Those familiar with the Samsung Galaxy S II specs should not be surprised as the 1.2GHz dual-core processor trumps that of the 1GHz single-core A5 chip in the iPhone. More importantly the GSII sports an 8MP camera with a 1.3MP front facing one and 1080p video shooting and of course the highly touted Super AMOLED Plus screen.

Of course, there’s more to the story than just specifications – the most significant difference between the two handsets lies in the software. Apple’s iOS operating system, found in all iPhones, has been in a fierce head to head battle with Google’s Android OS for quite some time now and though the iPhone brand still tends to give Apple the edge, this swing in sales is a significant victory for Android.

Except for the iPhone 4 at 2nd and the BlackBerry Curve 8250 at 9th, the top 10 was mostly uninterrupted by non-Android devices and HTC dominated most of the top seats though Samsung still took the number one seat. If you fancy picking up the top selling phone, you can compare Galaxy S II deals here.

The Motorola Xoom has 1080p HD video playback streaming, 10 hours of video playback, extended memory with MicroSD cards, a 10.1 inch screen supporting 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, Bluetooth 2.1, micro USB, Wi-Fi, 3G connectivity, 32 GB inbuilt memory, and 720p HD video recording. Motorola’s 2011 Android tablet got a good response from critics and remains the most viable competitor to Apple’s iPad 2.

The Motorola Xoom is the first Android tablet with Google’s tablet specific honeycomb Operating System. It is fast, beautiful and the touch screen is highly responsive. It also has HDMI output for computer or television monitor viewing. Motorola has packed in some great hardware and 4G network compatibility, for those regions where 4G is available. A few problems have been encountered by some users, such as an overcomplicated user interface, a few minor bugs and a shortage of high quality Honeycomb specific apps. The Motorola Xoom is also a little more expensive and heavier than Apple’s iPad, but overall is a solid choice for anyone looking to pick up an Android tablet this year.

This is because the phone to start-off, comes with an enormous 4.3 inch capacitive touch screen display that sends shivers down the spine of its competition. This is because the screen is capable of displaying pictures in 480 by 800 resolutions, despite boasting one of the biggest screens in the industry. The phone is also compact even with the large screen and has dimensions of 123 x 68 x 11.8 mm. The phone weights just over 160 grams and is incredibly light on your pocket.

The phone has internal memory of 1.5 GB and this can be increased to 32 GB using micro-SD memory cards in appropriate slots provided in the phone. The phone has 3G connectivity that lets you enjoy a maximum download speed of nearly 15 Mbps. This makes for ultra-fast internet connectivity, which can also be provided by the phone’s Wi-Fi option. The phone is set to feature the latest Android 2.2 operating system and to boost the phone’s security, it comes with HTC Sense.

The HTC Desire HD has an 8 megapixel camera that lets you enjoy photos in 3264×2448 resolutions. The photos appear bright and vivid and the added bonus of being able to enjoy 720p video recording option makes it even better. The phone runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 1 GHz processor, which has 768 MB of RAM to go along with it. These ensure that you are never found wanting more power. The phone will sport a retail price tag of £450 and is available in most online stores.

Size Doesn’t Always Matter

For a tablet computing gadget, size has its appeal. A bigger screen never fails to make the multimedia viewing a more pleasing experience than on a smaller screen. That’s the appeal of the iPad.

It’s a bigger iPhone and a bigger iPod Touch in one plus some nifty features. But the Samsung Galaxy Tab shows that size isn’t everything. It’s bigger than the biggest smartphone on the planet will all the telephony and connectivity features, plus, it has the size advantage to fit a large pocket or a hand bag at 190 x 120.5 x 12 mm and weighing 380g.

Better Features

It has a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash and D1 video recording at 30fps. It also has 3G video call support with a front facing 1.3 megapixel camera. It has a microUSB v2.0 slot and topping it off, it runs on a true multitasking Android v2.2, which is today’s hottest OS on any mobile gadget. All this the Apple iPad misses out.

Apart from that, the Samsung Galaxy Tab matches just about every feature on the iPad. You have the same 1Ghz ARM Cortex A8 processor with PowerVR SGX540 graphics accelerator under the hood. With a choice of 16GB or 32GB variant, it has all the radio and data connectivity options starting with a quad band GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE on 2G and a tri band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUP on 3G while local connectivity comes with WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP.

Other features include GPS receiver and A-GPS support, TV-out jack and 3.5mm headphone jack and a 4,000 mAh Li-ion battery that allows up to 7 hours of movie playback. Considering the Samsung Galaxy Tab offers available, this tablet really is an excellent choice.

Phone History

Some may argue that Google’s very own Nexus One should be considered as the quintessential Android device –after all, it was co-developed by Google as the ‘way an Android phone should be’. However, when one realizes that the Nexus One was badly distributed (there are very few units in circulations) and that HTC helped manufacture the product, one realizes how deeply entwined HTC is with the development of the Android operating system.

The Taiwan based phone manufacturer has been there since day one. They have been among the founding members of the open handset alliance and were the ones who manufactured the Dream, which eventually became the G1 Android. Since then, HTC has been present at every single major Android milestone.

Moving Up

This is why it is no surprise that the best high end Android device, was first made by the same company. The HTC Desire is everything that an Android loving fan would want. From the high speed Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU to the support for HD video recording, the phone packs just the right set of hardware features for everyone. The phone also has a 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen, a 1400 mAh battery and support for GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and microSD cards.

Naturally, the HTC Desire is not going to be on top of the spec sheet list for long (especially considering that HTC are releasing the HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z soon), but with specs like these, it will be a very long time before one can say that the handset is out of date.

Eric Chu of Google’s Android is aware of the issue and has announced that the Android market now has better security for the developers who contribute their works to the mobile platform. They have released a new licensing service, Market browsing enhancements (allowing users to easily access apps made for specific versions of the OS, such as apps for the Android 1.5 Cupcake) and most importantly, a method for the market to assess the license status for every user accessing the system.

While Google has not released any details on how the new licensing system actually works, it has been revealed that the system works in a real time basis –constantly checking users whenever they log into the Android market.

This level of security is pretty much on par with that the Apple iTunes store offers. However it has yet to be seen in action so we will have to reserve our judgment for later.

In other Android smart phone news, it appears that the Android 2.2. Froyo update has been leaked prematurely for the Samsung Galaxy S. Since this is an unofficial release, the update is not yet complete -though it is fully functional. According to Galaxy S owners who have braved the risk of trying out an update to the system firmware, the Froyo update is indeed as fast and efficient as Google claimed it to be.

As much as we would want to jump straight to the tech specs of this Android smart phone, it would be unfair to talk about the Stream without discussing how good the handset looks. Compared to other smart phones, the Acer Stream has a very futuristic appeal. The device’s form factor may be basic, but the use of the line contours is arguably the most appealing since the Motorola Milestone (or Motorola DROID in the US). Granted that Motorola has not released an Android smart phone for the high end tech bracket, the Acer Stream seems to have found a place.

The specs of the Stream are actually great, but not that impressive. The specs are indeed high end, but too many Android devices are already filling up the high end market choices. This leaves Asus with plenty of competition. At the same time, nothing will truly show the industry that Asus is up to task other than what is the industry equivalent of a trial by fire.

The 1GHz Snapdragon CPU is tried and tested on many other devices. So users can be assured that this processor is currently the new standard for a good reason: because it beats everything else before it. Apps, features, media, everything will load fast and run smooth on a device using this CPU.

The 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen is similar to the ones used in the HTC Desire and the Google Nexus One. Expect to get excellent response to commands, accurate finger tracking and most importantly, impressive visual quality.

According to the developers of the world famous search engine, they made the Nexus One for a very specific purpose, and in that regard, the smart phone is a success. But the company has no plans to keep selling the handset indefinitely and has finally decided to pull the plug on the online store.

Of course, the Nexus One is still available through other means. Vodafone UK is still offering the impressive Android smart phone on various plans and tariffs. In the meanwhile developers who were not able to snag a unit earlier this year will still have a change to get the device straight from Google –the developer exclusive channels are going to remain open. This means that the Nexus One will still serve a very important purpose in the development of the Android operating system.

While Google has directly announced that they have no intentions of working on or releasing a Nexus Two smart phone, no one can say if the company will stop working on actual smart phones altogether. As long as the industry’s technology keeps evolving, so will the Android operating system –and Google will eventually have to come up with a technologically superior handset to serve as part of their new developer’s tools.

For those who missed out on the details of the Google phone, this device was actually manufactured by Taiwan based phone maker, HTC. It also shares many similar hardware features with the Desire, an HTC made Android handset. Both devices use a 5 mega pixel camera, a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU and both phones have 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen displays.

That missing feature happens to be third party application multitasking. Unlike Apple’s iOS4, there is no way to simultaneously use two apps at once. The moment that you launch a new app, the first once is automatically terminated. It is truly a surprise considering the fact that Microsoft is aware of the fact that a lot of consumers are after multitasking, not only in mobile phones, but also in personal computers.

The announcement came from Mr. Yochay Kiriaty of Microsoft. He said that only a single application will be able to run in the foreground and all other background apps will be terminated. Say a game app is open, once the user tries to make a phone call, the game app is automatically close. Even by simply launching a picture browser, your current app will be closed.

“When a user navigates away from your application, either to a chooser like picture chooser, or to a launcher like phone call, Windows Phone operating system terminates your application.”

The only good news is that the last state of a particular app will be restored when the program is launched again. This may work for simple applications but for games and music apps, the lack of a proper third party multitasking is truly a big blow.

Hopefully, Microsoft has some sort of trick up its sleeve to increase the hype for their upcoming platform. After how the Kin duo fared, they really need it.

The slide out QWERTY keyboard has been a very elusive feature among HTC Android fans. While Motorola has already come out with the Milestone (known as the DROID in the US), and Sony Ericsson has recently offered the X10 Mini Pro, many would still want an HTC Android device over other manufacturers as the phone maker has been a constant in the development of the Android OS.

Taiwan based HTC has been a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, the first manufacturer to create an Android smart phone and they also made Google’s Nexus One as well.

For those who have never used a physical keyboard, the charm of the feature lies in the simplicity of its purpose: it helps people type faster. While it is pretty common to hear of people who can dish out hundreds of characters in a few seconds of a using a T9 keypad, the average person is not as fast. Virtual keyboards often suffice for quick typing requirements such as for Tweets or simple one-liners; but for making long forum posts or personal emails, having a physical keyboard changes the experience to a more convenient level.

In the meanwhile, haptic technology is pushing the limits of how a touch screen can emulate a physical keyboard. While the technology is quite impressive -using a combination of audio output and sometimes, vibration feedback; the technology is still a long way from a real slide out keyboard.