Android 3.0 in Mid-October... Could the eDGe Ever Run It?

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Android-...news-7285.html

Reports on Gingerbread's specs--yanked from a Russian podcast--indicate that Android 3.0 will be released sometime in mid-October, and the first handsets with Gingerbread will begin to ship in November and/or December (maybe that 2 GHz Motorola Android phone??). This will also mean that Android will officially take two paths: v3.0 for high-end phones and v2.1/v2.2 for mainstream phones.

As for the minimum hardware specs, Gingerbread will demand a 1 GHz CPU, 512 MB of RAM, and a 3.5-inch display or higher--devices with 4-inch screens or higher will have a new resolution of 1280 x 760. That's mighty impressive given that we're talking about phones, and not low-end PCs.

The eDGe has a 1.2Ghz processor and 512MB of RAM, so no problem there. But the LCD display is "only" 1024x600 and obviously bigger than 4", so it's possible that the eDGe will never be able to run 3.0+.

Personally, if we can get 2.2 and full Flash support, then I'll be happy.

They didn't said that 1280 x 760 is the minimum. That just mean that maximum resolution officially supported now will be 1280 x 760. Android can scale any resolution, so there's no problem. Except for the speed of developing EE firmware.

As robot says, resolution is not a limit. After all, the eDGe is currently running Android 1.6 which has a much lower "official" resolution.

3.0 having higher resolution support will only make a large device like the eDGe that much better

As for enTourage rolling out 3.0, however long it takes enTourage to roll out 2.2 after Android 2.2 was officially released a few weeks ago, will give some indication how quickly they might roll out 3.0 after Android 3.0 is officially released towards the end of the year. Both releases seem to be equally significant version upgrades, so the projection should be reasonable.

Ah, I misunderstood. Thanks for the explanation.

Found article - rushed to post for explanation/comments.

I sleep well a night, knowing you're active and ever vigilant.

As good as Android 3.0 sounds the Edge currently is running at 800 Mhz and it quite sluggish at times. It may struggle with something more demanding.

Word has it that Android 2.2 introduces significant speed enhancements to Android apps (as in 2-5x faster). This would mean that 3.0 would run as fast or faster than 1.6 does on the eDGe now.

What is your source for the eDGe running at 800MHz?

FWIW, according to it's Wiki page (I couldn't find detailed specs on the CPU on EE's offical specs page), the eDGe uses a "1.2 GHz Marvel ARMADA™ PXA168" CPU. Or is it underclocked to improve battery performance or something?

As Boris said, Android 2.1 and 2.2 run considerably faster than 1.6, so it is not necessarily the case that performance would suffer if/when the eDGe ran 3.0.

Originally Posted by walt526

What is your source for the eDGe running at 800MHz?

See https://www.entourageedge.com/suppor...kbarticleid=41.

Interesting. Thanks for the link.

Originally Posted by walt526

As Boris said, Android 2.1 and 2.2 run considerably faster than 1.6, so it is not necessarily the case that performance would suffer if/when the eDGe ran 3.0.

I have read this, as well. I am more referring to the minimum requirements which Google has placed on 3.0. Underclocked (perhaps for battery and/or heat reasons?) at 800 Mhz it may not be fast enough even with the code optimizations. Who knows, maybe there could be a setting Entourage releases for the Edge so we can choose to use the full speed.

You can overclock it to 1.2 thanks to root, but I'll not recommend to this without special sotware which will monitor temperature of CPU 'cos seems that there's no cooling system in EE.

the cpu is limited due to poor battery life. dual boot book mode/android is helpful, I have seen some chinese android devices tri boot to android/wince/ubuntu so is possible. I bet we will still running on the 1.6 when everybody will be to 2.2/2.3 or 3. welldone edge. they probably have only one developer which is not well paid (probably a contractor).

Originally Posted by vicinc

I bet we will still running on the 1.6 when everybody will be to 2.2/2.3 or 3. welldone edge.

The edge was released just a few months ago. We've had an upgrade from 1.5 to 1.6 since then. The majority of Android devices are still on 1.6. Entourage says we'll have an upgrade to 2.something (likely 2.2) "soon". So far, I've found entourage's idea of "soon" to be a reliable promise as compared to things like Microsoft with their Courier, and PlasticLogic with their Que reader. Entourage deserves some patience from us and to be cut a little bit of slack. If we get to October with no 2.x then grumbling may resume.

I am just happy looking forward to 2.2 for now. This will be a big boost to the Edge - faster performance and full Flash support. Very cool. That alone would be a big step in the right direction.