Android 2.3 Gingerbread – What’s New?

Finally, its arrived! Android 2.3 or probably better known to you all as Gingerbread has found its way out into the world at long last! It comes bringing a whole host of new tweaks that is certain to get current Android users pretty excited when it eventually rolls out. Of course Nexus one users of course will get it first, we’ll have to see how long it takes for other devices to get it.

So here’s what’s new:

Refreshed UI

Now Google haven’t gone to town all together with redesigning the whole UI, but they have made one or two tweaks and just made the whole thing cleaner looking. the notifications bar has been revamped, a new task manager, better options and a system wide downloads manager.

New Keyboard

The keyboard has long been the Achilles heel for Android, that’s because it’s being compared to the iPhone, which is only fair, and it has the best keyboard out there. The new Android keyboard learns a few lessons from it. It’s been reshaped and repositioned for improved targeting. It has support for multitouch and it’s easier to access symbols etc… and voice input has been much improved. The letters are easier to distinguish and more widely spaced apart so it should be a much better typing experience.

Better Copy & Paste

Copy and paste features have been much improved as well, before it was a right pain to try and highlight text but now it’s much easier with clear controls for highlighting what you want.

Improved Battery Life & Faster

It’s great that Google can get speed and more power just be refining the OS. Android 2.2 did speed up devices significantly but 2.3 is said to take it to a whole new level! This is mainly thanks to the new built in aggressive task manager which will kill unwanted tasks running in the background taken up memory and battery.

Internet Calling

While it’s widely expected that many carriers may pull out this feature, it’s still pretty cool. Gingerbread now support VoIP calls to SIP addresses, built into the handset which is pretty handy.

Camera

The update now has support for you to take pictures and record using the front facing camera on devices where there’s one fitted instead of just the rear camera.

There’s a few other little bits and pieces as well, but nothing too major, have a look at the video below and it should tell you all you need to know.