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Androids & Gaming
Dec. 10th, 2010 12:49 amOK, I've owned my new HTC Desire HD phone for about 6 weeks now and I've made the transition from Windows Mobile 6.5 to Google Android 2.2. As with all new operating systems, there was a bit of getting used to it to begin with but now I can honestly say it's the best phone I've ever owned. To be fair, as phones are always advancing, it'd be rather surprising if I got a new phone that was worse than the previous one but all the same, both the software and hardware are huge improvements on what I had before. As people who know me will know; I like to get what I perceive to be the latest and greatest kit on the market at the time of purchase and at the time, my old phone did fulfil this criteria in terms of features.
With hindsight, I'd probably have said that of it's generation (phones available in October 2008), the iPhone would probably have been a better choice in terms of usability and geekiness. Android was in it's infancy back then with the Magic (G1) having just been released and that was an ugly beast. As I didn't want to get on the Apple bandwagon I decided to go with what I felt was the best alternative which was the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. Admittedly, it did tick all the boxes such as GPS, 3.5G, slide out keyboard and highest pixel density seen on a phone (800x480 on a 3" screen) however the Windows Mobile software really let it down. Through all the custom firmwares, I was able to make the phone more bareable but it was always just a compromise. By the end of my 2 year contract with the phone, I found myself not really using the physical keyboard as it was so fiddly and inaccurate compared with the onscreen keyboard.
Since I was used to using an onscreen keyboard, I wasn't so bothered about getting a new phone without a physical keyboard. With the advances in touchscreen technology, it's much easier to use the screen to type in stuff. The only downside being is that the keyboard takes up valuable space onscreen. So anyway, I got the HTC Desire HD as it again appeared to be the phone with all the bells and whistles in terms of software and hardware. 6 weeks in, I really don't regret my purchase. The software is superb and really well complimented by the wealth of applications available for the phone allowing you to pretty much use the phone how you want to. The only real downside I've found is the games.
It seems that gaming on Android isn't that great because of the number of different devices running different versions of Android and all the phones use different hardware, screen sizes and features. Therefore it appears difficult for developers to produce games which work on the majority of devices due to this fragmentation and this seems to have scared off the majority of big name developers. For example, my phone has all the latest chips for graphics, etc and so can get a Qualcomm Neocore benchmark better than even the new Nexus S (58.5fps vs 55.6fps respectively). Therefore, I can run all the 3D games available in the marketplace but other phones don't have the same capability. It seems the platform is screaming out for some kind of way of categorising the various phones and their abilities like what Microsoft Windows Vista and 7 do with the "Windows Experience Index". Therefore say if you have a category 5 phone you can run all the 3D games but if you have a category 1 phone you can only run tetris for example. With the introduction of Sony's Playstation phone, this may be changing for the better or we'll just end up with a bunch of games that are made exclusively for that phone and won't work on other models.
That said, as fun as gaming is, it's not a major factor of using a phone. The connectivity side is more entertaining for me, however it is nice to have the option to have a go on a game when in the break room or on a train. Rovio have done a good job with porting Angry Birds to Android but apparently it doesn't work on lower spec phones so they're having to produce an alternative version. Thing is, without the developers testing on these phones, they can't know which will work and which will not and with the sheer number of phones out there, they most likely have to take a gamble and if users have problems, only then say the game or application won't work on that device. This would all be prevented if the phones are benchmarked and categorised and developers can work towards those specifications rather than the individual models.
I imagine Google are aware of the concern with regards to the fragmentation. The way the operating system can be used on any device has been both a blessing and a curse. It's on lots of devices but there's lots of inconsistency. I can see why developers favour the iPhone and iPad as they have a fixed configuration of software and hardware to work towards. Ultimately, I imagine this is the same concern that developers have to deal with when developing for PCs compared with consoles. The PC solution is to say what the minimum and recommended specifications are for each game or application. Hopefully by the time Android version 3 rolls by, they Google will have figured out an elegant solution to all of this and these problems will be a thing of the past.
Other than the gaming, I would criticise the way the marketplace application works. The marketplace should be there to let you find what applications and games are out there, what's good, what's bad, what's new and what's recommended. However it seems very very hard to just stumble upon something you may like and it's only really good if you know what you're looking for. Google are making tweaks here as there's now a "related" tab for other applications like the one you're looking at, but it needs a big overhaul in my opinion.
Negatives aside however, I do still love my phone. It would always never be perfect but if Google can crack these niggles, then the phone will be even better than it is now :)
With hindsight, I'd probably have said that of it's generation (phones available in October 2008), the iPhone would probably have been a better choice in terms of usability and geekiness. Android was in it's infancy back then with the Magic (G1) having just been released and that was an ugly beast. As I didn't want to get on the Apple bandwagon I decided to go with what I felt was the best alternative which was the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. Admittedly, it did tick all the boxes such as GPS, 3.5G, slide out keyboard and highest pixel density seen on a phone (800x480 on a 3" screen) however the Windows Mobile software really let it down. Through all the custom firmwares, I was able to make the phone more bareable but it was always just a compromise. By the end of my 2 year contract with the phone, I found myself not really using the physical keyboard as it was so fiddly and inaccurate compared with the onscreen keyboard.
Since I was used to using an onscreen keyboard, I wasn't so bothered about getting a new phone without a physical keyboard. With the advances in touchscreen technology, it's much easier to use the screen to type in stuff. The only downside being is that the keyboard takes up valuable space onscreen. So anyway, I got the HTC Desire HD as it again appeared to be the phone with all the bells and whistles in terms of software and hardware. 6 weeks in, I really don't regret my purchase. The software is superb and really well complimented by the wealth of applications available for the phone allowing you to pretty much use the phone how you want to. The only real downside I've found is the games.
It seems that gaming on Android isn't that great because of the number of different devices running different versions of Android and all the phones use different hardware, screen sizes and features. Therefore it appears difficult for developers to produce games which work on the majority of devices due to this fragmentation and this seems to have scared off the majority of big name developers. For example, my phone has all the latest chips for graphics, etc and so can get a Qualcomm Neocore benchmark better than even the new Nexus S (58.5fps vs 55.6fps respectively). Therefore, I can run all the 3D games available in the marketplace but other phones don't have the same capability. It seems the platform is screaming out for some kind of way of categorising the various phones and their abilities like what Microsoft Windows Vista and 7 do with the "Windows Experience Index". Therefore say if you have a category 5 phone you can run all the 3D games but if you have a category 1 phone you can only run tetris for example. With the introduction of Sony's Playstation phone, this may be changing for the better or we'll just end up with a bunch of games that are made exclusively for that phone and won't work on other models.
That said, as fun as gaming is, it's not a major factor of using a phone. The connectivity side is more entertaining for me, however it is nice to have the option to have a go on a game when in the break room or on a train. Rovio have done a good job with porting Angry Birds to Android but apparently it doesn't work on lower spec phones so they're having to produce an alternative version. Thing is, without the developers testing on these phones, they can't know which will work and which will not and with the sheer number of phones out there, they most likely have to take a gamble and if users have problems, only then say the game or application won't work on that device. This would all be prevented if the phones are benchmarked and categorised and developers can work towards those specifications rather than the individual models.
I imagine Google are aware of the concern with regards to the fragmentation. The way the operating system can be used on any device has been both a blessing and a curse. It's on lots of devices but there's lots of inconsistency. I can see why developers favour the iPhone and iPad as they have a fixed configuration of software and hardware to work towards. Ultimately, I imagine this is the same concern that developers have to deal with when developing for PCs compared with consoles. The PC solution is to say what the minimum and recommended specifications are for each game or application. Hopefully by the time Android version 3 rolls by, they Google will have figured out an elegant solution to all of this and these problems will be a thing of the past.
Other than the gaming, I would criticise the way the marketplace application works. The marketplace should be there to let you find what applications and games are out there, what's good, what's bad, what's new and what's recommended. However it seems very very hard to just stumble upon something you may like and it's only really good if you know what you're looking for. Google are making tweaks here as there's now a "related" tab for other applications like the one you're looking at, but it needs a big overhaul in my opinion.
Negatives aside however, I do still love my phone. It would always never be perfect but if Google can crack these niggles, then the phone will be even better than it is now :)
