Android 2.2 'Froyo' beta hands-on: Flash 10.1, WiFi hotspots, and some killer benchmark scores
By Ross Miller 
posted May 20th 2010 12:00PM
posted May 20th 2010 12:00PM
What's new
Tethering and portable hotspot
YouTube HQ (sort of)
Top row: Froyo (first with HQ enabled, then without; bottom row: Eclair (same settings on both screens)
The only other stock widget, aside from Google search, that had any noticeable change was YouTube, which now scrolls through a set of most viewed videos to entice and distract you on passing glances. The player itself, however, beams a shiny new "HQ" button on the bottom right of the screen. But before you go gloating to your EVO 4G-carrying pals, you should know that in our tests the higher-res option by and large matched the default (and thus far only) video option for Android 2.1 Eclair, and non-HQ was even more scaled down, and didn't even span the entire width of the 3.7-inch screen. And to think, the sight of that button alone gave us such jubilation. (Update: As a number of readers have pointed out, this change is nothing more than semantics -- the Nexus One does have the same low-quality option buried inside menus.)
External storage for apps
While support for apps on external storage is presumably intended for Froyo (the Manage Applications screen is now divided amongst Downloaded, Running, All, and most importantly, "On SD card"), try as we might, we couldn't find a single program that'd let us use the "Move to SD card" functionality. That includes marketplace and third-party downloads -- we'll have to explore this one later.
Everything else
Some of the other highlights, briefly:
- Camera: Controls are now more streamlined within the viewing window and much easier to sift through.
- Gmail: Previous and Next navigation in every viewed message, and a much more colorful means of sifting through labels.
- Calendar: The large green bars that took up much of the calendar space have been thoroughly fine-tuned into blue segments more indicative of the actual hour of day for each event.
- Voice recognition settings: Does voice search have a perceived issue with your accent or colloquialisms? New options for voice recognition let you choose seven different dialects of English (US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Generic), Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. The latter worked quite well in testing, producing accurate Kanji for our horribly strewn together phrases.
- Security: Sick of locking your device with a pattern? PIN codes are now accepted.
- Car dock: A revamped interface spaces out the buttons, adds quick shortcuts to music and lighting adjustment, but decides it's probably for the best to disable the hardware home button in lieu of an easier-to-press "Exit car mode" screen key.
Flash Player 10.1
Benchmarks
So, does the new system run as silky smooth as earlier hinted at? In our tests, we were getting about the same Linpack scores as the early reports, which was over five times higher on Froyo than on Eclair -- and even more dramatic when you compare it with an Eclair-laden Motorola Droid. We saw similar results with a number of other benchmark tools, namely Sunspider and Benchmark Pi (unfortunately NeoCore, our favorite 3D test, kept crashing when we tried it).
| Droid (2.1) | Nexus One (2.1) | Nexus One (2.2) |
| Linpack (MFLOPS) | 4.53 | 6.928 | 39.72 |
| Sunspider (milliseconds) | 34,323 | 14,547 | 5,982 |
| Benchmark Pi (milliseconds) | 5,086 | 2,859 | 1,138 |
Notes: MFLOPS is millions of floating point operations per second (higher is better). Sunspider tests Javascript performance and Benchmark Pi measures calculations of the irrational number -- lower is better for both. All numbers shown are averaged from five tests apiece.
Of course, numbers are one thing, but how does it feel in practice? Frankly, we haven't seen that dramatic of a performance change. The full Engadget page consistently loaded a few seconds faster on Froyo, as did any other page we tried. Ditto for some of the more hardware-intensive games -- Raging Thunder II, for example. That said, fresh locations on Maps loaded just as fast on both versions, and we were hard pressed to find any other noticeable performance disparity.
Wrap-up
Sean Hollister contributed to this report.
LOVE the new changes; Those screens are some serious hotness!
@r34p3r
On the other hand, to be a bit more "somber and serious", I'm still not quite convinced that Flash on mobile devices is a sure bet at this stage of progress. This is especially reinforced by the fact that Flash seems to take a heavy toll on system resources and power consumption, with minimal benefits to speak of in terms of efficiency and smooth operation.
That said, I'm still glad it's (finally) here, and I look forward to seeing just how well Google and Adobe can optimize Flash for the mobile platform. Also, I hope that more OEM's -- and carriers -- jump on board and actually get this successfully integrated into their devices / ROM's (respectively). For all the fuss over Flash, we as a collective whole need this to work.
@r34p3r
yea, i wasn't 100% impressed, but as phone hardware gets better, im sure flash will improve.
@r34p3r
how about that ridiculous increase in performance! Froyo + Sense + EVO 4G = best technological summer EVAR!
@Seven
I don't even have my Evo yet and I'm already itching to have it upgraded to Froyo. LOL!
I really need to stay off the internet for a while, so I can actually be content with what I have, and not what I know will be coming down the road that is so much more exciting.
@r34p3r nicely sad. Flash has long way to go before it becomes usable part of mobile browsers
@Jimbojones
IMO, the biggest solution will come about on the day that OEM's start building all devices with independent GPUs. We already have access to supercharged mobile processors, but all the grunt work that's involved via hardware acceleration will be lost if the means to support the heavy lifting is lackluster -- or even nonexistent.
@r34p3r
1Ghz+ CPUs, GPUs, rocket launchers?! Com'on this are still phones, how about working on that battery life instead
@r34p3r Oh sh*t ... I'm totally sold, considering I do have the choice of the hardware with that OS.
Apple will have a very hard time to convince me to renew my iPhone on the 7th !
What I'm glad to see is that you can actually copy text from an email. The fact that was left out baffled me.
Hopefully we can also natively save attachments within email as well. Right now I have to use Blackmoon for that (which, I must say, is a good app... but sheesh, something as simple as that should have been native!).
@nk
I know right?
Humanity is so advanced that we can take trips to the Moon, and create GHz processors the size of crums..
I think all researchers should stop with the god damn speed/power war and get moving on the batteries which run those devices!!
Imagine an Evo4G that can run for 10 hours continuously while playing a high quality youtube video on FULL brightness!?
I wouldnt even know what to do.. I would probably just lie down and go to sleep, knowing that the world of technology is finally at a balance ^^,
@r34p3r
Wow this is the best engadget day in a while. Evo review and now this. Sweet!
@r34p3r according to androidcentral
"Like many of you, we are already wondering if and when our favorite Android phones will get the Froyo Android 2.2 upgrade. By "favorite Android phones" we naturally mean the hotness made by HTC. So, we asked and here's the deal: if your phone was released in 2010, you have a good chance of getting Froyo. Definitely on deck: The Desire, Droid Incredible, EVO 4G, MyTouch Slide, and future models. We don't have a specific ETA yet, but "second half of this year" is certainly a lot more promising than "someday, maybe."
Here's the official word:
[...] if your phone was launched this year, we will most likely offer an upgrade for it to the Froyo version. This includes popular models like the Desire and Droid Incredible as well as hotly anticipated phones like the Evo 4G, MyTouch slide and upcoming models. We will announce a full list of phones and dates once we are closer to launching the upgrades. We are working closely with Google and our other partners to ensure we have the earliest access to everything we need to provide a complete and solid Sense experience on Froyo. We expect to release all updates in the second half of this year but can't be more specific yet."
@r34p3r
I'm probably a little out of place, but just a quick question about Android. If I root a device, can I install Froyo on it? For example, if I purchased a G1, would I be able to install a HVGA version of 2.2 on it? Does it need to be a specifically cooked ROM, or would a generic version work well.
@r34p3r Nexus One is a superphone, seeing it having Froyo makes it more super. I wonder though, when will EVO announced that it will have froyo as well. Opinions to froyo. http://j.mp/2-2-froyo-unleashed
@r34p3r The only disappointment yesterday was the fact they didn't announce Live Mode for Google Maps... you know, the one Enkin demoed two years ago for Android before Google acquired them.
@Jimbojones I don't think Flash will work well at all on mobile. Just the packaging format as it comes down as a huge .swf normally. Imagine if you try to play a simple game that is 2-5MB in size every day. If you play a game regularly like Farmville, why would you prefer to have to download it over 3G every single time than have a native game that just syncs changes to the server?
Flash is no good for navigation, it's no good for image display, it's no good for video, the only real benefit is for rich content and games are better offline. So that leaves interactive animations, most of which are ads and can be replaced by HTML 5 eventually.
Summary, Flash can GTFO.
@r34p3r
What about the music app? The keynote showed what looks to be a total redesign, yet no one with hands-on has actually shown if there are any changes in froyo
So excited. ...do you know when Nexus One will get 2.2?
Also, when will the Nexxus One, EVO, Droid, Incredible, Hero get the ability of true hands-free bluetooth operation?
It's disappointing that WinMo phones can remotely voice dial and command the phone via bluetooth, but these Android phone don't.
Google - please address and correct this issue.
@Ted S http://www.droid-life.com/2010/05/20/froyo-will-include-voice-dialing-over-bluetooth/#disqus_thread
@Ted S
Since when is bluetooth voice dialing all of a sudden a "must have" feature? Isn't that why phones have... buttons?
Competition makes me super horny
Absolutely brilliant, absolutely chuffed to be on the android bandwagon. Loving the live conference. It's just feature after feature.
plz wrk w/ EVO thx.
PS. Black Dynamite ftw.
@Bandigolo I threw that shit before I walked in the room!
Wifi hotspot is killer. Added cost? Carrier support?
@jfine about $30 extra a month.
@Everything I say is true
Verizon Pre+ Mobile Hotspot is free to use granted you stay under the 5GB Data Cap.
Joanna Stern = Lord Vader?
@c2020
My bad, Ross Miller = Lord Vader?
@c2020
Search your feelings. You know it to be true!
I don't fully understand what's new with the YouTube app. I updated my Sprint HTC Hero to the official 2.1 last night and I have that "HE" button on the app already. O_o
@Jawnuhthun "HQ"* not "HE."
@Jawnuhthun Can you make it turn red by touching it? I'm fairly sure you can't. High quality is only activated when the button is red, gray means it's turned off.
I may be wrong though.
@Broderbund I can, actually. I'm not sure if its just a Hero thing, but I already have the HQ button. Turns red and all.
@Jawnuhthun Just for the sake of it, I took a couple pictures to show that I have the "HQ" button;
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/4624870482_d861f4b5e8.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3377/4624278787_9e7e71070d.jpg
@Jawnuhthun Well that's odd, hows the increased quality? Majorly noticeable? or nothing to get excited about
@Jawnuhthun I can confirm its on HTC incredible also fairly large leap in quality takes longer to load though. just hit menu and watch in hd.
@Broderbund The quality really varies from video to video. Some videos, the quality is greatly increased, but on others it's really not noticeable. It does take a few more seconds (sometimes a minute depending on video length) to load in HQ though.
Sign me up!
Holy moly. How much fail can be fit in one post? We just found out.
A Froyo-only, burning hot battery blow-out. As in before breakfast.
Look at the bright side. As least you're safe in the US. If it was the EU, they'd be hauling you off in chains for privacy theft.
@Ariel Bender The EU needs to worry more about being a going concern than what Google is doing.
@ipaladin: Nice try, Eric.
What about Unicode?
It seems whenever Engadget offers a video now I can't see the player. I'm using FireFox 3.6 and have Flash 10,0,45,2 installed.
Nice beta overview -- thanks.
also , on keyboard
I didn't see it on the calendar screenshots but do they FINALLY have search in the Calendar?