Category: Chip provider

PocketBook at IFA 2011 Press Conference

Posted by – September 3, 2011

This is the full PocketBook press conference (partly in English and partly in German) at IFA 2011, where they launch the new PocketBook A10 Android Tablet.

Sony Tablet S and Sony Tablet P at IFA 2011

Posted by – September 2, 2011

Sony is bringing some interesting design concepts to the Tablet market, with the Sony Tablet S that has a bump on the back to be more holdable with one hand, the Sony Tablet P that has a dual 5.5″ screen, prices start at 479€ and go up to 599€ for these tablets that use Tegra2 at 1Ghz, they have no HDMI output or USB host.

Samsung Galaxy S WiFi 3.6

Posted by – September 2, 2011

This is the new 3.65″ HVGA capacitive, Android WiFi tablet PMP device, running on a Texas Instruments OMAP3630 processor. The target price is 179€.

Samsung SSD 830 Series, new faster 6Gbit/s SATA transfer speed

Posted by – September 2, 2011

Transfer bitrates are now going upwards 520MB/s read speed and 400MB/s write speed. They plan to release those around October, in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities, going upwards 800€ for the 512GB SSD storage.

Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook, starts at 799€ up to 1199€

Posted by – September 2, 2011

Acer is also launching one of those new thin Intel Core i powered Ultrabooks, expensive, but thin but they promise power. I haven’t yet seen one with 2 USB3 ports, I wonder why they don’t design them with that. The price starts at 799€ and goes up to 1199€ depending on configuration, using any among Intel Core i3, i5, i7, SSD or Hard Drive and the amount of RAM.

Pogoplug Mobile, cheap new simpler Pogoplug

Posted by – September 2, 2011

This new Pogoplug Mobile is designed to be cheaper, with just 1 USB host connector, 1 SD card slot, one Ethernet port and the power charger. The idea is that you connect this at your house, with a 2TB external hard drive or whatever other storage you want, and you can then stream it to your smartphone, tablet, laptop wherever else you are in the world. There is also a hacking community at http://pogoplugged.com that may do things like BitTorrent RSS downloads work on this device. This device may still have about the same performance using the same Marvell processor as the previous Pogoplug, but that is to be confirmed. Please post in the comments if you know anything more about the actual performance of this processor to download from BitTorrent RSS, stream HD video files over the local network and other of the processor intensive tasks that can be envisionned from such Internet connected NAS system.

ViewSonic ViewPad 7x, Honeycomb 3.2 7″ Capacitive Tegra2 tablet

Posted by – September 2, 2011

They have now got Honeycomb 3.2 working on this, 7″ capacitive 1024×600 tablet, to be released for around 349€.

ViewSonic ViewPad V350 smartphone, unlocked dual-sim MSM7227

Posted by – September 2, 2011

They are releasing this MSM7227 unlocked dual-sim smartphone with a 480×320 capacitive touch screen for around 279€.

ViewSonic ViewPad 7e, 149€ 8″ resistive tablet

Posted by – September 2, 2011

It runs Gingerbread using the 1Ghz Samsung ARM Cortex-A8 processor. It’s a resistive 8″ screen, to be sold for around 149€.

Archos G9 € European pricing announced at IFA 2011

Posted by – September 1, 2011

These cool new Archos tablets start at 249€ for the 8″ 8GB 1Ghz, 299€ for the 10.1″ 8GB 1Ghz device. Consider US prices do not include VAT so similar $249 to $299 starting price can perhaps be expected in the US, though the $ is weak at the moment so US prices might start at something closer to $299 and $349 (to be confirmed officially tomorrow). You get 1.5Ghz processor speed when you choose the 16GB or 250GB versions that are slightly more expensive. Also check back for my further videos tomorrow on the Archos G9 series, I will ask them about the performance and more.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, Super AMOLED Plus, 1.4Ghz Dual-core, Honeycomb 3.2 with TouchWiz UI

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Wow, Samsung can make 7.7″ Super AMOLED Plus screens and this new tablet of theirs is thin and quite light. Not the lightest 7″ tablet 335gr as the Archo 70 Internet Tablet released last year is 300gr. Also, while it’s thin and light, they did make it slightly wider in size which seems to make it harder to fit it in all the jacket pockets, that’s too bad. But, the design is not final, maybe before they release it they manage to cut a few millimeters off the bezel to make it fit in jacket pockets. This tablet runs Honeycomb 3.2 nicely but with some TouchWiz UI customizations, this is no vanilla Android.

Pictures of it next to the Archos 70 Internet Tablet:



Toshiba AT200, 1.2Ghz OMAP4430, 7.7mm thin Honeycomb 3.2 Tablet

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Here’s the worlds thinnest 10.1″ IPS tablet. Only 7.7mm thickness.

Samsung Galaxy Note, 5.3″ Super AMOLED Plus, 1.4Ghz Dual-core, with N-Trig S Pen stylus input

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Awesome new 5.3″ Super AMOLED Plus hybrid device from Samsung. It runs on the new 1.4Ghz Dual-core processor (upgraded Exynos?), will probably run Ice Cream Sandwich beautifully. So it’s capacitive and also has what looks to be the N-Trig stylus input technology also used on the HTC flyer to let you input handwritten scribbles and annotations such as in a notepad app but also in new S Pen apps and things like annotating a screenshot of any Android instance. As you can see in this video, the 5.3″ screen is huge compared to the already big 4.3″ Samsung Galaxy S2 screen, which really is awesome because I believe even this device fits nicely and confortably in most pockets.

This extra size, in my opinion, really does provide for extra potential productivity, better video playback, better web browsing on its amazing 1280×800 resolution, this size and resolution offers a better hybrid of the Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich features that are coming up.

Toshiba Stor.E TV Pro, Rockchip RK2918 Linux based Connected Set-top-box

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Toshiba is using Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 processor in this new low cost Internet set-top-box.

Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook, $1199 starting price

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Lenovo is launching this new Ultrabook based on the second generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, pricing starts at $1199, goes up perhaps to about $1999 with all kinds of options in terms of dual or quad core processor, 128GB or 256GB SSD memory, 2GB, 4GB or 8GB RAM. They have done some ventilation design so there are no vents under the laptop, it’s aluminium everywhere, so it stays cold under the laptop even though this is a quite powerful new processor.

Lenovo ThinkPad, enterprise Tegra2 tablet

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Lenovo is doing 2 versions of their Tegra2 Android tablets, the IdeaPad is for consumers, the ThinkPad is for enterprise. It’s got to do with different components and design, different software and other.

Samsung NX200 camera, 20.3Megapixels APS-C sensor, interchangeable lenses

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Samsung releases their new slim mirror-less DSLR-alternative of a photo camera with interchangeable lenses and a bunch of new camera UI features.

Samsung Multiview MV800 camera with fold-out screen and touch screen functions

Posted by – September 1, 2011

This is Samsung’s new Multiview MV800 has a fold-out 3″ AMOLED screen, takes pictures, and provides a bunch of picture modes that can be accessed through the Home screen menu on the touch screen on this camera.

Samsung Wave 3, Bada 2.0, 4″ Super AMOLED Plus

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Here’s the newest Samsung Bada phone, running the Bada 2.0 software on a 4″ Super AMOLED Plus screen, this is probably aimed at lower cost, although Android does allow Samsung to lower the cost of smartphones as well, so I am not really sure what Samsung is trying to do with Bada. Maybe Samsung wants to option of being able to own a smartphone ecosystem to try to profit as much as possible on every level of the value chain of the phone all the while trying to sell it for cheap. I prefer the cheap Samsung Android phones though.

Pricing speculations on cheaper Samsung Galaxy R, Tegra2 4.2″ Super Clear LCD Smartphone

Posted by – August 14, 2011

Arguably, the Samsung Galaxy S2 is the best phone in the world today. Samsung now also brings what looks to become a lower cost similar smartphone experience using the Tegra2 Dual-core 1Ghz processor instead of the 1.2Ghz Dual-core Exynos and using an LCD touch screen instead of the more expensive and harder to manufacture Super AMOLED Plus screen.

I played with the Samsung Galaxy S2 for a few days as I was able to borrow it during Computex, it’s a very impressive phone, the screen is amazing and the processor for now seems unbeaten in terms of performance (until 1.5Ghz Dual-core OMAP4460 devices start coming out next month).

In Europe, I cannot find the Samsung Galaxy S2 sold below 458€ and in the US it seems to cost $629. Clearly, that’s very expensive. But I guess, many people still consider that the normal going rate for high-end smart phones?

What is really the true manufacturing cost for Samsung on the Samsung Galaxy S2? My guess is they spend less than $200 to manufacture each phone (which is probably a bit higher than Apple and other LCD based Android smart phone makers pay per phone). Which means they are making upwards 200% profit margin on each phone. Sure enough, Samsung spends extra on making the Super AMOLED Plus screen, which they also are in the process of using their new multi-billion dollar Super AMOLED Plus factory to try to ramp up mass manufacturing to keep up with demand. But I guess that’s just how things are for getting a Samsung for now. I’d find it cool if they decided to sell the Samsung Galaxy S2 for $250 unlocked or 250€, it may allow them to not loose money and gain huge market share as they increase their mass manufacturing even much further, but that may be too disruptive for the whole smart phone carrier business model yet.

Anyways, Samsung may save with Galaxy R compared to S2 (according to my pure guess) about $20 on the LCD, and perhaps about $10 on the processor and other electronics that come with the Tegra2 package. A $30 savings in Bill of Material, may translate to upwards $100 cheaper retail price. So I expect Samsung will sell the Samsung Galaxy R below 399€ and below $499 as unlocked. I do not consider the carrier subsidized pricings as I consider those more expensive, they can sometimes add up to $2500 over the 2-year contracts, which I do not consider a pricing advantage over buying the phones unlocked and then using cheaper data and voice SIM cards in there.

What do I recommend geeks who want the best regardless of the price? If you can’t wait, get a Samsung Galaxy S2, don’t look too much at the price tag, consider all competing big brand Android phones cost about the same. If you can wait, maybe in 1 or 2 months, the rumored Samsung Nexus Prime might be coming with Ice Cream Sandwich. I do not know if the rumors of a 720p Super AMOLED Plus 4.3″ screen are realistic, or if Samsung will use the 1.5Ghz Dual-core OMAP4460 or perhaps overclock their own Dual-core Exynos platform to 1.5Ghz. I would not be surprised if the rumored Nexus Prime is more or less the same as a Samsung Galaxy S2, with very minor design changes and it just running vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich, just like the Nexus S is a copy of the Samsung Galaxy S1 and the Nexus One is a copy of the HTC Desire. The OMAP4460 Ice Cream Sandwiches might be used by LG, Motorola and other companies which may have more history in working with Texas Instruments, but who knows, maybe Texas Instruments is doing huge efforts to provide attractive package deals to all the device makers and that they all feel they cannot afford to miss the non-exclusive TI OMAP4460 based opportunity.

TheInquirer recently quoted analysts saying that Samsung has now overtaken Apple and has become the worlds biggest smart phone maker.

Samsung might have sold more smartphones than Apple and Nokia during April, May and June

With phones like the Samsung Nexus Prime, Galaxy R, cheaper Galaxy phones (2, 3) targetted at pre-paid and developing countries (including focus on BRIC, Brazil, Russia, India, China), the new Super AMOLED Plus factory being ready for increased mass production, Samsung’s rise in smart phone market share is likely to only increase. Consider that with just Samsung’s Android smart phones, there are more sales than the iPhone, consider how much more Android smart phones sell overall compared to iPhone when all the other many growing Android smart phone makers are put together. I think it is not ridiculous to expect a 1/4 ratio in daily sales to be demonstrated pretty soon, likely before Christmas, regardless of how many current iPhone owners decide to upgrade to the iPhone5.