Chrome Beta for Android was completely unexpected and sort of took the tech world by storm this afternoon. We gave our first impressions on it, talk about a couple of issues that may or may not be addressed, praised it in a number of ways, and are more than likely going to make it our daily browser. After all, there is a good chance that this will become the official Android browser before long. It doesn’t have Flash support though, and according to Adobe, it may never. Is that a killer for you? Will you stick with another browser option or have you already made Chrome your default?

Ahh yes, it is that time of the year where millions and millions of people sit down in front of their TVs to watch commercials. It’s Super Bowl Sunday, in case you were wondering. But as you all know, it’s not all about watching Motorola’s awful Apple-bashing commercials, it’s also about the game itself. And while most of us on the west coast could care less who wins, we know that the north eastern corner of the country has been talking trash for 2 weeks now. Football fan or not, this should be a heck of a game.  Who you got?

All the way back during week one of our time with the Galaxy Nexus. emails started trickling in from users who were dealing with a microphone muting issue while on calls. We have yet to run into the issue ourselves, but it’s clear if you browse any tech forum on the internet that this is a problem for a number of owners. Verizon appears hesitant to admit that it’s a serious problem, so we thought we would run a poll to see how many of you are being affected by it. No better way to let them know that with some numbers, right?

What exactly is happening? While taking incoming calls or making outgoing calls, the microphone on the device will cut out so that the person on the other end of the line can no longer hear a thing which obviously leads to them hanging up. Toggling mute on or off, switching to speakerphone, swapping devices, activating new SIM cards, etc. are not helping the situation. It’s pretty obvious that this is a software bug that simply needs to be addressed in the next update. The problem is, that this started happening to users back in December and we are now almost a week into February without a fix.

We still have no word on when the big Android 4.0.3 (or is it 4.0.4 now?) update will be out.

Cheers Matt and everyone else!

Have you ever counted the number of apps that you have installed on your phone? Other than system apps, I just counted 68, most of which I forget are even installed. Not that they aren’t all useful, but it seems like there are handful of core apps that get used dozens of times throughout the day while others are there because at some point, I might need to use them. So I’m curious, how many apps do you have installed? (Again, not counting system apps like Gmail or Google Maps)

Since we made the decision at the end of last week to kick start Custom ROM/Theme Friday again, we need to make sure we have a good feel for the ROMs and themes that you guys are into these days. With more ROMs for the Galaxy Nexus than any normal person can keep up with, we would love to hear about your favorite, along with custom kernels, mods and themes. We also can’t forget about the Rezound (aka the current darling of the Android world), RAZR, Bionic, and all of the other recently released and popular devices. It’ll be a tough task trying to keep up with them all, but we are ready to give it a shot.

So in the comments, let us know phone, ROM, kernel, mods, theme and anything else that has been done.

We are well aware that many of you are accessory hounds. Whenever you purchase a new phone, our inbox fills up with questions about this dock or that case or if this battery is worth the extra couple of bucks. But is there something in particular that you purchase before even walking out of the store with your new phone? Is there an accessory that you feel makes your smartphone experience complete? Are you looking for added protection, battery life, or extra multimedia functionality?

And depending on what the product is, feel free to let us know all about it in the comments. For example, if you can’t live without a specific brand’s case, let us know what it is.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This morning, Motorola posted up a video that hypebeasted the massive 3300mAh battery that they managed to pack into their new DROID RAZR MAXX and it got me thinking. What would the Android landscape look like right now had Motorola done something to please the developer community?

The RAZR by all means, is one of my favorite phones of the last couple of years (just read our review of it). It’s unbelievably thin, has a fantastic radio inside, takes better than average photos, and has the specs to give it a long and prosperous life. But thousands of the readers of this site passed on it for the Galaxy Nexus, knowing that it would be locked up as tight as all previous Moto phones. When polled though, readers almost always come back to Motorola as one of their favorite manufacturers, even after almost 2 years of missed opportunities to reach back out to the community that helped their original DROID succeed.

So I’m just wondering, if Moto had unlocked the bootloader on the RAZR and RAZR MAXX, would you have passed on the Nexus or Rezound?

When you purchase a new smartphone, there is probably some sort of list that you run down to make sure it’s worth spending money on. You might look at processor, what OS it is running, screen size, camera, RAM, storage, color of it, etc. Two in particular that we seem to talk a lot about are cameras and screen size.

Cameras – at least in non-Nexus phones – seem to be getting better by the release, many of them topping your standard point and shoot in quality. Is a decent smartphone camera more important than having an HD screen though? High-resolution displays are all the rage right now. Who doesn’t love to look at big, beautiful images and video while on the go? So which is a bigger deal to you?

In our never ending quest to understand the most important things to you when it comes to Android, we have a simple this or that poll to end the night with. If you had the choice of having an unlockable bootloader or the newest version of Android before anyone else, which would you choose? Neither is wrong or right, but I can assume that there will be some strong opinions one way or the other. We would love to hear them.

It has been a while since we asked the DL community how their phone rolls when it comes to rooting. And since a certain root-friendly device was released last month on Verizon, it’s about time we ask again to get a feel for it all. Are you unrooted and sticking with what the manufacturer has provided? Are you rooted, but not interested in changing anything substantially? Or did you go all in and toss on a custom ROM, theme, kernel, etc.?

As always, feel free to leave your setup in the comments - specific phone, ROM, theme, and kernel are appreciated.