While most companies are busy touting their upcoming Android tablets as web-surfing, app-running, game-playing powrhouses, Stream TV Networks is taking a different approach with its upcoming eLocity A7 tablet. This little Android tablet will be up for pre-order starting on August 24th, and Stream TV is touting its multimedia capabilities.

The company says the tablet integrates “high-end display and graphics technology.” But there are no detailed specs available at the moment, so I really have no idea what that means.But the tablet will apparently measure 8.2″ x 4.8″ and have a 7 inch display.

The tablet does appear to have all the usual features including a handful of Android buttons on the front — including Home, Menu, Back, Search, and volume keys. It looks like there’s also a USB port, headphone jack, and SD card slot. The eLocity A7 will also have an HDMI output and apparently comes with an (optional?) docking station.

via UberGizmo

Source

You know, I just kind of assumed that the upcoming tablet by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion — which the company is reportedly calling a BlackPad — might actually, you know, run some version of the BlackBerry OS. But according to Bloomberg that’s not the case.

Earlier this year RIM acquired a company called QNX Software Systems, and siting several anonymous sources, Bloomberg reports the BlackPad tablet will actually be running entirely new software developed by QNX.

QNX has a track record of producing software for in-car systems as well as medical, industrial, and other products. The in-car systems are probably the most interesting, since these are general consumer electronics devices for controlling music, media, and navigation systems. Those are some of the things you would expect a handheld tablet computer to be good at.

But the BlackPad will also reportedly feature a web browser, BlackBerry email integration, and the ability to connect tot he internet over WiFi or by sharing an internet connection with a BlackBerry mobile phone.

via Engadget

Source

The Notion Ink Adam Tablet is one of the most intriguing Android tablets on the horizon, thanks to its NVIDIA Tegra chipset, Google Android operating system, and optional Pixel Qi transflective display. While the Adam isn’t expected to launch until later this year, the folks at Notion Ink have already made it clear that they plan to offer their own custom software, app store, and catalog of magazines and other content for the tablet.

Of course, that sort of thing doesn’t happen without help from outside developers, and today Notion Ink sent out an email to hundreds of developers with a teaser for the company’s new “Genesis” project.

Aside from the biblical reference (Adam, Genesis… get it?) there’s not a lot of information about the new project yet. But the goal is clearly to encourage developers to write apps that take advantage of the powerful hardware in the Adam tablet, including the dual core processor multitouch display, and other features including the camera. Heck, I’d like to see some apps that acknowledge the fact that in high contrast mode the Pixel Qi display looks almost black and white, while in normal mode it’s a full color screen.

You can find out (a little) more at the Notion Ink blog.

Source

The Toshiba Libretto W100 may have just gone up for pre-order a few days ago, but it looks like Amazon has already sold out “due to overwhelming demand.” Not bad for a device that costs $1100 and doesn’t have a physical keyboard.

But the Libretto W100 isn’t the only portable computer with a touchscreen display we’re expecting from Toshiba. Last we’d heard, the company was planning to launch an Android tablet sometime this fall. Now DigiTimes is attempting to narrow that launch timeframe a bit, saying the toshiba tablet will hit the streets in September or October.

The tablet is said to have a 10 inch display and an NVIDIA Tegra 2 chispet. It will run Google ANdroid, and toshiba is hoping to ship 40 to 50,000 units by the end of the year, according to DigiTimes.

via SlashGear

Source

The Huawei S7 is a 7 inch Android tablet. There’s nothing all to unusual about that. But unlike some of the cheap tablets we’ve seen over the past few months, the Huawei S7 has a reasonably fast processor, a 3G modem and some telecoms are already bundling the tablet with mobile broadband service plans.

CarryPad noticed that it’s already available in Austria, where you can pick up the tablet for 99 Euros up front and 29 Euros per month for a 5GB/month data plan. And the folks at derStandard have posted a review of the tablet.

Unfortunately, the 768MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and Android 2.1 operating system weren’t enough to make the reviewer happy. The camera app crashed a few times and picture quality wasn’t great. The battery life didn’t come close to the promised 8 hours of run time. And while you can use the tablet to make phone calls, unlike the 5 inch Dell Streak, there’s really no way to pass this 7 inch tablet off as a reasonable device to hold up to your head.

But the biggest problem was probably the screen, which derStandard describes as “cheap.”

The Huawei S7 has a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel resistive touchscreen. It doesn’t support multitouch, and the reviewer felt that touch input wasn’t very precise — even with a stylus.

I know there are some folks out there who actually prefer resistive displays to capacitive ones. But Android really was designed to be used with your fingers, not a stylus. I’ve poked at on-screen keyboards with a stylus before, and it’s always much slower than using two thumbs to type. Although I can’t say for certain if the Huawei S7 suffers from the same problem as the Augen GenTouch78, I can also say that some resistive touchscreen displays also require you to press much harder against the display than others. Not all resistive screens are created equal.

You can read more at derStandard.

Source

But if $150 still seems like a bit much to pay, it turns out there’s a way to knock about $50 off the price and get the tablet for about $100 plus tax.

You need to combine a few coupons and convince a retailer to match one of its competitor’s prices to get the deal. But fortunately SlateDroid forum member Bodex has put together a step by step set of instructions.

Basically what you have to do is print out a Walgreens ad to get Bed Bath & Beyond to knock $20 off the base price. Then use a Bed Bath & Beyond 20% off coupon to knock another $30 off the price and then apply for a $20 rebate on the tablet (PDF Link), which brings the total price down to about $100.

The only catch? That rebate is only good through August 15th… which happens to be today.

Update: August 15th has come and gone, which means the deal is no longer good. But it also looks like there might have been a flaw in the plan, since Bed Bath & Beyond doesn’t officially price match online only prices.

Source

The folks at Wow Pow managed to get their hands on a unit from Conics, with the Japanese operating system converted to English. The site has the first unboxing video for the Libretto W100 that I’ve seen. There are also a couple of video overviews of the device. You can check out all the videos after the break.

As a quick refresher, the Toshiba Libretto W100 has two 7 inch capacitive touchscreen displays with resolutions of 1024 x 600 pixels. It has a 1.2GHz Intel Pentium U5400 processor, 2GB of DDR3 memory, and a 62GB solid state disk. The device supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi, WiMAX, and Bluetooth and has a webcam, USB port, microSD card slot, and comes with 2 or 4 hour batteries. It weighs just over 1.5 pounds.

Probably one of the most interesting things Toshiba has done with this device is give it several different virtual keyboards, allowing you to hold it in two hands and type with your thumbs or place it on a tablet and treat it like a traditional laptop. You can see more about the virtual keyboards in my first look video.

The list price is expected to be around $1100, but Conics charges a premium for exporting the tablet from Japan. There’s no word on when the Libretto W100 will officially launch in the US.

Now on to the videos.

thanks Aftermath!

Read the rest of this entry »

Source

Source

The new QSD8672 chip is designed for smartphones and tablets, and could show up in new products in time for this year’s holiday season.

The new chip are designed to offer improved power management and include features allowing one CPU core to idle while the other is working, which means you’ll get the dual core performance boost only when you need it — which could help prolong battery life.

Qualcomm is also building support for 1080p HD video playback and HDMI output into the new chip.

via Netbook News

Source

But does that mean that the iPad is crushing other product categories, such as netbooks? Maybe, maybe not. There’s certainly some overlap in audience. Netbooks are cheap computers, often with long battery life, which many people purchase primarily for surfing the web on the go or on the couch. The Apple iPad is pretty good at those things too.

But netbooks have keyboards, run Windows apps, and are generally just small PCs. And iPad isn’t.

So when Digitimes reported this morning that Asus is adjusting its third quarter netbook shipment targets, in response to the iPad… I got a little skeptical. I think the reason the targets are changing is simple: Asus is shipping fewer netbooks. But is it because of the iPad?

If we lived in a vacuum and the only two products you could choose from were Asus netbooks and the Apple iPad, then it might not be that hard to find an answer. But even if that were the case, there’s another factor to consider. Asus has been selling netbooks since 2007, while the iPad has only been available for a few months. It’s possible that one of the reasons netbook sales are slowing is because many of the people who want one have already bought one. Until it breaks or something truly revolutionary comes along to convince them to purchase a new netbook, they’ll probably hang onto the computer they spent a few hundred bucks on last year.

But we don’t live in a vacuum, and it’s not just the iPad and Asus netbooks. There are 10 inch notebooks from Acer, HP, Dell, and a dozen other companies competing with Asus on the netbook front. What’s more, there are a growing number of 11.6 inch and 12.1 inch notebooks which are bigger, more powerful, and have higher resolution displays than netbooks — but which don’t weight much more, get similar battery life, and are still selling for around $500. I think it’s just as likely that these notebooks are eating into netbook sales as it is that the iPad is.

Of course, Asus and other companies are hedging their bets. Pretty much every major PC makers is expected to launch some form of tablet computer in the next year. And there’s a decent chance that some of them will actually sell pretty well. But it’s too early to say whether that means the netbook category is going to disappear altogether. It may shrink, due to a wider range of budget portable computers to choose from. But that’s a far cry from saying that the iPad killed the netbook star.

Source