Yesterday’s Champ Vs. Tomorrow’s Heroes: Galaxy Tab vs. Motorola XOOM.

It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that we were praising the Samsung Galaxy Tab for finally cracking the Android tablet market. With a four-carrier spread, consumer demand was sure to be met thanks to the various cellular options. Combined with carrier availability, the hardware inside of the Samsung Galaxy Tab was world class and top of the line — and this all inside of a smaller, more pocketable 7″ form factor.

Fast forward to early 2011 and the tables are already turning. Tablets such as the Motorola XOOM offer a bigger size, more performance, and most importantly, an all new experience thanks to the tablet-specific OS, Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). The two devices are worlds apart in terms of hardware. With that said, is the Samsung Galaxy Tab still worth it’s price (as of writing ~$250 w/ 2-year contract)? Maybe, just maybe…

HTC Thunderbolt Preview

Well look at what decided to pop on by my doorstep today….an HTC Thunderbolt. Initial impressions: very comfortable in hand, nice screen, good battery life so far, and a perfect weight. Look for our full review in the coming days.

HTC Thunderbolt Rooted.

Considering it’s becoming cooler and more mainstream to root Android devices with each passing week, it’s not surprising that every new Android device gets more and more attention. The latest new kid on the block to get hacked, cracked, and rooted is the HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon. None other than the talented folks at XDA are responsible for the hack, though for now said hack is private. The team is still working on a recovery to make the process a bit more user friendly. But things can’t be too far off. Stay close to this thread over at XDA as well as GS for the the latest in HTC Thunderbolt root information.

Motorola Atrix On Bell Canada Also Suffers From Capped Upload Speeds.

In most other businesses and sectors of society, advertising one thing and then providing another, lesser quality thing is grounds for lawsuit, imprisonment, etc. But if you’re a cellular carrier or smartphone manufacturer, such trivial things apparently don’t matter. How else would you categorize the Motorola Atrix having disabled (read: capped) HSUPA? The end results is a “4G” phone that tops out at 400Kbps upload speeds, leaving many “3G” devices (such as the iPhone 4) to move along at up to ~1Mbps.

Hopefully Motorola, AT&T, and Bell come forward with some sort of legitimate reasoning besides the B.S. excuse of “the/our network isn’t quite ready yet”. Because if that’s the case, the phone shouldn’t have been marketed or released as a 4G phone in the first place. Any current Atrix 4G owners felling a but burnt by AT&T, Bell, and possibly Motorola’s actions?

Android 2.3 Browser Beats iPhone? Not So Fast…

The interwebbs have been in a tizzy the last 24 hours after a report by Blaze highlighted Android 2.3’s browser handedly trumping Apple’s latest browser version in iOS. Android users were no doubt excited to have some firing power to send Apple’s way, though, we all expected Apple to debunk the study/report at some point. And Apple did – barely 24 hours later.

According to an Apple spokesperson in response to comment by BGR, “Blaze used a proprietary, embedded web viewer that doesn’t take advantage of Safari’s web performance optimization” (Nitro Javascript engine). In short: Blaze was using simulators instead of actual devices. Sounds like a simple enough rebuttal that has worthwhile supporting evidence. Blaze, ball’s in your court now…

Nvidia GTX 590 Release Pushed Back From March 22nd To March 24th.

Fans of Nvidia GPUs will have to wait a couple of more days to duke it out with AMD’s latest 6990 dual-GPU graphics card. According to PC hardware site, Fudzilla, Nvidia has pushed the release date back by two days, with unverified reports citing driver issues. Mind you, the original release date was scheduled for March 22nd – an unofficial date which Nvidia never acknowledged mind you. Nevertheless, it’s far better than other delays we’ve seen in the gadget world. Just consider this two more days to brush up on your kill/death ratio as you wait for the added horsepower to hit your doorstep.

AT&T Cracking Down On Unofficial Tethering.

AT&T is cracking down on unofficial tethering by way of jailbroken iPhones and rooted Android devices, specifically, AT&T customers still using the old $30 unlimited 5GB data plan. The emails and texts both highlight the same thing – that AT&T wants to get double-paid for data access via tethering by saying:

AT&T Free Msg: Did you know tethering your smartphone to a computer requires a tethering plan? Pls call 888-860-6789 for details or visit att.com/dataplans.

Of course, tethering doesn’t really require anything extra in the way of data plans. Carriers just like the free money said plans bring with them. As for the current situation here, AT&T will take it upon themselves to auto-enroll you in the $45/month 2GB Data Pro + Tethering plan after March 27th if you continue to tether without said plan.

Thus far, speculation is hinting at a possible pointer in iOS 4.3 that allows AT&T to be able to tell if someone is or isn’t tethering. Though it’s also entirely possible that AT&T is just going off of data usage metrics. If the latter is the case, that’s a petty bold move on AT&T’s part seeing as how 2GB is a pittance to give people in the age of video/photo sharing, VoIP, online gaming, etc.

We’ll keep following this. In the meantime, hop inside for the much lengthier, though equally as ridiculous email compliments of Ma Bell herself…