $199.99 with a two year contract, and Google has even shown off how their LTE model differs from the original one. Both look excellent, and the LTE technology didn’t seem to make too much of a difference in overall depth. Galaxy Nexus owners early on in the week reported volume issues, and soon after Samsung and online retailer Handtec stopped Nexus shipments due to the bug. Fortunately, Google later confirmed a volume bugfix was incoming very soon. Although this highly anticipated device hasn’t launched on Verizon quite yet, I’m sure we would all prefer a solid release with as few hardware/software errors as possible; if that meant Samsung, Google, or Verizon needed more time perfecting it then so be it.
We published a nice review of the Samsung DoubleTime early on in the week, and for a lower tier smartphone it tends to impress. Though the specs don’t really compare with the more powerful devices as of late, this smartphone makes up for it with a very low price. Hopefully, we’ll get to test out the Kyobo eReader soon too; after seeing how well the mirasol color e-paper looks on video, I’m sure this will hold its place in future eReaders.
Also, Google is offering Android Market movie rentals for 99 cents during the holidays – so grabs some great movies for a great price while you can!
