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