Nearly a year on from its initial launch the Advent Vega is still one of the best value Android tablets on the market, especially when deals such as this come up, but the stock install of Android 2.2 (FroYo) is getting a bit dated now, even with the sterling work done by Paul and others at MoDaCo.com who made some huge improvements to the stock Android image within days of the tablet being launched.

As you may be aware, Google has been working on a new 3.x branch of Android codenamed Honeycomb which is specifically designed for tablets. Unlike the older 1.x and 2.x series of Android the source code for Honeycomb is not yet available but naturally that hasn’t stopped the hacker community from bringing it to tablets other than the few that have so far been released with it and it wasn’t long after Honeycomb first launched on the Motorola Xoom earlier this year before the first unofficial versions for the Vega, known as VegaComb, started to appear.

Without official support it has been a rocky road to get it to the point where it is now with pretty much everything is working as it should, there was even a problem recently that could cause permanent damage to the speakers but with that now solved and all the important things working it seems to have reached the stage where it is now ready for daily use, there are still a few issues but nothing that is a deal breaker for me.

Installing VegaComb on the Vega is a doddle although it will mean a clean install. First you need to flash the ModdedStock firmware image, a procedure which is identical to flashing an official update, this installs a modified stock ROM that changes the partition sizes to those more suitable for Honeycomb and adds the ClockworkMod recovery system. Once the ModdedStock image has been installed reboot the Vega, connect it to your PC and copy the VegaComb zip file to the root of the Vega’s Micro SD card. Then run the “Recovery” app which will reboot the Vega into ClockworkMod where you can then install the VegaComb ROM using the normal recovery method.

Having used the Vega for the best part of a year I was initially sceptical as to what benefits Honeycomb could bring, I didn’t feel that the FroYo experience on a tablet was bad at all but Honeycomb really is a huge improvement, little tweaks like the task switcher make all the difference and the new on screen navigation makes the Vega’s shortage of hardware buttons even less of an issue than before. There is also improved handling of widgets and notifications, improved copy and paste and a much better browser. Graphics performance seems to be very good and I’ve seen none of the video artifacting or tearing that was common on the MoDaCo modded ROMs and the handling of wi-fi is much better, you can leave it connected when the screen is turned off which was always something that bugged me about the stock based ROMS. Overall it’s definitely a slicker and more tablet oriented experience.

VegaComb definitely gets the thumbs up from me, if you’ve got a Vega and haven’t already tried it, now is the time.

I’ve just received one of these wonderful little I/O boards for Android. The IOIO connects to an Android phone or tablet via USB allowing it to act on external inputs and control external devices, no modification of the Android device is required and no firmware programming is necessary, just ordinary Android application authoring with a very simple API for controlling the pins on the board. Optionally it can also provide power to charge the phone or even run some external devices such as small servos.

By allowing you to use all the computing power and connectivity of an Android device along with its built in sensors and devices such as the display, camera, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, gyroscope, accelerometer etc. for interfacing with external peripherals the IOIO opens up a whole world of possibilities. I don’t have any specific use in mind for mine at the moment, I’ll just be experimenting for now but there is obviously huge potential there.

IOIO Main Features:

• 48 I/O pins – all of which can function as digital inputs and outputs
• Up to 16 analogue inputs (10-bit)
• Up to 9 PWM outputs
• Up to 4 UART channels
• Up to 3 SPI channels
• Up to 3 TWI (I²C-compatible) channels
• On-board switch-mode regulator providing up to 1.5A of 5V supply.
• Can charge the Android device as well as power a couple of small motors
• Bootloader on the board pulls firmware off phone, enabling OTA firmware upgrades and application-specific firmware.
• Pulse-width measurement, capacitance sensing and more (will be pushed with first OTA firmware upgrade)

The Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK) recently announced at Google I/O has some similarities but for the hobbyist the IOIO has some major benefits compared to the ADK as it currently stands. The IOIO is a lot cheaper for starters (50USD v 400USD) and is easier to use since you only will need to write code for your app, no embedded programming in C++ is needed and whereas the ADK requires Android 2.3.4 or higher the IOIO will work on 1.5 or above so recycling old handsets for use in a project is possible. It is hoped that the ADK protocol can be added to the IOIO in future.

The IOIO is open source (both hardware and software) and was developed by Ytai. It is available to buy online from SparkFun here.

There is an online user guide available, a discussion group and a great beginners guide from SparkFun here.

The Advent Vega is a £250 Android tablet from the DSG group which has been hotly anticipated since its announcement a couple of months ago. The specification is high for the price point with a 10.1″ widescreen LCD with capacitive touchscreen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, front facing camera, HDMI output, USB port and Micro SD slot. The processor is a dual core Nvidia Tegra T20 running at 1 GHz and the custom Android 2.2 (Froyo) install runs brilliantly on it as you would expect.

Hardware
Battery life is great with a claimed 6.5 hours of HD video playback and early testing seems to back that up. Build quality is very good and the 10.1″ LCD is bright with vivid colours and a 16:9 aspect ratio making it ideal for video, it is only let down slightly by the viewing angle which isn’t great in the vertical plane but is still perfectly acceptable. Unlike most tablets in this price range the touchscreen is capacitive, supports multitouch and responds very well. There is no oleophobic coating so it can be a bit of a fingerprint magnet.

Unusually for Android hardware there are no hardware home or menu buttons, just a back button on the top right hand edge next to the orientation lock and power button, instead the home, menu and another back button are on the customised notification bar at the top of the touchscreen. Additionally, a long press of the hardware back button also functions as menu and a long press of the power button brings up the shutdown menu which also includes a home option. Holding the power button for 6 seconds or show shuts the unit off straight away.

The lack of dedicated buttons is a strange design decision and possibly a sign that the hardware wasn’t originally designed with Android in mind. I would certainly have preferred the three standard hardware buttons but it is something I was aware of and can live with. To the left of the power button is the built in microphone which I’ve tried with the Skype test call feature and it seems to be quite decent.

Moving on with the hardware, on the right hand edge we have the power socket, a flap concealing the full size HDMI port, USB port (slave only, type A) and the Micro SD slot (a 4GB card is included), a 3.5mm headphone socket and finally, the volume controls.

The stereo speakers are fitted at the bottom of the back cover and sound reasonable for the size. A front facing camera is situated in the top of the bezel surrounding the screen, it’s only 1.3 Mega-pixel and for some unknown reason outputs a mirror image but it is better than nothing and will be fine for video chat using Fring etc. Finally, on the bottom edge is a port for a forthcoming dock/stand (front picture), price yet to be announced.

Behind the scenes we’ve got that NVIDIA T20 Tegra 2 Dual Core processor (actually a system-on-a-chip with utilising a dual core Cortex A9 variant) running at 1 GHz, 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 802.11b/g WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. Not too shabby at all.

Software
The Vega runs the latest version of Android, 2.2 aka Froyo. Other than the addition of the home, menu and back buttons to the notification bar already mentioned a few other minor modifications have been made to Android to make it more suitable for a tablet, small things such as removing the GSM signal icon and other irrelevant phone references. Overall, it is very slick and a big jump from most of the cheaper Android tablets we’ve seen on the market so far, Flash 10.1 is included and works fine with iPlayer, TVCatchup, YouTube etc and the standard media player is hardware accelerated for the Tegra 2 and has played everything I’ve thrown at it flawlessly.

As with all Android tablets that don’t have 3G the biggest downside with the out of the box setup is the lack of the Android Market and other Google apps such as GMail, Maps and YouTube. I believe this is because Google will currently only allow their apps on systems with a minimum hardware spec that includes GSM/3G communications, traditionally this has been done to make sure all Market apps will work fully so as to maintain the user experience. Hopefully this should change with the imminent Gingerbread (Android 2.3) release rumoured to be due soon. Google have recently introduced a method for developers to state whether their apps require certain features such as GSM or GPS in order to run which will prevent applications appearing for devices on which they won’t run properly and thus maintaining a smooth user experience.

As expected it didn’t take long (less than 24 hours) for the community to come up with a way to get the Market and Google apps running on the Vega, in this case it was Paul at MoDaCo and due to the way the Vega ROMS are updated it is very easy to do with no rooting required. It’s also risk free – you can always reflash to a stock ROM if you want and the official Advent Vega Twitter feed has said in response to enquiries about this voiding the warranty that their warranty is on the hardware and have even made suggestions for finding ways round the Market issue which shows they don’t have an issue with it. To install the Android Market and Google apps head on over to the MoDaCo forums here, it takes no more than a couple of minutes to do but note that your Vega must be running the official 1.4 ROM before installation, mine came with 1.3 installed but the 1.4 update is available here and is easy to update with one slight annoyance being that it requires a Windows PC to do (the MoDaCo mod is Windows/Linux/Mac compatible). Once I had done the mod the next thing I did was to install LauncherPro which is much better than the standard launcher with many customisation options and allows a lot more widgets and icons to be installed on the home screens and provides a lot of extra features similar to those provided by HTC Sense.

Verdict
I’m very pleased with it and I think it is amazing value for money at £250 with the caveat that the mods from MoDaCo are a must, I waited to make sure adding the Market was possible before buying and wouldn’t have bought it otherwise so bear that in mind. I’d have liked it to have had proper Home, Menu and Back buttons and the camera could be improved but neither are a deal breaker. At the moment the only close contender in this price range seems to be the Archos 101 at around £270 but it only has half the RAM of the Vega which is going to affect performance and limit future OS upgrades.

Where to get one
At the moment the Vega is only available online through the PC World, Currys or Dixons websites in limited numbers as and when stock is available. If you want to get your hands on one the best bet at the moment is to follow @AdventVega on Twitter and keep an eye out for their announcements.

As is the way with these things DSG don’t actually make the hardware, the Vega is a branded version of a tablet known as the P10AN01 from Japanese ODM WSL and some other variations are starting to appear such as this one from Expansys and I’m sure more will follow in time.

Advent Vega Specifications:

• NVIDIA T20 Tegra 2 Dual Core Cortex A9 running at 1 GHz
• 10.1″ 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen with multitouch
• 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 4GB microSD (supports up to 32GB)
• 802.11b/g WLAN
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• USB port
• HDMI output
• 1.3MP camera
• Battery life: LCD off: 16hrs, 1080p Video: 6.5hrs, Standby: 4 days
• Size: 275 x 178 x 13.6 mm (W x D x H)
• Weight: Approx. 700-750 g

One of the driving forces behind my switch from the iPhone to Android was the ease and openness of the development platform and that development didn’t require a Mac. It didn’t take me long to get stuck into the SDK and I am pleased to say that my first Android app has been published onto the Android Market today. “Sniper SelfTrack” is an application to control and handle responses from the Sniper SelfTrack GPS vehicle tracking device.

The SelfTrack app allows the user to easily control all the functions of the Sniper SelfTrack tracking system from the main screen and will display user friendly messages on receipt of a message from the tracker and shows the vehicles position using the Google Maps API. Context sensitive help is available by pressing and holding each button and the user can select the sound played on receipt of an alert as well as if they want haptic feedback (vibrate on button presses) and whether to load the basic map only or the full aerial photograph view (slower on a mobile connection).

Features:

• Show current location of vehicle with map only or aerial view
• User friendly display of messages from the tracker
• Customisable alert sounds
• Listen in to the vehicle
• Turn AutoTrack on/off
• Turn immobiliser on/off
• Turn Tow Alert on/off
• Turn Alarm Alert on/off
• Turn Overspeed Alert on/off
• Change Overspeed setting
• Get a status report from the tracker including battery voltage, GPS status, GSM signal

You can find the application by searching for Sniper SelfTrack in the Android Market app or by clicking here on your phone . You can also find it on AppBrain here. Obviously it is only going to be of any use if you have one of the Sniper trackers in your car.

I’ve really enjoyed getting back into some non web based coding. I’ve never seriously programmed in Java before but it’s sufficiently C like that it didn’t take me long to get to grips with it along with the Android specific things like the BroadcastReceivers, Intents, SmsManager and the Google Maps API. Everything is so well structured and documented that anyone with a rudimentary background in programming shouldn’t have any problem getting started.

An application like this that only works with a specific device is going to have a limited market admittedly so I’m hoping I can come up with something with a wider appeal for my next project – let me know in the comments if you have any ideas for apps you would like to see available on Android.

Photo credit: jyri

Anyone with a Google Apps account (aka Google Apps for Your Domain or GAFYD) will be familiar with the discrepancies regarding certain Google services and their availability to Apps users. Google Reader for example requires a normal Google Account, an Apps account won’t do. The way round this is to create a separate Google Account using your Apps email address but this leaves you with two separate accounts with no integration and duplication of some services such as Google Docs. All in all it is a mess.

I came across a doozy of a problem this week though. I recently switched from an iPhone to the HTC Desire which of course runs the Google backed Android OS. Android is pretty tightly integrated with Google, offering automatic email, calendar and contacts syncing among other features and very good it is too.

All went swimmingly until after a week I came across an app I wanted that wasn’t free so I clicked on “buy” in the Android market only to be presented with a selection of strange, yet somehow familiar credit cards to use to make the purchase. This threw me for a minute until I realised they were cards that belong to the company I work for and were assigned to a Google Checkout account associated with my work gmail account. An account I had added to my Desire after adding my personal Google Apps account. Nowhere did the Android Market indicate that it had “chosen” this account.

So how do I switch to my personal apps account? This turned out to be a bit problematic. Actually it’s worse than that, it isn’t possible. A Google Apps account can’t purchase from the Android Market even if you have created a Google Account using the same email address and it is a known, long term problem. I found a workaround here, but it wouldn’t work for me as I’d already added my work gmail account to my phone and that was taking precedence. So, the obvious solution is to delete my work gmail account from my phone yes? No! Android won’t let me delete that account unless I do a factory reset (and lose all data on the phone) because it is “required by some apps”.

In the end I took the easy way out and added my credit card to the Google Checkout account associated with my work gmail account which now leaves me with the risk of accidentally paying for a work purchase with my personal card or purchasing an app using a work card.

I know Google have recently made noises that they are working on sorting this nonsense out but it needs sorting like yesterday!

After over 18 months as a very happy iPhone 3G user I decided it was time to make the switch to Android with the wonderful HTC Desire. As a long term Linux user Android would seem to be my natural place and with the Desire the hardware seems to have pretty much caught up with the Apple world so there was no excuse. Having this great new phone without running the latest and greatest release of Android seemed silly though and not wanting to wait for HTC and O2 to pull their fingers out and release an official update the only answer was to root it and install an unofficial ROM. I was pleasantly surprised how easy this was.

So here is a guide to how I installed Android 2.2 with HTC Sense on my HTC Desire using unrevoked3 and AdamG’s “Official” Froyo HTC Sense ROM (version 1.0c).

Obviously I take no responsibility if you follow this and anything goes wrong but it worked for me on my Desire with HBOOT 80. Rooting using the new unrevoked3 is a breeze and a Goldcard is NOT required and as long as you are careful to make a Nandroid backup of your original setup before flashing a replacement ROM then you can’t really go wrong.

Note that by doing this you will void any warranty you may have.

Requirements:
Linux PC (Ubuntu 10.04 in my case)
HTC Desire
USB Cable
Titanium Backup from the Android Market
Unrevoked3 from here (16.1 MB)
Updated Radio ROM from here (11.3 MB)
Froyo Sense ROM from here (134.4 MB)
About 30 minutes

STEP 1: Rooting

First of all on the Desire go to:
Settings -> Connect to PC and set the default connection type to “Disk drive” and untick “Ask Me”
then
Settings -> Applications -> Development and tick “USB Debugging” and “stay awake when charging”
and finally in
Settings -> Applications tick “Unknown Sources”

Connect the Desire to your PC using the USB cable.

Open a terminal on the PC and do:
wget http://downloads.unrevoked.com/recovery/3.1/reflash.tar.gz
tar zxvf reflash.tar.gz
sudo ./reflash

Wait a few minutes while unrevoked3 does its thing.

When it has finished the Desire should then reboot into recovery mode and unrevoked will say “Done!”, reboot the phone by clicking the trackpad.

That’s the root done. Yes, it’s that easy!

STEP 2: Backup existing apps & settings

Disconnect the Desire from your PC.
Download Titanium Backup from the Android Market.
Run it and dismiss the message saying it can’t get root privileges.
Click “Problems?” at the top and then “Yes, do it”.
Back everything up with Menu -> Batch -> Backup all user apps + system data

STEP 3: Install new Froyo ROM

You need the 5.x radio ROM
and the Froyo ROM

Do NOT unzip these files, just copy them to the root of your MicroSD card.

Turn the Desire off.
Turn it back on by holding the power button and the volume down button.
Scroll to Recovery using the volume buttons and select it with the power button.
Scroll using the volume buttons and press the trackpad to select Nandroid and then backup. <- IMPORTANT! This gives you something to fall back on should it all go wrong.
After the backup process has finished select install zip from sdcard then choose zip from sdcard and select the radio ROM (32.42.00.32U_5.09.00.08.zip).
Let this complete and then select install zip from sdcard again followed by choose zip from sdcard and select the Froyo ROM (sensefroyo_v1.0c.zip)
When this has completed use the back button to go back to the first recovery screen and select wipe data/factory reset.
Reboot when the wipe/factory reset has completed.

Your Desire should now reboot into Android 2.2 with HTC Sense.

STEP 4: Restore your old apps & settings

Download Titanium Backup from the Android Market again
Run it and click “Problems?” at the top and then “Yes, do it”.
Restore your old apps and settings with Menu > Batch > Restore missing apps + all system data

STEP 5: Enjoy

Enjoy the speed improvements and extra features offered by Android 2.2 such as 720p HD video recording and being able to use your phone as a WiFi Hotspot.

Update 4/8/10: An optional step you may want to do, setting up A2SD

One thing I neglected to do initially was set up A2SD which is a hack to allow apps to be stored on the SD card. My thinking was that the new facility in Froyo to copy apps to the SD card would do the job, unfortunately the built in method requires that each app is coded to allow this and as I found out very few are at the moment. I soon ran out of space.

A2SD is already installed in the ROM I’ve used above. To get it working all you need to do is create an ext partition on your SD card, this is where your apps will be stored. Doing this will wipe your SD card so if you already have data on it back it up first, just connect your Desire to your PC and copy the contents of the SD card to a directory on your PC.

I used ROM Manager from the Android Market to partition the card. Select the option to partition and set swap size to 0 and choose the size of the ext partition you want, I chose 512Mb which seems plenty and I’ve seen it advised that you don’t use more than 1.5Gb as it can cause problems. The remaining space on your SD card can be used for data etc. just as before.

Reboot the phone and A2SD will automatically copy your existing apps to the SD card and any apps you install in future will be stored on the SD card. You can copy your original data back from your pc to the remaining space now as well.

Doing this has meant I’ve gone from under 15Mb free on the phone storage to 120Mb.