Google Nexus Prime

Watch this week's Android Revolution as we go through what's hot and what's not in the world of Google's Android project. This week we discuss the recent teaser of a Samsung event in Berlin on September 1st and we also breeze through all the leaks of the week, which by the way include information on the Google Nexus Prime and how it may bring a 720p resolution screen to the market. We go through all the all the Andriod Smartphone releases for the week and all the software updates you definitely must look out for. In the Dark Side we go through the HTC Evo 3D getting its bootloader unlocked and even the weird news of the famous CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik getting hired by Samsung.

As for what's not hot this week, we go through a counterfeit version of Plants Vs. Zombies being sold in the Android Market and the sad news that we still don't have a real retail image of the HTC Vigor.

All this and more after the break.

GPA (Gingerbread Peter Alfonso) for the Nexus S 4G

Gingerbread Peter Alfonso (GPA17 -- August 2011)

This is a fairly new ROM to the Nexus S 4G brought to us by Pete Alfonso (BuglessPete) who cut his teeth on the OG Droid. I for one have always heard great things about his ROMs and I’m glad to see he’s developing for the Nexus S 4G. With about a dozen nightly builds under it’s belt at the time of this review, it’s proving to be a great option for anyone looking for an AOSP ROM with a stability focus.

At the time of this review GPA17 is only in nightly builds. Normally I would be cautious of that but the 8/13 and 8/17 builds proved to be so stable that I felt comfortable enough to do a review. Just keep in mind, you always run a risk with nightly builds and if you have reservations about that it’s best to wait until Pete deems GPA17 as stable.

Installation and setup

Installation went off without a hitch. As usual, if you are coming from a different ROM it’s always a good idea to wipe data/cache, otherwise just wiping Dalvik should be fine. Google Apps are included in the ROM so it’s not necessary to install them separately.

Performance

The GPA17 is solid. I didn’t have any force closes or random reboots in the 5 days I’ve been using it. I don’t think it’s the fastest ROM I have used on the Nexus S 4G but it’s still plenty quick and a big improvement over stock. Pete recommends keeping the stock kernel and I have had great luck with it. I did however try the Matr1x kernel and didn’t really notice any speed difference.

This ROM supports overclocking and I was able to take it up to 1.4 GHz for a brief period of time without any issues. I’m not a fan of most benchmarking as I don’t believe it’s a true indicator that a phone is faster for real world use. But for those that do like to compare benchmarks, the results are below.

Pete also suggests underclocking to 800MHz if you are “interested in saving tons of battery life”. I tried that, experienced no significant performance degradation.

I’m a horrible use case for testing battery life. I listen to stream music from the phone all day long at work. Given that, I don’t believe it’s really fair for me to speak on battery life other than to say it seemed pretty good compared to CM7 w/ Matr1x and Stock.

Features

All AOSP ROMs by definition have the same base feature set but most bring at least a few minor tweaks to the table and GPA17 is no exception. Here is the current list;

180 degree rotation
Overclockable to 1.4GHz (Voodoo support, Updated Wifi driver)
CPU Toolkit
FLAC audio support
Native 3G tethering
Ad-hoc network support
Facebook sync
Reboot option
Modified widget picker
Conclusion

GPA17 doesn’t have the catchiest name but it has a seasoned developer behind it and I’m excited to see it progress. As it nears stable release I’m sure we’ll see the feature list expand. This ROM is great for anyone that is looking for a rock solid AOSP experience with a great kernel.

Google Maps receives an upgrade to version 5.9

From now on you can you download an update for Google Maps, this time was the version number increased to 5.9.0. What brings us this update? A few small features that will help you more quickly navigate from Google Maps. We summarize all the changes for you.

Voice and tone alerts for route guidance with public transportation (beta)
Tablet support for route guidance with public transportation (beta)
With the bubble buttons in the lab can call buttons for navigating to and the results are added to the map
Access to the addresses of contacts possible again
So if you often times uses Google Maps, you should install the update on occasion.

Source: Android Market

Google Music app demo

Here is a demo of the new music application for Android smartphone. Video after the break!

Source: MObile Heat