Mid-range phones are the butt of many jokes around the Android circles, but there is large market for them and, let’s face it, a lot of people don’t need or use a top of the line phone. The good thing for the mid-level crowd is that with each top of the line hardware upgrade, the perception of what a high-end vs low-end device should be changes proportionally. Luckily, the LG Lucid has the specs that could have competed at the top of the line last year, but this year is a budget friendly, high-performing device. With the perfect shape and size, the Lucid boasts a perfect handheld form with the specs to perform comparable to its mid-level brethren, even ones with a higher price tag.

Hardware

Most mid-range phones don’t have a hook. They either have average specs and/or a black box-shaped body. However, the LG Lucid brings some excitement to the Android OS with its smoothed, curvy design and pleasuring ergonomic, hand-fitting case. What people say about the iPhone’s design, they should also say about the Lucid’s. It is a beautiful form that is comfortable to hold and play with. The color of the Lucid depends on your viewing angle. It looks black with a sparkly back cover, but in a bright light it shows flashes of a dark red-purple. The power button is a great position and is easily pressed, but a very similar button is on the opposite side of the phone which I thought was the camera button. Unfortunately, it’s just a screw cover so I was excited for nothing. The volume rocker is a little difficult to press as it blends in with the curvature of the phone. The headphone jack and USB port round out the rest of the hardware features.

The now-smallish 4″ display took some getting used to after handling my Nexus, and the amalgamation that is LG’s keyboard doesn’t help matters. The Lucid houses a 1.2Ghz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. Quite a bit of horsepower for a small, middle of the pack phone, and this helps the Lucid stand out in the crowd. Even with Verizon’s and LG’s bloatware, the Lucid can run circles around phones in its same class. The only downside for the Lucid is the small amount of memory it comes packed with. Only a 8GB hard drive comes standard, but you can upgrade it with an external mini-SD card. It’s hard to imagine how far Android phones have come in a couple of years, and the Lucid can show all the progress in a small package. A great processor and a fluid, sexy design combine to form the complete Android package.

Screen/Camera

The screen is one of LG’s best technological achievements. It is bright and vibrant even compared to a Samsung display. LG’s problem, however, is that their software, what’s running behind the screen, that isn’t up to par. Despite not being full high-definition, the Lucid and LG certainly bring a sharpness that you won’t find in many non-HD phones. Colors are pretty in apps, just don’t look for the complimentary colors and vibrancy from LG’s skinned overlay. The pastel color palette is outdated, and with a screen like this, LG really should have kicked their developers into making something more creative to take advantage of the the sharp, bright screen.

The camera itself is really lagging behind the hardware. While the 5MP back camera does produce good shots in all sorts of lighting and angles, I noticed whatever wasn’t focused on in the picture seemed to be drowned out by whatever was focused on. The camera app though worked great. It took pictures quick and had quite a few setting options for you camera-tweakers. The washing out habit didn’t carry over to the 1080 HD video quality from the pictures. Videos looked and played marvelously wherever I took them. The front-facing camera is only VGA, but it handled OK for quick pictures to your friends. You won’t get the quality of an HTC One X from the Lucid’s camera, but it can certainly serve the purpose if you need a snapshot in a cinch.

Software Performance

With LG, there’s not really anything to complain about in terms of their software that’s put on top of stock Android. So, I can’t blame the Lucid for LG’s lack of imagination or the lack of effort put into making the “LG experience” something noteworthy. It’s not intrusive, but semi-beneficial like HTC’s Sense or Samsung’s Touchwiz, and it’s not as worthless as whatever Motorola is putting on their phones. I’ve almost gotten to the point where this is the skin I expect on every mid-range Android phone. I expect it to have pastel blue, green, and oranges, an app drawer that makes it harder to find your apps, and a few handy app icons for the “new-to-smartphones” crowd. The call quality is tinny, but overall I didn’t have any dropped calls, and the GPS locked on right away.

While it isn’t really a hindrance, it’s not very beneficial either, and with those negating each other, I can’t see how LG thinks it is better to worry about the hassle of a customized skin than put stock Android on the phone. High-end Android enthusiasts would pay more attention to these devices if they were simply the “pure Android” experience. Aside from this, the Lucid flies through boot-ups, multiple screens, and apps with only a few stutters when switching between these things quickly. It’s noticeable, but the dual-core processor can generally eat up these tasks with ease. Another way LG could set itself apart is to release the mid-level devices with the latest software. No, I didn’t want to see capacitive when I opened the box. Ice Cream Sandwich has been out long enough for the Lucid to have shipped with it, and with it being the type of device it is, the consumer is left wondering when it will  be upgraded (They promised an update to ICS). LG, if you want to sell more phones and give yourselves less of an update hassle, release your phones with stock Android!

App Performance

Another great device to try Temple Run and one of Gamevil’s latest games, Immortal Dusk, on. With the dual-core processor beefed up to 1.4 Ghz, the Lucid can handle most games that pass through the Play Store. You may notice a small amount of lag from fast paced games like FPSs or something like Riptide, but the Lucid did not disappoint at all when it came to the average game at all.

Websites and videos loaded quickly with Verizon’s LTE. Again, last year we wouldn’t be having the discussion of this type of phone having LTE, but now, Verizon has made it standard for any new phone on their network. It is a such a leg-up for the Lucid and Verizon that even phones like this can bring consumers over from other carriers. The Lucid shows that 3G is the past, and the average to low-end consumer can satisfy their speed desires with devices in their price range.

Final Thoughts

The LG Lucid is a tale of how far Android and smartphones have come. A gorgeous design covers some fairly high-end specs. Hardware we were dreaming of last year is this year’s mid-range device. LG has come a long way from rectangular, squared corners to perhaps creating a design that other manufacturers can learn from. The innards can’t even be scoffed at by the hardcore Android crowd, and while they may not be completely top of the line, they are certainly high-end for such a low-cost phone. It’s a great time when an $80 phone can rival personal computers and still be considered mid-level. It’s also great that Android novices can get into the smartphone crowd without their wallet being broken, and the LG Lucid is the best bang for your buck.

I’ve owned an Amazon Kindle, and I loved the Galaxy Tab 10.1, so the merging of a small form factor and Samsung’s hardware seems like an awesome idea. With Amazon’s Kindle Fire selling by the boatload, it is about time one of the big-time manufacturers attempted to cram a true Android experience into a reading-sized area. The regular tablet size, around 10 inches, are fine for playing games and web-browsing, but I think that a smaller tablet around 7 inches like the Fire can excel as well. They are perfect e-readers with a very worthy bonus of viewing comics, the web, and games in full color. The small area even helps the pixels-per-inch, but the hardcore Android enthusiast may find the small screen trade-off not worth the smaller specs.

Hardware

The Galaxy Tab 7.7 is light and thin. It could be comparable to the 2nd generation Kindle in terms of weight and size. If you’re looking for an e-reader, there’s nothing worse than feeling the device you’re holding instead of being able to relax and enjoy a book. As an Android tablet, Samsung gave this little device specs to compete with most tablets out today if not future-proof. A slightly overclocked 1.4Ghz dual-core processor with a screen beautiful enough for all your new Instagram pictures, the Tab obviously blows other e-readers out of the water.

The Tab flies from playing Temple Run to streaming your Google Music to flipping the pages of the newest Game of Thrones book. If you thought this tablet would be a lower-specked device, you don’t know Samsung very well. There is nothing this device can’t do in comparison to its older brother the Tab 10.1, however, unfortunately to keep the Tab this thin, there is no HDMI-out or even a USB port (unlikely anywhere) which could have set it apart even further. Instead, there’s just the volume rocker, power button, the power input, a SIM slot for Verizon’s LTE, and thankfully a mini-SD slot. However, the sleek brushed silver look gives the Tab 7.7 a futuristic look and feels good in the hand. And, unlike other devices (iPad), the back of this won´t get scratched the moment you put it down.

Screen/Camera

The screen, like on most Samsung devices, is gorgeous. The super-AMOLED Plus screen could light your way in the daytime, and the blacks strike a beautiful contrast with every other color on the screen. Reading is a joy with the Amazon Kindle app, Perfect Viewer, ezPDF, or whatever you use for your daily reading. Compared to the Fire, the Tab 7.7 seems to have less glare or halos around words. This could easily be my terrible eyesight, but words were crisp in every app I used. Riding in the car, where I used to couldn’t read billboards without feeling semi-nauseous, is helped by these great screens. E-ink is still the best for reading, but hi-res with the AMOLED display is the next best thing.

The camera leaves something to be desired with a mere 3.2MP back camera. You can argue that the smaller tablets should be better shooters, but I don’t think any tablet is really meant for picture-taking so the low megapixels didn’t bother me very much. The Tab comes with a front-facing camera as well though it’s nothing special.

Software Performance

The Tab 7.7 ships with Honeycomb (I assume it will be upgraded to ICS sometime soon) with a Touchwiz coating. While I generally dislike Touchwiz, it didn’t really get in the way of the Android experience. To me, it was merely a different color scheme and different app icons instead of a full-blown skin for Honeycomb. With that said, I don’t care for Touchwiz’s ‘Windows XP-ish’ color palette, especially compared to Honeycombs neon nature. Luckily, that’s all cosmetic and changeable, and the Touchwiz interface doesn’t slow this device down too much. There is a small amount of lag when moving screens, but getting in and out of apps is quick, and the software is as fast as anything Samsung has made (barring the Nexus with 4.0). Samsung and Verizon have thrown their own apps onto the device, but if I left them alone, they didn’t seem to bother me.

The radios looked and fared quite well when I drove across the country. I used the Tab to Bluetooth my Google Music to the car with a reliable LTE/3G signal. The GPS locked on quick as well while driving and using Google Maps. These radios did look better than my Galaxy Nexus, and streaming was more reliable with the Tab, but I think the signal bars were a bit misleading. Where I showed 1 bar with my Nexus, there were 3 or 4 on the Tab, and neither were lightning fast in these situations.

App Performance

Thank goodness Temple Run came out while I was using the Tab. It was the perfect way to test the Tablet’s performance. The small tablet is easing for holding, thus making it easier to turn in Temple Run than bigger tablets, but not quite as sensitive as a phone. The graphics were vibrant green and gold, and I didn’t notice any slowdowns in the game (after the app got updated). As I mentioned, I used the Tab mostly for reading, but that was certainly a waste of good power for this Tab. Every other app I ran was quick and fluid, no stuttering on web-pages or hiccups on Twitter. I can honestly say it was a very comparable experience to using the Tab 10.1 or my first gen Asus Transformer.

Final Thoughts

I’ve mentioned that I used this like I would an e-reader because that’s what this tablet should be. It should be competing against the Kindle Fire and Nook Colors of the world instead of the Transformer Prime, iPad, or Galaxy Tab 10.1. While it can semi-compete with these devices in terms of performance, it can’t outdo them and will inevitably get lost under the mound of great big tablets. That’s why, for it to succeed, the Tab has to compete against the e-reader market.

Unfortunately, it is not priced competitively against the Kindle Fire or other e-readers. This is another classic example of having a great product, but not releasing it to the right crowd. For double(!), the price of the Kindle Fire, you are getting stuck with a 2-year agreement, and probably a limited data plan. None of these factors equal competitive as the higher-end Android fans will gravitate toward something more power like the Transformer Prime, and the budget-conscious people will see the low price tag and clout of the Amazon Kindle Fire. So while I can wholeheartedly recommend this device to any user for a myriad of reasons, the price is sure to push people away from this awesomely sleek device.

You can get the Galaxy Tab 7.7 at Verizon for $499.99 on a 2-year contract or $699 for month-to-month.

The Samsung Galaxy Note was the longest commercial aired during Super Bowl XLVI, but it wasn’t the most memorable. And I’m not speaking from my personal opinion – Nielsen has delivered some numbers to back up readers who have said that they didn’t like Samsung’s rocktastic, 90-second advert.

Nielsen has released data on the most-remembered and most-liked 2012 Super Bowl Ads. Samsung, who may have spent as much as $11 million to promote the phone launching on AT&T soon, didn’t crack either list. Instead, the most remembered ads were for the usual suspects of popular Super Bowl ads. That would be snacks, new cars, and beer.

Looking at the Nielsen charts, it’s easy to see what people want to see in their Super Bowl ads: children, animals, and sexual innuendo (not in combination, obviously). Just take a look at themes behind the commercials people remembered most and liked the most. Notice any common elements?

Children: The most memorable and most liked commercial was of a Grandma launching her grandson to snatch a bag of Doritos from his snotty older brother. Meanwhile, the fourth-most liked ad was of the beloved E*TRADE baby doling out financial advice.

Dogs: The #3 most memorable and #2 most liked commercial was one of a dog bribing his owner with Doritos. Dogs were also featured prominently in Skechers (#4 most remembered) and Budweiser (#6 most remembered and liked).

Sex: GoDaddy’s entire budget consists of making commercials with attractive women, so its no surprise that having Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels put body paint on a beautiful woman was the #9 most remembered. However, it was not the most liked, so that might not be an advisable path to take. The “naked” M&M’s dancing to an LMFAO song was the #2 most remembered and #3 most liked ad.

So what does this tell us about Super Bowl ads? Well, people prefer humor in their ads, which Samsung was obviously going for in its ad. But the company failed to make an impression despite being one of the longer ads. Viewers much preferred the 30 to 60 second ads that built up to a punch line and had a point about why you should get that product. Any Android manufacturer thinking of advertising at Super Bowl XLVII will take this into consideration.

[NielsenWire]

I’m going to skip talking about the Xyboard name for as long as I can. Ok. The name is ridiculous; I’m moving on. As Verizon’s newest tablet, the Xyboard has a lot of weight on its shoulders from the Xoom and Galaxy 10.1 debuts. Motorola has certainly impressed me recently, but can their smartphone success translate into tablet success? Is this a worthy successor to a less-than-one-year old tablet? If you’re looking for a 4G LTE tablet, absolutely, and here’s why.

Hardware

The look and feel of the Xyboard is one of Motorola’s highest efforts over the past few months. With shaved corners and a very thin exterior, the Xyboard feels almost like an 8″ tablet. Unlike the Xoom, the frame is solidly constructed throughout and it can rival the Galaxy 10.1 for thinness, though it is heavier than the Galaxy 10.1. Thanks to Motorola’s consistent foresight in adding a mini-HDMI output, you can play the Xyboard on your big screen which you can’t with the Galaxy 10.1.

The rest of the Xyboard’s exterior is minimalistic with a black/silver aluminum frame and a power and volume rocker on the back instead of the sides of the device. I do like what Motorola does with these buttons, and I definitely think this is a more natural positioning for your hand. However, the buttons are too flush with the back and don’t offer a satisfying click whenever they’re pressed so you may miss them or not press them if you’re not paying close attention.

Screen/Camera

The high-res screen is beautiful, as it should be, but I didn’t think it was anything overly spectacular. It could get very bright, but the automatic brightness wasn’t the most intelligent sensor so I was stuck with a blinding light while reading at night. Unlike the RAZR but similar to every other tablet I’ve tried, the screen can get very smudgy. I was wiping it off with a cleaner every other day just to make it look respectable. The colors and overall screen seem better than my Transformer too.

With the camera, I have been fairly impressed with Motorola’s latest offerings. You don’t expect to have the greatest camera on a tablet, but on the Xyboard it is more than serviceable.  The photos can speak for themselves:

While not the sharpest photos ever, they are some of the better I’ve taken with a tablet. I even got a little artsy with these.

Software Performance

Even coming from Ice Cream Sandwich on my phone, the Honeycomb bugs and lags are more evident than ever to me now. While these two versions of Android are very close to each other, ICS offers a host of new features that make you wonder why it wasn’t included on the Xyboard. The launch window for this tablet wasn’t rushed like the Xoom’s was, and I think Motorola could have pushed back the launch to make the Xyboard the first tablet with ICS instead of being the Xoom 2.0. All that being said, Honeycomb runs smooth on the Xyboard even with the bloatware from Motorola and Verizon.

The overall layout from Honeycomb isn’t changed by Motorola which is a blessing considering Samsung’s Touchwiz overlay, and despite the custom ROM on my Transformer and at least triple the apps, the Xyboard is faster changing through screens and doing other normal OS functions than other tablets I’ve used (Transformer, Tab, Xoom). It is a bit overclocked at 1.2Ghz, but with an OMAP processor instead of the Tegra like in the others. Still, I have to question the reasons not to add the newest Tegra 3 since they should have a good relationship with Nvidia after the Xoom opened the floodgates for multi-core processors.

App Performance

Like I mentioned, the Xyboard has a little faster processor out of the gate than my Transformer, but it by no means blew the Transformer out of the water (with a lot less installed on it too). Angry Birds and Osmos were a second or so faster than my Transformer. Games like Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Shadowgun and Osmos ran wonderfully, and I noticed very little lag when switching between all of these at the same time. I thought it was interesting that the Xyboard kept apps running in the background instead of shutting them down after a while. When I went to pull up Osmos for the second time, the Xyboard brought it straight up to the menu screen instead of starting the whole game over again. Very convenient although I don’t know if this is the Xyboard itself or my Transformer shutting down the app too quickly.

The problem with Motorola devices on Verizon, usually, is the plethora of useless bloatware because both Motorola and Verizon believe heavily in it. Motocast, V Cast, VideoSurf, Slingbox, Netflix, and Blockbuster all come pre-loaded. Will you use one of these apps? Maybe, maybe not. But you certainly won’t use two or more because they all directly compete with one another! I know each company has deals with other companies, but directly competing apps that you probably don’t want shouldn’t be on the same device.

Final Thoughts

My first thought with these devices is usually, “Who is this made for?” With the Xyboard, I really can’t decide. It’s not for early adopters because they already bought the Xoom, and it’s not for power users because the Transformer Prime has a quad-core processor. It’s a slim device but without the weightlessness of the Galaxy 10.1, and only Verizon’s LTE makes this a stand-out device. While I didn’t see many flaws with the Xyboard (great design, runs smoothly, mini-HDMI), I also don’t know what makes someone want this instead of a cheaper Xoom or even iPad from Verizon.

If the Xyboard would have been released when the Xoom was, it could have blown most of our expectations away for a first-gen Android tablet. However, it’s launch is in the middle of an Android OS upgrade and a processor power-battle. The Xyboard’s design and slimness make it a great upgrade from the Xoom, but for Motorola’s next tablet, I want them to make a device that will usher in the next generation of tablets instead of releasing the best tablet at the end of the era.

Lytro is a company that is gearing up to deliver a light field camera that can capture an image and then choose what to focus on later. The “shoot first, focus later” technology allows users to capture fields of light rather than a standard image like most cameras do. This can do away with blurry images and allow users to tap on an area to focus a picture after the light field has already been captured. Now what if you could do it with your phone? The Lytro camera isn’t even in the hand of consumers yet, but people were bound to wonder if the company’s technology could appear in smartphone. PCWorld’s Tim Moynihan posed that question to Lytro CEO Ren Ng, who responded with this statement:

…We’re very focused on building our own branded cameras and product line to sell in the marketplace…If we were to apply the technology in smartphones, that ecosystem is, of course, very complex, with some very large players there. It’s an industry that’s very different and driven based on operational excellence. For us to compete in there, we’d have to be a very different kind of company. So if we were to enter that space, it would definitely be through a partnership and a co-development of the technology, and ultimately some kind of licensing with the appropriate partner.

A Lytro-licensed camera won’t appear in any smartphone any time soon, but it would be a compelling feature to see in the future. Smartphones are becoming the most-used camera for the average consumer, but they often require multiple shots because of poor sensors and blurriness. And everyone has taken a picture with a smartphone that looked fine on a 4-inch screen but disappointing on a computer monitor.

Lytro would provide more leeway in correcting those focus issues. Of course, there’s the issue of costs. The debut Lytro camera retails for $399, which is more than half half of what the average smartphone costs at full retail price. How much more would it cost to utilize Lytro’s technology and engineer it in a small enough space to make room for all the other components found in a smartphone? The silver lining is that we probably have a long time before that becomes an issue, so maybe Lytro can partner with a phone maker who can keep the costs down and the quality up.

Visit Lytro.com to get more info on Lytro’s technology and take a look at how it works.

[PCWorld] via Engadget

AT&T definitely lit up the CES stage at its Developer Summit conference today with its multitude of Android smartphones that were announced.  Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T, essentially announced several Android smartphones that are high-end and mid-range to appeal to people interested in a 4G LTE Android device on AT&T.

To begin, we have the high-end Samsung Galaxy Note, which is finally going to launch on AT&T after many days of rumors and leaks.  Those in Europe and Asia have already been enjoying the Galaxy Note, but American customers will not have to wait much longer for this baby to launch. We have more details on the Galaxy Note AT&T launch here.

Secondly, we have the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD, which is an improved, high-end device over the Galaxy S II Skyrocket.  Some are comparing this device to the Galaxy Nexus.  Since AT&T is most likely not going to launch the Galaxy Nexus at this point, customers will have to make do with the Skyrocket HD — which is a pretty solid device in its own right. For example, it contains a 4.65 inch Super AMOLED HD display and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor.  It will be available in the coming months, but there is no word at this time if it will launch with Ice Cream Sandwich.

Thirdly, we have the Sony Xperia Ion, which is a high-end 4G LTE handset that is going to succeed the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play.  This PlayStation certified device boasts a 4.6 inch HD display, 12MP rear facing camera, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, Android 2.3, and 720p front facing video recording.  The Xperia Ion is being touted as multimedia powerhouse that handles gaming and media sharing very well.

The last two 4G LTE smartphones announced by AT&T include the Pantech Burst and Samsung Exhilarate.  Both devices are priced below $50 on a two year contract and should be available for purchase soon.

Stay tuned for hands-on images and videos of several of the devices mentioned above.

[AT&T]

UPDATE:

The contest portion of this project has completed. All 5 tablets have been given away already. Thanks to all who participated. You can still take the survey, but you will not win a tablet for entering.

—————

We’ve seen a lot of reports and stats about Android in the past few years, but they haven’t always revealed the information that the folks at Androinica wanted to know. That’s why we created the Android Census, a brief and informal user survey that will help us get a sense of the activities and thoughts of Android fans.

Taking the survey is incredibly easy and is potentially rewarding. The good folks at NVIDIA have been nice enough to sponsor a giveaway that we’re conducting in association with the census. Five – count ‘em, 5 – Android users who complete the survey will win a free Tegra 2 tablet. Take a few minutes to complete our survey and you could soon play great games like Zen Pinball. Yes, that’s the same Zen Pinball with multiple levels, great graphics, and fast-paced virtual pinball action that caught our eye in a previous version of Android Apps Alert. This and plenty of other TegraZone games will be made available to you should you be one of the lucky winners.

Watch this video to see which tablets are being given away and get contest rules. Then head over to fill-out the Android Census. Be sure to read follow instructions carefully!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njflD7xegGk

Steps to enter the giveaway

1. Go here and answer all questions in the survey
2. Follow BOTH @Androinica and @NVIDIATegra on Twitter
3. Send the following tweet ONE TIME per day:

I just answered the @androinica #AndroidCensus and I might win an @NVIDIATegra tablet!

Limit ONE entry PER DAY for each contestant. Winners will be notified throughout the week at the email address provided in their survey. If you do not win a tablet on a Day 1, you can submit another tweet to enter for Days 2-5. You DO NOT have to retake the survey. One reply and one tweet per day enters you into all giveaways.

Note: Your name and email address will be kept private and will not be shared with any third party.

Today is the last of 2011, and it was quite a year for Android. Looking back at where Android was 365 days ago and where it is now, it’s pretty incredible. Most of the things that we asked for in our 2011 wish list – a new version of Android, a better class of tablet, and inter-connected devices – actually came true. We’re still wondering what 2012 might bring.

Before we cross over into the new year, and now that we’ve already covered the worst products and trends that affected Android users this year, it’s time to look at the best. Below is a list of some of the things that we found most pleasing for Android in 2011. Got beef with a particular selection or want to add to the list? Well, that’s why we have a comments section.

11. Android accessories on the rise

Since the G1 debuted in late 2008, it hasn’t been easy finding audio accessories compatible with Android phones. Heck, even case choices were limited to what you’d find in a carrier store. But the number of case makers supporting Android greatly increased in 2010, and so did the number of accessory makers. Home security systems, automobiles, cable and television set-ups, and home audio systems like Sonos were all big improvements over the options available a year ago. That momentum will carry over into even more options in 2012.

10. HTC Sensation

HTC released a phone of almost every variety and flavor. Some had 3D, some had a simplified version of Sense, and some even had a dedicated Facebook button. But of all the HTC phones released in 2011, the Sensation was at the head of the class. The Sensation had HTC’s signature premium-feel and strong spec sheet to go along with it. Add in Sense 3.0 running on top of Gingerbread, and you’ve got one of the brightest spots in sea of Android phones. Let’s hope HTC makes more Sensational phones and less ChaCha’s in 2012.

9. Processor Growth

2011 was the year of the core. NVIDIA introduced the first Tegra 2 dual-core Android tablets and then did the same with phones. Texas Instruments followed-up with its OMAP, Qualcomm with its Snapdragon, and Samsung had its Exynos. These chipsets brought serious computing power to the table and really pushed devices further than expected. We even saw NVIDIA Tegra 3 bring a quad-core processor late in the year. It hasn’t been a completely smooth ride, but multi-core processing raised the bar for what phones and tablets could do.

8. Motorola Droid RAZR

For all the grief that we’ve given Motorola – and rightfully so – over the years, Google’s biggest acquisition of the year knocked it out of the park with the Droid Razr. Combining its two biggest brands of all-time, Motorola introduced a phone that is simultaneously functional, stylish, and durable. Even the NotBlur UI that was previously a pain in the neck was actually fairly good and had some beneficial enhancements. While we aren’t the biggest fans of the device’s screen, the Droid Razr is otherwise one of the best phones released this year.

7. Angry users affect change

If there was one positive to take away from 2011, it was that a vocal crowd with digital pitchforks could force companies to admit their mistakes and change course. Whether it was a small thing like Verizon abandoning its $2 payment processing fee, or a major coup like getting companies to acknowledge potential privacy breaches or the uncomfortable nature of Carrier IQ, the online mobs inspired change. One of the biggest ways this worked was in pushing manufacturers and carriers to be more dedicated to updates. HTC put in extra effort to support Gingerbread on the HTC Desire after initially saying it wouldn’t, Sony Ericsson committed to bringing ICS to its entire 2011 Xperia line-up, and HTC provided options to unlock the bootloader on select models. You can’t win them all, but it was good to see rabble-rousers push companies to do better.

6. CyanogenMod saves the day

Not all phones released this year were good. Let’s face it; some were down right crappy because of software bugs, carrier bloat, and poor support. However, the guys over CyanogenMod resurrected some clunkers. They’ve been doing that since the G1, but things really accelerated in 2011. CM was seen on dozens of devices, had amazing features months before similar features popped up in official Android products, and provided enough tweaks to extend device life daily and long-term. It’s no wonder that more than 900,000 people use CyanogenMod or one of its derivatives.

5. Samsung Galaxy S II

Best phone ever! At least that’s what I thought for a while after I first held the Galaxy S II at MWC. A beautiful SAMOLED screen, laundry list of software improvements, better build materials, decent camera, and NFC, the Galaxy S II had all that I wanted out of a phone at the time. It underwent some internal and external changes when it arrived in the U.S., but regardless of the region, the Galaxy S II was an awesome phone. The Samsung Galaxy S debuted with similar fanfare, but the GS 2 has so far displayed better staying power. Let’s hope that trend continues.

4. Galaxy Nexus

The dream of the Nexus distribution model was never fully-achieved, but it has been successful in hardware terms. And though the Galaxy Nexus launch made it on our list of the worst things in 2011, the phone it self is definitely among the best. Yes, there are phones with better cameras, better battery life, and arguably better processors, but none with better software. The Galaxy Nexus is the first device to officially support Android 4.0, and that has made all the difference in the respect this phone is able to earn. The large screen and NFC capabilities have further enhanced what will – knock on wood – be one of Android’s best for a long time to come.

3. ASUS Transformer series

Everyone tried their hand at making a Honeycomb tablet to rival the fruit company. ASUS sneakily raced ahead of the pack by thinking outside the rectangle and coming up with something different. The ASUS Transformer got off to a rocking start thanks to its keyboard dock and its ability to make a tablet both a plaything and a productivity tool. The tablet itself was solid, but the dock made the device standout. The Transformer Prime takes things into premium territory, and has the potential to be another hit for ASUS.

2. Android Market

Compare the Android Market system between December 2010 and December 2011. As Chris Traeger from Parks & Recreation would say, it’s LITRALLY night and day. The Android Market finally took its talents to the web and has progressively improved since February. The phone and tablet based app underwent a major redesign that better organizes and displays apps. And by the way, the Market is more than just apps now. It’s also books, music, and movies – a one-stop shop for your digital media. The recent sales and promotions also didn’t hurt pushing this up the list.

1. Ice Cream Sandwich

In 2010, one of Androinica’s writers said he wanted to see Android take a complete 180 in terms of UI. I think it’s safe to say that Ice Cream Sandwich did that just fine. Google created an all-new Honeycomb-like UI, changed icons, added tons of new features, and elevated Android to its highest design peak yet. It was a long-overdue improvement that will benefit both phones and tablets now that the two forms of Android have been merged in ICS, which will hopefully translate to more app selections and continuity on either device.

Google Currents arrived earlier this month with a flash of headlines to display, well, headlines and the news that accompanies them. The stylistic news reader downloads specially designed articles from your favorite news sources and brings a variety of topics to your Android phone or tablet. I’m pleased to report that Androinica.com is now one of those sources!

After some light reading to understand the platform and dusting off my long neglected CSS skills, Androinica is now ready to be added to your Currents. Some of you may have simply added our RSS feed to get a standard import of our articles, but I feel confident saying that the proper edition will be a better buy – especially since its free.

Androinica can now be found in Google Currents by clicking this link from a mobile device or scanning this QR code. Once you load it up, you’ll find these main sections.

• News is the catch all section where we post every single article published to Androinica.com.
• Reviews is specifically for people looking to see what new apps to download and what devices to buy.
• Videos is our video section that imports clips directly from our YouTube channel – to which you should subscribe, by the way.
• Google+ is where we share select posts from our favorite social network. To everyone wondering why I use the #cu tag on certain posts, it’s because that’s the easiest way to control which posts appear.
• Features is exactly what it sounds like – a special section where we’ll post short quips and promote contests or articles that we want to highlight. There’s nothing there yet, but it will be populated shortly.

Here’s a short video showing how to set everything up, as well as a brief walkthrough of our Currents edition. Stay tuned for more.