What is Droid Incredible and EVO 4G?

Today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a new version of iphone, although it had been leaked by Gizmo in April. Video chat is the new feature not leaked before. On the other smart phone camp, Android, there are some also hot products released recently. One is Droid Incredible on Verizon network. Last Friday, when I visited Palo Alto Verizon store, it was told to be sold out. If you order that day, you may get it in late June. It should be mentioned that Droid Incredible and Droid, released around holiday season last year, are quite different. For example, Droid Incredible has no physical keyboard while Droid has. Moreover, Droid is manufactured by Motorola, and Droid Incredible is manufactured by HTC. Droid Incredible is more like Nexus One than Droid.

The other is Sprint EVO 4G, which uses Springt 4G network, the first 4G wireless network in US. Interestingly, both EVO and Droid Incredible are manufactured by HTC, who also manufactures Nexus One and the very first Android phone G1. It should be mentioned that HTC is not Foxconn, which manufactures iphone, although both HTC and Foxconn are companies in Taiwan.

I also heard that right now the number of sold Android phones is larger than the number of sold iphone number, which is not surprising since there are many versions of Android phones on the market, while there are one or two versions of iphone on the market.

What is the difference between Nexus One and Droid?

Today, Google introduced Nexus One, which generated a lot of excitement. I like to see the competition in smart phone market, which speeds up smart phone innovation and benefits consumers.

On October 30, 2009, Verizon released Droid. There is still a lot of commercial to promote Droid, even when I watched NFL game this past weekend. Droid is probably the most discussed Android OS-based cell phone before the release of Nexus One and is still hot in the market. Thus it is natural to ask what is the difference between between Droid and the newly released Nexus One. Here is some difference.

1) Branding: Nexus One is designed by Google directly (manufactured by HTC); Droid is designed by Motorola.

2) CPU: Nexus One uses 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; Droid uses Texas Instruments' TI OMAP 3430 processor, which runs at 600MHz .

3) Keyboard and Trackball: Nexus One does not have physical keyboard. It has touch-screen soft keyboard; Droid has one physical slide-out keyboard and touch-screen soft keyboard. Nexus One has a trackball; Droid does not. Instead Droid has panel to move around.

5) Software: Nexus One runs on Android 2.1 version; Droid runs on 2.0.1 version. There are some difference, but not significant. Both OSes can be upgraded continuously.

6) Carrier: Nexus One is unlocked. You can use whatever network you like. Currently it has only GSM version. So it can be run on T-mobile or ATT network. A CDMA version Nexus One will be released this spring, which can be run on Verizon and Sprint network; Droid is the locked phone and is exclusively run on Verizon network.

It is exciting to see the release of Nexus One. It's interesting to see how consumers react to Nexus One. Overall, I think 2010 is the key year for Android-base cell phone.

BTW, if you want to buy Nexus One, you can buy from Google website directly.

How to make a shortcut of a webpage on Android home screen

I have a friend who bought a Verizon Google Droid phone recently. He is not tech-savvy, but wants to experience smart phone. One day I communicated with him about Android phone usage for more than an hour. He had many good questions and many of them are something like since Windows OS has this functionality, how I can have the similar function on Android. I answered many questions or demoed the solution for him. But one question I could not answer immediately, i.e., how to make a shortcut for his bookmark web page such as nytimes.com on Android desktop.

Today I consulted a friend and he told me the answer.

1) On the desktop, press home screen for a while until a context menu pops up.

2) Select Shortcut menu item. Another menu pops up.

3) Select Bookmark menu item. Your bookmarks pops up.

4) Select your target bookmark webpage and it will show up on the home screen.

Similarly, we can create shortcuts for many stuff on home screen such as applications, direct dial, contact, music playlist, and gmail labels.

On Android market, there are some apps to help users create shortcut on home screen, e.g., AnyCut(free), and BetterCut($1.99). But I think it is a pretty straight forward to create shortcut directly.

Android OS is a pretty powerful OS, making people often compare it with Windows OS on desktop. Probably iphone users has no such thinking given simple, but restrictive UI.

Update on Jan 19, 2010: Add some description about AnyCut and BetterCut.