How to safely root the Motorola Milestone 2 (A953) phone (Droid 2 for Europe)

November 27th, 2010

After 16 years of other phone brands I turned back to Motorola (thanks to Android) the other week when they release the popular Droid 2 smartphone in Europe under the Milestone 2 name . It is currently one of the few Android phones with a physical keyboard. I scanned the Android and Moto hacking community forums for quite a while to find instructions on how to root the phone. I finally found a very easy solution and decided to share my learnings for anyone interested.

Please note that the fact that this worked perfectly for me does not remove the possibility that you destroy your new phone. Proceed with caution!

Here is how to root your Milestone 2 (A953) phone in less than 5 minutes:

  1. Open the Android market and search for z4root
  2. Install and open up the z4root app
  3. Select the Permanent root option (Note! The Temporary root option did not work for me)
  4. Wait for the process to finnish, the phone will automatically reboot. This can take up to 4-5 minutes.
  5. Enjoy your rooted phone!

All the credits for creating the root solutions goes to RyanZA, z4ziggy, and
Sebastian Krahmer’s rageagainstthecage. Find more information and support from the XDA-developers support forum.

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Hugely Improve the Battery Life of the Samsung Galaxy Tab

November 10th, 2010

Samsung Galaxy Tab Battery

My tablet experiences have been completely spoiled by the excellent battery life of the Apple iPad. It usually lasts for a week without recharging with normal use. That can not be said about the otherwise great Galaxy Tab by Samsung. In practice, during my first week as an owner I had to pretty much charge it every night. Of course I used it more but it was still limited to 2-3 hours a day. Having some experience in maximizing battery life on Android gadgets I’ve tried quite a few ways of increasing the stamina and Ive now gone almost 24hrs with over 70% battery left. That is as much as twice as much I usually have at this time a night. Huge improvement! Here is what I did.
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Samsung Galaxy Tab vs. Apple iPad – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

November 6th, 2010

Samsung Galaxy Tab vs. Apple iPad

I’ve had my Samsung Galaxy Tab (EU version with 3G) for just over a week now, great device. I’ve also used the Apple iPad (Wifi only version) for about 6 months and I wanted to do quick comparison between the two. Both devices are great, just different. Which one is more suitable for your needs depends on what you are looking for. Overall, I vote slightly in favor of the iPad for the moment because of its great battery life and sleekness of the UI but I still have hopes that the next couple of Android OS updates will even this out.

To keep things simple, I’ve listed the good and bad for respective tablet below. The good means that it clearly beats the competitor. I decided not to separately highlight stuff where they are evenly good (or bad).

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Top 5 Games for the Samsung Galaxy Tab

October 31st, 2010

Samsung-Galaxy-Tab3 I just got my brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab last Friday, the perfect new toy for the weekend. The device itself is great. Build quality is excellent and I really like the 7” size. My iPad is still great but somehow I like the Samsung Tab better because of the smaller size and weight. Software wise Android is still “a bit” behind iOS and I hope that the next Android releases from Google will close part of the gap  regarding smoothness of UI and eye candy. Anyway, I wanted to test our the game playability on the large screen estate of the Tab and tested out quite a few games over the weekend. Here are my summary of the best games I found that I love playing on the 1024×600 resolution screen (it is great, not as good as the Retina but still extremely good). Personally, I love simple games with great value for sporadic gaming, so you won’t find SIMs on my list below.

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