Watch my video of Windows Phone 7 filmed last february featuring a demonstration of the OS by Windows Phone 7 product manager Erik Helgerson. Smart phones are the new PC, the fastest growing consumer electronics segment, within a year or two, more smart phones will be sold worldwide each year than PCs and Laptops. This is why Microsoft is trying very hard to bring this new smart phone OS, based on Windows CE 7, they seem to be even suing Android manufacturers like Motorola for not using it.
The full Google Marketplace with Gmail, Google Maps now works on Archos new range of Android Internet Tablets, it has been made available as a one-click installation file with the name “gApps4Archos.apk” in the ArchosFans forum by a forum user. In this video of the Archos 43 Internet Tablet, I also feature demonstrations of Skype (these Android tablets can be a perfect as cheap VOIP devices!), Bluetooth speakers, 720p MKV high bitrate video playback with DTS audio and a couple of action packed 3D games on the HDMI output.
Here’s a reminder of the new Archos Android Tablets that this Google Marketplace gApps4Archos.apk installation file works with:
Archos 28 Internet Tablet, 4GB, 2.8″ resistive screen: $99 (2.29x cheaper than iPod Touch!) (available next week) Archos 32 Internet Tablet, 8GB, 3.2″ resistive screen, VGA camcorder, composite tv-out: $149 (available since a couple of weeks at certain online resellers like Amazon.com) Archos 43 Internet Tablet, 16GB, 4.3″ resistive screen, HD camcorder, HDMI output: $199 (3x cheaper than Droid X!) (available next week) Archos 70 Internet Tablet, 16GB, 7″ capacitive screen, front-facing webcam for video-chat, HDMI output: $275 (2.5x cheaper than Samsung Galaxy Tab!) 250GB version for $349 (available next week) Archos 101 Internet Tablet, 8GB, 10.1″ capacitive screen, front-facing webcam for video-chat, HDMI output: $299 ($200 cheaper than iPad!) 16GB version for $349 (available next week)
Watch my grandmother use this new touch screen Sony e-reader. It’s a product that is suitable for people like her, who like to read lots, who may enjoy having access to all the worlds books electronically on this thin and light device. In this review, after having barely used the device before, she tries to navigate through the menus, open some PDF files, make fonts larger (to not need glasses) and she even does a drawing.
Sony’s new infrared based touch screen technology is quite awesome, great for UI navigations and for making annotations, provides touch on e-ink without taking away any of the Pearl e-ink’s screens visibility. Too bad though that this PRS-650 doesn’t come with at least WiFi nor with a 3G option, would have made the touch screen more useful if it could interact with web apps and web contents. I want Chrome-to-phone like Chrome-to-eink functionality where a one click in the web browser on my Laptop or Android device, should beam that article over to my Connected e-reader’s reading queue. And then I want annotations to become more useful and collaborative. 10 people working on the same text should be able to wirelessly share annotations in real-time. When I annotate a text, it should automatically be attached as comments to any site using Sidewiki or some other such web annotation standards to interoperate with websites existing commenting systems (post scribbled annotations as comments!). A bluetooth or USB keyboard and a built-in kickstand should provide a setup for full speed text entry.
In this video, I try to show you the quality and to demonstrate the value of the Archos 32 Internet Tablet with Android. It’s the 3.2″ $149 8GB big brother of Archos 28 Internet Tablet which is to be sold below $99 with 4GB of storage and a slightly smaller 2.8″ screen, of about the same size as the HTC Tatoo, Sony Ericsson X10 Mini, Acer beTouch 110/120/130. This video shows how the experience is on such WQVGA resolution small screen Android device.
What do you think about this Archos Android WiFi-connected PMP, at 2.3x cheaper than the iPod Touch? Don’t you think it will be a no brainer for mass market consumers, if given the choice in stores, that they will choose this type of Android alternative to the iPod Touch?
An overview of the difference in screen size, touch screen quality, web browsing speed. More on video playback support including a test on streaming video over Samba file sharing.
It packs everything you can think of into 130 grams, with 4.3″ highly responsive touch screen, $199 price point for 16GB, no monthly subscription fees required (makes it much cheaper but similar in performance to Droid X), it can access 3G on Mifi or using Bluetooth tethering. In this video I demonstrate awesome HDMI output to browse the Internet on your HDTV, to play amazing 3D video games using the accelerometer or perhaps using bluetooth gamepad controllers too, and of course, to playback HD quality videos.
Here is an overview of the design and the size of the PocketBook 360 e-ink e-reader. This e-reader device has a nice compact 5″ e-ink screen with a nice screen cover design making it pocketable unlike the Kindle. This device is widely available on the worldwide markets such as for $193 on Amazon.com and remains one of PocketBook’s best selling products thus far, making PocketBook the third most popular e-ink e-reader manufacturer. In my next part of this review that I will post in the next few days, I will show you the user interfaces of the latest firmware update. Wouldn’t it be cool if such pocketable e-ink e-reader device was to get 3G/WiFi/Bluetooth as well as a Wacom-style digitizer screen or Sony’s new infrared/laser touch screen technology?
TriCaster TCXD850 is a 26’000€ real-time video editing Windows box with some Intel processors inside and a lot of connectors. Basically it allows for HD live tv editing in a box. But it’s really expensive and I wonder if a regular ARM Powered or Intel Powered laptop with the right software couldn’t do most of the same basic multi-camera live editing kind of things.
Those next generation SD cards can be made even faster. The new cards will have two rows of pins, and by having two rows of pins the new card will support up to 300mb/s transfer speeds.
I asked T-Mobile and Vodafone at IFA 2010 in Berlin, they both confirmed that their retail price for the Samsung Galaxy Tab when bought without the 2-year 40€/month contract, is going to be 799€. Thus the price is 1359€ with 2-years of 5GB/month contracts at 40€/month including the 200-300€ purchase price for the device. 5GB/month can otherwise also be had for 15€/month in Germany without contracts using Aldi and 20€/month without contract with Tchibo SIM cards.
So by signing up for a 2-year contract for a Samsung Galaxy Tab, the actual cost for the device is higher at 1000€ since 15€ x 24 months only amounts to 360€ and that the 15€/month for 5GB/month with Aldi can actually be stopped at any time as it does not have to be on a contract.
My point? The Samsung Galaxy Tab is really expensive. Samsung really sees an opportunity to make a lot of money for themselves and for their carrier partners by selling this device to as many people as possible. The high price of the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab I think are great opportunities for other players to provide lower cost tablet alternatives to the market.
Google TV is going to change the way people watch TV. I am very much looking forward to testing the Logitech Revue and Sony Google TV solutions, even though they get released in the USA first, my guess for $300 or more it may even require subscribing to cable/satellite TV content packages.
Once Google TV is released open source, I think we could see ARM Powered Google TV alternatives also come to the market, with the whole HDMI throughput and IR blaster features being optional and eventually not even the most used option.
Google TV is best with content partnerships in place, if Google can access all the program guide informations it can provide better search of what is on TV. And the amazing feature of Google actually storing the DVR recordings on the cloud and streaming those from there, also completely disrupts the whole DVR business, fantastic.
But I also think Google TV does not need content deals to function just fine. It works on top of existing TV, no matter if the current TV channel owners and distributors agree for it to be there or not. HDMI input and output can’t be blocked. Google should go ahead and release Google TV to all countries of the world, and they should the open specifications and source code to the world, and release this solution to all set-top-box and HDTV makers. This will instantly make obsolete all the previous solutions by Philips NetTV, Samsung, LG SmartTV, Panasonic VieraCast. They will all see it in their interest to use Google TV protocol of features instead. I like the idea of Google TV on a set-top-box to work on any existing HDTV, I wonder if HDTVs with built-in Google TV could eventually come with a Google TV module that could be upgraded in the future if newer Google TV hardware appears at cheaper price than buying a new set-top-box.
Smit has previously presented Samsung ARM11 powered Android tablets, now they plan to release Telechips based ones with Android 2.1 support. In the coming weeks they will also be working on the next generation ARM Cortex A8 processor from Telechips as development boards are being made available. I previously posted the web’s most popular Smit Android tablet videos: Smit MID-560 at IFA 2009, Smit MID-560 at CES 2010
In my previous video of the PocketBook 903 Pro at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQwWTR0kZ44 they didn’t load the latest firmware yet. Yesterday night the software engineers emailed a new firmware with fixed full speed digitizer pen input.
Acer is releasing this new 6″ e-ink e-reader, without a touch screen, it’s not Pearl type e-ink display, comes with 3G and WiFi options and supports online book stores like the German libri.de book store.
