Motorola XT800 Android Experience

The unbox session is typically within seconds for most of us to reach out the gadget as soon as possible. And boot up a new gadget is always an excitement...

It takes 10 years for me to return to this I-quite-like logo (Ericsson > Motorola > Nokia > SonyEricsson > Nokia > WinMo phone > SonyEricsson > Motorola) but it takes only about a minute to get ready for some "fingering" tasks...

Slide right to unlock and get to the default home screen...

Nothing new if you experience iPhone before. Slide left or right to flip to other pages. Look at how many dots at both edges of the bottom of the screen to know which page you're at. Let's check out some action...

The video is no doubt blur by my C902. Hmmm... I need HD recording capability then. Let's try out a game...

This is not my first time experience with Android. I almost bought DROID 1 aka Milestone but... And 3 of my family members are happy owner of DROID Milestone for few month already. Based on my research, Android hasn't quite met my requirements yet in particular the seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook. Hence, I gave a pass at that time even though the price was damn bloody attractive! (Hint: I can buy 3 to match the price of 1 at the local market!)

Now when my bro handed this sexy iPhone killer to me (thanks bro), I was darn excited. I thought this could be the replacement to the 2 years old C902 Jack Bond as its camera button is wearing out. Unfortunately, BullehLand does not have any CDMA network, all service providers are on GSM network. Meaning, I only get GPRS (detailed spec) out from this phone! Furthermore, I realized this China model is not running the genuine Android. It seems to have stripped and locked down.

One obvious thing (based on my experience with Milestone) is missing of Market application on this xt800. The replacement is SHOP4APP. The other notable change is the original internet browser is replaced with another just like shown above.

Check out the system info doesn't give me any clue too. I guess this is part of the government censorship.

No 3G, no genuine Android (I got no time to root and mod it with custom OS, if any available) and the shape is too sexy and girlish to me, I like something square and boxy. So?

Stay tuned. ;)

Moto 智尚 为你非凡

2010, a year that I need to complete and close out my Mega Project.

2010, a year therefore I have no budget allocation for underwater world holidays.

2010, a year therefore I have no budget allocation for gadget too.

2010, a year that the Jack Bond is struggling to survive.

2010, a year that I would have to live with Jack Bond that is currently in coma.

Finally, before 2010 becomes history, tropical Santa Claus arrived with a box...

Unboxing...

The Motorola XT800 Android Smart Phone. Check out the detailed spec here.

Hold it in my palm, the phone is not as heavy as I thought because of its chrome and glossy design. It feels just a little heavier than the Jack Bond phone but definitely bigger in dimensions...

It measures 120x62x11mm and 137g with 3.7" huge screen, comparable to iPhone 4's 115x58.6x9.3mm and 137g. No wonder it's called the iPhone killer in China.

On the left, a mini USB port with cover for charging and data transfer, as well as Up and Down button for volume. On the right, a mini HDMI 1.4 port with cover and Camera button. Yes! An HDMI port! And this genius is capable of 720p playback and output to any HDTV! On the top, a Power and Search buttons with the headphone connector sits at the middle.

Now to the back and inside the phone...

5MP camera with LED flash. An 8GB micro SDHC 4 card and dual SIM that supports CDMA and GSM networks simultaneously! Cool huh? Unfortunately, you only get 3G on the CDMA network whereas GSM is only up to GPRS. Bad bad bad to use here. Sigh~

Anyway, it seems the rubberized back cover is made of high grade rubber...

It's nice to grip and not sticky.

That's the phone. The box bundles with a bunch of manuals...

And accessories...

From top: ear phone, batter, USB cable, USB power plug, HDMI cable and a case.

Overall, nice package, very solid build and light in weight for such a size, full with accessories and looks promising. I shall check into its software, the Android 2.1.

To be continued...

HDX BD-1 Part 2

This post takes a little longer to appear here after I posted the part 1 a month ago. Similar to what I've posted about HDI Dune Prime 3.0, the focus of this part 2 post is the software or firmware features. Let's start with the main GUI...

You're presented with 7 icons after the boot up screen. From left to right: USB (if you've plugged in any USB drive to the player), external Bluray or DVD ROM (if you've plugged in any to the USB or eSATA port), internal harddisk, UPnP, network (SAMBA and NFS), internet browser and last is the setting. This post is not about accessing the different sources i.e. USB, eSATA etc, I will jump directly to the setting, more pictures less text.

Come to the setting, you get Audio, Video, Language, Playback, Network, System setting and Information which is not in the picture below...

Audio setting...

First you set to either bit stream (or called passthru) or to have the player decode. Second you set to output audio to all the available audio ports on the player.

Video setting...

The description for each option may sound confusing. For instance, TV Mode may better be described as Aspect Ratio, right? Anyhow, that is minor and the player has support for quite a range of options for you to pick the optimal setting for the output screen. This player is also friendly to old PC LCD monitor as it supports 16:10 ratio, I believe all new LCD or LED monitors are 16:9 except for older models. One thing to note is the deep color support! Enable it will enrich the viewing experience, of course provided that your screen and the HDMI cable support it. By the way, I am running 9.2.1.4.1.4 version of firmware, firmware older than this will not have some features you see above. To digress a bit, suppose 9.2.1.4.9.0 is higher version than 9.2.1.4.1.4? Apparently nope. Don't look at version number when download the firmware, look at the released or published date.

Move to Language setting...

The onscreen display only supports 2 languages but very promising, the subtitle supports a long list of languages.

Before you scroll down to the playback setting, I must warn that the picture is getting blurrier, the Jack Bond phone just fails me. The shutter button fails to focus. Hmm... is it the right time to get a replacement?

The play mode setting may be useful to those who like to skip the commercials in the bluray. Select Intelligent Play brings you directly to the root menu of the movie whereas BD Navi is to follow the original flow of the bluray disc. And I can't find any difference between BD Navi and General mode. Loop play is self explanatory, play once or repeat the playback.

Following that is the slide show settings for photo presentation...

Show a file or multiple, how the player deals with different aspect ratio / resolution and how long to display for each photo, these are the options you have.

Now the last three playback settings...

The default region is A. If I am not mistaken, you are limited to only X (3 - 5)times to change the region setting. This is similar to DVD drive. On the other hand, I think 3-size option for subtitle may not be good enough, it would be best if the users can numerically select the font size.

Move on to the network setting...

Pretty standard, manual IP or DHCP. You can plug in a selected model of USB Wifi too. I am not sure if the player is capable to support dual networks where you have a wired and a wireless network. I don't own any USB Wifi dongle so won't be able to try this out. You can also manually add a windows share (SAMBA) or NFS shared folders. This is usually not required but the forum users reported that the player failed to pick up SAMBA shares.

Reaching the bottom of the setting...

Some general player setting such as theme, screen saver and whatnot. I don't run Bit Torrent and CSI (not sure what is this) on the player so I don't need to enable them.

One last thing before I end this post...

The browser (the 6th icon). Unfortunately I can't use the remote control keypad to enter text. Meaning, I need USB keyboard and mouse to browse internet with this player.

Stop for now. Catch back later.