My First Smartphone – Motorola Fire XT530

At last, I get my first smartphone – Motorola Fire XT530 which is based on Android. And this was a gift from a very close buddy of mine – Srikanth. He wanted to gift me something for my marriage, and I put it off till my second anniversary as I wanted his gift to be something very memorable. And this has proved to be a really wonderful gift.

I was inclined to buying an Android based smartphone ever since I’ve heard about Android. I looked at a lot of budget (Rs.8000 – Rs.14000) Android phones such as Dell XCD35, Samsung Galaxy Ace, HTC Wildfire, HTC Wildfire S and LG Optimus One. There was some shortcoming in all the models such as low battery life, small screen size (<=3.2 inch) or bad camera. I almost decided to go for Samsung Galaxy Ace when I came across Motorola Fire XT530. The Motorola Fire XT530 had everything I needed - decent battery (1540mAh), 3.5 inch capacitative touchscreen, 5 MP camera with LED flash and Android OS v2.3.4. This model has been recently launched in September. I have been using this phone for more than a month now and I am just loving it. At times, the response is slow, but it is quite acceptable. The only real drawback I feel in this phone is its limited internal memory of 157 MB. This pretty much limits the number of applications that we can install in phone memory. While most of the applications can be moved to SD card, unfortunately some of them cannot. Using Link2SD, it is possible to use the external storage device for extending internal memory.

Below are some of the Android apps which I have installed from the market on my mobile and find to be pretty useful. You may want to glance through them as some of them may be useful to you as well.

• 3G Watchdog – 3G Watchdog data counter monitors your Mobile Internet (4G/3G/Edge/GPRS) data usage
• Adobe Reader – PDF Reader
• Advanced Task Killer – ATK is often used to kill app and clean memory
• Android Agenda Widget – Extremely customizable calendar widget of various sizes. It can also integrate with Astrid. Especially useful because of a bug in older android calendar versions in which all day events are not shown on that particular day in the upcoming events widget.
• Alarm Clock Xtreme Free – Advanced features such as limit on the number of times you can snooze the alarm and solving math problems to dismiss the alarm ensure that you get up from bed no matter what
• AndFTP – AndFTP is a FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP client which provides download, upload, synchronization and share features with resume support
• Android India – Find Android apps for India in one great looking and powerful app
• Android Terminal Emulator – Access your Android’s built-in Linux command line shell
• AVG Antivirus – Antivirus for scanning download applications
• App 2 SD Free – An extremely useful app which shows a list of applications that can be moved from phone memory to SD card so that phone memory can be freed
• Astrid Tasks – Another awesome app for managing tasks and setting automated reminders. The Tasks widget further is very useful for displaying an overview of the pending tasks.
• BookMyShow – App for booking movie tickets
• Caldav-Sync – App for adding a remote caldav calendar which integrates with the native calendar
• Cardav-Sync beta – CardDAV-Sync is a CardDAV client for Android to synchronize contacts
• Clean Master – Clean Master is an all-in-one cleaner app on android for cleaning app cache , unused files, residual files, search history and uninstalling apps
• ColorNote – Color Note is a simple notepad app. It gives you a quick and simple notepad editing experience when you write notes, memo, email, message, shopping list and to do list.
• Comic Reader – You can read ~400 of the most famous comics including Dilbert, Xkcd, Abstruse Goose, Geek and Poke, Calvin and Hobbes, PhD Comics, Pickles, Garfield, Spiked Math and many more!
• Comics – The largest digital comic library with over 20,000 comics available including over 600 for free. Publishers include Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image, IDW, Archie & many more!
• ConnectBot – SSH client
• Contact Editor Pro – Useful for editing entries added via Carddav
• Contact Owner – Display your contact information when the device is locked, allowing the finder to contact you
• Contacts+ – Contacts+ is your everyday contacts & dialer app, powered with text messaging, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and much more – all in one place.
• ConvertPad – Unit Converter – ConvertPad Plus is a powerful and fully featured Unit converter, Currency converter and Calculator
• Dictionary – Dictionary.com dictionary
• DiskInfo – DiskInfo lists all partitions and all mount points on you device showing disk usage and very detailed partition information.
• Documents To Go – View native Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files & attachments with Documents To Go Main App
• Dolphin Browser HD – High-featured browser
• ES File Explorer File Manager – ES File Explorer is a free, full-featured file and application manager.
• Easy Battery Saver – Easy Battery Saver is a powerful yet easy to use power manager app specifically designed to extend battery life and optimize using habit.
• Firefox Browser for Android – Firefox for Android is the free mobile web browser that puts the power of the open web in your hands.
• Folder Organizer – Group items according to labels and create fully customizable folders and widgets
• FolderSync – FolderSync is a application that enables simple sync to cloud based storage to and from local folders on the device memory card
• Fackebook – Fackebook Android Client
• Google Authenticator – Google Authenticator generates 2-step verification codes on your phone.
• HDFC Bank MobileBanking – HDFC Bank MobileBanking gives you access to your account on your Android phone
• ICICI Mobile Banking – iMobile – iMobile is ICICI Bank’s official mobile banking application
• ICICI Bank i-safe – “i-Safe” mobile application allows you to generate OTP/URN on your mobile device instantly rather than receiving it through SMS
• IMDb Movies & TV – IMDb mobile
• K-9 Mail – Excellent IMAP client
• KeePass2Android – Keepass2Android is an open source password manager application for Android. It reads and writes .kdbx-files, the database format used by the popular KeePass 2.x Password Safe
• Kingsoft Office – Kingsoft Office is the only mobile Office with full-features FREE. Support for running on Android 2.1 and above system.
• LinkedIn – LinkedIn Android Client
• Magzter – Magzter caters to a global audience with a wide range of magazines, from entertainment to news.
• MobileVOIP Cheap Calls – The MobileVOIP dialer lets you make cheap calls to national or international destinations.
• MX Player – The best way to enjoy your movies.
• my airtel – Introducing the my airtel app – your world of airtel on the go. Download the my airtel app to manage your airtel mobile, broadband & digital tv connections at work ,home or anywhere in between!
• nexGTv Mobile TV – Mobile TV application with best of the Indian channels, Replay TV & Video on demand content.
• Notification Toggle – Notification Toggle creates notifications in the Android status bar to let you quickly switch WiFi, Bluetooth, Silent mode, Screen rotation and Flight mode on and off or to adjust the screen brigthness (and many more…)
• OpenDocument Reader – OpenDocument Reader, formerly known as OpenOffice Document Reader, allows you to read your ODF documents wherever you are.
• OpenVPN Connect – OpenVPN Connect is the official full-featured Android VPN client
• Opera Mini – Unlike ordinary web browsers, Opera Mini fetches all content through a proxy server that compresses and reformats web pages into a format more suitable for small screens.
• Perfect World Clock – Perfect World Clock is the perfect tool for the frequent traveler or when working with people in different time zones.
• Pulse – RSS/Feed reader
• QuickPic – Advanced Image Viewer
• Sipdroid – SIP client. Another popular SIP client is CSipSimple.
• Skype – Skype client
• SMS Scheduler – SMS Scheduler is a simple tool for automatic sms messages sending with chosen frequency.
• Speedtest.net – Use Speedtest.net for easy, one-tap connection testing in under 30 seconds—accurate anywhere thanks to our global network.
• SSHDroid – SSH Server
• State Bank Freedom – Official State Bank Mobile Banking Application
• TED – TED’s official Android app presents talks from some of the world’s most fascinating people
• Tiny Flashlight + LED – Flashlight app for your device! Incredibly simple and yet very useful flashlight application. Will use your device’s camera LED / flash / screen as a torch.
• TV Guide India – TV Guide India brings you schedules of over 150 TV channels that are aired in India.
• Voice Recorder – This application is a handy voice recorder.
• Watchdog Task Manager – Stop killing your apps randomly. Start monitoring them with Watchdog.
• WHAT’S-ON-INDIA : TV Guide App – India’s Official TV Guide App, covers 500+ Indian TV Channels!
• Widgetsoid – Very useful widget to display upto 10 customized toggles / shortcuts. Another similar free app is Power Toggles.
• Wiki Encyclopedia – Wiki Encyclopedia gives you access to Wikipedia online encyclopedia, formatted for your Android mobile phone. Wikipedia Offline functionality allows you to save articles to your phone for later reading.
• Xabber – Jabber/XMPP client

Rooted phones are likely to find these applications very useful.

• Link2SD – The external SD card can be used for storing applications thereby freeing your internal memory. See the Useful Links section below to know how this is a much better option compared to “Move to SD Card” feature that is native to android.
• Titanium Backup – The most popular backup solution for rooted phones
• OpenVPN Settings (along with OpenVPN installer, BusyBox Free and Tun.ko installer) – Useful if you need to connect to an OpenVPN server

Useful Links:

• http://theexasperatedman.blogspot.in/2012/06/motorola-fire-xt-xt530-xt531-all-in-one.html
• http://www.link2sd.info/faq (especially see difference between “Move To SD Card (Native to Android)” and “Create (Symbolic) Link”)
• http://me-and-my-motorola-fire-xt.blogspot.in/2012/04/how-to-factory-reset-your-motorola-fire.html
• http://adq.livejournal.com/90889.html