10.1 - 4/5 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jun

[Updated: Now On Amazon Too] Toshiba Thrive Pre-Orders Live On Toshiba Direct Starting At $429, Shipping In Mid-July

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Tablets, Thrive / Regza / Antares / AT100, Tips & Tutorials, Toshiba

Update 6/14/11: All 3 Thrive variations are now on Amazon as well, for those who prefer themselves some tax-free shopping.

Ever since we saw Toshiba's then-unnamed tablet at CES in January, we've carefully put our ears to the ground to learn all we can about this surprisingly capable device. Today's Thrive news, then, has us excited - pre-orders have started, and all iterations of the tablet (8/16/32GB) will be shipping on the same yet-to-be-announced date next month (Toshiba's site now says "Mid-July").

Unlike the Office Depot pre-order, Toshiba Direct allows you to order the thriftier 8GB model, which comes in at a very reasonable $429.

Jun

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Now Up For Pre-Order At Best Buy - $500 For 16GB, $600 For 32GB

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab 10.1, News

Android's hottest new tablet - the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 - is now available for pre-order at Best Buy. As we've heard before, New Yorkers have an especially sweet deal: Best Buy will be opening up sales today at noon at their Union Square store, and the first 200 purchasers will also get a free leather pouch. For the rest of us, the Tab is slated to go on sale on June 17.

Pricing is also what we've heard before: $500 for the 16GB model and $600 for 32GB. Both models can be purchased in either white or metallic gray, as well.

Jun

Toshiba Tells Us About The Thrive And Its Many Accessories, We Take Notes

Posted by Jakub Glodek in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Tablets, Thrive / Regza / Antares / AT100

Earlier last week, we got some leaked information about the upcoming tablet from Toshiba called Thrive. Today I had the opportunity to meet Philip Osako, Director of Product Marketing at Toshiba, who gave us a demonstration and a little more background on the development of the Thrive. Starting June 13th you will be able to pre-order the tablet at all major retailors starting at $429 for the 8GB version, $479 for the 16GB, and $579 for the glorious 32GB version.

What Mr. Osako stressed is that rather than taking the typical approach of making a phone first and then just jumbo sizing it, Toshiba wanted to build a product from the ground up.

May

Has Samsung Learned? Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Will Ship With Android 3.1

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab 10.1, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

Could Samsung have learned a lesson from the Galaxy S Froyo update shenanigans? The company will be shipping their hottest new device, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, with Honeycomb 3.1 rather than 3.0. No shipping with out-of-date software here - and pretty speedy turnaround, given that Honeycomb 3.1 probably hasn't been available to manufacturers for too long. Then again, the 10.1 doesn't have TouchWiz yet and won't until after release, so there was no custom UI to slow the update.

The news comes from a post on Samsung's Facebook:

And indeed, all official descriptions now show Honeycomb 3.1 rather than 3.0.

May

[I/O 2011] This Year's Oprah Moment: "And YOU Get a Tablet!" [PICS]

Posted by Matt Demers in Galaxy Tab 10.1, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Samsung, Tablets

Last Updated: May 11th, 2011

Well, we all saw it coming. After giving away phones the past two years (HTC Magic G2 in 2009, HTC Nexus One/Motorola Droid and HTC EVO 4G in 2010), Google I/O attendees will be leaving with shiny new Limited-Edition Samsung Galaxy Tabs. Here's our little (big) guy:

The Tab 10.1 will be available to the masses on June 8, but I/O attendees will be receiving it first. The Tab 10.1 of course will be running Honeycomb (and will be getting the upgrade to 3.1 in a few weeks), have a 10.1'' screen, 1Ghz dual-core processor, and sport 32GB of onboard memory.

Apr

Critical Vulnerability Found In Adobe Flash For Android, Probably No Cause For Concern

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, Apps/Games, News

With a great plugin comes great responsibility - to avoid malicious Flash files, that is. A zero-day exploit has been discovered in Adobe Flash that affects all Android versions of the software, Adobe announced today.

The most common vessel for the exploit is (fortunately) a Microsoft document (.doc) email attachment with an embedded Flash file (.swf) - and I'm not aware of any Word document viewers/editors in Android that support embedded Flash. Once the Flash file is executed, the exploiter can run malicious code on the target device. How, or whether, this could affect Android is unknown.

Still, it's important to remember that Adobe's products, ever the target of hackers and shady enterprise, share common elements across operating systems - including, at times, potentially dangerous flaws and exploits.

Mar

Watch Samsung's Galaxy Tab 8.9 And 10.1 CTIA Event Now On YouTube

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, News, Samsung, Videos

One of the most exciting announcements of this week was, without a doubt, the unveiling of the 2 new super-slim Galaxy Tabs, the 8.9 and the 10.1, at the CTIA Wireless conference in Orlando.

If you followed our live blog from the event, you may have already seen the new Tabs in their on state (none of the new Tabs could be turned on at the event), but still images can only tell half of the story.

The other half can now be seen in the full video of the event that Samsung posted on YouTube, complete with some pretty awful sound.

Mar

The Super-Thin Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 And 10.1: As Seen From Outside A Glass Box

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Samsung

Yesterday at CTIA, Samsung unveiled its revamped Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the all-new Galaxy Tab 8.9 (check out our live coverage of the event). Unfortunately, that's about all Samsung did with them - neither was ever powered on. Samsung's CTIA exhibit housed the new devices in glass security cases (as you can see below), while early "prototypes" of the 8.9 and 10.1 running Honeycomb with Samsung's TouchWiz 4.0 overlay were available for hands-on time, in order to demonstrate some of the software the company plans to include when the devices are released.

Why no demonstrations of the thinner, lighter, sexier Tabs?

Mar

Samsung Reconsidering Galaxy Tab 10.1 Details In Light Of iPad 2

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab 10.1, News

You'll find no Apple lovers around the Android Police offices, but even we have to admit that there's no excuse for Apple showing up the Android tablet scene's pricing. Unfortunately, that's exactly what's happened. With that in mind, it's perhaps not so surprising to hear that Samsung is re-evaluating their upcoming Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Aside from the likely price drop we'll see, they're also taking a critical eye to the physical characteristics of their tablet - specifically, they don't think it's thin enough to compete with the 8.8mm-thick iPad 2.

We've said it many, many times before: Apple products aren't for us, but that doesn't mean they don't manage to do some things right.

Feb

Samsung Unveils The Galaxy Tab 10.1, Motorola XOOM Buyers Take Notice

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Galaxy Tab 10.1, News, Samsung

Right now at MWC 2011, Samsung's just released the first official confirmation of a new addition to the Galaxy Tab family, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Unlike the 7-incher preceding it, the 10.1 packs a 1 GHz dual-core CPU and Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Rather like the controversially-priced Motorola XOOM, the 10.1 also includes a 1280 x 800 resolution screen and multiple cameras.

In terms of connectivity we find quad-band HSPA+, A/B/G/N WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1. The internals appear capable of 1080P playback at 30 FPS, so we imagine the internal 16 - 32 GB storage will come in handy for that.