Thursday, November 17, 2011

My First Android

A few days back I came across a commercial from Red Hat Linux and it put forth some true facts. “Facts”, unless proven otherwise!

"The telephone has too many shortcomings, to be seriously considered as a means of communication", "A rocket will never leave the Earth's atmosphere", and the most absurd one, "640k ought to be enough for anybody" as populated to be said by Bill Gates, were some of the predictions done in the last century. The beliefs that shattered to the ground in later years, spectacularly.


The appetite for power never stops. People want to be more efficient everyday. The processing power is increasing, whereas the size of silicon chips is reducing. Thanks to Moore's law, gadgets are all set to become smaller but smarter.

A smartphone is a perfect example of something which could never have been conceived of, say, 20 years ago. Yet the future looks promising for this category of phones. It would not be long before we see phones surpassing speeds more than 2.4 GHz, due to the developments in processors like the next gen Qualcomm. But as they say, technology won't stop growing and so people have to start somewhere.




It was many years ago, that I had tried a phone that was smart. I had a Sony Walkman, aka, w550i which was basically a feature phone, with multimedia features, to be precise. It used to take good pics with its 1.3 megapixel camera, and could also sync contacts with a PC. But, today, I need something better than a feature phone. Precisely, an Entry Level Android.


Android today has become synonymous to be “the best mobile OS” today. With the biggest Internet company Google, backing up the OS, it has grown to be the second most used mobile OS today, and that too in a very short period of time. The main reason for the popularity of Android is the fact that it’s based on Linux Kernel with libraries and API’s written in one of the most popular languages, C, C++ and Java, and because most of the codes of the OS is Free and Open Source.

My budget for the phone was Rs. 10,000. With this budget I didn't have a lot of options including non-Android ones. Some of them were,

  1. Motorola EX109
  2. Motorola EX115
  3. Nokia C2-03
  4. Nokia C2-06
  5. Samsung Chat 350
  6. LG X 330
  7. Samsung Star II S5263
  8. Micromax Q6
  9. Sony Ericsson txt pro
  10. LG Vortex
I consider myself a geek, and I do my research extensively, even if it means putting up few people off. Since I believe it is better to be safe than sorrow. So after spending considerable amount of time and effort asking fellow geeks from tech forum and reading reviews from shopping sites, I came to a conclusion that I will have to add a smartphone to the list, which is better than any other in this price range. The phone is, LG Optimus One P500. I like to call it O1, since it is short, sweet, and more geeky! O1 has an impressive list of features. The prominent one are listed below:



  • Android v2.2 (Froyo), Upgradeable to v2.3 Gingerbread
  • Capacitive screen
  • 600 MHz ARM 11 processor
  • Adreno 200 graphics
  • 3 mega-pixel camera with the ability to shoot videos at 640 x 480 @ 18 fps
  • Accelerometer, Proximity Sensor and so on....

In a very short amount of time that I gave to the research of O1. I fell in love with it. It's amazing at the budget I have, and a cool smartphone to title as "My First Android". The sheer beauty of O1 from any angle has captured my imagination. It's 3.2" capacitive touch screen coupled with state of the art design makes it look classy. Processing speed of 600 Mhz, and graphics capability provided by Adreno GPU, makes sure games can be played at decent frame rates.

Overall LG have developed a gem of a product. A product so great that various communities have sprung up just to discuss the intricacies behind this phone. Geeks today want to know, how they can make O1 unleash its true power even if it means rooting the phone.

So my eventual next smartphone is decided. It would be the LG O1, even if it means cutting down every other expenses. If it can't be an O1, it just won't be any other.





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This blog is now transferred to a new domain: http://thestellarmind.blogspot.in/2011/11/my-first-android.html. Please comment  there.


6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Good research!

    However, I'd suggest you to do some more research and go for (if you haven’t purchased it yet) at least 1GHz processor phone device.

    Because Android 2.2 is buggy (I have experienced it) and if you’d try to upgrade it to any latest Android OS you will feel the performance issue. Besides this, even there are some cool apps and game which requires minimum hardware specification.

    I (like most out there) am big fan of Android and sooner or later I will buy one for me.

    In my opinion, HTC produces the best hardware devices and my next phone would be HTC Incredible 2 (awesome hardware and cool price).

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  3. Thanks for the comments bro!
    HTC Incredible S is awesome. No doubt about that. But so is the price. :)
    But, I had selected this phone (O1) after an insane amount of research. And currently it provides the best feature to price ratio.
    Besides, their is something to do about the looks too. I like the phone's bezel and the curves!
    I think, this would do justice to be my first android!
    HTC have to wait sometime. ;)

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  4. now time for a review on your new purchase. i have done it along with Android Fan but it was more like "what Optimus One can do with custom rom". its in the review section of TDF. check it if & only if you want to see the limits of your droid. 1 more tip for review: point the areas where O1 misses your expectation and where it exceeds.

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  5. Thanks Kaushik.
    I am already working on a review. Will post soon! :)

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  6. waiting for a review. :)

    ReplyDelete