awful captcha
i cant remember what site this was on, but, it gave me a good laugh.
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new cliq (mb200)
i got a motorola cliq from double diamond pawn here in lisbon falls yesterday afternoon. as soon as i was done working i began researching new roms for it.
before the roms and overviews, here is a brief comparison of the cliq and cliq xt.
the big differences between the two phones (other than the obvious – cliq has a slide out keyboard) are that the cliq has no camera flash and it has 4x digital zoom (the cliq xt is fixed digital zoom). other than that the phones are remarkably similar.
so, on to the roms….
i tested out Adlxmod 2.1.5-5. now, with the cliq xt, Adlx’s roms are nothing shy of amazing. his consolidation rom was (in my opinion) the best rom to ever happen to the cliq xt. with the dns fix patch this is an amazing rom for the cliq.
J_r0dd’s TheOfficial v1.6 netfilter/swap/ext3/ext4/tun [2.14.11]. this is a rom brought to you by the guy who put together j_r0dd-mb200-v2.0 recovery image. i have used this on both the cliq and the cliq xt. this recovery image blows away any other one i have used, so i look forward to see what his rom will do for the cliq. (i am actually flashing the rom as i am writing this post).
i installed the rom and tested it out. amazing. very smooth. using the adw launcher instead of the blur home. i had not used this launcher before and i am rapidly becoming a big fan of it. the wifi did not work initially, however, after applying the patch i mentioned above everything worked flawlessly. i even ported the task manager app from the Adlx rom to this rom. so far it is a fantastic rom.
cliq xt rom testing
well, motorola successfully dragged their cliqxt customers around claiming for the last 10+ months that a 2.1 update would be coming out soon. they released this post stating that:
“After comprehensive testing of the Android 2.1 upgrade for the CLIQ XT, we have concluded that this device will remain on Android 1.5. We realize many of you were anxiously awaiting this upgrade, but we aim to deliver software upgrades only when it will provide a better customer experience.”
what was their idea of ‘comprehensive testing’?!? did they just look at the phone and decide it wasnt worth it?? i have been running the adlx 2.1 rom for 2 1/2 months now. initially the speakerphone problem while answering a call was a pain in the ass but after this patch came out it was damn near flawless.
so basically a big up yours to motorola for not even bothering to actually test out and develop 2.2 on the cliq xt. thankfully the members of modmymobile have diligently worked on porting 2.1 and 2.2 over to the cliqxt.
here is a quick overview of the processor, chipset and storage of the cliqxt:
| cpu clock | 528mHz |
| cpu | qualcomm msm7200a |
| cpu core | arm1136ej-s |
| ram type | sdram |
| ram capacity | 256mib |
| rom type | flash eeprom |
| rom capacity | 512 mib, including 256mib user-accessible non-volatile storage |
now, on to the roms i have tried out thus far.
the first rom was the adlxmod xt 2.1.54-1 for cliqxt / quench. my only issue with this rom was the speakerphone. when i answered a call i would have to tap the speakphone button twice before i could hear anything on the call. after a few days of using my phone like this it actually became second nature. overall this rom was amazing, granted, it still had all the moto-blur bloatware, but it ran super smooth.
the second rom i installed and tested was the basically blurless mm278 b2- motorola cliqxt and quench. i loved the variety in the dockbars, gingerbreads was especially nice. i also loved the lack of moto-blur crap that motorola likes to cram down their users throats. the interface is really smooth and the creator of this rom included the speakphone fix and the gingerbread dock bar and status bar. overall a very smooth rom and i have enjoyed it so far. the one thing i do miss from using adlxmod xt 2.1.54-1 was the app called ‘task manager’ which i apparently cant find anywhere. to be brutally honest, i was not impressed in any way with this rom (other than the fact that someone else created it – which i myself cannot do at this time).
adlxmod xt 2.1.54-2 “consolidation” for cliqxt / quench. this is, in my opinion, the best cliq xt rom yet. Adlx did an amazing job putting this consolidation rom together. it made my cliq xt super smooth, even with all the moto-blur crap. everything worked, wifi, 3g, camera, camcorder, market, even the speakerphone fix was included in this rom! hands down the best as far as i am concerned.
amazing android apps
i finally decided it was time to do another write up of android apps, seeming as how the first one was short and dull. after testing and trying and removing dozens of apps, i finally came up with a list of amazing ones. so here it is. oh, and all these listed below are free, they do have premium versions available of a number of these apps too.
emulators and games
romgripper
you will want this one to find a huge amount of roms for the emulators below.
gameboid lite
i grabbed this one for all the final fantasy remakes on gameboy advance. nothing better than some re-worked final fantasy.
gensoid lite
a great sega genesis emulator for android. sonic anyone?
nesoid lite
captain skyhawk. old school metroid. mario.
psx4droid lite
this app is literally a dream come true for me. i remember on 9/7/1997 when final fantasy 7 came out i rushed to movie gallery on main st in brunswick and bought a copy. i then proceeded to play the game for the rest of the day and most of the night. i remember dreaming of having final fantasy 7 on a hand held. this app brings that dream to life. granted, it runs a little choppy on my cliqXT, however, when i upgrade to a newer phone it will run beautifully. final fantasy 7 is seriously the only reason i downloaded this app.
snesoid lite
super nintendo. on your phone. need i say more about how epic this is? i mean, is there really much better than zelda: a link to the past, on your phone?
tools and other apps
aldiko
the best e-reader app i have used yet. i have used kindle and was not even close to impressed with it. aldiko is amazing. hands down the best.
andftp
a full ftp client for android. it supports ftp, ftps, scp and sftp. very easy to use and has a clean interface.
astro file manager
another must have for android users. you can backup all your apps to your sd card and restore them, you can manage running process’s, create zip and tar archives, and send files as attachments. it does a whole lot more too.
barcode scanner
a must have, especially if you want to scan all these nifty barcodes i have in this article.
camScanner
turn your phone into a scanner. it auto adjusts, auto crops, basically does it all for you so whatever you scan stays neat and clean. another one, that compliments this one, is camCard, its a business card scanner and organizer. very slick app.
connectbot
an awesome ssh client for android. i have used this several times for work.
qr droid
this is the barcode generator i used for all the barcodes in this article. i have used this several times with friends to transfer contact info, apps, etc. another must have for android.
remote droid
a remote control for your pc. use the touchpad for the mouse and there is an on-screen keyboard. i use this with the pc hooked up to my tv. it works incredibly well.
sms backup
this app backs up all your sms messages to your gmail inbox. you can even put a label on all the messages you backup. very handy little app.
teamviewer
teamviewer for android. a remote access and support program. another one i have used for work when in a bind and didnt have a pc to use.
wifi analyzer
a great wifi tool analyzing tool. great for finding out signal strength of in range wifi signals and channel strength.