The Mobile Web Tablet

I bought a new phone to replace my old Android Developer Phone that I bought right after it was released more than a year ago.

One year with Android has at least convinced me of one thing: this is a very good mobile OS. I was sceptical when Google announced the Open Handset Alliance but now I’m convinced that Apple and Google both share the future of mobile at the expense of the “traditional” mobile operating system vendors.

So, when considering a new phone there were basically only two options: iPhone or Android. The number of Android devices is growing rapidly and there’s concern for device fragmentation. It’s interesting to see how Android is basically growing in to become the Windows 95 of the mobile world.

Anyhows… so I decided to buy a new phone after more than a year with the G1. The battery strength was getting worse and worse and the device started to feel painfully slow. I was first looking at the Nokia N900 web tablet-mobile phone-computer-thingy but Nokia just kept delaying it (hear this, my Finnish friends: if the original release, back in December 2009 would have been kept, I would have been a Nokia customer, mmkay?).

I ended up buying an Acer S100 Liquid. It has a Snapdragon CPU (fast!), 800×480 resolution (on a beautiful screen!), Android 1.6 (would have preferred 2.0 but an update should be coming) and a very limited set of extra add-ons to the OS (which in my world is a good thing). The one thing I’m missing is the QWERTY-keyboard but I’m getting used to the virtual on screen keyboard.

The price is hard to beat and possibly its best feature: you can buy it for 3400SEK inc VAT (about €330) in Sweden.

The camera is a 5 megapixel one that I haven’t used very much (I still carry around my Sony Ericsson G502 with its 2MP super fast camera – much more fun to take pictures with). One thing I noticed though is the color balance which is awful.

Video is 640×480 but I don’t use that very much.

If you’re looking for a no extra frills, work horse Android phone at a very competitive price, the Acer S100 Liquid is a perfect buy. I’m happy with my purchase.

Update: The reason for the poor whitebalance was that I hadn’t removed the little plastic cover sheet over the camera lens. Yes, I know, I suck at product reviews. Here’s a photo taken with the S100.

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Bugs in Android? Photo.

Via MobileCrunch:

Samsung delaying Android offering until late 2009
If you were holding your breath until MWC to see if Samsung would drop its promised Android-based phone, you can exhale. It seems that the Samdroid will have to wait, as they’re still in negotiations with carriers and no hardware has been put forth. Shucks!

How much trouble is there in Android-land? I have gone from sceptic to fanboy and back to a somewhat sceptical position again over the last couple of months.

We’re still waiting for an Android announcement from one of the-five-big-ones-that’s-not-from-Finland. Meanwhile, rumours mixed with official announcements are coming from Asus, Dell and portable media player company Archos to name just a few.

Going from one device to many, from different companies, on different hardware, will be a huge challenge for the untested OS. We’ll see if the mighty Android is up to the task.

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The HTC G1 is a pretty good device, showing lots of potential in the Android OS. As I wrote in my 2009 predictions I believe this year will be the year of Android, with devices coming from all major device manufacturers that’s not from Finland.

But, one phone does not make a platform.

Well, in some cases it does, but it’s not the idea behind the Android OS.

The big question is how Android and the Open Handset Alliance will prevent the same fragmentation problems that plagues the Java ME-world as it appears on more devices.

Mobile Stance has a longer post on the subject, even suggesting that Google would benefit from fragmenting the OS as it would move application developers to web based solutions.

Going to be a very interesting year and I really look forward to the next batch of Android devices. Let’s hope they can hold it all together.

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It’s that time of the year, when you reflect on what has been and try to look forward to what will be.

More has happened to the mobile market during 2008 than what is appearant at first sight. A lot of changes to the market is taking place under the surface where the shock waves of iPhone and Android are disrupting the entire value chain of operators, devices, operating systems and applications.

These changes will start to erupt next year.

Add to that the financial crisis and the recession and 2009 will become a year that will bring massive change to the entire industry. We will have a completely different playing field in 2010 compared to 2008.

The last couple of years we have seen major innovations and huge change in the mobile industry. But we know from history that it is during hard times that true change happens. Companies on the verge of destruction are more likely to innovate. New players with completely different business models can enter the field. On top of that we are approaching a technological tipping point where mobile internet access and mobile platforms are becoming commodities. The ecosystem is becoming fertile.

I believe more will happen in the coming 1-2 years than in the last 5 put together. Heck, make that the last 10!

Exciting times.

So, a few predictions for the next year:

- It will be the year of Android. The most exciting device of the year will run Android – and it will not come from any of the major players but from a brand like Asus, Creative, Doro, Canon, Nike or Armani.

- Mobile application vendors will grow stronger at the expense of device manufacturers. Probably not to the extent that it really matters (yet) but the tide has clearly shifted. We are approaching the moment where people pick a device based on what applications it support. It won’t happen in 2009 but soon.

- iPhone will lose some of its momentum. The 3.0 will be released but it will be evolutionary, not revolutionary. Still, it’s so far ahead of everything else that it doesn’t matter: it’s still the king of the hill.

- Windows Mobile will continue to grow stronger at a steady (some would say “too steady”) pace.

- Killer app of the year: Spotify Mobile on Symbian. An Android version follows soon after. People will complain to Apple for not allowing an iPhone version. (Spotify is a music streaming application for computers.)

- Mobile internet flat rate prices but with an upper volume limit will be more common. There will be a lot of experimenting with pricing of mobile broadband subscriptions.

- The economy will be bad but not as bad as most people seem to think today.

All in all a very interesting year.

Updated: some more predictions for 2009 from industry experts collected by Chetan Sharma.

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$399 for the G1 is a good price but I hesitated to order it when I saw the shipping cost to Sweden: $214!

Anyway, now it’s ordered. Let’s hope it’s here before christmas.

Updated: …and now I have it! It was delivered yesterday but I wasn’t around to pick it up.

This will be an Android, Android christmas… great!

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