OnePlus One Revealed: a CyanogenMod Smartphone 196
An anonymous reader writes "Spec-wise, OnePlus One will go toe-to-toe with the latest flagship phones like the Galaxy S5, HTC One (M8), and Sony Xperia Z2. In some areas, it even surpasses them, and at a price point of $300. The One has the same 2.5 GHz Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC SoC as the Samsung Galaxy S5, build quality similar to the HTC One (M8), and the large 3000+ mAh battery and Sony camera of the Xperia Z2. It also runs CyanogenMod 11S, which is based on Android 4.4."
One plus One revealed? (Score:2, Funny)
42 I guess?
Re:One plus One revealed? (Score:5, Funny)
Too good to be true? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:4, Insightful)
If we can buy a single 32GB Micro SDHC card for under 20$USD and 64GB for 40$USD at Amazon.com, I'd say that almost all companies are totally ripping us off when it comes to built-in device storage.
I'm guessing it costs them around 6$USD for 32GB and 12$USD for 64GB flash storage ICs since they buy millions of them.
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:4, Interesting)
MicroSD uses a cheap n-wire serial interface. Embedded FLASH, especially that which is used for XIF, is parallel and much much faster, and more expensive owing to the larger packages with higher numbers of pins for parallel interfaces.
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe that's a problem waiting to be fixed? Not everything needs extremely fast storage and I'm guessing the biggest storage capacities demanded by some people are caused by audio, video and photos. Since digital cameras can now record full HD video and use Micro SDXC cards, I'd say that one way to lower the cost and increase the capacity at the same time would be to include both "slow" and "fast" storage.
Something like Project ARA could give the choice to users. Add a cheaper unit that contains 256GB of slow storage and 16GB of fast storage or add a more expensive unit with 64GB of fast storage only. The OS would be able to decide for itself if a storage is fast enough for a given task (JPEGs and AACs go to the slow storage, the apps go in the fast storage, etc).
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, no. While it's true that SD cards offer backwards compatibility with MMC, modern cards transfer using a 4 bit wide parallel bus, and it's not nearly as simple as the SPI mode. With regard to your argument, have you ever looked at the flash chips in an SD card? Last I checked, they use the same memory dies as the "embedded" packages, and add the cost of an SD controller and more complex packaging. On the host side, there's the cost of an SD controller (although that's probably "free" with the SoC) and socket.
More specific to the original point, if a phone already has 16G of flash, the cost of upping it to 64G is minor - the parallel interface you mention is already there, and the difference in packaging costs between 16G and 64G chips is likely zero.
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:4, Insightful)
and the difference in packaging costs between 16G and 64G chips is likely zero.
I never would have pegged the price difference between 16GB and 64GB as $50.
That means every other phone out there is practicing enormous and arbitrary price discrimination by jacking up the cost of storage.
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well Duh! Why do you think Apple for instance doesn't allow SD cards in their phones?
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Well Duh! Why do you think Apple for instance doesn't allow SD cards in their phones?
I assumed it was because they didn't want to compromise on their museum quality designs.
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Well Duh! Why do you think Apple for instance doesn't allow SD cards in their phones?
I assumed it was because they didn't want to compromise on their museum quality designs.
Nope, it's because it would give the user too much choice and as we all know choice is baaaad.
If an Iphone user had to pick between 4 memory sizes, their heads would explode.
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MicroSD exists in many different speeds. They use the same microcontroller as the embedded flash, and can be just as fast if using similar chips (can in fact be faster if your phone has cheap internal flash).
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If you are running something nearly the weight of a full OS (and a RAM constrained one that spends a lot of time killing processes and trying to reload them before anybody notices), you want good performance from your flash and controller (consider the user happiness that the first gen Nexus 7 created before it gained
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As I said in another of my comments, I think "slow storage / fast storage" would be simple enough, with the OS able to know that it must store apps in fast storage and media in the slow storage.
Call it "Apps storage capacity" and "Media storage capacity" if it helps, the typical user doesn't need to know or even care why there's two kinds of capacities if the end result is more media storage for a lower price tag.
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This has been used already by Nokia in Symbian devices and also on N900 (Maemo).
Granted, memory might have been even more expensive then (even relatively to requirements on what is considered much) and this could have been seen as a "smart choice" and not so surprisingly what happened was that Nokia would squeeze the fast "application" memory to a bare minimum, and it left users complaining that their "C-drive" is full on their mighty 16 GB device with 13 GB free. No premium manufacturer concerned with user
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:4, Informative)
It's being sold direct by the Chinese manufacturer:
OnePlus
Unit B 9/F. Lockhart Centre
301-307 Lockhart Road Wanchai
Hong Kong Central
Hong Kong
Cutting out markups by US retailers can only lower the final consumer price. Units will ship directly from China most likely, and most US consumers will be surprised when they receive bills from the shipper for US Customs clearance. It's unlikely they will be able to get away with checking the "Gift" box on the customs forms for 10 million phones.
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It's being sold direct by the Chinese manufacturer:
OnePlus
Unit B 9/F. Lockhart Centre
301-307 Lockhart Road Wanchai
Hong Kong Central
Hong Kong
Cutting out markups by US retailers can only lower the final consumer price. Units will ship directly from China most likely, and most US consumers will be surprised when they receive bills from the shipper for US Customs clearance. It's unlikely they will be able to get away with checking the "Gift" box on the customs forms for 10 million phones.
I've bought plenty of merchandise from Chinese manufacturers ($1000+ per shipment) and never had to pay any unexpected customs charges, everything was paid in the shipping/handling fees.
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Doubtful, according to the FAQ [oneplus.net]. At least, I'm hoping the warehouses mentioned are, based on the initial countries of availability [oneplus.net], in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Informative)
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It is.
That's why they have their ridiculous invite system to deal with the lack of availability.
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Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Nexus 5 is subsidized by Google so that it's sold nearly at cost or possibly even below it.
Google's business model here is that it gets people into the Play Store ecosystem, which is where Google really makes their money on Android.
OnePlus has no such business model, which is why they're limiting access to the device via their invite system.
One additional worry bead about this price point is that it means they're likely not funneling much money to Cyngn (Cyanogen, Inc) to support this device. For various reasons (mainly, the Cyngn guys being notoriously difficult to work with), Cyngn-backed devices get little to no community input on CyanogenMod builds.
As an example of what happens when you don't pay Cyngn much for a device, see the Oppo N1. Once Cyngn got what they wanted (experience with taking a device through the GMS certification process), they deallocated most engineering resources for the N1, which has since then received minimal level of support effort from Cyngn. The end result is stuff like location services being broken for 2 months straight in CM11 nightlies. Nearly everyone who bought the CM edition of the N1 switched to Omni, which is maintained on that particular device by three guys (disclaimer: I'm one of them) in their spare time. That's how badly Cyngn deprioritized the device - three guys in their spare time are investing more into suppporting the device than cyngn is. (Admittedly, we're making better use of our time too - see below.)
I expect users of the OnePlus One will see the same with the next Android version beyond 4.4 on the OnePlus - the team at Cyngn take the "no bug reports against nightlies" rule VERY seriously, and the results of that show in the quality of nightly builds that are maintained by them. (Many of the community-supported devices are supported by maintainers who have a thread on XDA, where they'll hear if a device has a major issue. The end result is that most people have a high expectation of quality even from nightlies due to the "community maintainer pays attention to what's going on" workaround, but you won't see that from Cyngn-backed devices.)
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Link to your project page please? Obviously, searching for Omni alone will not return what I want. Omni Cyanogen seems to be returning some results. I will eventually find your project but a link would be nicer. :)
(I use CyanogenMod but I dislike portions of it.)
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Never mind. Omni Rom was sufficient. Thank you! I always appreciate work (even the work done by the CM team). I am glad you are writing roms.
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Well good thing I can install alternative app stores on my Android phone, then.
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$300 for the 16 GB model and $350 for a 64 GB model? Knowing what Samsung charges for comparable devices
Yes, but the recent build estimate based on tear-down for the S5 was $255 or so.
That gives these guys in China almost a hundred bucks, which is a good margin for any business. Samsung is just making money hand-over-fist, but there's plenty of long-tail to profit in.
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http://www.gadgetcluster.com/2014/04/it-takes-only-256-for-samsung-to-produce-a-galaxy-s5-handset/
impressive specs (Score:2)
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They have two caucasian looking guys on their employee website, but they could be from STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY for all I know.
There we go...
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Who do you expect to write radio firmware for free?
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It's not even that, who will pay for the certification of it with every FCC-like agency, and how can you possibly go through that process every time you build it or change a single line of code?
And even if that were possible : no, they won't let you have a user-modifiable SDR that operates (receive/transceive) on the GSM/LTE/3G frequencies.
To the original AC : get a HAM radio license and play on your alloted or unlicensed frequency slots. (what does HAM mean by the way?, I'm thinking of the stuff that's a b
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The manufacturer? Shouldn't hardware come with open firmware? If we didn't eat shit continuously they wouldn't feed it to us.
...and you can't buy one (Score:2)
At least not yet. Still unknown as to when it is going on sale, I believe. Also you will not be able to buy one from Verizon in the US. Not sure about other carriers but I sorta doubt it. Cool to see a phone ship with Cyanogenmod, though.
Ooh! Pick Me! (Score:2)
Project Ara? (Score:2)
Is Project Ara [projectara.com] too new, that's why they're not using it?
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Modularity usually comes at a price. I'm hopeful that we can begin to move towards such a device, but it will almost certainly be more expensive up front than an equivalent unified device. If nothing else you have the added cost of the the dozens of little interconnects to deal with. The long-term cost savings come from incremental upgrades, but I have my doubts as to how well it can get established in a market where most people are accustomed to continuously buying a new, heavily subsidized phone on a re
Give me a physical keyboard, and I'm sold (Score:3)
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Stuff like this has existed for a while for various flagship phones.
http://ca.mobilefun.com/38058-... [mobilefun.com]
Here's the problem (Score:2)
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Came here to say this.
"Nice phone. Good luck in the US of A getting any carrier to activate it and let you use it. But hey, at least it's a small wifi-only tablet with theoretically access to cell data."
I suppose it'll work out OK in the more communications-civilized* regions of the world.
*In other words, places where regulatory capture hasn't occurred and customers have more rights than livestock.
No Qi? (Score:2)
Wireless charging (preferably via Qi, as I have several Qi chargers between home & work) seem to be the only thing I'm not seeing listed in the specs.
Still, it's been a while since I got excited about a phone, and I told myself that if something cool came out, November would be a good time to upgrade my N4.
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Absolutely. I'm back and forth from my desk all day, and like to keep my phone & tablet batteries topped up, just in case I need them. I started to worry about the usable lifetime of the micro-USB jack, so switched over to Qi at work exclusively.
Sounds like the Techdy Basic Bear (Score:2)
Remember the $200 Android phone? Seems like they took pre-orders, but as far as I can tell never delivered. What are the odds this is the same kind of vaporware?
No SD card? (Score:2)
4-inches to freedom (Score:2)
After having owned a Galaxy S3 for a year, I'm ready for the return of smaller phones. I've been waiting for prices to come down on used GS4 Minis. However, if they released a OnePlus with a 4" screen, I'd order it immediately.
A phone configured specifically for CyanogenMod is a killer feature in my book. My next phone will have to be much smaller, lighter, and thinner than 5.5" unfortunately. Any suggestions?
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After having owned a Galaxy S3 for a year, I'm ready for the return of smaller phones. I've been waiting for prices to come down on used GS4 Minis. However, if they released a OnePlus with a 4" screen, I'd order it immediately.
A phone configured specifically for CyanogenMod is a killer feature in my book. My next phone will have to be much smaller, lighter, and thinner than 5.5" unfortunately. Any suggestions?
If you want a flagship phone then Sony Xperia Z1 Compact will probably suit you http://www.sonymobile.com/glob... [sonymobile.com] a 4ish inc phone with Snapdragon 800
No SD slot == No thanks. (Score:3)
No SD slot == No Thanks.
I'm frankly surprised not many other people here seem to be all over the lack of an SD slot.
I like having my entire music collection, my entire photo library and 1 or 2 movies with me just in case. I also like being able to use my phone as a USB stick if I need to. ...and in case anyone suggests it, storing it all in the cloud just doesn't cut it.
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Just to let you know, no Google/Nexus phones have SD slots either. That's another range of phone models to avoid.
I did read somewhere that it was actually a (very retarded) conscious decision by Google to not have SD slots on their phones, the intent being to force you to store everything in the cloud and stream it as-needed instead. I guess the moron who thought of that one didn't even consider how people would watch a DVD or do anything else while in-flight or anywhere out of cell range, or the added load
Re:No SD slot == No thanks. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm frankly surprised not many other people here seem to be all over the lack of an SD slot.
For $50 bucks more you get the 64GB model, and forget about it.
What do you need an SD slot for exactly? Do you routinely SWAP cards? Maybe you do.. but I NEVER have. If it had an SD slot, I'd buy a 32GB or 64GB card and then forget about it.
So buying a 64GB phone... amounts to the same difference for me.
I like having my entire music collection, my entire photo library and 1 or 2 movies with me just in case
This seems contrived to be an amount of data designed to fit precisely more than the 64GB built in yet be less than the 128GB you can add to, for example, and S5.
I mean, why only 1 or 2 movies? Why not all of them? And just your photos, not your hundreds of hours hi def home movies?
Is it because if you wanted your 500 DVD rips, then even a 128GB sd card won't meet your needs?
Or is it just that you need precisely 128GB of storage; and if a phone came with 128GB of storage but no SD slot, what then? Would it meet your needs or not?
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Sorry whatever is left over from 64gb after system and apps have taken their chunks wont cut it for me.
I also like having my stuff on a totally different and removeable media for several reasons:
1) I can completely fill up my SD card with my crap without also worrying about putting my phone system or apps out of storage space, because they use the internal memory no the SD card.
2) Its easier to see exactly what you have if you keep your media on the SD card, as its the only thing on there, whereas the phone
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I can completely fill up my SD card with my crap without also worrying about putting my phone system or apps out of storage space, because they use the internal memory no the SD card.
You need more than 64GB, and that's fine but you just need more than 64GB... it doesn't really matter if its internal or not does it.
For example, suppose the samsung s5 only supported up to 32GB SD cards. So 16GB internal + 32GB SD card... would that be better than 64GB internal? I seriously doubt it.
2) Its easier to see exact
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>> You need more than 64GB, and that's fine but you just need more than 64GB... it doesn't really matter if its internal or not does it.
You are so badly short of common sense and misunderstanding all my points I'm thinking you must be trolling. Let me try one more time to spell it out:
One big advantage of having a completely separate volume (i.e SD card) for media is that you can even fill up the SD card completely, and still have no fear that the phone will become unstable because the os or some inst
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What do you need an SD slot for exactly?
For getting my data off the phone when I drop it and it no longer turns on.
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The problem with SD slot, isn't with the manufacturers, it is with Android itself. Google as depreciated the usage of "external" storage, because of issues with SD storage. Some are actually good reasons (security), while others are to protect App developers from idiots who want to move apps to SD card.
Read about it here: http://www.androidcentral.com/... [androidcentral.com]
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All Google has done is to force badly behaved apps to stop writing all over SD cards. As far as I understand, this is a good thing with no downsides, unless you happen to be one of the clueless developers that are hacking sloppy apps together.
I didn't see anything in the article that would or should lead to the "deprecation" of SD storage itself, in fact now it is less likely to get trashed by ill-behaved apps, its use should be more supported, not less.
A policy of deprecation of SD, if it exists at all, s
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Well, when your app, takes a picture, and puts it on the SD card, and you stop liking the app, and deleted it, and it deletes the photos as well, then you'll understand the issue. Until then, have fun.
I shouldn't have to hook my phone up to a computer to move files around without worry.
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Are you sayting this is a common probem? (I wouldn't know because I've never personally expereinced it or even heard of it until now). Does it only happen if you install the app on SD rather than internal memory?
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Exactly. No SD Slot = leave it on the shelf. No replaceable battery = keep it for yourself.
Furthermore: No OTG - Thanksalot. There are a quite few very nice USB/OTG Sticks (by LG, Transcend and maybe others) which are _SO_ useful - and that's why I'm never going to buy a phone made by Apple, Samsung and others that have no idea how to make a cool phone for everyday usage! only one more thing that would make me consider a purchase: WATERPROOF! but this one is out of consideration anyway.
Samsung Galaxy S4. Replaceable battery, MicroSD support, OTG support. If you want waterproof too, then the S5 has everything that S4 has, plus waterproofing. The bad news is it's bloody expensive
Phone or mini tablet? (Score:2)
In my book, if you can't hold it and type with one hand, it's more like a mini tablet than a phone. Everyone else at work got the Samsung S3; I got the mini.
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No SD, no removable battery = no sale (Score:2)
Looks really nice yet lack of SD and user replaceable battery is a deal breaker. Would think devices targeting cyanogen crowd would come standard with at least SD slot.
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Closest I can come in the US is T-Mobile pre-paid plans. My wife and I switched our phones to it after "test driving" the service with our Nexus 7 (2013) tablets for a few months. Even with double the devices that we had on AT&T, we cut the monthly cost in half...
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You can bring your own phone on all T-Mobile plans. Where have you been for the past year?
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Use SimpleMobile, H2O Wireless etc. They have better plans and no stench of pink lock-in.
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Lock-in is difficult on unlocked Nexus devices in a pre-paid situation.
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Yeah that's why I use SimpleMobile (TMO Network) and H20 Wireless (AT&T) and unlocked and rooted phones. No more contracts for me and it's been that way for nearly 3 years now.
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Right here. Why? Did I not make it clear that we were testing the coverage of the T-Mobile network with our tablets before we switched our phones over?
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I for one read your first post as implying it specifically had to be a prepaid plan.
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Or Canada. Even Bull and Robbers offer BYOD plans.
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No. Accurate rebranding for Bell and Rogers.
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Furthermore, what about those of us who want--nay, require--a hardware keyboard? I don't give a rat's ass about gestures or voice recognition, but I do want to type on real buttons while my entire screen is visible. Such things are no longer being developed, which is why I still have my Epic 4G. In the 3 years I've had it, it has has been connected to WiMax (yeah, it's a Sprint pre-LTE device) for a total of about 4 minutes, because there never was WiMax coverage where I live, but I still have to pay a s
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Because Most People HATE itty bitty keys on phones. You might like them, but I'll never go back to a physical keyboard.
Generally speaking once you figure out Swype (Swiftkey or similar), you'll also never go back. I can type nearly as fast as a regular FULL size keyboard on my Android Phone.And for short messages it is even better than mashing who knows how many keys trying to type on microscopic keys.
Or ... you know ... you could just Google for Sliding Keyboard [google.com]case for your phone ...
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I have a Nokia N900 and LOVE the keyboard.
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Re:Nice toy (Score:4, Funny)
What kind of "work" do you do on a phone?
Re:Nice toy (Score:5, Funny)
Astroturfing Microsoft on websites, duh...
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What kind of "work" do you do on a phone?
Probably Bing searches
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What kind of "work" do you do on a phone?
Probably Bing searches
But Bing is only for porn... oh.
Critical work. (Score:3)
Incidentally, my phone and tablet both run Android - and the tablet is only marginally better than the phone at actually doing anything productive. Even with BusyBox and a decent SSH client, the OS and interface just aren't optimized for much beyond gaming, entertainment and ba
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...No card slot, no keyboard, no daylight readable screen, and therefore no sale.
Why do companies insist on copying the same lack of features of the big-name manufacturers while still calling themselves "revolutionary?" It's just another clone phone, the Toyota Camry of boring copycat "me too" featureless blank slates that already flood the marketplace.
Yawn.
No microSD card slot? A non-removable battery? Into the trash it goes.
I was a little disappointed when I found out that you had to be invited to have the option of buying one but I wasn't aware they had gotten rid of the microSD slot and removable battery so I guess I'll be looking at the Galaxy S5 instead even if I had an invite. For the life of me I don't understand why people consider a non-removable battery (and batteries are very prone to failures) to be a feature; I like to have spares in case I go so
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...No card slot, no keyboard, no daylight readable screen, and therefore no sale.
Why do companies insist on copying the same lack of features of the big-name manufacturers while still calling themselves "revolutionary?" It's just another clone phone, the Toyota Camry of boring copycat "me too" featureless blank slates that already flood the marketplace.
Yawn.
No microSD card slot? A non-removable battery? Into the trash it goes.
I was a little disappointed when I found out that you had to be invited to have the option of buying one but I wasn't aware they had gotten rid of the microSD slot and removable battery so I guess I'll be looking at the Galaxy S5 instead even if I had an invite. For the life of me I don't understand why people consider a non-removable battery (and batteries are very prone to failures) to be a feature; I like to have spares in case I go somewhere charging is not possible or convenient or in the more likely case the original battery loses its ability to keep a charge like I've experienced with two different Li-Ion batteries.
While I don't necessarily consider a non-removable battery to be a "feature" (though maybe it is if manufacturer claims that it lets them create a thinner phone are true), I never removed the battery in my Galaxy Nexus after almost 2 years of use, and while the Nexus 5 battery is "non-removable", that only means that it'll take 20 minutes to change the battery if it fails, it's really not that hard to open the phone. I already carry a USB battery pack for recharging other USB devices, so I don't really
e-ink and Pixel-Qi (Score:2)
I take it you've never tried an e-ink based reader? Just like ink on paper, and it can be refreshed fast enough to play video(as demoed by various kindle hacks), though color screens are far more expensive than greyscale. But heck, for a sunlight readable screen that doesn't suck power I'd be game.
There's also Pixel Qi, whose screens are quite impressive and integrated into a number of commercial products. The colors tend to be washed out in sunlight, but I'd *happily* settle for a basically greyscale di
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...No card slot, no keyboard, no daylight readable screen, and therefore no sale.
Why do companies insist on copying the same lack of features of the big-name manufacturers while still calling themselves "revolutionary?" It's just another clone phone, the Toyota Camry of boring copycat "me too" featureless blank slates that already flood the marketplace.
Yawn.
No microSD card slot? A non-removable battery? Into the trash it goes.
I was a little disappointed when I found out that you had to be invited to have the option of buying one but I wasn't aware they had gotten rid of the microSD slot and removable battery so I guess I'll be looking at the Galaxy S5 instead even if I had an invite. For the life of me I don't understand why people consider a non-removable battery (and batteries are very prone to failures) to be a feature; I like to have spares in case I go somewhere charging is not possible or convenient or in the more likely case the original battery loses its ability to keep a charge like I've experienced with two different Li-Ion batteries.
Is there a real need for an SD slot when you have 64GB of storage available?
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Is there a real need for an SD slot when you have 64GB of storage available?
3 words : 4K video recording.
It's an excellent way to watch your storage fill up at about 7 megabytes per second.
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Is there a real need for an SD slot when you have 64GB of storage available?
Now this is purely speculation but your comment made the thought cross my mind; perhaps some manufacturers omit SD card slots to give people incentive to upgrade to more expensive models rather than doing something like buying a 128GB microSD card and putting it into a smaller GB or 16GB model.
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Yes - it is about exchangeable/removable storage. Fill a card with stuff somewhere else and put it in your phone. Fill a card with stuff on your phone and take it out - perhaps you don't want your home photos at work or your client's photos at your other client (or your porn ...).
Some people have been known to leave mum's basement.
As for you iPhone suckers - you can keep your damn fool metal cases. We like removeable backs and
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Hey, my first smartphone was a second-hand 1st-gen iPhone and I'll have you know I *liked* the metal shell, nice and durable so you didn't need any other protective layers clogging up your pocket. I'll admit I never understood the point of putting a protective case around the durable metal shell though. What, are you afraid of scratching up the surface that you'll otherwise never see? That sucker survived way more that it's fair share of abuse without problems and is still going strong, though the battery
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For the life of me I don't understand why people consider a non-removable battery (and batteries are very prone to failures) to be a feature; I like to have spares in case I go somewhere charging is not possible or convenient or in the more likely case the original battery loses its ability to keep a charge like I've experienced with two different Li-Ion batteries.
Well, I can't speak for the failure rate but my iPhone 4 is now 3.5 years old and during Easter I used it a lot, even after a day of heavy use I still had 20% battery left. Today it's at 67% after a 2 hours of GPS tracking. For daily use it's still fine and I'm guessing will be fine for years to come. For weekends and vacations away from a charger I'm considering getting a battery pack - compared to the original 1420 mAh battery you can get a 7000-10000 mAh external charger for cheap. You put it in your bac
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You obviously do not understand Google "Android" certification process. To be called "Android", officially, you must be certified by Google and have the Play store (and other apps) installed.
From http://source.android.com/faqs... [android.com]
Google Play is a service operated by Google. Achieving compatibility is a prerequisite for obtaining access to the Google Play software and branding. Device manufacturers should contact Google to obtain access to Google Play.
Other companies have other "stores" (Amazon Kindle is Android, Nook is Android) and do not necessarily use Google Play. And of course you could side load all your apps from your list of "trusted" sites like Nickolai's Android Marketplace if you want. These phones are not "rooted"
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Actually as an Android Dev I do understand the process and all of my phones/tablets running Android have as much of the Google horseshit removed as possible.
If you want the "Android Compatible" label, you have to sign up to the horseshit. Never mind that your stuff is 100% compatible if you don't have the little blessing and all that comes with it from Google.
While folks might complain about how tightly controlling Apple is of IOS, I'd argue that Google is much more insidious on the shit that they force on
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I'd submit all the horseshit Google tracks on you and your activities is much worse than any DRM related content distribution.
What is it that Google tracks?