Motorola Planning 2GHz Android Phone For Later This Year 183
rocket97 writes "On Wednesday, at the Executives Club of Chicago, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha reportedly decided to chat about the relatively near future of the mobile landscape as he sees it — which, in part, includes the ultimate demise of mobile computers in favor of highly-capable smartphones. This being his vision, Jha discussed Motorola's plans for a smartphone with a 2GHz processor — by the end of this year. While Jha did not want to divulge any further information, Conceivably Tech cites another anonymous Motorola executive who was a little more chatty, talking up a device intended to 'incorporate everything that is technologically possible in a smartphone today.'"
So? (Score:2, Insightful)
Haven't even the marketing types learned by now.that Ghz is a measure of frequency, not speed?
Re:So? (Score:5, Funny)
Haven't even the marketing types learned by now.that Ghz is a measure of frequency, not speed?
But it's TWO Ghz! It's rated at TWICE the bogomips, it has to be faster! This is so fast, I can start talking before I even dial the number! Believe me, when it comes to talking on a phone, this faster CPU will make it much, much better!!!!!1
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But it's TWO Ghz! It's rated at TWICE the bogomips, it has to be faster! This is so fast, I can start talking before I even dial the number! Believe me, when it comes to talking on a phone, this faster CPU will make it much, much better!!!!!1
Don't forget that it also means half the calling costs. Will save a lot of money when traveling abroad.
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No they are not, for instance the OMAP used in the droid if clocked to say 800Mhz is now going to be equivalent to the 1Ghz snapdragon found in the incredible. This does not even get into the different GPUs found on these vastly different SOCs.
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Within even 1 arm family that is a bad idea as so many variants exist that may or not may have certain features. In x86 in the same family this is far more a relevant measure.
Initial reaction (Score:5, Funny)
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Initial reaction: "2GHz? What runs on that band? I thought all the normal unlicensed and WLAN stuff was on 2.4Ghz because that whole area of the spectrum was kinda junk and not good for transmitting very far..."
ah, the joys of telecommunications.
My reaction (Score:2)
"Why is Moto using a shotgun?"
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Or if you put it in your front jeans pocket, "Ow, my balls!"
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No, by the sounds of it it'll be too big to fit in a pocket.
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http://theendoftheuniverse.ca/node/518 [theendoftheuniverse.ca]
Re:Initial reaction (Score:5, Funny)
2Ghz what? (Score:5, Informative)
Which ARM variant is it?
Ghz ain't everything.
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My money would be on some variation of either the Snapdragon or Tegra 2 SoC. Both of those are Arm9 based.
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Because none of them are suitable for a smartphone. Unless I missed something.
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No they haven't. The PPC-making subdivision splitted off for some time now, under the name of Freescale
Motorola Has Crappy UI (Score:5, Interesting)
I had the Razr and the Moto Q. It seems like Motorola has the crappiest and most confusing user interfaces ever. If they were loading pure Android, that'd be great. However, Moto customizes the OS with something called "MotoBlur." I assume that this would be a crap firmware/UI. This would prevent the latest Android OS from being used. Also, a two GHz processor sounds great but the impact on battery life will probably outweigh any benefits in a smart phone.
Re:Motorola Has Crappy UI (Score:5, Informative)
on the other hand Motorola Droid is stock Android
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That's samsung for you.
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The Droid did not have that. It has pretty much plain vanilla. Either way if they would not use a bootloader that wants signed roms this would not be an issue. For some damn reason they want to prevent you from actually owning your own hardware on most models though.
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That said.... Any android based phones out there not made by an ASSHAT company that hates it's customers?
You know, Let's me install whatever OS I want without a signed, encrypted and bow-tied bootloader
If I want to install android 2.6 Release 3 on it or maybe another linux?
For some reason both HTC and Motorola hate the customer by making it impossible to install a non-blessed OS.
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Droid, Nexus One, G1.
That is one Moto and two HTC.
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HTC don't hate their customers. You are just confused about who their customers are.
Nexus One: Customer = You = Hackable device
Desire: Customer = Network Provider = Locked down
Same phone, different customer requirements.
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You are just confused about who their customers are.
Nexus One: Customer = You = Hackable device
Desire: Customer = Network Provider = Locked down
That doesn't explain why the Milestone is locked down, though. The Verizon version (the Droid) is not locked down, but the one bought directly by consumers (the Milestone) is locked down. It's really bizarre.
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You can get the original Droid for $20 + 2 year contract on Amazon. I just bought one last week and rooted it yesterday, installed Bugless Beast w/Froyo and it's running great. Very easy process.
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If you have a windows box, I had to make an XP vm just for this.
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That's true. I keep one around for playing games.
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I am not as freaked out about phone companies locking down the operating system as say Tivo or Playstation. When using the phone, you pretty much have to use their network for all functions, so your own home rolled and badly designed operating system can actually cause issues for them, and they don't want (and can't) support an unknown operating system. If Playstation (Wii, etc.) wants to bar you from their networks if you change the OS, then fine, but it can be run as a stand alone system, just like Tiv
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It cannot cause them issues STOP SPREADING THIS BS. You only get to talk AT to the phone hardware, that is it. Just like when I use a verizon usb wireless in my laptop running my own home rolled and badly designed operating system.
You may want to educate yourself on how this technology works before opening your mouth or putting fingers to keyboard
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I dunno, man. When I had a TyTn II, I could replace the radio firmware. I guarantee ya I could have caused havoc for AT&T if I wanted.
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In fact, MotoBlur isn't too bad because its supposed to work like a free version of MobileME, letting you remotely track/deactivate your phone should it be stolen.
The main problem with M
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That last point is the real problem. If 3rd party roms are available it does not matter though.
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It seems like Motorola has the crappiest and most confusing user interfaces ever. If they were loading pure Android, that'd be great. However, Moto customizes the OS with something called "MotoBlur."
What's wrong with that? It does exactly as the name implies, it 'blurs' the clarity of the user interface.
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I had the Razr and the Moto Q. It seems like Motorola has the crappiest and most confusing user interfaces ever. If they were loading pure Android, that'd be great. However, Moto customizes the OS with something called "MotoBlur."
Fortunately they didn't put it on their current flagships: the Droid and Milestone.
What I am afraid of, is that they're going to lock the bootloader like they did with the Milestone, making it really hard to put your own custom Android version on it. They did that with the Milestone, and it's a really sucky idea. (Otherwise the Milestone would have been the greatest piece of hardware ever.)
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Unlike SenseUI which does all kinds of crap. The Incredible breaks 3rd party apps left and right with its replacement of "contacts" with "people". Google should demand some basic interoperability stuff or charge HTC way more.
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Why do you ask dumb questions?
Freedom is letting the user flash his device, this is just breaking shit for the sake of breaking shit.
To use the Android trademark some interoperability should be required.
Carrier problems (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Carrier problems (Score:5, Insightful)
On smartphones the update period is often 18 months, verizon does that anyway.
AT&T does not want any phone that would outshine the iPhone, so don't expect any nice android phones there.
Hardware fragmentation is the only alternative to stagnation. This is no more an issue than people having different age/power computers. Normal stuff like email and web browsers will work for everyone and spiffy 3d games will just like on pc only run on the latest and greatest.
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If anyone gets iPhone it will be T-Mobile and that is only if AT&T refuses to pay what Jobs wants. AT&T will still try to make sure it is one of the best phones they sell and to do so will probably continue to implement iPhone like restrictions on their android devices. An example is no out of market apps.
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Sprint has something called "premiere" status. It gives you the traditional 2-year phone discount for a contract renewal at an accelerated 1-year rate. Getting premiere status is just a matter of having a qualifying mobile plan, which is pretty easy to meet when you have a smartphone. (I.E. most, if not all, of their unlimited data plans qualify you).
Still, I bought the HTC Hero (Android) when it first came out (October '09), and now I'm drooling over the EVO. This is even after I upgraded my Hero to Ecla
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Awesome, do they charge extra to get the next phone?
Verizon will let me do new after 1 in a similar fashion but removes my $100 credit towards a new phone and charges like $80 or so as an early upgrade fee.
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And even then, it is a lot cheaper to upgrade PC hardware than smartphones. A new low-end laptop costs $350 and can do everything that a $550 smartphone can.
I can keep shoving new graphics cards, memory, etc. in my desktop for a good 5-7 years before everything becomes obso
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You laptop has GPS and turn by turn directions? It fits in a car dock? It fits in your pocket?
I was not impressed with smartphones until I got my droid. It really does a lot of cool stuff.
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I agree, with the only issue being normal uses do not buy video cards ever. At this point the droid will be fine until you would get a replacement, since it has nice 3d unit and can be clocked up to 1.4Ghz if you do not care for battery life. Even at 1Ghz it beats an incredible.
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Even at 1Ghz it beats an incredible.
Is that really true? I've been hanging on to my G1 because a keyboard is a "gotta have". I thought about going to Verizon and getting a Droid but everything I read, even an overclocked Droid isn't as fast as an Incredible and I'm not going to buy a Droid just to have has-been hardware when I can probably stick it out just a little longer and get something better. Although, now that the Inc is rooted, it's starting to look awfully tempting.
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Yes....
Fujistu Tablet. It's older, only has a core 2 duo that runs at 1.33ghz. but it's got a dock, does turn by turn and GPS and fits in a BIG pocket.
but then I dont consider a iphone to fit in the pocket, too bulky. so it's a moot point to me.
I can annotate PDF files, print, edit CAD files, do video conferencing with a client that is using a Tandberg or Polycom video conference system.
Plus run standard PC apps.
It does not make phone calls, well except for skype. it can do that via the bluetooth headset.
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What sort of tiny pockets do you have?
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What sort of tiny pockets do you have?
Big enough for a Fujitsu Tablet, apparently.
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"You laptop has GPS and turn by turn directions? It fits in a car dock? It fits in your pocket?"
Netbook with Pretek SD GPS, absolutely, and at likely less than what you paid for your smartphone, with more power.
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$150 for two?
Over the life of the contract I am looking at another $600 in monthly fees for both phones, my company pays the rest. I will also get another $100 towards the next phone. So I am out $750 for two or only $325 for each total after the rebate.
How small is it really?
My mini 9 is way to big to be pocketable.
Highly capable smart phones? (Score:5, Interesting)
So we're going to be carrying around phones the size of laptops? Personally I'd rather carry a phone that's just a phone, and a laptop when I need one... it's bad enough that you can barely find a phone without a camera anymore, for those who aren't allowed cameras where they work.
Obviously one day human/computer interfaces are going to reach the point where they're more efficient than a keyboard, a decently-sized LCD display and mouse, but I can't see that happening for a long time yet.
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And for another, think about just emulation. Already, my 528Mhz Backflip can emulate even GBA games without too many glitches, with a 2 Ghz system, you are talking about emulating things like PlayStation and other later-gen games, and if it can emulate that, developers can surely make more impressive games running natively on it.
with
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Playstation can be done on far less hardware, there is a playstation emulator for the nicer phones coming out very soon.
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with a keyboard, captive touchscreen, trackball, 3/4G and Wi-Fi, and a fast CPU, there is very little you can't do with the phone.
That's rather my point: if you do all that then it's no longer a phone, it's a best a small laptop which can make the occasional phone call... and small keyboards are useless for the average user for anything more sophisticated than sending the occasional email. Even my netbook keyboard is painful to use for word processing for long.
So the only way that phones are going to replace laptops in the near future is by becoming small laptops with poor ergonomics.
technical discussion is better with voice (Score:2)
I've got a friend who threatens to call his kids at school to make them look bad in front of the other kids....but contrary to your belief voice is not dead.
I'm a software developer that works remotely. The rest of my group is thousands of miles away.
I spend a fair bit of time reviewing or planning code. Email/texting is useful for many things, but sometimes you just need to call them up. The bandwidth for multi-way discussion of complicated ideas is far greater with voice than text.
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Why would they be the size of laptops?
My droid will go up to 1.2Ghz with no real issues, it still fits in my pocket. At that speed it shit stomps the not so "incredible".
Re:Highly capable smart phones? (Score:5, Informative)
Basic phones are getting rarer, but they aren't that hard to find. I found this article a few minutes ago, supposedly updated today:
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-basic-phones/ [cnet.com]
Oddly, the top entry has a camera, a goof on their part.
The thing is that people that reject the cameras are a small enough market that it might not be worth giving much attention to.
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My current phone was a replacement for my poor deceased previous phone (which met it's untimely end at the hands of a cup of coffee), purchased for £12 from the supermarket.
Nokia 1661. No camera. But it does have a flashlight, FM radio, usual selection of calculator/calendar/snake/whathaveyou. And it makes phone calls/texts. Cheap, durable, purchased with no contract or anything like that.
Don't get me wrong, I intend to replace it properly soon enough. But just to point out that they are out there in
Power locked away (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder if this device will end up like the Milestone and pretty much all other Android-based Motorola devices, locked down via TrustZone to prevent the user from actually doing what they want with it.
But I suppose that's the price you pay when patronizing companies that treat the end-user as the enemy.
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Milestone can load other kernels, this is why kexec exists.
The Droid does not have that issue. Nor does the Nexus One.
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I meant that the Nexus One was an alternative not sold by a company that treats the end user as the enemy.
You can load other roms as chroots, or at least should be able too.
But yeah if you bought a milestone you were a sucker for not returning it within the 15 days or whatever.
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You still have to dance around the TrustZone lockdown, and the kernel isn't preserved between power cycles, thus still preventing your ability to alter the filesystem (read: load Cyanogen ROMs.)
Does Cyanogen require a different filesystem?
As far as I know (note: I haven't actually modded anything about my Milestone yet), you should be able to replace everything except the kernel, and you can even install kernel modules. So how big of a limitation is that really?
Not from Apple == Do not want (Score:5, Funny)
Specifications are useless without the design and the status. My equation is simple. If Apple makes it, it is worth buying. If anyone else does, no thanks.
Think Different.
Think Better.
Think Apple.
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Nice troll, but if thinking is wasted energy you should probably end your life now. It would be better for everyone.
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Are you sure they're right, and will they always be right? How can you tell?
If you just believe because some other twit told you do, have I got a great cult for you! We wear comfy robes, and the Kool-Aid is totally free!
Right, because there are never trade-offs... (Score:5, Insightful)
in engineering. You can always have everything you want. I'm surprised the world hasn't been perfected yet. :-/ Come on, something has to give somewhere. This announcement is worse than vapor. It's vapor that can never exist. Lame.
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Come on, something has to give somewhere. This announcement is worse than vapor. It's vapor that can never exist. Lame.
You must have missed the last few seasons of 24. Jack Bauer had a phone that never dropped a call (even on airplanes, choppers, and in subway tunnels), never had a dead battery, and had 3D animations instantaneously transferred from Chloe and rendered on his phone in real time. Apparently Motorola has been holding out on the rest of us.
Worse than vapor, just idiotic... (Score:2)
Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha reportedly decided to chat about the relatively near future of the mobile landscape as he sees it -- which, in part, includes the ultimate demise of mobile computers in favor of highly-capable smartphones.
This guy obviously doesn't do most of his own actual work, but rather has some flunkies standing by to translate his ideas and words into actual documents. Smartphones will never replace laptops, unless they get a larger screen - say around maybe 12 inches - and a closer to full-sized keyboard, and maybe a mouse pad. I know I can edit documents and spreadsheets on my smart phone, but I really don't want to.
Now, I'm interested in his ideas about flying cars...
Get the title right (Score:3, Funny)
Why does it have to be android? I read the summary, nowhere does it say android. Maybe moto already has a deal to license iOS.
Maybe the subject could read "Moto to make 2Ghz iOS phone by the end of the year" Someone's assuming it's android, aren't they?
Take "Android" out of title to be accurate. :p
Yeah I know... it's probably android. I'm just in a bad mood ;) And no way apple would license.
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You act like the summary is TFA, and the title is the summary. RTFA before you go bitching.
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Apple pays Cisco both for the name iPhone and the name iOS. Much in the same way that Verizon pays LucasFilm to use the name Droid.
This is going to be about as useful as 300+dpi (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, there will be niche, but I think we've just entered the penis measurement realm here. Personally, I'm going to be impressed when one of these devices can be charged once a week, not every night.* 2GHz will be nice at times - don't get me wrong - but I'm more interested in how little power it will take when in an active sleep state, and how well it will throttle back for background apps. This is no better than that stupid, non-standard 640x960, too-small-to-be-useful screen that Apple is putting on their new phone.
Perhaps Adobe should figure out how to make flash less processor intensive, rather than having to beef up every mobile processor and suck the battery dry to play video/games with poorly optimized code.
All apologies to the seventeen developers who plan on using their new android phones as their primary workstation.
*Yes, both my iPhone and my HTC Fuze can last more than a day, but two days is really pressing your luck if you find you really need them towards the end of the second day.
Re:This is going to be about as useful as 300+dpi (Score:5, Informative)
linky [mobilecrunch.com]
I know that it's not as amazing that apple wants to make it sound, but the pixel density is awesome and would help a lot on applications that have lots of text. Hell it's great for pictures too.
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Flash would need hardware assistance to run well on mobiles, by well I mean with little CPU or battery life
But once you add hardware assistance you tend to set some technical limitations that mean future changes wouldn't always be possible.
I like the idea... (Score:2)
Personally, don't need a camera, but I would like:
1. The phone to be bigger. I'm thinking 50% bigger than a blackberry.
2. Be mostly touchscreen, but still have some actual buttons
3. Drop rated. I'm mean to phones.
4. BIG battery - part of the bigger size
5. Larger antenna - I hang out in low signal areas
6. Bluetooth - won't normally use the phone's microphone/speakers, but use a BT headset most of the time.
speed wars (Score:2)
I mean, for a phone the least important spec is how fast the CPU runs. Since phone use is much more graphical, I am more interested in what the GPU is doing.
for those worried about battery life... (Score:2)
Keep in mind the process shink to >45nm is coming later this year; that will get us to these faster speeds as well as improved power consumption. Think Pentium 4 vs later procs for an example of this in action.
I'm wondering if Android and Android apps are ready for dual-core platforms. A 2gHz single core phone may be a better option than a dual 1gHz core, depending on that situation. If not, I'm sure next year's big Android release (2.4?) should be ready for it, since those dual-core Qualcomm SoCs are al
2GHz in a smartphone... (Score:2)
Geez. That'll burn a hole in your pocket faster than your Apple iFund (the money with which you purchase iProducts).
Oh great, the Mhz myth returns (Score:2)
I'm guessing this 2GHz processor is required to run all those bad flash games that have been ported using Adobe's dev tools.
I've never picked up a phone and thought "wow this phone is too slow", the network's 3G data connection is what always slows things down.
2GHz is nice, but what does it do? (Score:2)
While more GHz is nice because if offers more processing power what people really care about is what it can do. Having more power for the sake of more power is just dick measuring, features are what sell products.
Personally I would love to get my hands on an android phone that can play any multimedia I throw at it. I want to be able to download 1080p-720p video like I usually watch on the desktop, and be able to watch it on my smartphone without this transcoding nonsense (come on Dell put the Streak's 5" sc
Re:Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
This is not a fair comparison. Any core2 is going to stomp to death any ARM clocked at 2Ghz, in floating point it won't even be worth comparing. Ghz ain't everything. This may get these phones into the upper p3- lower p4 levels of performance for non-floating point operations.
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Yeah. A battery powered P3-class chip. I'm really upset about that.
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Only in non-floating point. Floating point is going to be around p1 or worse.
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T-mobile will allow if you buy the phone outright, they let you pay for it over 20 months though at 0% interest. If you buy it subsidized you will be forced to get a data plan. T-mobile unsubsidized is the way to go with them, you save the difference in the first year.
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it would be stepped down to 512 or fewer MHz almost all of the time
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
What could you possibly be doing on a 4" screen that requires multiple cores? Are you running a folding program? Massive game platform?
Hell, there are a total of three things I might be doing "at once" on a phone - listening to streaming (or onboard) music, browsing (whether it be web, contacts, reading, whatever) and sharing an internet connection with someone else. Everything else that's running in the background is essentially timer or interrupt based (alarms, calendar, notifications) and takes practica
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Some of use may want to be able to do a little more than that. Would be awesome to transcode video on the fly rather than have to do it ahead of time on a desktop.
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Again, why? There's no good reason I can think of to be transcoding on your phone.
(1) you want to watch a movie in the "wrong" format
>>> get a player/codec that reads it.
(2) you need to reduce the resolution (i.e. you put a 1080p MKV rip of Avatar on your phone)
>>> Why would you waste storage memory like that? a 12GB file isn't really suitable to uSD.
>>> It would still be faster to t/c, downres on your workstation by an order of magnitu
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Because a DVD is only 8GB max and most are much smaller. I want to be able to play right from the ISOs I have stored on my HTPC. When the iso is only 4GB with a 16GB sd card that is not a huge deal. I will be using a 32GB one or larger in the next phone anyway. Heck I may get one for this phone.
I get a new phone every 18months for very little money, so killing the battery is not a big deal.
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And everybody knows you can't do that without multiple cores.
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1. The iPhone supported HTML5 first (So what, somebody had to)
2. You are jealous that you don't have flash on your iPhone.
3. You are jealous that you can't do wireless tethering on your iPhone so you complain about 3G speeds (which are going to be really slow for you because AT&T sucks)
Basically, Google is still coding its way to parity with WinCE and iPhone OS. Each and every update
Last I checked, WinCE does not support HTML5 or wireless tethering unless you install third-party software. I've been using wireless tethering on my Droid for the better
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1. People are running 2.2 right now and have that I thought.