After Ubuntu OS hit the Android phone it was the time for Firefox to do something and it came up with its own Operating System and guess what it already made its first appearance on HTC HD2. Ferherneoh, a senior member of XDA Developer has successfully ported Mozilla’s open source operating FireFox OS, or Boot2Gecko which is sometimes labeled by it, into HTC HD2. But it is still in Alpha stage that means there are many important features that are not still working, below are the list which is not working:

• Mobile network (SIM not detected, but STK apps are loaded)
• Sound (It is low when it is working)
• Camera (Sometimes it works)

We hope these problems will be gone as the development takes more steps, but we don’t recommend installing this ROM as it is not at that stage where it can be used as a daily base. But if you still want to give a try then you can head to the original thread for the download link and the installation process.

Here are the few screenshots of the Firefox OS

via: XDA Developers

The post Firefox OS Ported to HTC HD2, Still in Alpha Stage appeared first on Android Blog.

Here is an anecdote that lot of people are familiar with. Your Android phone is loaded with wonderful apps which seem to be multiplying daily and finding answers to all your problems. But at the same time, loads of them seem to be crashing, the phone appears to “slow down” and you don’t know what to do, because it’s not something that you can fix.  This is fast becoming the scenario with all users of Android smart phones and frankly, there is a need to worry. Your average Ice-cream Sandwich Android OS has started to diminish and is going obsolete. The Jelly Bean now offers faster mobile operating systems are supposed to keep up with your needs and still grants access to everything. What it is doing however, is making its elder siblings absolutely useless. Are you now worried that you’ll have to buy a new phone almost every year to keep up? Well then, stop worrying, because here is your guide to keep your Android phone on par with today’s super-smart phones.

1. Know Your Device in and out:

The number one lesson is to know what your Android phone’s capacities are and at the same time take note of all its drawbacks. The level of obsolescence is so high that phones become old almost as soon as they enter the market. The best way to counter this is to be very conscious of all the adjustments you make to your phone. Power-hungry apps, that crash regularly or widgets that are specifically for upper-end versions are highly avoidable.

2. Update to the latest fast food available:

Its time you followed Google’s fancy for fast foods and started updating your software to the latest version that is supported on your device. Each new release of Android’s seems to be making waves as it comes with superb performance speed, connectivity and user-friendly features. Thus, what you must start reviewing and researching on all of Android’s new updates is which one will suit your needs the best.

3. Update, Disable or Remove:

An app are like any other household item. Keep what you use the most, disable or keep aside all the apps that you use rarely but are still necessary and most importantly don’t download an app because you think you might use it in the future. Apps occupy a lot of memory space and storage of data and advance is almost always battery consuming. Think thrice before downloading an app that your friend did just to look cool. Apps are not the be all and end all of a smart phone experience.

4. Keep your apps far and widgets farther:

Now remember that widgets are not apps. They run only when you want them to. But to keep up with your whims and fancies they are always running in the background and are active, always. Those extensive controls like Weather, Wi-Fi, important dates and other such updates that come regularly are stealing your precious battery power. Have too many widgets, and you main screen will appear gorgy and will crash every once in a while. So unless you are a weather forecaster, or a Wi-Fi user, then you can surely avoid widgets.

5. Sync nothing, save loads of things:

Very much like the widgets, sync is a very good feature which helps store your data at Google’s secure servers. Keeping you sync on ensures that all notifications regarding mails, stocks, and weather, important dates are accessed right away. Sync can gouge you battery and will lower the Android’s performance like no other app or widget. So like the app and widget, use it only when necessary.

One extra for all of you- Root to Shoot: Android is built on the Linux kernel. Rooting your Android will give you administrator rights to your phone and essentially make you the lord of your phone, which means that you can delete all apps that Android gave you and you never found any use for. It also allows you to make any upgrade to the latest Android version even when the phone doesn’t support it. But like any other jail-break or rooting, you lose your contract with the manufacturer which becomes void, you stop receiving updates and if you screw your phone beyond repair, well, there’s no answer to that.

This ends the guide to keeping a good Android phone good enough forever. If you follow even one of these steps, their results will also be visible very quickly. Soon you want to follow each and every one of these steps to save your battery and memory. So remember that your phone is only as good as you treat it.

Author Bio:

Himanshu likes to write about advancements in technology and topics related to internet. He is also the co-founder of a coupon website in India; Coupon Lava, which offers various coupons such as Tradus coupons, Shopclues coupons etc. These coupons will help you save some hard earned bucks when you purchase your next android mobile. He is a hard-core android fan and believes that android is going to rule the mobile empire in coming years.

The post 5 Tips To Increase Your Android Smartphone’s Speed appeared first on Android Blog.

Its not been a long time Samsung announced its new flagship Samsung Galaxy S4, and it is still in pre-order state in many of the markets and not yet available to the public. But this hasn’t stopped the curious Android developers to figure out how to root Samsung Galaxy S4. A senior member of XDA has figured out how to root Samsung Galaxy S4, where he managed to recreate the system.img, add a ROOT, busybox, and pack into tar.md5 to flash it via Odin with the help of the developers who helped him to provide the Samsung Galaxy S4′s system dump files, partitions and CPU info. Although this root method is only for the Samsung Galaxy S4 GT I9500 Exynos 5 Octa 8-core version, and the users who have pre-order or the users in UK who will get a quad-core Snapdragon 600 series will have to wait until it gets rooted as well.

Its a good news for the US users who will get their hands on the Galaxy S4 Exnos 5 Octa 8-core version who can root their device as soon they get their hands on it, but sadly the folks in UK still need to wait for a while or may be until the device is publicly available. So if you are going to root Samsung Galaxy S4 then you need to be careful and follow every steps carefully or might end up bricking your brand new phone and also by rooting you device you are ending any sort of warranty comes with the phone and even it has been flashed yet so do it on your on risk. If you have any further questions or just want to go through the tutorial you can head to XDA Forum and have a look on it. Stay in touch for further news on it.

via: XDA Developers

The post Samsung Galaxy S4 Rooted Before Its Release appeared first on Android Blog.

Its been a long time Google Play Sound Search came into Google Play Store but not for the United Kingdom users, which helps to search for a unknown song from your home screen and purchase from Google Play. Finally after almost a year Google Play Sound Search is now available for the users in UK

How Google Play Sound Search widget can help you recognize music and songs:

Identify songs, directly from your homescreen
Purchase identified songs straight from Google Play, and add them to your Play Music library
Keep a song identification history, synced across all of your Android devices, so you can purchase a song later
Add the widget directly to your lockscreen, so you can recognize songs even faster (for devices running Android 4.2)

After you’ve installed the Google Play Sound Search widget, go to the widget picker and drag the Sound Search widget onto your homescreen. Click on the widget to start recognizing.

As far we have come to know many of the users are not able to use the Google Play Sound Search but we were able to install it in our Nexus 4 and works very well, if you are not able to get in your device then you should wait for a while when it is available for everyone.

via: Google Play Store

The post Google Play Sound Search Now Available In UK appeared first on Android Blog.

Finally the wait is over now you can pre-order your Samsung Galaxy S4 from Phones4u, EE and Three if you are a UK resident. For now there are two color variant available for pre-order which are Black Mist and White Frost, with that if you are going to pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S4 there is lot you can get with it that Phones4u and EE is offering for the buyers. Phones4u is offering £100 to spend on Google Play and about £85 of accessories whereas EE is offering accessories worth £54.99 which contains an in-car charger, a flip case to match the colour of your phone and a 16GB memory card to double your phone storage. But as far Three haven’t came up with such offer but they certainly have the good deal for the users. There is a bad news for the UK version of Samsung Galaxy S4 that it only has 1.9GHz quad-core processor and will not be get the octa or eight core processor which will be available in rest of the world market, but it will have 4G LTE Cat3 100/50Mbps, the 4G is currently offered only by EE.

Here are the specification of Samsung Galaxy S4 UK version

• 5in Full HD Super AMOLED 1,920 x 1,080 display, 441ppi
• 3G (HSPA+ 42Mbits/sec downloads)
• 4G (LTE Cat 3 100Mbits/sec download / 50Mbits/sec upload)
• 16/32/64GB internal storage
• microSD slot (up to 64GB)
• 1.9GHz quad-core processor in UK (see below)
• 2GB of RAM
• Dual-band 802.11abgn/ac Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 4
• GPS
• NFC
• Infrared LED (for remote-control functions)
• microUSB charger
• 13-megapixel rear-facing camera/2-megapixel front-facing camera
• Full HD video recording at 30fps
• Li-ion 2,600mAh battery
• Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9mm 
• 130g

The phone is available from 26 April from all major carriers in UK, are you going to order one for yourself. Do share your views did you found it exciting, or you are bit unhappier which the processor that UK market is not going to have eight core processor like other countries market are going to have?

via: EE, Phones4u, Three

The post Samsung Galaxy S4 Pre-Order Starts In UK appeared first on Android Blog.

Smartphone section will be updated by Google with two new high end feature devices this year. I already talk about what all LG Nexus 5 will bring to us but now the topic is one fresh device.

As Motorola has a deep tie up with Google so rumors are going on that Google will make use of the Motorola’s mobile phone patents to manufacture a new device.

Reportedly, this device will be known by Motorola Google X Phone. It’ll not be a Nexus device rather a fresh device with better battery life, speedier CPU, gorgeous display and most probably a newer version of Android.

Till now, nothing is confirmed but still if we go according to rumors going on then I can prepare an expected specs sheet that will give you an idea about what all device will bring.

Motorola Google X Phone Specs

All these specs are not confirmed till now but only based on the hot rumors.

CPU – the CPU section might be fixed on the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset 800 that is one of the fastest processor available till now. The clock speed is expected to be above 1.8GHz.

The CPU will be backed up with the 2GB dedicated RAM and at least 16GB internal storage. However, the device will be available with more internal storage options. Google may introduce the 128GB version as well.

Display – this section will have something very new. According to hot rumors that seem to be like almost confirmed, the device will have Sapphire display that will measure 4.8 inch diagonally. Till now nothing is official so stay tune for more updates on Google X Phone.

Unique Feature

It seems like smartphones which we have these days with us are lacking one feature i.e. hardware customization.

Yes, if this feature is possible then that means we’ll be able to customize the hardware anytime without changing the complete device.

Motorola and Google may bring this new feature to the device that will allow users to upgrade hardware without changing the device completely.

Announcement or Launch Details

Google X Phone seems to be announcing in the Q4 of 2013. Most probably it will be there officially either in the month of October or November.

Till I get more detailed specs and feature details about the device you can read about LG Nexus 5. Stay tune for more updates.

The post Motorola Google X Phone Rumors – Expected Specs & Announcement Details appeared first on Android Blog.

You must be having an android smartphone of HTC brand that’s why you’re here or you must be thinking of buying one.

One thing that I should tell you is that HTC always provides better camera optics in its smartphones. All HTC One series smartphones have at least 5MP camera with better optics.

The first basic smartphone under the One series is the HTC One V and it has got dedicated chip for camera. The picture and video quality of One V are superb.

Check out the sample pics that I took with my HTC One V. All the pictures in this post are taken with HTC One V that has rear 5MP camera and a dedicated chip for impressive performance.

To take better pictures, you need to learn few tips that will help you out. I’m sure that if you get deep into taking better photographs using your smartphone then you’ll think of buying a DSLR soon.

Get Involved with the Features

First thing I’ll recommend you are to get involved with all the features you’ve in your camera app. Till now you must have been just going into the camera app and taking the snap but if you want to take better pictures then get involved in the features.

Research it over Google, if you don’t know about a particular feature that you find inside the camera app.

Exposure

Make sure the availability of perfect picture environment before clicking the button i.e. proper or sufficient light availability. Try to avoid using the LED flash but in case you don’t have light availability then no other option is left before you.

Zoom

Avoid using Zoom feature every time you take picture or record videos rather move yourself close to the object. This is because while we take picture in zoom mode then pixel resolution moves down that degrades the quality.

HDR Mode

While taking pictures of the sunset then make sure you’re using the HDR mode.

Another thing to note down is that if Sun is coming into the picture as an object then always prefer taking picture in the HDR mode.

Low Light Mode

While taking pictures and recording videos in night time or in low light condition, use the Twilight mode.

Full Resolution

Inside the camera settings you can change the resolution of the pictures and videos but if you want good quality every time then make sure the resolution is set to maximum.

Most Important Tip

While taking snaps and recording videos make sure your hand is still otherwise the picture will be blurred. This tip will work with any smartphone or with any camera.

The post How to Take Better Picture from Your HTC Smartphone appeared first on Android Blog.

Samsung Galaxy S4 might not be available till the end of April or by March but that doesn’t stop us to get a bit taste of its few goodies like Galaxy S4 HD wallpapers, S-Voice and ringtones and all thanks to Sammobile who was able to get the system dump file from Samsung Galaxy S4. They are making the few features available which they were able to extract from system dump and we guess there still bit more to come.

There are 7 high-resolution wallpapers and the new S4 ringtones and the most best feature from Samsung Galaxy S4 is new S-Voice APK. The S-Voice APK has already been tested on several Samsung devices like the Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy S3, and it appears to work without a bug. According to the tests, it doesn’t work that well with AOSP-based ROMs.

Keep in touch to get more goodies from Galaxy S4 when they are available.

via: Sammobile

The post Download Samsung Galaxy S4 Wallpapers and S-Voice apk appeared first on Android Blog.

World’s most popular android tablet the Nexus 7 is now available in India. I personally was waiting for this device to be available in India officially by the Google.

In India, its price is kept at Rs 15,999 that means it will be among the high end tablets with an average price tag. With such specs and cheap price tag it will affect the sales graph of popular tablets in India mainly of Samsung.

Now if you don’t know what this tablet has within its box then go ahead and read the article till the end.

Nexus 7 Specs

CPU – the CPU section has got quad core processor (Nvidia Tegra 3) with clock speed of 1.2GHz that is supported by the GeForce GPU. This simply means to me and you that the processor is really good and the graphics are awesome.

Display – the display has IPS panel with screen measuring 7 inch diagonally. The resolution is around 800×1280 pixels and has 216 ppi pixels density. It supports multi touch as well.

OS – it comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.1 version preloaded but it will be upgradable to the Jelly Bean 4.2.1 soon. Google will officially provide this update so no need to look for any custom ROM.

Dimension – It measures about 198.5 mm in length, 120 mm in width and just 10.5 mm in thickness. It weighs about 340 grams that means the device is slim and weighs less. To me, it simply means that device is comfortable to hold and highly portable.

Camera – it has 1.2MP camera in front which is capable of recording HD videos of 720p quality.

Wireless – it doesn’t supports cellular network but it supports Bluetooth, NFC and the Wi-Fi. It also has microUSB port.

Storage – it comes with either the 16GB internal storage or the 32GB. Internal RAM is marked with 1GB storage.

Extra Features – it has got GPS, HTML browser, Email, IM, RSS, accelerometer sensor, proximity sensor, gyro sensor, SNS integration, Google Now, Google Wallet, Predictive text input with SWYPE, etc.

Battery Life – this is the thing that everyone must ask or know before buying any gadget. I must say the battery life is really good as it stays for about 10 hours. The non removable battery has marked with 4325 mAh ratings on it.

How to Buy Nexus 7 in India?

Now you must be thinking that how you can buy that in India as it’ll not be available on any shop (till now). To buy Nexus 7 in India you can move onto the GooglePlay store and search there or go to the official page here.

Nexus 7 was manufactured by the ASUS and it is available on the GooglePlay store for India at a price of Rs 15,999 INR.

Now, let me know whether you’re going for it or not?

The post Nexus 7 Now Available in India at Play Store @ 15,999 INR appeared first on Android Blog.

According to the leaked information via evleaks, it’s now confirmed that ZTE is manufacturing a new Phablet android device that will have the quad core processor inside.

Another expected smartphone to be launched within one month from ZTE is the Grand S and it will also have the quad core processor and 5 inch display that will keep it into the Phablet category.

ZTE is known for providing smartphones with lots of features but at cheaper price than any other brand. This time ZTE is seems like doing some serious work as per the quality is concerned.

ZTE Grand X Quad Specs

Display – The Gran X Quad will have the HD resolution display (720×1280 pixels) and it will have pixel density of 294 ppi which is even larger than the Apple’s Retina display.

The display seems to be around 5 inch which will keep the device into the Phablet category and it will be having the TFT capacitive touch screen panel.

CPU – Processor will be the quad core and hopefully the clock speed is going to be around 1.2-1.5 GHz. It will have GPU as well so that the device provides better graphics performance. The CPU will be supported by the internal 1GB RAM.

Storage – Till now there is no news out regarding the storage of the device but it is sure that it will have memory expansion facility that will support microSD card of maximum 32GB size.

Camera – This section features are now almost confirmed. The Grand X Quad will have 8MP camera at rear with face and smile detection features. The rear camera will be capable of recording full HD resolution videos at frame rate of 30 fps. It will have camera at front as well.

Data Connectivity – It will be able to support HSDPA 3G cellular network and off course the 2G one. For data connectivity it will have the traditional Wi-Fi (dual band this time) and the Bluetooth 4.0. It will have that extra NFC as well for faster wireless data connectivity and off course the microUSB port.

OS – Hopefully we’ll see the device with Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 but it will be great if the device gets launches with Jelly Bean 4.2.

Design of the device till now seems to be unique and good but don’t know what kind of finish it will have. The thickness will be around 9 mm and it will not weigh light as it is from ZTE.

Launch and Price

Within one month of today, we’ll be able to see the launching of this device at least in China. ZTE will launch the device in two basic colors i.e. white and black and the price is seems to be between $299-359.

The post ZTE Grand X Quad Specs, Features & Price [Rumors] appeared first on Android Blog.