When will Motorola offers updates to Fire XT phone OS?

Our interest was piqued by the following news item, posted on December 3: mobileburn.com: android 4.1 jellybean now rolling out to Motorola DROID RAZR HD and Droid RAZR MAXX-HD

I understand our Motorola Fire XT is a low-end inexpensive device, but we feel shortchanged since a lot of Chinese phones now offers Android 4 OS. Ah well, we are shackled to version 2.35 Gingerbread.

Now I can only look with my lips closed tight at Samsung's Note 2, Galaxy S2 and S3 users as they are blessed with newer Android OS (Icecream Sandwich or Jellybean) versions!

There is only one way to get out of this rut! Increase or augment our incomes to buy the more capable products which are powered by dual and quadcore ARM devicies!

Scientific calculators for the Motorola Fire XT

Your Moto Fire smartphone is a sophisticated mobile computing device, capable of much more than implied by the simple built-in calculator. Here are some calculator software I downloaded using my BestApps utility software:

• ti5x - A Texas Instruments TI58,TI59 calculator Something is wrong with the calculator keyboard. The last two rows cannot be seen!
• Free42 - An HP 42 calculator
• Droid48 - An HP 48 stack based calculator
• gCalc - scientific calculator with graphing capability!
• Graph 89 - A Texas Instruments TI-89 emulator software. Requires your TI 89 ROM image.
• Mathlab Calc - with graphing capability. An ads supported calculator, requiring an internet connection.

We will post photos and some instructions soon for the Droid 48.

A working panoramic application for my Motorola XT 531:Photaf!

Searching using my Best Apps Android application resulted in a list of SOME of the available panoramic software for my Moto XT 351XT phone:

• Panorama Camera 360
• Easy Panorana Camera Trial
• Panorama Beta
• DermanDar Panorama
• Photaf Panorama (Free)
• LoopLR Social Video
• Pro Ca[ture Free - Camera

The first software which I found to work well in my Android 3.5 is the Photaf Panorama, which is also available in a Pro verion. Here is an example of panoramic shots easily created with Photaf. I created a similar panorama photo with the Sony compact camera before and I am now smiling that a free software can do what the Sony cam can do! There is no need to buy a special camera with a built -in camera feature! One nice thing about the Photaf software are the bubble level indicators for horizontal and vertical orientation.

Basic Phone Functions

Draft!

We want the owner of the Moto Fire XT 531 to familiarize himself with the front layout of this phone. Photo from a screenshot of page 2 of the pdf manual. The problem with a smartphone is that the basic functions may get lost in the may application icons appearing in the screen! Here is a summary of the basic phone function commands for this inexpensive Android smartphone.

• To make a call: Press Home/Contacts. You will see Phone, Call log Favourites icons in the top row.
  • Method 1. Press Phone icon. You can directly press the phone number or select from the contact list.
  • Method 2. Press Contacts icon. Select callee, two icons (call and messaging) will be shown. Then select phone icon.
• Send text messages.
  • Method 1. Via Home/Contacts-Recipient in contact list. Press Home/Contacts and select recipient. Select Messaging icon.
  • Method 2. Via Home/Contacts-Recipient not in contact list, number known. Input phone number in To field. Compose text. Send text.
  • Method 3. Via Home/All Apps/Messaging. Tap on New Message. Specify number or select from contact list. Compose Message and tap Send.
• View text messages| notifications. Tap Home/Menu/Notifications.

To be continued with photo illustrations.

What? There is now a dual sim version XT 532??!

Note: draft! until I remove this line, this article is not in final form! I thought I will have a long time discovering all features of my Moto XT 531. Sounds like my enthusiasm has been deflated a little with a bump with reality. There is now an XT 532! but I dont know if they are available in Metro Manila mobile stores. Visit Daily Smart where we get the following specs:

XT 532 feature	XT 531
2G Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 – SIM 1 and SIM 2	single SIM only
3G Network: HSDPA 850 / 2100 – SIM 1, 7.2 Mbit/s, UMTS, EDGE	no change
Dimensions: 114x62x12, 61.9mm(Width),114mm (Height), 11.95mm (Thickness	practically no change
Weight: 115 grams	114 g
capacitive touchscreen TFT display of 3.5 inches, 320x480(~165 ppi pixel density)	no change
Multitouch	no change
Switch Moto UI	no change
Touch Controls	no change
Vibration and MP3 ringtones	no change
Speakerphone	no change
3.5 mm headphone jack,	no change
microSD card slot up to 32GB, microSDHC, microSDC	no change
512 MB ​​ROM, 512Mb RAM	no change
GPRS Class 12 (4 +1 / 3 +2 / 2 +3 / 1 +4 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
EDGE Class 12
HSDPA	7.2 Mbps
HSUPA
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot	no change
Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, EDR	no change
microUSB 2.0, HS	no change
5 megapixel camera with autofocus, geo-tagging and LED flash	no change
Video	no change
Primary Camera 5 Megapixels, autofocus	No change
Video Camera Recorder 640x480 VGA 24 fps	no change
Front camera 0.3 Megapixels VGA	no change
Android OS 2.3.7 (Gingerbread)	Android OS 2.3.5
Single Processor core (single-core) 800 MHz	no change
Accelerometer sensor	no change
Proximity sensor	no change
Digital compass	software
Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM	no change
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML	no change
GPS with A-GPS	no change
Java MIDP emulator	no change
Color black
Dual SIM (dual stand-by)	Single SIM only
Integrated SNS
Audio Player: MP3/WAV/AAC +
Video Player: MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV
Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk	no change
Document viewer
Photo Viewer	no change
Organizer	no change
Voice recorder
Predictive text input	no change
Standard battery Li-Ion 1500 mAh	average 8h, standby 28 days(672 h), 1540 mAh
Release date: ?	August 5, 2011

I think the major changes are in the dual sim capability and the Android Gingerbread versions. The small differences are not so significant. I can make the switch and simply buy the XT532. We are requesting Motorola to put an identifier for their mobile smartphones! Further reading: gsm arena moto fire xt spec phone arena Motorola XT 531

Transfer photo files from phone to computer using a USB cable

Connect the supplied usb cable from the phone to a usb port of the comuter. Your phone will ask your if you want to turn on USB Storage. Tap that prompt, and in your Linux (mine has a Ubuntu OS) computer, open a terminal and type df. Your android phone should appear in the list.

$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1            113179556  70826336  36603960  66% /
udev                   1405852         4   1405848   1% /dev
tmpfs                   565908       952    564956   1% /run
none                      5120         0      5120   0% /run/lock
none                   1414760       116   1414644   1% /run/shm
/dev/sdb1             15105408    181952  14923456   2% /media/9338-1802

Notice the "/media/9338-1802" entry? That is how the Moto fire looks as a file system to the PC. Where are the image files stored? Look in the directory "/media/9338-1802/DCIM/Camera". Now in the terminal you can copy or even move the image files to any directory in the PC. For example,

mkdir ~/my-moto
cd  ~/my-moto
mv -v /media/9338-1802/DCIM/Camera/* .

All your image files stored in the Fire XT/DCIM/Camera directory will now be moved to the current director ~/my-moto. The whole procedure is quite fast! You forgot wher your USB cable is? That will be a topic of future articles.

Still looking for a free flashlight app which works with LED flash.

I have downloaded seven(!?) free flashlight apps and I am wondering why the led flashlight option does not work!

1. LED light.
2. FlashLight.
3. Tiny Flashlight.
4. Better Flashlight HD + LED.
5. Tesla LEDFlashlight.
6. Brightest flashlight.
7. Moto Torch LED.

FlashLight has the best interface if you want to control the brightness of the virtual screen flashlight, or change the color. There must be a setting I still have to investigate or the hardware of the Moto Fire is simply not compatible with the application. Using these apps will drain the battery which powers the screen acting as a flashlight so fast! I already deleted most of them except FlashLight. There are even conflicting claims that most of the flashlight apps works with Gingerbread powered smartphonesAndroid Central

Downloadadble manual for Motorola Fire Android phone

Here is a link for downloading the Motorola manual for their Fire XT phones: http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Support/IN-EN/Mobile%20Phones/XT530/Documents/Staticfiles/FIRE-XT_EN_GSG_68016251002.pdf This is more convenient than carrying the slim printed manual you have to carry around with you. May 31, 2012: I have made this the first entry in our Resources page!

How to factory reset your Motorola Fire XT 531 phone

Save your personal data to a computer before you need to factory reset your phone!!!!

I do not like it happening to me. My motorola phone ran out of memory (not the SD card) and when I turned it off and turned it on again, the red Motorola logo stayed for a long long time! But then again, I have something to write here! (oh well). The first thing you should try if your phone is under warranty is to revisit the store you bought your phone. Then let them worry for you. Failing that, or you are in a faraway place, you can try the following steps only as a last resort. Here are the steps to factory reset your phone:

1. open the back case and remove the battery then place it back again. (the purpose is to break the power supply from battery to phone).
2. Press Power and camera shutter buttons together until you get the Exclamation point with Android logo.
   
3. Tap the Home symbol.(The second choice in the [Apps Home Back Search] at the bottom of the phone. You will see the following selections displayed:

   reboot system now.
   apply update from sd card
   wipe data/factory reset
   wipe cache partition
   Download nbO from sdcard.
   

   
4. Press volume control button to select wipe cache partition. Press the power key momentarily.
5. Press volume control button to select wipe data/factory reset. Press the power key momemtarily. Thge following will be shown in yellow color:

   Formatting /data...
   Formatting /cache...
   Data wipe complete.
   reset rtc.
   

   Hopefully the above steps will allow you to use your phone back soon! (Your data will be lost however).
6. Select reboot system now. Then press the Power key momentarily. You should get the Welcome to XT531 Touch the android to begin welcome screen.

We emphasize, if you have continuing problems, contact your seller and/or Motorola service center immediately. Now I have to reenter my user data!

Android App Review: Android Terminal Emulator. refused to uppercase input characters!

Your Android is a special mobile Linux distribution and there are terminal emulators available for it. Choose Play Market and search for terminal emulator. I downloaded and installed Android terminal emulator and you can indeed play with some commands.However trying su does not work. Typing ls gave me a useful idea of the file system. Unfortunately echo $PATH cannot work since terminal emulator refuses uppercasing of input characters! So many times I tried, but only got 'echo $path'. Nuts, scratch this application! The following commands work: ls, uptime. Verdict: major bug in terminal not accepting upper cased characters.! Recommendation: uninstall the software.

Wish list for my Moto Fire XT

I am starting a wish list for my moto entry level Android phone.

1. April 17: Ability to record FM radio station broadcast
It is really silly when my cheaper Nokia C2 phone can do this!
2. April 17: Screen or snapshot saves
When an old iPad can do this with power home buttons combination for more than two years already, we expect a modern Android phone to have this capability, not only on the latest Android 4, but also on Android 2.3 series.

Will add more the list as the days go by!

Android firmware upgrade path currently limited to 2.3.5

If you have bought the Motorola Fire when it came out first, then most probably your firmware was 2.3.4. You can upgrade to 2.3.5 by following the link: anfroid authority. If you already have 2.3.5, then we can only wait till Google and Motorola makes the firmware jump to version 3.x (Honeycomb) or version 4.x(Icecream Sandwich). Here is Google'sAndroid version history from Wikipedia:

Code names	Version Numbers
Beta	v1.0, v1.1
Cupcake	V1.5
Donut	V1.6
Eclair	V2.0/2.1, 2.0, v2.0.1, v2.1
Froyo	V2.2-V2.3
Gingerbread	V.2.3.x-v2.3.7
Honeycomb	V3.x series, V3.0-3.2, 3.2.1-V3.2.6
Ice Cream Sandwich	4.x series, V4.0.1-4.0.4

Moto lounge not available for device?

Here is another bad mark: The icon MotoLounge does not work! Here is proof on my Moto Fire XT

Oh oh, device not compatible with Adobe Flash player 11

I opened gmail and the message contained a flash video. When it asked to install flash I got the following message:

I am feeling a little blue, but what can I do? I just hope Motorola will update the OS to 4.0

What is my wifi hardware address?

You router may need your smartphone's hardware address perhaps in its MAC address filter list. Choose Apps/Settings/About Phone/Sttus/Wi-Fi MAC Aaddress. You hardware MAC address may be shown as in the following madeup example: cc:a5:3a:19:20 (not my phone address!)

Welcome to my newest blog about my first Android Phone

I made up my mind to buy an Android Phone yesterday and I went up to the Fifth Floor of SM Annex at SM City(SM North) to do price comparison on the Samsung Y phone. But I did not take the elevator and instead used the escalators. In the fourth floor, I saw a Motorola open stall and inquired what was their cheapest Android phone model. They showed me a new phone, not heavily advertised in the Philippine media, the Motorola Fire XT. I completely forgot about buying the Samsung Y phone and I paid cash P6,450 pesos, so I will not be ridiculously charged with credit card mark-up. This is my second day with my motorola phone and I transferred one Globe SIM card to my new Fire XT phone. The surprise with this entry level Android phone is that it has two cameras! One VGS resolution camera for the front and one 5 megapixel camera for the back. This means that it is capable of video chatting and calls say using Google Chat! The camera came with a small 2Gbytes sd card, that is so small, we plan to increase that to 32 Gbytes soon! Here are the basic published specs:

Spec	Description
Release date	September 2011
OS	Android 2.3.5(Gingerbread)
Form factor	capacitive touch tablet
Bands/Modes	Dual band HSPDA/Quadband Edge
Dimensions	61.9 (Width), 114 (Height), 11.95 (Thickness)
Weight	114 g
Display	3.5" 320 x 480 HVGA, 262KTFT, multitouch
Memory	Up to 32 Gbytes
Processor	Qualcomm MSM7227T-1 800Mhz
Audio	MP3 player, Stero FM Radio
Video	Capture/Playback
Camera	front 5 MPixels camera with digital zoom, AF, LED flash; Secondary front VGA camera 0.3 MPixels camera for video chatting
Battery	1540 mAh, GSMTT: 680 min GSB sTB: 682 hours WCDMATT: 469 min WCDMA STB:713 hours
Graphics card	Qualcomm Adreno 200 GPU
Special Feature	MotoSwitch UI, Friend Centric widget
Other	eCompass, Proximity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Accelerometer, GPS/aGPS, LED Notifications, Organized App Tray

The phone comes with the following built-in software:

• Message
Google Talk, Email,SMS, MMS, POP3/IMAP
• Google SErvices
Google Maps, Google Talk, Youtube, Google Mainl, Android Market, Google Navigation, Google Places, Google Search, QIK video chat Live Newspaper

Data from Motorola documentation and leaflets. I still have to buy a micro sd card with > 8 Gbytes capacity. Data specs are also available at gsmarena: motorola fire xt-531 specs and http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Motorola-XT531_id5882.
The phone was first released on September 2011.
For photos, motorola: Motorola Mobility Delivers a Sleek,Slim and Budget Friendly Smartphone-Experience with Motorola-XT531-377 I am shocked that the license of the photos say we cannot republish in a blog! So you have to click on the above link. I will post our camera shots later!
To be continued.
I am happy so far with the phone. It will take me more days to explore the capabilities of the phone, but I already can connect to the Internet using our DSL at home with a Linksys WRT54G model Wireless G router. Needless to say this is not my first Motorola branded phone, my first model was a slim and thin L6? model which is still working and bought more than five years ago.

Verdict: I can heartily recommend the Motorola Fire XT as your first BUDGET Android powered smartphone! Here is a camera shot of my current main applications screen.

I need to improve the camera screen shots! ] Further Reading:

• Qualcomm: information on Adreno
• Motorola: Fire XT official page