My New Android Phone
My new mobile phone is a Samsung Galaxy Portal. I chose the Galaxy Portal because at the time, it was the cheapest Android phone I could get on contract with three – It was possible to get the phone for just a few pounds more than I was already paying.
Since then, there is now a cheaper Android phone from ZTE I could have had that without any increase, so I’m interested to see how it compares to my Galaxy.
I’m happy with the Samsung, even though its costing me a little more. One of the first things I tried with it was the Skype Client. I Use Skype quite a lot, and on three, the free Skype calls appear to be routed through their voice network – incoming calls appear as a regular call – but even so, on the Nokia E63 I was using, skype calls didn’t quite have the same quality as regular mobile calls or pc based skype calls. On the Galaxy, the skype calls have much better quality audio.
The Next thing I noticed (possibly because I was doing so much Skype Calling 
was that battery life on the Galaxy is much shorter than on the Nokia – but I have been used to the E63′s long battery life.
Searching around, I read that leaving programs running can draw more from the battery, I’m guessing that the processor is slowed down by the Android system when its not needed. What I couldn’t find in the Android software, was a way of seeing what was actually still running.
To the rescue came ‘Task Manager’ from Rhythm Software, it can be installed free (add supported) using Google Market.
Task Manager will Show you all of the apps and running in your phone and let you shut them off all at once – you can mark apps you want to keep running, and these wont be listed next time you use Task Manager.
Another App I picked up from Google Market is ‘IM+ Lite’ its Instant Messaging Software, but importantly for me, it will talk to any Jabber/XMPP chat server, as well as Google, Live, Yahoo etc.. Using it, I can send commands to my Router-Hardware controller that uses a php chat client to listen for commands – more on that here.
After being used to having the qwerty keyboard on the Nokia E63, it takes me a bit of getting used to the touch screen on the Galaxy Portal. My fingers seem to be the wrong shape and size
In the Android system however, you are not stuck with the keyboard software that comes with the phone. I tried several different keyboard apps from the market before finding ThickButtons. ThickButtons cleverly watches as you type and after each key, makes the buttons it thinks you might be going to use next bigger! This works very well – for me, so far, and I’m pleased, because before I found it, I was starting to wonder just how long I would go before having to get a Android Phone with a ‘propper’ keyboard.
Even if your fingers are the right shape and size, you might want to check out the ThickButtons app to see if it increases your typing rate.