Difference Between Android 2.1 (Eclair) and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

Olivia

13 years ago

Android 2.1 (Eclair) vs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) | Compare Android 2.1 vs 2.3 and 2.3.3 | Android 2.1 vs 2.3.4 Features and Performance

Android 2.1 (Eclair) and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) are two mobile phone operating systems from Google Android. Within a year in 2010 Android released three updates, Android 2.1 (January), Android 2.2 (May) and Android 2.3 (December). When Android 2.1 was released, it was mainly focusing on virtual keyboard, support for high density screen, easy communication, improvement on camera and better browsing experience. Android 2.1 also features support for Bluetooth 2.1 and live wall papers.

On the other hand, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) introduces many new functions and applications for users to experience a rich multimedia environment. It has also included new platform technologies and APIs for developers to make use of the high resolution large screens, improved processor speed and memory to create great games. Android 2.3 new features for users include refined UI interface, improved keyboard, improved copy and paste, support for WebM video playback, internet calling and NFC (Near Field Communication). These features come in addition to the popular Android features like multi-tasking and Wi-Fi hotspots, Adobe Flash 10.1, and support for extra high DPI screens. Android 2.3 also has firmly integrated some application in to the platform like Google Mobile apps, which include Google Search, Google Maps 5.0 with Navigation, Mobile Instant, Voice Actions, and Google Earth. And the redesigned YouTube also built in. YouTube was redesigned for Android to include personalized home screen feed, in-page playback, and rotate for full screen gesture.

Internet calling is one attractive feature for users. Android 2.3 supports for SIP audio and video calling in addition to standard voice calling,. If you have a good 3G or Wi-Fi connection and a SIP account you can make internet calling. It breaks the boundary of regionalist concept and flies in the global domain. However support for the feature in the device or enabling the feature depends on the phone maker and the service provider.

Another important aspect in the mobile operating system is the power management. Even if you have all the fancy features, if the battery life of the device is short, then there is no use in the added features. Android 2.3 handles it in a better way. Android 2.3 manages the applications and daemon application which are running at the background and closes the unnecessary applications that consume more power.

For developers it has added a new garbage collector, optimized event handling, native code for applications to access input and sensor events, EGL/Open GL ES, Open SL Es, new sensors including gyroscope for motion gaming and support for new video formats such as VP8 and WebM, new audio effects like reverb, equalization, headphone virtualization and bass boost.

Update: The last version released is Android 2.3.3 (see Table_03 for additional features)

Android 2.1 (Eclair)

The well known Android 2.1 (Eclair) is a version upgrade from Android 2.0 with minor changes on API and bugs fixed.

The new features of Android 2.1 that differenitate android 2.1 from older versions are as follows:

Difference between Android 2.1 (Eclair) and the older versions

Table_01: Android 2.1 Additional Features

1. Screen support for low density small screens QVGA (240×320) to high density, normal screens WVGA800 (480×800) and WVGA854 (480×854).

2.Instant access to a contact’s information and communication modes. You can tap a contact photo and select to call, SMS, or email the person.

3. Universal Account – Combined inbox to browse email from multiple accounts in one page and all contact can be synchronized, including Exchange accounts.

4. Search feature for all saved SMS and MMS messages. Auto delete the oldest messages in a conversation when a defined limit is reached.

5. Improvement on camera – Built-in flash support, digital zoom, scene mode, white balance, color effect, macro focus.

6. Improved virtual keyboard layout for accurate character hits and improve typing speed. Virtual keys for HOME, MENU, BACK, and SEARCH, rather than physical keys.

7. Dynamic dictionary that learns from word usage and automatically includes contact names as suggestions.

8. Enhanced browser – the new UI with actionable browser URL bar enables users to directly tap the address bar for instant searches and navigation, bookmarks with web page thumbnails, support for double-tap zoom and support for HTML5:

9. Improved calendar – agenda view provides infinite scrolling, from the contact look up list you can invite for event and view attending status.

10. Revamped graphics architecture for improved performance that enables better hardware acceleration.

11. Support Bluetooth 2.1

12. Improved Google Maps 3.1.2

13. Live Wallpapers

Android 2.0 Official Video

Difference between Android 2.1 (Eclair) and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

The Linux Kernel upgraded to 2.6.35 in Android 2.3; Android 2.1 is based on Linux Kernel 2.6.29

The API is upgraded to Level 9 for Android 2.3 and it is Level 7 for Android 2.1

Difference between Android 2.1 (Eclair) and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

Table_02: Android 2.3 Additional Features

For Users

Features included in version 2.2

1. Tips Widget – the new tips widget at the home screen provide support to users to configure home screen and add new widgets.

2. Exchange Calendars are now supported in the Calendar application.

3. Easy set up and sync an Exchange account, you just have to enter your user-name and password.

4. In composing an email, users can now auto-complete recipient names from the directory with the global address list look up feature.

5. Multiple language recognition simultaneously.

6. Onscreen buttons give easy access to UI to control camera features such as zoom, focus, flash, etc.

7. USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot (your phone works as a wireless broadband router.

8. Enhance browser performance using Chrome V8 engine, which enhance faster loading of pages, more than 3, 4 times compared to Android 2.1

9. Better memory management, you can experience smooth multi tasking even on memory constrained devices.

10. New media framework supports local file playback and HTTP progressive streaming.

11. Support applications over Bluetooth such as voice dialling, share contacts with other phones, Bluetooth enabled car kits and headsets.

New features included in version 2.3

1. New user interface has a simple and attractive theme in black background, which is designed to give a vivid look while being power efficient too. Menu and settings are changed for ease of navigation.

2. Redesigned soft keyboard is optimized for quicker and accurate text input and editing. And the word being edited and dictionary suggestion is vivid and easy to read.

3. Multi touch key cording to input number and symbols without changing input mode

4. Selection of word and copy/paste made easy.

5. Improved power management through application control.

6. Provide user awareness on power consumption. Users can view how the battery is used and which consume more.

7. Internet calling – supports SIP calls to other users with SIP account

8. Support Near-field communication (NFC) – high frequency high speech data transfer within a short range (10 cm). This will be useful feature in m commerce.

9. A new download manager facility that supports easy storage and retrieval of downloads

10. Support for multiple cameras

For Network Providers (Android 2.2)

1. Improved security with numeric pin or alpha-numeric password options to unlock device.

2. Remote Wipe – remotely reset the device to factory defaults to secure data in case device is lost or stolen.

For Developers

Features included in version 2.2

1. Applications can now request installation on the shared external storage (such as an SD card).

2. Apps can utilize Android Cloud to Device Messaging to enable mobile alert, send to phone, and two-way push sync functionality.

3. New bug reporting feature for Android Market apps enables developers to receive crash and freeze reports from their users.

4. Provides new APIs for audio focus, routing audio to SCO, and auto-scan of files to media database. Also provides APIs to let applications detect completion of sound loading and auto-pause and auto-resume audio playback.

5. Camera now supports portrait orientation, zoom controls, access to exposure data, and a thumbnail utility. A new camcorder profile enables apps to determine device hardware capabilities.

6. New APIs for OpenGL ES 2.0, working with YUV image format, and ETC1 for texture compression.

7. New “car mode” and “night mode” controls and configurations allow applications to adjust their UI for these situations.

8. A scale gesture detector API provides improved definition of multi-touch events.

9. Tab widget at the bottom of the screen can be customized by applications.

New features included in version 2.3

1. Concurrent garbage collector to minimize application pauses and support increased responsiveness game like applications.

2. Touch and keyboard events handled better which minimizes the CPU utilization and Improve responsiveness, this feature is beneficial for 3D games and CPU intensive applications.

3. Use updated third party video drivers for faster 3D graphic performance

4. Native input and sensor events

5. New sensors including gyroscope is added for improved 3D motion processing

6. Provide Open API for audio controls and effects from native code.

7. Interface to manage graphic context.

8. Native access to activity lifecycle and window management.

9. Native access to assets and storage

10. Android NDk provide robust native development environment.

11. Near Field Communication

12. SIP based internet calling

13. New audio effects API to create rich audio environment by adding reverb, equalization, headphone virtualization, and bass boost

14. Built in support for video formats VP8, WebM, and audio formats AAC, AMR-WB

15. Support multiple camera

16. Support for extra large screen

The difference between Android 2.3 and Android 2.3.3 is very small, only there are few feature improvements and API upgrades for developers. The upgrades are mainly on NFC (Near Field Communication) and Bluetooth. NFC is a useful technology in M-commerce that is expected to replace many types of cards we carry for transactions and can be used in ticketing and many other applications as well. The new API level assigned to Android 2.3.3 is 10.

Android 2.3.3

API Level 10

Table_03: Android 2.3.3 Additional Features

Additional Features:

1. Improved and extended support for NFC – this allows applications to interact with more types of tags and access them in new ways. The new APIs have included wider range of tag technologies and allow limited peer to peer communication.

Also it has a feature for developers to request Android Market to not to show their applications to users if the device does not support NFC. In Android 2.3 when an application is called by a user and if the device does not support NFC it returns a null object.

2. Support for Bluetooth non-secure socket connections – this allows applications to communicate even with devices that is not having UI for authentication.

3. New bitmap region decoder added for applications to clip part of an image and features.

4. Unified interface for media – to retrieve frame and metadata from input media file.

5. New fields for specifying AMR-WB and ACC formats.

6. New constants added for speech recognition API – this supports developers to show in their application a different view for voice search results.

Android 2.3 Official Video

Android 2.3.4 New Feature

Android 2.3.4, the latest over the air Android version update brings an exciting new feature to Android based devices. With the upgrade to Android 2.3.4 you can video or voice chat using Google Talk. Once updated you will notice a voice/video chat button next to your contact in Google Talk contact list. With one touch you can send an invitation to start a voice/video chat. You can make video calls via 3G/4G network or via Wi-Fi. The Android 2.3.4 update in addition to this new feature also include some bug fixes.

The update initially comes to Nexus S phones and will be launched to other Android 2.3 + at a later time.

Voice, Video Chat with Google Talk

Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread)

Kernel Version 2.6.35.7; Build No: GRJ22

Table_04: Android 2.3.4 New Features

New Feature

1. Support voice and video chat using Google Talk

2. Bug Fixes

Android Phones based on Android 2.1 (Eclair) and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

	Android Smartphones
Android 2.1	HTC Aria, HTC Hero, LG Optimus GT540, LG Optimus Z, Motorola Milestone XT701, Motoroi XT720, Motorola Cliq, Motorola Defy, Motorola Flipout, Samsung Galaxy A, Samsung Acclaim, Samsung Intercept, Samsung Moment II, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, SE Xperia X10 Mini, SE Xperia X8, ZTE Blade
Android 2.3	Google Nexus S, HTC Cha Cha, HTC Salsa, Samsung Galaxy S II (Galaxy S2), HTC Desire S, HTC Thunderbolt, LG Optimus 3D, Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, Motorola Droid Bionic, HTC Pyramid (2.3.2)

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