Archive for: tablet
We’ve been pretty unimpressed with the Android tablet scene thus far. The hardware has been drool worthy, for sure, but when it comes to software, things are sorely lacking. Thankfully that situation is changing (albeit slowly).
Today, Rhapsody released their new 2.2.2.380 update to their popular Android app, with the most important addition being a new UI for tablets. Quite simply, Rhapsody did a pretty awesome job. The tablet UI for the updated Android app is better than many of the other tablet specific UIs we’ve seen on Android apps. The only kicker — it’s only for tablets 9″ and bigger and only available on Android 3.0 and up. Considering how hard Android manufacturers have touted their 7-9″ tablets over Apple’s iPad as a prime example of “choice” over the last year and a half, we find it pretty shortsighted and a bit ridiculous on Rhapsody’s part to cut off this sector of the market. Then again, the 7-9″ tablet space has been pretty reliant on ancient builds of Android 2.x. But alas, it is what it is. Here’s to hoping Rhapsody has a change of heart and gets the smaller tablets into the party, too.
Get the new update right over here: Downlaod – Rhapsody 2.2.2.380 (Android Market link) Another screenshot after the break.
The wait for Samsung Galaxy S II and Note owners will soon be over. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is officially coming to your devices by end of Q1, according to a post on Samsung Norway’s official Facebook Fan Page. If our luck stateside is as good as the Norwegians, we too can look forward to ICS blessing the newly launched Note and “legacy” hardware such as the Galaxy S II in the not too distant future.
The Qooq tablet is a slate that is designed to protect your recipes and tablet from the dangers of the kitchen. The Qooq (pronounced cook) is a water and heat-safe tablet that is designed to sit next to the cutting board. With a water resistant case that will withstand the nastiest grease splatter and wine spill is actually quite pretty. While wiping my greasy fingers all over it I was quite surprised how it cleaned off with a swipe of a towel. The tablet has built in corner stands to lay down raised over your counter as well as a stand that will keep it upright as you’re creating your culinary masterpiece.
The Qooq is a Linux OS based machine that will keep your recipes in order as well as give you a recipe list and videos of the meal you are making being prepared. The 10.1″ screen is not at all bad on the eyes. I have used a few tablets in my days, and I was impressed with the 1024×600 resolution screen. While wiping my hands all over it I was quite surprised with how light the tablet actually was. The Qooq gives you an ethernet port, USB port, SD card slot as well as a headphone jack under a nice convenient rubber cover on the side. Built into the back yields a stand that will stand the Qooq tablet to your sink and give you ultimate access to all of your recipes. No more reasons to have your Mom’s recipe book getting abused with the Qooq tablet at your side.
The tablet is has been out for a while in France but is scheduled for release this September in the US. I will be at their booth this week for a hands on as this little guy is actually quite interesting.
The craziness into CES unofficially officially begins tonight with CES unveiled. But so much has already trickeld out that it’s worth highlighting some of the big things we’re now expecting to see. Hop past the break for the early leaks of CES 2012…
The original FusionGarage JooJoo tablet may have been was a piece of junk. But criticism be damned, the company is pushing ahead hard to get their second-gen tablet out into the market as soon as possible — after missing their original “first half 2011 release date”.
The FCC filing doesn’t give us much, unfortunately. Though based on previous statements by Fusion Garage, the JooJoo 2 will shed the clunky in-house OS in favor of Android. Hardware platform is unknown, though Nvidia’s Tegra 2 seems to be the golden standard it seems, so we’d place our eggs in that basket. For real mobile travelers, the JooJoo 2 looks to include UMTS band II and V as well as quadband GSM/EDGE support. (AT&T 3G perhaps?)
Now that things are a bit more even keel thanks to Android, we’re thinking this new JooJoo will be a bit more desirable.
Sales numbers are king in the tech hardware world. And while The big guns face off against each other with flashy yet empty press releases, we’re left looking for some real numbers. Well, here they are.
Motorola just announced their Q2 results. Our big focus — the XOOM. According to Motorola they moved ~440,000 of them during the second quarter. For comparison’s sake, Apple sells that many every five days. Still, as one of the most popular Android tablets to date it’s both impressive (from an Android standpoint) and a good baseline of what we can base other Android tablets off of.
As for other figures, Motorola states over 11 million mobile devices in total were shipped and made a net revenue of $24 billion, up 41% from a year ago.
Not bad, Moto.
Carrier support in favor of RIM’s PlayBook tablet hasn’t exactly been “stellar” thus far. Even worse, the general consumer audience has passed on it in favor of several other Android tablets as well as Apple’s iPad 1 and 2. But even after the onslaught of negative news surrounding RIM over the last couple of weeks, it might just start getting better.
A tweet by RIM employee (gina71314) claims that AT&T will be making a PlayBook announcement tomorrow. It could pertain to AT&T selling the PlayBook itself. Other topics of importance include the duo finally making the BlackBerry Bridge app available to AT&T customers.
We won’t go into how ridiculous it is for both AT&T to block it and RIM to allow AT&T to block it this long into the game. It just goes to show how screwed up RIM’s marketing and methodology is. With that said, what do you think AT&T/RIM will announce tomorrow?
If you passed on the 7″ PlayBook for a bit more screen real state in RIM’s rumored upcoming 10″ version, your night may end a bit more intoxicated than it started. BlackBerry enthusiast site N4BB claims a source of theirs has stated the 10″ PlayBook has been cancelled — cancelled!
The reasoning seems legitimate enough — RIM is focusing all of their efforts on a new QNX-powered “superphone” reportedly powered by a 1.2 GHz processor (the jury is still out on whether it will be single or dual-core), 4.3″ display and 900+ screen resolution.
The QNX “Superphone” is something that’s been rumored for many months now. How close is RIM to releasing the real answer to the iPhone’s and high-end Android devices of 2011? Gritty response: Come back and talk to us sometime in 2012.
Where does that leave the PlayBook? With a void now filling the PlayBook’s future, RIM is said to be pushing the upcoming 4G/LTE PlayBook more heavily in preparation for the planned October 2011 release. Of course, the bigger picture is even more interesting to us. With RIM’s so called “awesome” tablet, what does it say that they’re already abandoning it to focus on their phones? On the flip side, RIM can’t really afford to not put every resource into their smartphone line any longer. It’s literally down to the wire.
Need a different tablet to poke and prod besides your usual assortment of Android and iOS hardware? Well lucky you. Archos has come out swinging today with two new G9 tablets in both 8″ and 10.1″ sizes.
Both tablets will make use of a dual-core OMAP 4 processor ticking along at 1.5 GHz, feature Android 3.1, and store everything your little heart desires compliments of a 250 GB hard drive. The 8.1″ tablet features 1024 x 768 resolution and a $249 price tag while the 10.1″ G9 pumps the screen res to 1200 x 800 and the price to $349.
As for the standard spinning hard drive (as opposed to NAND-based storage) — while HDDs aren’t a standard storage medium in the new age of ultra mobile devices, Archos has stood by them to keep costs down and boast more storage than competing products. On the flip side, users may notice slower overall system performance because of the lack of a fast SSD or flash-based chip. Nonetheless, it’s hard to find fault with a 10.1″ tablet with bleeding edge hardware (save for storage) costing a mere $349.
