Huawei unveils Ascend D quad, Ascend D quad XL and Ascend D1 Android phones.
Asus announces Padfone tablet/smartphone hybrid
Asus on Monday unveiled the Padfone from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The hybrid device was first announced in May last year, however a bit has changed since the Padfone's initial announcement at Computex 2011. .
Samsung announces Galaxy Note 10.1 with Android 4.0
Samsung on Monday took the wraps off another new addition to its Android tablet lineup, the Galaxy Note 10.1. Like the supersized "phablet" it joins in the Galaxy Note family, the Note 10.1 includes Samsung's S Pen stylus for drawing, note-taking, highlighting and much more..
Samsung Galaxy S III full specs
We reported some exclusive details surrounding Samsung's upcoming flagship Galaxy S III smartphone this past weekend, and now we have received some more information that helps us paint a more complete picture. And as that picture becomes more clear, this sure looks like the baddest Android smartphone the world hasn't yet seen. We reported that the new Samsung flagship would launch in a simultaneous fashion across the globe, but we now have some more detailed specifications to report. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the Samsung Galaxy S III.
Showing posts with label convertible tablet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label convertible tablet. Show all posts
Well beginning of April, you sure do like tablets for $499, don't ya? While the Eee PC T101MT has been available to suave Europeans since February, ASUS has let out word that the 10-inch, multitouch tablet will start shipping in the US sometime in April for $499. Not a bad deal considering the Pine Trail-powered netvertible has been been priced around 499 Euros overseas -- though we're unsure at this point of the final specs of the American T101MT and what version of Windows 7 it will boot. We'll be keeping our eyes peeled for it at the usual etailers, but before you head out and buy one you may want to wait on our upcoming full review to see how this thing measures up to the other netvertibles out there.
The folks at UMPC Portal have already treated us to an unboxing of Viliv's new S10 Blade convertible netbook, but they're now back with a full review that gives a better picture of the device. On the whole, they seem to be fairly impressed with the device, noting its thin and sleek design, and its "silent, rugged operation." They were also pleasantly surprised by the battery life, which clocked in at an impressive 7.5hrs with WiFi on during general use. On the downside, the resistive multitouch screen wasn't quite as responsive as they would have liked, and there are a few other minor annoyances -- like the lack of a button to rotate the screen in tablet mode, no mic input or Ethernet port, and some fairly lackluster built-in speakers. In other Viliv news, it looks like none other than Best Buy has recently started carrying the company's devices (online, at least), although it doesn't yet have the S10 up for order.
Been thinking about settling down with an XP netbook but can't get the idea of an Android tablet out of your mind? We understand your pain -- and so does Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry, which is showing off the Mtube II netbook / tablet at Computex. The slick remix of an HP Mini 1000 runs XP when in netbook configuration, but then switches over to Android on an unspecified ARM processor when the screen is pulled off and used as a tablet. Yes, it's basically the product most of us have daydreamed about for ages -- much like the Touch Book -- but there are some tradeoffs here: first, the Atom in the netbook base has been swapped for a VIA C7-M, so it's not exactly a rocket, and second, the screen is connected by VNC, so video performance isn't going to be all that great. We're hoping the additional year of development III says it needs will solve some of those problems, but until then you know we'll be doodling this thing all through math class. Videos after the break.
Who says you have to pick between a netbook and the coming onslaught of standalone tablet devices? Okay maybe some (eh hem Apple), but Lenovo's trying to have it both ways with the IdeaPad U1 and the S10-3t. In clamshell mode the S10-3t looks like any old 10-inch netbook, but swivel around its capacitive mulitouch display and it turns into that slate device you've been dreaming of. That's not all: the S10-3t is one of the first netbooks (or netveritbles) that has the new Intel 1.83GHz Atom N470 processor. But can the S10-3t straddle both worlds and do it well? And perhaps more importantly, is it worth the premium $649 price tag? That's the question we've been asking ourselves for the last few days, so hit the break for some answers in our full review. Look and feel
There's nothing too jaw-dropping about the S10-3t's design, and we'd actually be totally fine with that if it didn't have the glossiest black lid known to man. While the lid is inlaid with a subtle glitter tint and boxy pattern, you wouldn't know it with all the smudgy fingerprints it collects. And though the plastic chassis feels solid enough, the lid did collect some scratches from being in our bag so you'll want to pick up a case to keep the little guy clean and warm.
For a netbook the .79-inch S10-3t is actually rather trim, and it's noticeably narrower than other 10-inch systems. While it's obviously thicker than standalone tablets or e-readers like the Kindle DX, when equipped with its four-cell battery the 2.7-pound tablet was light enough to hold up in bed while reading. However, that eight-cell bulging battery version that we saw at CES looks like it would be incredibly uncomfortable to hold in arm.
One of the biggest benefits of the convertible form factor is having access to a full size, physical keyboard, but for a netbook we're just not that impressed with the S10-3t's layout and keys. The matte white keys are particularly bouncy and are more cramped than usual. Perhaps it's the fact that we've gotten used to the chiclet keyboard layout, but our first draft of this review was ridden with typos.
As a result of the S10-3t's narrower dimensions, its palmrest is thinner, which in turn means very limited touchpad real estate. The rectangular pad with its integrated mouse buttons is about the size of a USB stick, and provides an incredibly cramped navigation experience. While it doesn't make up for all the backtracking our fingers had to do, we do like the feel of the raised dots on the pad itself. Are we totally crazy for thinking Lenovo should have grabbed a ThinkPad pointing stick and stuck it in the middle of the keyboard?
Screen and tablet performance
Of course, the hope is that you should be able use the capacitive touchscreen to move around in Windows 7 Home Premium, and for the most part it's a decent touch navigation experience. The 1024 x 600 resolution is actually ideal for the 10.1-inch display – desktop icons are large enough to select with a light finger tap, but getting at the smaller menus requires more than a few jabs at the screen. Lenovo does preload Bumptop, which creates a 3D desk-like view of your desktop, but honestly we find the whole interface rather frustrating and would have just preferred Lenovo put on its SimpleTap software for those larger touch controls to adjust the volume or view the remaining battery power.
Multitouch gestures were responsive; we got in the hang of sticking two fingers on the screen to scroll down the length of web pages or pinching to make text larger. As soon as you swing the display around using the S10-3t's fairly sturdy, bidirectional hinge, Lenovo's Natural Touch interface launches. The full screen finger-friendly carousel interface provides large shortcuts to Lenovo's own photo, music and e-book software. We're not sure why you'd choose this multimedia software over Microsoft's Media Player and Photo Gallery, but the e-book software does open PDF or e-pub files and adds note taking and bookmark functions. Though it's a nice piece of software, we preferred Amazon's Kindle for PC app to access our collection of already-purchased titles.
While the touch reading experience was smooth and we enjoyed flicking through pages and pinching to zoom in on text, it was our experience reading the New York Times Reader while laying down that brought out the biggest issue with the screen – its viewing angles. Though the extra glossy screen contributes somewhat to the issues, we encountered major color distortion both horizontally and vertically, and at some angles we couldn't even see what was on the screen. It was especially apparent when we tried to look at an Olympic photo gallery while lying in bed – we had to adjust ourselves and the tablet quite a bit to comfortably flick through the images. Why Lenovo had to use a cheap LCD on this device is beyond us – it craps up a perfectly enjoyable experience.
The device has an accelerometer, but we found it to be a bit flaky; we ended up using the button on the side of the screen more often than not to change the screen orientation, and even when we used this solution we got impatient with the typical five second adjustment period. Lastly, we should mention that Lenovo doesn't include a stylus, so if you want to take advantage of Windows 7's handwriting functionality you're going to need to come up with one of your own or, you know, find a piece of meat.
Performance and battery life
We went into reviewing the S10-3t hoping it would be one of the faster netbooks we've ever used considering its new 1.83GHz Atom N470 processor and 2GB of RAM. However, those dreams quickly faded when we were met with the typical netbook performance. In fact, the N470 scored 1,348 on PCMark05, which is actually lower than the N450-powered HP Mini 210's 1393. That's sort of a letdown for us, but in typical usage -- writing this review and surfing the web -- performance seemed snappy. We did notice it taking a bit of time for certain apps within Lenovo's NaturalTouch to open but we're inclined to blame the slow 320GB hard drive or software for that. With no change made to the GMA 3150 graphics, the S10-3t was fine for playing standard def video, but couldn't handle streaming a 720p music video without stuttering.
PCMark05 3DMark06 Battery Life Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t 1348 160 3:12 HP Mini 210 1393 147 5:15 ASUS Eee PC 1005PE 1431 157 8:10 Toshiba Mini NB305 1272 156 6:30
On our video rundown test the S10-3t's four-cell battery lasted three hours and 12 minutes, but when we actually used the system to write this review and surf the Web we got close to four and a half hours of battery life. In our minds that's not all that bad considering the battery fits flush with the system, but you can always go up to the chunky eight-cell for a couple more bucks.
Wrap-up
As both a netbook and a tablet the S10-3t leaves a bit more to be desired. Sure, we're disappointed that the N470 processor doesn't provide improved performance, but what's even more aggravating is that $649 buys you a tiny trackpad, sluggish touchscreen software and terrible viewing angles. Maybe you can live with those shortcomings, but we're personally holding out for a better netbook / tablet combo to come along.
What's better than one hands-on report to whet your appetite ahead of the release of a new gadget? Why, two of them, of course, and it's the convertible ASUS T101MT getting the stereo impressions. The machine has netbook specs (1.6GHz Atom N450 CPU, 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, etc. etc.) combined with a 10.1-inch multitouch screen, which both of the sites giving early impressions rated poorly. Responsiveness is said to be less than stellar, and while one of these previewers was able to improve it with some extra calibration, precision near the top of the screen still sounds bad. Build quality looks good (for an Eee) and the form factor certainly looks nice, but we're losing a little faith in this entrant after watching the video below. Check it out for yourself and see what you think, but don't write it off just yet: these are still pre-production models and a little firmware magic could whip this tablet into shape before its release -- whenever that will be. Source
We didn't have a whole lot of details on Fujitsu's new Lifebook T4220 convertible tablet when we first caught wind of it, but the folks at Laptop Magazine have now thankfully come through to answer all our questions with a full review of the flip-and-fold device. As you might expect, they found the underlying Santa Rosa platform to deliver a noticeable boost in performance, with the tablet's Intel GMA X3100 graphics also faring well with video and Vista's Aero interface, although it likely still won't be enough to satisfy gamers. They were also impressed with the Lifebook's thin and light design (1.5 inches and 4.3 pounds) -- an even more impressive feat given the built-in DVD burner -- and they found the integrated fingerprint reader and SmartCard security to be welcome additions. On the downside, the tablet's battery life proved to be decidedly lackluster, delivering an average runtime of three hours, or just over two hours during their DVD drain test. They were also disappointed by the lack of Firewire and S-video ports. Still, they don't seem to have much trouble recommending the tablet, giving it a solid four out of five rating. Source
For some among us, the VAIO E series is the pinnacle of modern mobile computing design. Then there are other, saner individuals, who prefer the understated aesthetics of what are commonly termed business laptops. For that latter group, we have a whole glut of new Toshiba notebooks to look at, highlighted by the delectable looking Portege M780 above. Much in the vein of HP's 2730p, it's a 12.1-inch convertible tablet PC, with a spill-resistant keyboard and rugged features (tested to withstand drops from up to 1 meter), but its biggest attraction will still likely be the Core i5 heart thumping inside. Also undergoing upgrades are the Tecra A11 (already available in the US), M11 and S11, which will come with up to 8GB of RAM, 802.11n wireless, SSD options, and of course Intel Core i7 CPUs. Check them out after the break, and expect them to arrive in Europe, the Middle East and Africa this quarter, with the M780 close behind them with a Q2 2010 release.
We tell ya -- all this tablet talk sure has us feeling like it's 2003. You know, minus all that Y2K hangover stuff. Anywho, Panasonic has today outed what it's calling the planet's lightest 12.1-inch convertible tablet PC, with the Toughbook C1 offering the line's iconic rigidity while boasting 10 hours of battery life, an optional Gobi 2000 mobile broadband module and Intel's decidedly potent 2.4GHz Core i5-520 processor. All told, the device weighs just 3.2 pounds with a single battery (3.7 pounds with twins), and there's full support for digitizers and multitouch. Other specs include a shock-mounted, flex-connect 250GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, a WXGA (1,280 x 800) LED-backlit panel, a triple hinge design and the ability to survive a 30-inch plummet. It's available to (quite literally) smash iPads starting this June, though that $2,499 starting price may be somewhat off-putting to those without copious amounts of disposable income.
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