Category: Tablets

Philips GoGear Connect 3, Android PMP

Posted by – September 5, 2011

Philips releases its new GoGear Connect 3, with a 3.2″ HVGA capacitive touch screen with an unknown processor (please post in the comments if you know which processor they are using). Philips is also launching 3 new Android Speaker Docks, in different sizes, more or less portable and for home use from 100€ to 200€.

Archos G9 Tablets official $ USD pricing confirmed

Posted by – September 4, 2011

Archos is releasing the G9 tablets worldwide in the coming weeks, scheduled for global release by the end of September. Here are the official $ USD prices:

Archos 80 G9:
8GB 1Ghz: $299
16GB 1.5Ghz: $329
250GB 1.5Ghz: $369

Archos 101 G9:
8GB 1Ghz: $369
16GB 1.5Ghz: $399
250GB 1.5Ghz: $469

For the confirmation if 8GB 1Ghz versions have 512MB RAM and 16GB and 250GB 1.5Ghz versions have 1GB RAM, you have to wait another few days or weeks for Archos to give us an official confirmation on the RAM capacity. As far as I understand, they may still be testing out the different types of RAM and capacities based on the latest Honeycomb 3.2 software most optimized for the high memory bandwidth of the OMAP4460 processor, to determine which type and capacity of RAM to use. Though these 1.5Ghz tablets are probably right now coming out of those factories so Archos should be able to confirm this at any moment now. Let’s try again tomorrow and the day after, when the engineers are not on their week-end break and can give us an answer.

RFTech $89 Telechips capacitive Android Tablet

Posted by – September 3, 2011

RFTech presents $89 Telechips ARM11 tablet and the $111 Telechips ARM Cortex-A8 tablet. You can find more information at http://rftech.com.cn

Yifang Smart Pen for iPad

Posted by – September 3, 2011

You clip a thing on the iPad connector and with that special Pen from Yifang, you can scrible and write text memos in the special iPad app that they provide.

PocketBook A10 Android Tablet

Posted by – September 3, 2011

PocketBook launches their new PocketBook A10 Android Tablet. It has a 10.1″ capacitive touch screen and uses the Texas Instruments OMAP3621 1Ghz ARM Cortex-A8 processor with 512MB RAM.

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 Note, testing out the HD Super AMOLED screen

Posted by – September 2, 2011

This screen really is amazingly awesome. 5.3″ HD Super AMOLED, 1280×800, amazing and awesome colors, in a huge form factor that still can fit in any pocket.

Here are some comparative pictures showing it next to the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, the Archos 43 Internet Tablet and the Samsung Galaxy S2. You can click on the images to see the full size.

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€.

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 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.

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.

Lenovo A1, 7″ 1024×600 Single-core Gingerbread Tablet

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Here’s a cheap new Lenovo Tablet targetted at the sub-$300 price point. It might use the Rockchip RK2918, or it might be some other processor similar to that, to be confirmed. Please post in the comments if you find out which processor it is using..

Bodhi Linux for ARM project now on Kickstarter

Posted by – July 28, 2011

Jeff Hoogland posted this project on kickstarter.com for developing an alternative embedded Linux OS for ARM Powered tablets:

We want to provide an elegant, fully open Linux based operating system that is a viable alternative to Android and Meego for mobile touch screen devices. Competition stimulates market growth and produces better products over all for consumers. An open development model means no surprises or lock downs that will hurt end users. It also means developers can more easily get involved and contribute to what we are creating.

We are starting with Debian as our base and building our interface on top of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFLs). It will be optimized for touch screen devices, but the interface will still be practical for devices controlled by a keyboard and mouse. We have an ever growing team that is dedicated to producing a quality product.

Here’s a video demo of Bodhi Linux current version running on the Archos 70 Internet Tablet that can be legally-rooted for installing alternative multi-boot software.

Find out more about this Bodhi Linux project at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/560221218/bodhi-linux-for-arm

Best Tablet in the World: Archos 80 and 101 G9, my first hands-on

Posted by – July 13, 2011

I got lucky enough to be able to play around with the new Archos G9 tablets for a few minutes (as I am the admin on http://forum.archosfans.com), they are awesome. Here are some of the features that I think makes this probably one of the best tablets in the world when it comes out in September:
– 50% faster than iPad2/Xoom/Transformer/Tab101/etc, 1.5Ghz Dual-core OMAP4460 ARM Cortex-A9 vs 1Ghz for the others (Quad-cores such as Nvidia Tegra3 are rumored to come at 1.2Ghz so this dual-core may be 25% faster for some things that are not too parallel and perhaps about 20% slower on other more parallel processed things)
– Optional unlocked $49 3G Dongle slides in the back
– Built-in kick-stand
– HDMI-out (1080p All Codecs High Profile High Bitrates) with most powerful Video/Audio/Photo apps on any device with automatic meta-data and Upnp/Samba streaming support
– 2x USB Host (one is dedicated for 3G Dongle)
– Honeycomb 3.2 with official Google Marketplace pre-installed
– Most importantly, starts at $279 for 8″, $349 for 10.1″, there will be all kinds of options though, 16GB Flash or 250GB hard drive (the 250GB version is likely around $100 more than the 16GB flash version, to be confirmed) don’t worry about hard drive speed/failures, all the Android OS and apps are on 4GB Flash based ROM cache so the OS feels 100% as fast as on a Flash based tablet, the HDD only spins up when loading big video files into memory while you probably are not likely to be running around with it anyway.

This is my first video showing how those tablets are. Look forward to many more videos that I will post about the Archos G9 if I can get some review samples at one point in the next few weeks until and after they are released in September worldwide.

I would have liked to see them do 5″ and 7″ G9 tablets as well to be more pocketable (pants 5″ or jacket 7″ pockets), but for now, Archos has nothing to announce regarding more sizes for the G9 series, it’s open to speculation, my speculation is that it may be the reason for them to have to wait for Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich to come and support more screen sizes officially and also it may be a question of production capacity and limiting the amount of skews they release.

The OMAP4460 that comes in the Archos G9 series is quite amazing. It can do 1080p at 60 frames per second, for sure all codecs high profile high bitrates at 30 frames per second. It’s got an awesome overclocked Imagination GPU for advanced 3D graphics making HDMI out 3D games smooth and totally making this a potential up to N64/PS/DC emulator console replacement on your HDTV. HD Netflix can be supported. You can easily do 720p video conferencing, even 1080p video conferencing can be supported if a 1080p USB Webcam can be made to work on this Android.

Android for cars using COQOS by OpenSynergy

Posted by – June 27, 2011

They have Android running on the Freescale i.MX53, but it’s running virtualized using a separation micro-kernel they call COQOS offering the real-time features that are required in a car running the industry-standard AUTOSAR software also at the same time, thus this solution is fully secure. You can find more information at http://www.opensynergy.com/en/Products/COQOS