Google has sent out invites for an event schedule for November 16 at 2 PM LA  which is 5 PM EST. The email was sent out with the title words “These Go to Eleven” right up top.- in reference to the 1984 mockumentary  This is Spinal Tap. the email came from “Nigel Tufnel,”Christopher Guest’s character from the film. There will be a live stream of the even on YouTube.com/Android which makes me think this even will be about Music Beta By Google and something to do with T-Mobile according to the picture below.
[ad#onpostadshalfbanner]

Just announced today the new Android Market Web Store which is up and live for everyone to use. We take a look at how it works.

Sony today has announced that they will be releasing a PlayStation App for Android and iOS devices and the first version of the app will only be available in the UK, France, Spain, Netherlands and Germany.  This puts an interesting spin on the long rumored PSP phone rumors that have been all around the net for awhile.

• The app at first will allow you to
• Check your PSN Network
• Latest news on PS3, PS2 and PSP
• Read new announcements from the PlayStation European blog
• Share news via Facebook, Twitter, E-mail

Right now it seems more like a online virtual catalog more than anything but eventually we should see games played on it but I doubt we’ll see that until the rumored PSP Phone becomes real.

Via CNN Fortune Tech

The LG Optimus T is apart of the Optimus line of android phones coming from LG does this phone outperform is budget pricing? Read on to find out.

LG provided us this phone for our own experience and independent review

Hardware

The LG Optimus T comes with a great build that reminds me of the Nexus One in terms of feel and look. Buttons on the side of the device are minimal and blend in with the whole design of the phone. It has a brushed metal feel and look and had a weight to it but definitely not a heavy phone your going to feel in your pocket.

The phone comes with a 3.2 in screen that has a resolution of 320×480 pixel and while isn’t the sharpest the screen does look good. Below the screen are your usual android buttons but arraigned a bit different and instead of being touch sensitive are physical buttons. The menu and search key are independent buttons while the home and back share one button key.  The back of the phones comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera with no flash and if you pull off the battery door you will see the 2 GB SD card pre-installed an the 1500 mAh battery which will give you a talk time of about 5 hours. 

Internally the phone comes with Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi 802.11g, GPS,  600 MHz processor and 150 MB of internal storage for apps but you should be able to install additional apps to the SD card since this is Android 2.2. Very solid hardware specs from LG on this one.

Usage

Call quality was on point with more smartphones these days. Audio was clear and people could hear me well and I could hear them well. The phone comes with android 2.2 with some minor LG customizations that don’t interfere with the Google experience and enhance areas that are needed for improvement. You start off with 7 home screens that slide left and right very smoothly and come with some of LG’s custom widget that we have seen in the past from other LG phones such as the Ally. Instead of the standard app drawer you get in android 2.2 you get one that works similar to older version of android. where the drawer pops straight up and there is no 3D cube affect.

You get your standard apps with some added from T-mobile such as the Wi-Fi calling feature that is now available. You get DIVX support and you get a cool application to help keep you safe while driving call Drive Smart which when turned on will prevent you from using your phone while driving.  You can have it auto text people that text you and you can have it automatically turn on Bluetooth for hands free use. You can upgrade to the plus version which includes automatic driving detection. Great safety app that should be standard in all phones.

Overall

The LG Optimus T is a great phone which is fast and packs a lot of features for the price of free from most carriers.  This is LG best android phone for the US today and hopefully they will push it up and get more high end devices here in the US.

Buy your LG Optimus T

From Amazon

Click the pic to buy from Wirefly

Click the pic to buy from Best Buy

At the Web 2.0 Summit  Eric Schmidts show use some features of the new Gingerbread version of Android coming along with showing us what the Nexus S phone will look like.  Gingerbread will come with  support for NFC-enhanced devices  and RFID tags that support digital wallet. You can check the full video inside.

Via Engadget

It looks like LG is going to be stepping up their game in the smartphone market. They are coming with a power house phone for their Android Optimus line.

Engadget posted exclusive pictures of what looks to be the first dual core android smartphone that is coming with an 8 megapixel camera with flash, 1080p video record, front-facing camera, 1500 mAh battery, microSD  card storage and microUSB connectivity.  No word yet on the speed of the dual cord processor or internal built in storage but it will be the first phone that will bring Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chip to the smartphone market. With that Google logo on the back of the phone that should mean should see stock android but not sure yet which version. It is rumored to be a 2011 release so we may see something at CES or at the latest CTIA.

Via Engadget

It looks like the mock ups were not too far off and Engadget has posted what is suppose to be the real pics of the Nexus 2 now know as the Nexus S is made by  Samsung and is coming soon.  The phone is suppose to be running android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and Engadget has exclusive pics of it in person.

Via Engadget

Facebook just announced that they are going to be updating their mobile apps for both iPhone and Facebook. iPhone will get Places updates and the addition of groups and Android will receive both of these features for the first time.

Photo Via Engadget

Yeah just as weird and a shocking as the title sounds there is really a Nexus Two and it sounds like it is made by Samsung. The Nexus Two is said to be real and made by Samsung. Not much is currently known outside of what Gizmodo has from a hands on from a reliable source knows about.   This could lead to the planned  Samsung event coming little more than a week from now. So be sure to read the excerpt and vote in the poll.

[poll id=9]

The Nexus Two is real. It’s made by Samsung, and a friend of ours got to play with it. It’s not going rock your face like the Nexus One did. But it will record it with a front-facing camera.

"When I first saw it from 10 feet away, I thought it was the Galaxy S," says our source, who got to handle one. "I was a little surprised it was the Nexus Two," because it’s so different from the Nexus One.

It’s black and shiny, built with glossy plastic. Up close, though, it’s "got this curve to it." While the screen, which our source thinks is the same 4-inch AMOLED affair from the Galaxy series, is flat, the front is "sort of concave" with hard edges. And the back is curved. The tapering makes it feel thinner than Galaxy S, though it might be about the same thickness. "It feels really similar to the Galaxy S in a lot ways." (Note: Our mockup is very approximate.)

Externally, the main difference from all of the current Galaxy S variants in the US is that it’s got a front-facing camera, and it’s running a stock build of Android that was still "really buggy." (Update: Forgot about the Epic 4G, which has a front camera.) Our source wasn’t sure if the internals were any different. Google’s supposedly trying to building video chat into Gingerbread, using the same protocol as Google Talk. So it makes sense that the flagship phone for the next year—the one that most Googlers will probably be developing on—comes with a front-facing camera, even if video chat doesn’t quite make it into Gingerbread.

At first blush, it’s a little disappointing that Google possibly isn’t pushing things forward in the same way they did with the Nexus One, since it seems like the Nexus Two is a refreshed Galaxy phone. On the other hand, it says a lot that the Android ecosystem is so stocked with high-powered phones, from the Evo to the Droid X, that even Google won’t radically jump ahead of its partners with a new flagship. Hopefully their plan for selling it is a little better.

 

Via Gizmodo

The G2 has been deemed the proper successor to the G1 which is the phone that started the Android revolution. G1 users have been waiting a long time to upgrade. Is this the upgrade they have been waiting for?

Hardware

The G2’s design is a definite improvement over the G1. Instead of the plastic feel this has a much more solid feel and mix of metal and solid plastic and is much thinner  and lighter than the previous G1.  The unique feature to the G2 is the Z-Hinge that “pops up” to show the 4 row QWERTY keyboard below. The hinge works well and pops into place solid. Now if in the future they could get not only a pop up but tilt s well like with the Touch Pro 2. 

The keyboard works works well  but will take some getting used to. The keys are spaced out pretty well and raised well but I do wish they didn’t waste the space with the special custom keys and also add another row to give the numbers its own row. The backlight on the keyboard is just bright enough to see in the dark and isn’t over bright. Overall the keyboard is good with a few minor issues and will take some getting used to. 

Around the phone you have very little and just what is needed with a one large button volume rocker, 3.5 mm headphone jack, micro USB charge and sync port and a dedicated camera button. very minimum on the sides of the phone

.

The 3.7 Inch screen is nice and bright with a good 480 x 800 resolution and a capacitive touch screen that is responsive and smooth. Below the screen you have 4 touch sensitive buttons that give the front of a phone  a Nexus One look. Below that you have a touch sensitive track button that is similar to what you see on newer Blackberry devices.  On the back of the phone there is a 5 megapixel camera with flash and 720p HD video recording.

 s

Inside you have Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS an 800 MHz updated snapdragon processor and 1300 mAH battery and 4 GB of internal memory with a 8 GB pre-installed micro SD card.  The big feature inside is the HSPA+ radio for T-Mobile new 14.4 3G data network.  Call quality sounds good and the speakerphone sounds just as good as most HTC devices do. A solid hardware package that gives you all the features new high end android phones are coming with.

Software

Inside you have the very stock Android 2.2 running which is great for power users. There is little to any customization outside a few app preinstalled by T-Mobile.  Since there isn’t anything running on top the phone runs very fast and smoothly. Apps open up snappy and videos play smoothly. All features are your standard 2.2 which makes some features lacking such as the camera and music players which are still pretty lackluster and while Gmail is obviously awesome on the phone the mail client for other e-mail options is still very dry. Being that its stock android allows the user to do much of the customization on their own and its catered more to power android users who like to have a stock OS and manually customize each option of their phone so if you don’t like something in stock most likely there is an app to fix that.

To speak quickly on the HSPA+ its hard to do a review on as the network is not fully up in our area so there was some quirkiness when trying to browse the web to test the network. I would assume over time we should see how well that network works. T-Mobile is using this phone to introduce their new network in a similar way they did with their first 3G network with the G1.

Overall

If you’re a G1 user rejoice your official proper upgrade is here and it’s a no brainer for you to upgrade to the new  G2. Pretty much every aspect of the phone is better than the original G1 and right now is officially the top phone for T-mobile. You will however see the same data issues in the beginning as you did when you first got the G1. Those issue should resolved themselves over time.  The keyboard change will take some getting used to and you will need to take some time with it but after you work with it for awhile it will become a better keyboard than your previous G1.

For any other users looking to upgrade. If you are on T-Mobile and your looking for a power android phone this is the one to get. if you are in need of a world phone and not worried about international 3G coverage this will be the best option to get for Android.  HTC and T-Mobile worked together very well to present a solid Android phone.

Buy your T-Mobile G2 Here