Android 2.2 review

The latest Android 2.2 update, codenamed Froyo, brings a number of new features, but a couple of them stand head and shoulders above the rest. While the latest version of Google's open-source mobile operating system isn't widely available on handsets at present, we've been testing it on a Nexus One, Google's own brand smartphone.

After the very public falling out between Apple and Adobe, it's not altogether surprising that Adobe decided to run off and find a new friend to play with. Given that relations between Apple and Google have also cooled since 2007, culminating in Apple suing Nexus One manufacturer HTC over alleged patent infringements, it was no great surprise that Adobe decided to hook up with Google to get its Flash software supported on Android.

With regards to web browsing, Flash capability primarily brings forth garish adverts, though on the Nexus One this does not cause page render times to be negatively affected, if internet connectivity isn't an issue.

Being able to display adverts, however, wasn't what made the prospect of Flash on Android 2.2 so attractive. The ability to play Flash encoded video represents the biggest bonus and.

Clips such as our Asus Eee Pad video demo played without fault, either embedded or full screen. Similarly, news clips embedded in BBC articles played back without trouble or perceptible slow down. In fact we were able to swap between two browsing tabs with video playing smoothly on both.

All this is impressive stuff on the part of the operating system and the Flash player, but things deteriorate somewhat when you try to watch something a little more substantial like the BBC's iPlayer.

The player not only takes an inordinate amount of time to load but, once playback does begin, it can kindly be described as jittery with audio artefacts. After visiting a number of other web sites with embedded videos, we found that only the iPlayer exhibited the problem. At press time Adobe had not got back to us regarding whether or not this is a problem with its Flash player or the iPlayer.

Aside from Flash support, Android 2.2 has built in support for USB tethering and the ability to create ad-hoc wireless networks with the Nexus One acting as the wireless access point. Both features are likely to be blocked by operators, either by software modification, something that is not particularly hard thanks to Android being open source, or by imposing even more exorbitant data tariffs.

The ability to use your phone as a wireless modem is immensely valuable and thankfully setup is trivial. Perhaps as a gesture to Apple, USB tethering works on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Linux but not on Mac OS X. Users have to choose between mounting the device as a USB drive or what Windows recognises as a 'remote NDIS-based internet sharing device'.

As for ad-hoc wireless network creation, support is universal, though at present only one security policy, WPA2 PSK, is supported. As either option will use the wireless connectivity provided by the mobile operator, speeds vary greatly and battery use increases, although in our tests, not much more than if you were to simply use Wi-Fi without sharing.