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Android 3.1 Hands-On: Just How Much Better Could It Be?

A week ago in the Google I/O conference, the organization launched Android 3.1, an update towards the Honeycomb tablet OS that provides greater stability, premium movie rental fees, resizable icons, Expensive Player 10.3, and much more. We installed the update about the Motorola Xoom and gave it a spin to discover when the platform finally has that fully baked smell. Click to see our hands-on evaluation of all of the additional features.
UI Improvements & System Performance
Application Tray
Among the best reasons for Honeycomb may be the Application Tray, which shows a couple of of the very lately used applications. As the previous version of Honeycomb was restricted to just five applications in portrait view and seven in panoramic mode, Android 3.1 gives customers a scrollable tray that turns up to 16 recent applications. This feature is really helpful that after we used an Android 3. device like the Limited-Edition Samsung Universe Tab 10.1, we caught ourselves attempting to scroll with the application tray. Regrettably, you’ll still can’t close applications out of this view. Why don’t you just give a little ???X??¨¤ towards the thumbnail view, Google?
Icons
Interactive icons had been among the best options that come with Android Honeycomb, but this update provides them much more appeal. You are able to extend the edges both flat and up and down, similar to Home windows or Mac UIs. To activate the border, all you need to do is press and contain the widget for around another. After that, you are able to drag among the four sides and expand or contract it as being you want. Right now, only a number of icons for example Gmail, e-mail, calendar, and bookmarks make the most of this feature, but we are presuming designers will get on the bandwagon. We especially like seeing much more of our mailbox instantly.
Additionally to supplying more property to see more content within icons, expanding edges also allows you apply the tablet’s property more effectively. Before Android 3.1, i was frequently playing empty spaces between icons or an unattractive and unbalanced desltop. Now you can fill a whole desltop with a couple of icons, making things look a great deal simpler and cleaner. Another possible side-effect may well be a decrease in the amount of available icons you need to scroll through, as designers will not need to provide four icons of different dimensions for each application.

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Home Button
In Android 3., pressing the house button required customers towards the default middle desltop. Now, pressing the house button will require you to definitely the final desltop you had been on. And talking about pressing buttons, this update also provides choices to set the amount of time prior to the system registers your touch-and-hold action. You will find three options: short, medium, and lengthy. Choosing the lengthy option implies that the tablet won’t register your press until in regards to a second passes.
System Performance
The very first version of Honeycomb provided a great, but slightly unstable, experience. Google claims the new updates have ironed out many of the kinks. To check this out, we opened up all the applications permitted within the application tray (16) and switched backwards and forwards to ascertain if the machine could rapidly start where we left off in each application. Applications incorporated Google Earth, Google Navigation, YouTube, Music, Angry Wild birds, Glow Hockey, and Air Attack HD. Remarkably, each application carried out as always, and that we saw minimal delay when jumping between applications. Whenever we opened up four more applications (getting the entire to twenty) and switched together, the Xoom began showing some jerkiness.
Regrettably, we still observed a small delay when switching from landscape and portrait mode.
Videos Application
To accompany the relaxation from the standard Android multimedia applications (Camera, Gallery, Movie Studio, and Music), a brand new Videos application continues to be added, giving customers use of a lot more than 3,000 movies available for rental with the Android Market. When starting the application, i was welcomed with a listing from the top rental fees at the end from the screen, with My Rental fees and private Videos above and left. The My Rental fees tab lists the present movies you’ve leased together with their expiration date. The Private Videos tab shows any videos that you simply recorded or loaded to the tablet.
Within the top right from the screen there’s a hyperlink to buy movies within the Android Market along with a drop-lower menu for configurations and Manage Offline Rental fees, among other available choices. Manage Offline Rental fees allows you pin (download) the film for your device for offline viewing. You are able to download as numerous movies as the memory holds. This feature has become also part of the books application and Google’s lately introduced Music Beta application.
Android Market Movie Rental fees
As pointed out, customers now be capable of rent movies in the Android Market. Presently, you will find about 3,000 game titles, from blockbusters like the entire Harry Potter and The almighty from the Rings series to more obscure game titles. Once you rent a film, you’ve thirty days to begin watching it after which 24 hrs as soon as you hit play until it expires. Rental prices vary from .99 for lesser -nown movies as much as .99 for HD game titles most films presently choose .99 or .99. As the prices is roughly exactly the same as with the iTunes store, Apple’s market includes TV series, something not on Android.
To try out the streaming performance and playback capacity, we bought Country Strong (720p HD) and Eco-friendly Hornet (480p SD). The very first factor that struck us only agreed to be how good the streaming playback was. Following the initial loading, the films performed easily over Verizon’s 3rd generation network, despite only three from five bars and services information. The entire experience was similar to what you are able access it Netflix streaming on the laptop or iPad.
Expensive Player 10.3
Within our last hands-up with Expensive Player 10.2, we noted it was impossible to experience HD videos or toggle the amount option online videos. We’re pleased to report that, after upgrading to Expensive 10.3, a lot of individuals issues happen to be resolved. We could watch YouTube and Vevo HD videos with no problem. We also observed that videos began just a little faster and performed a lot more easily.

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