How to Do Video Calls on Android Gtalk

If you have an Android device you must have seen the pre-installed Gtalk app. It is titled only as Talk and quite faster than any other messenger on the device in any kind of slow or fast network. There are some cool things in the messenger like sweeping your fingers left and right to change chat window. Still this app has a great lacking. As expected, Android Gtalk video is not present in most of the Android phones, rather it is exclusive to very few Gingerbread phones. Same is applicable for Android Gtalk video. It is just missing.

But nothing to worry. You have an app for that! It is the Vtok, which is already famous for its iOS iteration. It is quite successful there and now it has come to reign in the Android Market too. Still, we can see many people giving it one star for different compatibility problems. It is understandable as there are just too many devices running Android and it is almost impossible to make an app ready for all. Still, it does a great job on most of the phones. Moreover, if you have any front camera on your Android phone, you might miss Android Gtalk video features, but you will still be able to take the advantage of Android Gtalk audio. Best of all, it’s totally free! So giving a try doesn’t hurt actually. Search in any Android Market or App store for Vtok to get your app.

The Best SIRI Alternatives for Android

You have already seen the 'magical' iPhone 4S with its new voice features

named SIRI. This has been greater than what it sounded like and people are making a lots of experiments and fun with it.

If you are an Android user, you might have looked for some SIRI alternatives. Voice is already built in Android for a while though for commands or conversations you will need third party apps which do the job quite good.

The most mentioned SIRI alternative for Android is of course Vlingo which has a good list of commands like texting, calling, setting alarms, google seaching and many other things. But if you are wondering whether you can have a SIRI alternative for Android that has the capability to reply to your commands and questions, you have two good options. One is Voice Commands which is a good one with faster results. I have used it with 2G networks and got almost instant answers. Besides it has some functions like google search, calling and texting.

There is a new app now which was made for fun in just 8 hours but now it is almost ready for serious business. Its IRIS, the opposite of SIRI. To prove that, it even claims itself to be a male. It has gone through 2 updates after coming to Android Market and the last update has included some functions similar to Voice Actions and a futuristic UI like the new Ice Cream Sandwich theme. It is available in the Android Market and you can try it for free. Besides, Vlingo and Voice Actions are also free apps.

P.S: IRIS is mainly based on internet searches. Therefore, do not expect it to understand everything. It will match your words with some album names or song titles most of the time. Still its a good thing to play with if you were missing the SIRI fun.

Link2SD for Gingerbread

Previously using Link2Sd for Gingerbread was a big troublesome thing. You had to run some scripts to activate it everytime and reset the phone again after one reset. There is an easy solution to Link2SD in Gingerbread. The latest version of Link2SD is ready for Gingerbread and you do not have to do much hassle to use it. So after updating your phone to Gingerbread just update the Link2SD app and you are good to go! It works same as the Link2SD in Froyo

Link2sd: The Way to move All Data to SD Card

In most of the Android phones the built in memory of the phones are not sufficient. As the apps are installed primarily in the built in memory the phone memory ends up at one level and you have install one by deleting another. There are some solutions for that available in the Android market like move 2 sd, app 2 sd and others. Moving apps to sd is built in from the 2.2 version on Android. But none of them is enough if you are using too many apps. However you move your apps the library remains in the phone memory and many apps can not be even moved. For that reason you might want to install link2sd which might set you back with it's setup process. But let's look step by step. Is it that hard?

1. You will need a memory card reader, phone USB cable won't do

2. Insert the card using card reader into your pc

3. There are many partition tools available for free online. Using one of them make two partitions in the sd card

4. One will be fat32 and the other will be ext2 or ext3. Depends on your cards capacity. But let's not take the risk and go for the safest ext2. Remember to make both the partitions primary. Fat32 will be your memory cards memory for media which will be recognized by your phone and ext2/3 will not be recognized now.

5. Install link2sd from the market. It's free. It will ask to reset your phone to recognize the additional memory.

6. Now you are ready to move all the apps+data to your card. Just select one by one and in the next menu click on Link

7. Then tick all the boxes and continue. Everything will move to that additional phone memory and work same as before


Also remember that you can not link your apps unless you have them wholly in the phone memory. So if they are in sd card in the Froyo way, move them back to phones memory at first and then link them to sd. I have installed around 90 apps including big games like Pro Evolution Soccer in my phone of 176MB phone memory. I hope it will help you too.

Cheap Gingerbread Phones

 

The market is now full of the new version of Android phones, Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Everyday new phones are joining the race though all of them are not Gingerbread. In fact there is a trait that the cheaper phones come with Froyo loaded in those and the more expensive phones come with Gingerbread loaded in them. Therefore if you want to buy a cheap Android phone and also have the taste of the Gingerbread version you will be quite out of luck. There is not much to look for in that particular search of cheap Gingerbread phones. But there are some phones with pre installed Gingerbread and some which can be updated to Gingerbread later on which might be cheaper than buying directly. Here are my choices of cheap Gingerbread phones

HTC Wildfire S:

Certainly the most famous phone in this category. Firstly it is from HTC and secondly its affordable which is a rare combination. This phone has a decent configuration and it runs the latest phone version of Android quite smoothly with its 600MHz processor. It comes with the famous Sense UI which is the best known among the Android customizations. Though the 3.2 inch display might be on of the smallest among the Gingerbread phones, it has all the features that it makes it a competitive smartphone in this price tag.

Samsung Galaxy Ace:

Another famous phone which comes with Android Froyo preloaded. But nothing to worry! Just update it OTA (Over The Air) after purchasing and congrats, you are a proud owner of a Gingerbread phone! Comparing with the Wildfire S it has better specs and more features. The screen size is 3.5 inches and TouchWiz has been used efficiently to improve your Android experience. It also has a better processor of 800MHz which makes it even better.

LG Optimus Pro C660

Yes there are much more famous but cheap Gingerbread phones out there but this is about a different form factor with a different brand. This is a BlackBerry like Gingerbread phone which is yet to be released. This phone features a 2.8 inches display with a physical QWERTY keyboard under it and a 800MHz processor. The camera is 3.15MP and there is no secondary camera. The other features and lackings are as expected to be on a phone of that price and OS.

And again, there cannot be any Budget Android phones review without the price. But the prices of these phones vary too much according to regions but the average price of these phones is around $200 without contracts and none of them exceeds the $300 barrier. If you are too choosy you can also do some more investigation and there are some more promising phones like HTC ChaCha, HTC Salsa, Samsung Galaxy 3 and 5 and many more. Moreover, if you are an owner of a popular Android phone there is always a chance that there is a Gingerbread custom rom for your phone like Cyanogenmod or Miui.

Best Android Web Browser

Unlike iOS there is a huge number of browsers available for Android phones. To say one of them as the best will not be very smart as different browsers excels in different fields of performances. But still here is a comparison of Android browsers which may help you choose in the ocean of the apps.

1.Opera Mini browser:

This is the most famous mobile browser on all the mobile platforms. In the Android phones too this browser is really great with its unique features. For example it has one of the  rarest features like page compression which will save a lots of bandwidth if you are on a limited connection. It provides better results too if you are using a slow connection.

2.Dolphin HD browser:

This is another famous browser for mobile devices. The strength of Dolphin browser is the gesture control. There is also another ability which makes it stand up from the crowd is the ability to use add-ons. So you can customize your browser with your necessary features. All the other average features of mobile web browsers are present in it.

3.Skyfire Web browser:

This browser became famous from the very beginning of its release as it promised flash videos for non flash supported smartphones. It did its job very well and there are more to it. It does not only let your mobile play online videos but also compresses it so that it takes less time and bandwidth to be played. There are some more innovative features like user agent switching, facebook overview, feed reader, like button for all the pages etc.

4.UC Browser:

This browser is known as the fastest browser with its revolutionary compression technology. Besides you can choose between data saving full function mood according to your connectivity. Among the other common features the Night Mode is one of its unique features. The download management of this browser is also very powerful.

5.Firefox for Android:

Firefox for Android is one of the most hyped browser for Android phones but it could not keep up with the hype. It is a good browser with some average features. But still it has got many glitches and it does not support many Android phones. So there are many obstacles on its way to be a popular browser on this platform.

There are some other good feature rich browsers out there like Miren browser, Maxthon browser and xScope brower which pack a good number of features and impressive performance. I hope this comparison of Android browsers will help you to choose your favorite browser/browsers.

Google Plus for iPhone | Will it Equal Google Plus for Android?

After the release of Google Plus a native app was already available for Android but Google Plus app for iPhone is still missing. But that is the end of the world. Not because Google Plus is not unnecessary, but because you already have the ability to use Google Plus almost as natively from your iPhone. If you are planning to use Google Plus for iPhone or iPad all you need to use is the Safari Browser. Google Plus just plays fine in your iPhone.

Google has designed the mobile version of Google Plus very effectively with HTML 5. So when you point your Safari Browser to the Google Plus site you will see a beautifully crafted app-like interface ready to use. Though this version of Google Plus for iPhone will not work as powerful as native Google Plus for Android phones it should do just fine.

Google Plus for Android phones has some impressive features. The most impressive feature to me was the instant upload of any captured picture. No need to panic! The picture doesn’t go public instantly. It just gets uploaded and waits for you to decide its fate. You can publish it, keep it or just delete it as your wish. Google Plus for iPhone is on review and it should be on its way too though I don’t think it will have this instant upload feature as it doesn’t go with the policy of Apple.

New Android Market Review | Features, Advantages and Disadvantages

An update to the Android Market is about to release very soon though a leaked version of the new Android market is already available online. The new Android market looks really cool which is similar to the Metro UI in the Windows Phone 7 interface. It has many new features and it gives you more opportunity to discover new and quality apps in the new Android market. I have used the new Android market recently (the leaked version) and here is my new Android market review.

New Android Market Review

The new Android market is changed from top to bottom. Especially when talking of the UI it is something totally a remake rather than an update. Excessive use of black has replaced the Green color which was previously used in the old Android market. This is may be a part of the change of all the Google product interfaces including the Google search results. I downloaded it instantly after it was leaked. Used it in a low end Android phone and rolled back to the old Android market after two days. It looked great at first use. But gradually I found some problems in it while using it in my phone. Firstly the search results were not coming at all or after waiting for a long time. Secondly the sliding function was not as smooth as any other operation. So without a proper search feature it was not usable at all in a Galaxy 551. But the new Android market works perfectly when using in a high end phone. So who are interested in using the new Android market should use a high end phone to use it smoothly and rip all the new features.

Why root and how to root Android Phones

Most newbie Android phones users must have come in contact with the word rooting. What root means is actually gaining the full power over your phone, unleash the whole of it. The first thing you should know is what is the benefit of rooting. Benefits of rooting is not equal to all users. If you are testing a lot of apps from the Android Market you may need rooting specially if you want to change the things your phone operator doesn’t want you too. You may have saw many apps in the market which says root only, Do not use it if you do not know what is root or something like that. For example if you want to take screenshot of your android you need to root your phone, if you want to change any system file to tweak your phone you need to root your phone, if you want to overclock your phone you still need to root. Even for a proper phone backup you will need to root your phone. So, I guess you have already got the reasons to root your phones and understood the benefits of rooting.

Next point. Is it safe to root your Android? Yes it is if you are not too fool to give whatever app the Superuser Access which is the extra privilege you unlock by rooting. Otherwise it is a completely reversible act. That means you can unroot your phone again. Though I do not prefer rooting before ending the Warranty.
Now the last but the most important thing. How to root Android phones? It is not that complicated as it

Now the next point. How to root? It is not as complicated as it sounds. Two ways of rooting Android phones are popular and they are easy too. One is to be done from your phone using z4root. How to use z4root? At first collect Z4root app by Googling it a little. Then transfer it to your mobile using a USB cable or whatever method you use to transfer your files to phone. After that open the file using any file manager in your phone and install it. The next step is the most thrilling one. Open the app and click Permanent Root. After that the phone may be stuck for some time. Don’t panic! If it is stuck for more than five minutes pull our battery open and the next try should do the job for you. If done your phone will reboot. After rebooting find the app called Superuser from your app drawer. It will show “su is up to date”. There you go! You have successfully liberated (rooted) your phone!

But I prefer the other way of rooting as it seems more secured and easier. It’s done from the pc using SuperOneClick. Find it from the internet and connect your phone to the PC with USB cable. Your phone must be in debugging mode to be rooted. After that just click Root to root your phone. Then reboot your phone. This time you will also find Superuser installed in your Android. Congrats! You have successfully rooted! (again!)

Best Android Music Player

If you love music and own an Android phone then you must have some complains about the stock music player in Android. The stock Android music player lacks a good number of features and some of them are becoming very essential now a days. For example many Android phones do not support FLAC format which is recently getting popular for the easy availability of higher memory in the mobile devices. There are some alternative Android music players which are feature rich and fill up the lacks of features created by the stock music player. So most music enthusiasts are switching to the alternative Android music players. So now the obvious question arises. Which is the Best Android Music Player in the market? I am afraid the answer is not that simple. There are many paid and free music players in the market which excels in different aspects. A comparative analysis is done here.

TuneWiki is the most popular free music player. It is great for those who love to explore music. You can search the songs form YouTube, get info about the artist while listening to him/her, listen to radio and keep yourself connected with the TuneWiki community. Other options like viewing lyrics, posting what you are listening to in Facebook or Twitter are also handful and many listeners require these features now. So among the free(ad) players TuneWiki is the best if you are more interested in exploring the songs. A paid version is also available in the market which is ad free. But if you are not always online from your phone you should not consider TuneWiki as your default player as most of the functions of TuneWiki are dependent on the internet connectivity.

The identifying feature of MixZing is its recommendations

engine. When you start playing a song in this player it will come up with a playlist from your music library based on the song. You can customize that list later on. Adding and removing songs from the playlist is very simple and fast. You can also get recommendations outside your library by selecting New Music after tapping the More button. You can add the online songs to your playlist by buying them easily by clicking the plus sign beside the titles similar to the process of adding songs from your library. MixZing features a fully functional equalizer which is very useful for the optimization of sound in different kinds of headphones and music systems. You can also integrate your Last.fm account with MixZing player. This player also has a costly Pro version which removes the ads and adds a tag editor and lock screen widget.

Cubed is a different kind of player which should not be in the Best Android Music Player list. But it isbest in one aspect. It is the interface. The shiny 3D interface comes with few features which may not be enough for many users but if you are happy with the look and do not want much features then Cubed is a good solution for you.

The last and the best music player which has leading in this area is PowerAMP music player. It has everything you need. The slick interface which is also skinnable is really great to look at and the feature list is never ending. It supports a wide range of formats like FLAC which is not supported by the stock music player in many cases. The equalizer is awesome which also features individual bass and treble changer for the users who do not understand the 10 bands but cannot choose from the presets. Only a trial version is available for free and you will have to buy an unlocker to use it after 14 days trial. But this is the app which is worth buying if you are a real music enthusiast.

There is a number of good alternative Android music players in the market and you can try them too. The players like Winamp, DoubleTwist, Songbird, Music Player Pro or Meridian could also be included in the list. We hope the excluded players will be discussed in the future soon