Category: Tech

I admit, I was so excited about Froyo on my EVO that I loaded it and gave up my rooted device. I have now used the 2.2 root method provided here and am setup once again with a rooted EVO. Being able to perform screen captures for little app reviews is nice among other benefits.

I have also loaded a new kernel that allows my EVO to achieve higher frames per second (FPS) which has offered a substantial graphics performance increase.

I look forward to trying out some other ROM options like CyanogenMod but with 4G around the corner in our market I will wait until that ROM has 4G capabilities.

I received the new 3G Airave from Sprint today. I must say, there is not much of a need for me to turn on Wi-Fi on my phone with this thing running. The below speed tests are from the Airave over my Comcast connection. This is certainly a nice change over the original model that only offered 1x data where my devices would still reach out to local towers and eat up battery. I look forward to seeing what kind of battery savings that I realize with a strong data signal in our home. The real kicker would be having broadband at the cabin and putting this thing to use when needed.

I am very curious to see what Sprint does with the VOIP capabilities that this device offers. It would be nice to consolidate my phones to a single bill but it might be difficult for them to beat our the feature set and pricing that I currently have with another VOIP carrier. This functionality will offer Sprint another revenue stream and likely be a great way to lure people from traditional phone lines.

So far, the new Airave is showing our location correctly on Google Latitude unlike the previous model that showed me a couple of cities away.

I still have 4G in my neighborhood in case Comcast goes down… 🙂

The new Airvana model all ready to go.

OK, so I am a geek who drives around town with my EVO 4G radio turned on and noticed today when I pulled into our neighborhood that I had a 4G signal. It’s not very strong at my house but just down the street with 1-2 bars I was able to get some pretty incredible speeds…

Thanks to the fine folks on the Unrevoked team my phone is now rooted! It’s like jail break for you Apple people 😉

I used the Time Lapse application last week to capture a sunset up at the cabin. It’s a cool application that creates motion capture videos. There is a free version that has a limited resolution, I purchased the full version because I wanted to run a higher resolution. For this video, I captured a photo every 15 seconds at 15 frames per second at a resolution of 1280×768.

I hope to catch some storms rolling in someday. I just need a good way to mount the phone. For this ‘shot’ I had my phone leaning against an upside down bar stool on the dock 🙂

I am enjoying listening and “keeping an eye on” the Twin’s game today. What a great technology solution!

The EVO is being released on June 4th! This is Sprint’s first 4G device. I am pretty stoked about this! It looks like there will be a $10 a month premium for the 4G service that is required and if hotspot capabilities are desired that will be an additional $30 a month.

Specs can be found here

Some of the things that I am excited about…

• 4G!!
• 720p video recording
• 8MP camera AND a front facing 1.3MP camera (look below)
• A huge 4.3″ screen
• HDMI output – want to show some video to the family? Plug it in and watch in HD! Make sure not to pay a bundle and use Monoprice for your cable ** I have learned that the HDMI connection is type-D not mini HDMI. Monoprice does not yet carry a type-D cable.
• Two-way video chat!! I won’t need my laptop to say “hi” to the kids when I’m traveling 🙂

Qik will be preloaded on these devices and will be leveraging the front and back camera to bring the first ever 2-way video chat service on these amazingly powerful Android phones. To quote from the press release:

“With the launch of HTC EVO 4G, Sprint customers will be able to enjoy capabilities they have never experienced before with a new video chat service from Qik. The two-way voice and video capability will be available as an upgrade to the preloaded Qik app on HTC EVO 4G to enable conversational, interactive, real-time sharing between mobile devices or from mobile-to-desktop“.
Source

Last week I was in Las Vegas for a conference and Sprint was kind enough to lend me a new Overdrive 4G unit. Minneapolis does not yet have 4G access available from Sprint so I was very excited to head out to Vegas to test out this new technology.

I powered the Overdrive up when I got to my room and connected my laptop via WPA2 security. I was able to get 4G access when I was in my room and in some of the conference areas that I was in throughout the days of the conference. The Overdrive fell back to 3G when I was deeper in the halls of the Venetian. When I was on 4G my browsing was very quick, I also kept up on “Lost” using Hulu which performed well. Even on 3G this was the fastest device that I have used. I do not know if it was related the the assumed abundance of data to the Sprint towers in the area to pump all of the 4G access or because of the newer hardware that the Overdrive contains. It certainly beat out my Blackberry Tour tethering speeds.

I was able to get higher test results on a couple of occasions with other sites but they didn’t have the ability to share the results. I had results of 3Mbps to low 4’s for download speeds and was able to see 1.0Mbps upload speeds.

I look forward to the 4G launch in Minneapolis that is rumored to be later this year and hopefully I will be able to have an EVO as my next device if the “4G tax” isn’t too high 🙂

OS6 for the Blackberry will hopefully bring better Gmail calendar support and a better development platform so that the BB 3rd party apps can take the next step. I am hoping that Sprint brings the rumored slider on board.