Showing posts with label samsung. Show all posts
Showing posts with label samsung. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Firefox for Android is STILL NOT compatible with Samsung Galaxy Ace

 This is what the Mozilla blog said yesterday about the newly added support for the armv6 processors. You can see that the post clearly mentions the Samsung Galaxy Ace.

But when you head happily to the Play Store to install Firefox you will be greeted by Google saying that the Galaxy Ace is not compatible(See the pic below).

'GT-s5830' is the Samsung's Model Number for Galaxy Ace. Why did this happen when the guys at Mozilla clearly mentions the phone?.

Turns out the guys didn't do their home work on the internals of Galaxy Ace. Firefox for Android added support for ARMV6 but not for phones with RAM less than 512MB. Sadly our Galaxy Ace has only 278MB. It did not meet the minimum requirement and hence is incompatible. See the 'Whats new' section of the Firefox app below.


800MHz was fine with the Ace but 512MB RAM pushed the phone out. But the Galaxy Ace Plus, Ace 2 and Ace Duos users are at luck here.

I hope the guys at Mozilla would promptly lift the RAM requirement and would let use the Best browser available out there.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus Specs comparison with original ace

This is the specs comparison of Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus s7500 ( Announced Jan 2012) with the original galaxy ace s5830( Announced Feb 2011).

Galaxy ace is one of the most successful smartphones from samsung as it delivers greats specs at an affordable price tag. The second in the ace series address some( not all) of the most nagging problems of the original ace had.

Design and dimensions


The new galaxy ace plus s7500 is taller(114.7 vs 112.4 mm), broader  (62.5 vs 59.9mm), thinner (11.2 vs 11.5mm) and a little lighter (111gm vs 113gm) than the original s5830.

Galaxy ace plus doesn't look particularly different from its predecessor except for the camera. The camera has been moved to the center from the side. Also the camera window and flash is now squarer instead of circular in the previous model. On opening the lid it comes clear that the location of the Sim card slot and the camera has been swapped to move it to the center.


The change in shape and location of the camera window spares galaxy ace plus from controversial iphone like look of the original ace.

Another change is the location of micro USB port which has been moved to the bottom in the new model. Also the lid protecting the micro USB port ( which on repeated usage causes damage to bezel) appears to have gone in the galaxy ace plus.

The screen

The screen of galaxy ace plus is a little bigger at 3.65 " compared to the 3.5" of the predecessor. But the resolution remaining the same ( 320 x 480 HVGA), it eventually is a disadvantage to the s7500. The pixel density is dropped to 158 ppi from an already mediocre 165 ppi in the original s5830.

The Processor and Memory

This is where the galaxy ace plus really scores. The processor has been upped to 1Gz (from 800MHz) and the RAM to 512 MB (from 278 MB). The internal memory available to the user has got a very significant boost, from 150MB of user available memory to 3GB of internal memory ( Increased to about 20 times).

The internal memory is divided into two sections. 1GB is dedicated specifically to apps and the rest 2GB is a shared memory for apps, pics and other multimedia files. This means that a hell lot of apps can be installed and you won't need micro SD card mounted to take photos. But I am not sure if the internal memory shows up in USB storage mode because if it doesn't, you will need samsung kies to move your photos (Disadvantage to a Linux user).

While bluetooth has been upgraded to version 3.0, all other connectivity options remain the same.

The phone comes with Gingerbread 2.3 with touchwiz UI layered upon. Given the fate of Samsung Galaxy S with the Ice Cream Sandwich update, I seriously doubt this phone will ever receive one. Samsung also announced that ace plus will be preloaded with full version of Thinkfree document editor, chat on services and usual Google services.

The camera

The camera is completely same as the previous model. It sports a 5 MP auto focus shooter with video recording upto 480p ( VGA recording). There is no secondary camera in galaxy ace plus.

Battery

samsung actually reduced the battery capacity from 1350 mAh on the base model to 1300 mAh in the ace plus. The battery back up on the original ace is considered to be one of the worst(I needs to charge it twice a day). Unless samsung has found a way to use battery in a way more efficient way, it is not going to stand a chance even to its predecessor.

The Price

Samsung is yet to announce a tag to the phone. But it is speculated to be around INR 16,000 ($ 320). This speculation is based on the current price of galaxy ace s5830 in samsung website (Rs 14,600 or $290). 

I think this phone doesn't stand a chance at that range as better spec'd phones ( better resolution (480 x 800), front camera, HD recording, HD playback and better battery among others) are available at a near ( Motorola Defy plus) or lesser( Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V) price .

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Solve ''Couldn't install on USB storage or SD card'' error in android 2.2

Solution: Unmount the SD Card from Settings >> SD card and Phone Storage . Install the apps you need from the Android store.After the successful installation re mount your SD card to move the app to SD card. For that go to Settings >> Applications >> Manage Applications and click (touch) on the application you want to be moved. The details of the selected app will be shown. Select Move to SD card option. Your app will be moved to SD card.

Note: If the app vendor did not enable app2SD while programming the app , you will not be able to move it to SD card or install to it in the first place.


This error occurs in phones running on android 2.2, most notably samsung galaxy ace, samsung galaxy pop and motorola droid x. When you try to download and install an app from the android market, the app will be downloaded completely but installation will fail showing "Installation error Couldn't install in USB storage or SD card". 
 
As the download is completed everytime when you try to install something, and nothing gets installed, its a complete waste of time and bandwidth.

Update : Found a permanent solution for the installation error in samsung galaxy ace - do the update to Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread. After I updated my samsung galaxy ace there was no further occurrence of this installation error.

The following solution worked for me for some time but again came back and got increased to a point where none of the apps were getting installed without unmounting SD card first. Anyway its better to be able to install apps than not hence here is the solution.

Step 1 Unmount the SD Card from Settings >> SD card and Phone Storage .

Step 2 Install the app you need from the Android Market. As the SD card is unmounted, the installation will complete without errors.

Step 3  Now re-mount your SD card to move the app to SD card. See the tutorial to move an app to SD card.

The moving to SD card will work only if the developer of the app enabled moving to SD card while coding it.

Further installations can be done with the SD card mounted.

Story of my samsung galaxy ace


Samsung galaxy ace comes with a nice set of pre-installed apps but just the variety of apps in android market always lure you to it. So I straight away started downloading apps once I got my phone. Apps began downloading with out any hint of an approaching glitch.

Upon completion, an error popped up saying the installation is unsuccessful because the phone "Couldn't install on USB storage or SD card". I tried two or three times, but every time after the phone completed the download, same error showed up.

I searched internet for a possible solution, to my surprise, found several. Most of them were asking to delete a temp file smdl2temp1. I checked for the file with my file manager but couldn't locate it. So my search continued and somewhere in internet I found a suggestion to unmount the SD card and then to try an installation. I followed it and the app installed successfully.

After installation I moved the app to SD card and the process was completed successfully. Now after two successful installations I re mounted my SD card and tried another install. This time installation completed successfully and the app installed to SD card without showing any errors.

This method worked for some weeks at first and then the "Couldn't install on USB storage or SD card error" started to come back in a seemingly random fashion. It gradually increased in frequency to a point where none of the apps were getting installed with the SD card mounted, until I got the ultimate solution, an upgrade to gingerbread.

Note: The installation might be unsuccessful also if the memory available in the phone is too low.