Nexus S on the eMobile network.

Hi All,

I have the HTC Aria (Asia) from eMobile. Right now I am on a business trip combined with a vacation and got myself a Nexus S to play with.

Looking at the specs of the Nexus S and HTC Aria (Asia) it looks like their support the same bands/frequencies.

Anyone knows if while in Japan, I will be able to use my Nexus S with the eMobile SIM I got with the HTC Aria? Anyone happened to know the APN settings?

Thanks in advance,

Oren

PS. The HTC Aria from eMobile is unlocked. I successfully used a local SIM from Italy and Israel.

Tags: android, aria, emobile, htc, nexus, s

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Doug Lerner on April 4, 2011 at 12:13am

Not answering your question, but asking one:

It looks like the HTC Aria is the one promoted by eMobile as an alternative to an ordinary wi-fi hub, one that also includes Android, right?

What do you think of it as an Android machine itself?

Thanks,

doug

Permalink Reply by Oren The Red on April 4, 2011 at 5:53pm

Doug,

The HTC Aria from eMobile can serve as a Phone and/or a wi-fi HUB. As I have an iPhone 4, the sole purpose I got the Aria for is for its wifi hub functionality. The device itself is a bit too small for my taste, its not very easy to type a long email on it or even general web browsing is not very comfortable due to the small form factor. But thats all hardware and has nothing to do with the android OS.

emobile sells the Aria with Froyo 2.2.x and a HBOOT 1.1.x, which means that if you want to install an alternative ROM you are out of luck at the moment as the Android community has not cracked that one yet. This poses quite a few limitation on the OS level. You cant install Skype for example, you cant uninstall some of the bloatware apps that comes bundled from HTC and if you need to install additional languages other than English or Japanese, you are pretty much stucked.

Disclaimer - These findings are at least from a research I did few months ago.

As for the android OS itself - I still prefer the iOS. Now, you may say that I was turned off by the limitation eMobile puts on the HTC Aria or the weak hardware specs of the Aria, but for the last 3-4 weeks I am using a Nexus S unit (use it for Dev) and I am still not sold onto the Android OS when I compare it to the iOS. Sure, it has some cool features that I would love to have on my iPhone but all in all the iOS is STILL far superior. The OS is more polished, the Apps are more fine tuned and looks more professional, the selection is bigger and the App Store, with all the limitation it poses, is easier to use.

Hope it helps!
Oren.