the upcoming Samsung Epic uses a beautiful amoled screen and the processor is better. it's also a 4G phone (the second in America -- both on Sprint) and i am thinking of grabbing it when it comes out. i just wish it was starting with Android 2.2 instead of 2.1, but that's easily fixed.


it'll have the regular on screen keyboard and the new Swype technology. if that works as well as advertised then the physical keyboard may not even be used by me???

Speaking of dead phones I find it is all about the signal strength. My iPhone stays charged all week in town. But if I spend the weekend in a place that has really shaky to no signal the phone can be dead in one night.

Is there a setting one can use on the iPhone to tell it to not waste so much juice trying to find a signal? Even if the setting was, "do not look for a signal unless I activate the phone". I do not need to answer any calls right away but I do need a live phone.

On a side note: finally got the TomTom update on my iPhone since it has been close to nonfunctional since I upgraded to OS4.0. Now I need a way to tell the tomtom, "ok, i am at my destination, shut the fsck up"

She keeps yabbering in my pocket about making the next legal uturn until I tell it I do not have a route. Which takes several clicks to get to.

People keep exclaiming over the amoled screens, and they aren't really that impressive. They have vivid (albeit unnatural) color, but they really suck when viewing in bright environments.

zwei, there are videos you can look at on youtube (i did yesterday) and they had the Epic (it's called the Galaxy S or something like that -- Epic is just the name of the Sprint version) next to the HTC and another phone. they compare the screens across the board and the Epic does far better in the direct sunlight. plus, it's not just an amoled screen, but they say it's a "super amoled" screen . . . so there's that. ;~)

i did a quick search and here's a video showing a regular amoled screen, an LCD screen, and the super amoled screen to show you the difference; though, i didn't watch it, but the description implies the super is much better ("the Super AMOLED is definitely the most visible and beautiful").

http://www.androidguys.com/2010/06/21/amoled-lcd-super-amoled-direct-sunlightfight/

Interesting

Is that due to the glass? and just that the screen can go to extra brightness to help fight the glare.

Wikipedia notes this:

AMOLED displays may be difficult to view in direct sunlight. Samsung's Super AMOLED technology addresses this issue by reducing the size of gaps between layers of the screen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active-matrix_OLED

interestingly, the amoled display is very flexible -- that is, you can bend it quite a bit and even roll it into a scroll. we're getting closer to have e-paper with this stuff.

Thanks for the link!

It should have an airplane mode, which will turn off the phone radio and wifi. It's in your settings menu, don't know if you can make it a simple off/on button on your homescreens or not, though there probably is an app to do so.

I'll do that with my phone for example if I'm out fishing, but want the phone on to snap pictures. Out on the reservoir there is zero signal with any carrier, and the phone will die quick.

**edit - apparently you can turn on wifi after you turn on airplane mode to use just wifi.

That does look really nice.

I've been reading of people having problems with the HTC phone touchscreens going unresponsive too.

Cool

If you seen the iPhone 4 keynote video, shows that Apple glues the screen to the glass, I assume this takes care of any gaps?

I think I seen a video of this e-paper so its already here, I guess just not practical yet.