tablet - 53/56 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Oct

CherryPal Introduces Cherrypad America: A Low-End 7-Inch Android Tablet That's Priced To Match

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in News

Once upon a time, Android tablets were few and far between, but with tablets like the Notion Ink Adam (if it proves to be anything more than vaporware), Samsung's Galaxy Tab, and even Archos' entries into the tablet space, that might be changing sometime in the not-so-distant future.

Cherrypal (a company most of us have never even heard of), has just introduced the Cherrypad America, a 7-inch Android tablet that may not be another high-end iPad competitor, but may instead be a pretty decent low-end tablet, featuring specs such as:

a 7" 800x480 resistive touchscreen display
an 800MHz Samsung ARM11 CPU + GPU + DSP system-on-a-chip
256MB of RAM
2GB of internal storage (ROM)
a 3.5mm headset jack
WiFi 802.11 b/g (no support for 802.11n, sadly)
a 3200mAh battery with a stated run time of six to eight hours
an external adapter for USB 2.0
an optional external (!) 3G modem
a weight of 1.3 pounds
aluminum casing

While the resistive touchscreen worries me since our own Brian O'Toole was bitterly disappointed with Nationite's MIDnite tablet, I don't see any real dealbreakers here, especially as the tablet costs a mere $188 and is available today from Zecozi.

Oct

Samsung Galaxy Tab Confirmed To Use Gorilla Glass

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab, News

Looks like Gorilla Glass is fast becoming the trend among tablets and smartphones - not only is Samsung slapping it on their Galaxy S devices, but the Tab as well. What's so great about Gorilla Glass? To quote Wikipedia:

Corning attributes the choice of Gorilla Glass superiority not only for "unparalleled damage resistance and protection" but:

"Thinner form factor: Gorilla Glass retains its performance advantage over standard chemically strengthened substrates even when used in thin form factors. Currently, Gorilla Glass is available as-drawn in thicknesses ranging from .5 millimetres (0.020 in) – 2.0 millimetres (0.079 in).

Pristine surface quality: Because it is formed using Corning’s proprietary fusion process, Gorilla Glass offers the same high-quality pristine surface available with all of our high-technology display substrates.

Sep

Verizon Device Roadmap Leaked: An LTE Tablet, And Global Radios Aplenty

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, LG, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

Having one device leaked is so last fiscal year, man. Verizon is hip to the new trend of leaking out details of all of your devices and giving people a heads-up to not buy phones that are out right now since they're just gonna get replaced anyway.

Androids aren't the only things on show, but forgive us for omitting those not relevant to the droid-heads (check BerryPolice.com, great site).

Motorola's got the lion's share of the devices. Starting with the Venus, a portrait QWERTY phone to be released this month that Engadget thinks may be similar to the Charm. It isn't mentioned whether or not the phone is a slider, but we do know that there is one out there somewhere.

Sep

Next Up To Try And Overthrow The Android Market: Amazon

Posted by Brad Ganley in Apps/Games, News

Hot on the heels of plans for Verizon to create their own market for Android, Amazon.com has decided that they will now create their own app market. Developers reportedly started receiving emails about a business opportunity from Amazon on September 25th. At that time, there were very few details aside from the fact that it was happening. Now, there is a bit more clarity from our friends at TechCrunch:

Okay, some details:

For each sale of an App, we will pay you a royalty equal to the greater of 70% of the purchase price or 20% of the List Price as of the purchase date (70/30 is standard, this 20/80 split is somewhat odd and confusing)

The List Price is apparently in place so that you can’t sell your app cheaper on other “similar services” — meaning other app stores, presumably

The “similar services” should also include the forthcoming Chrome Web Store, if I’m reading this correctly

There is a $99 fee to be a developer in this program (the same as Apple’s iOS developer program)

It seems like if your app is available on other platforms, you have to make sure to update it at the same time on Amazon’s store that you do in any other store (this will piss off a lot of developers)

Apps will have to be laced with Amazon DRM — meaning they will only work on devices they approve (obviously)

Amazon has the right to pull any app for any reason (obviously)

Apps can also be shown on amazon.com (this is up to Amazon)

You can offer free apps

The app store is U.S.-only (at least for now)

This part is interesting too: “We have sole discretion to determine all features and operations of this program and to set the retail price and other terms on which we sell Apps.”

As of right now, that's all we know.

Sep

10" Samsung Galaxy Tab Coming In First Half Of 2011

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung

SiliconRepublic ran a piece explaining which carriers in Ireland will be selling the Galaxy Tab. At the bottom of the article (the very last sentence), they nonchalantly mention that Samsung country manager Gary Twohig says they'll be releasing a 10" Tablet sometime in the first half of 2011. The only other details included in the article: it will run Android, and rock the V8 JavaScript engine.

Engadget speculates that Samsung may be waiting for Gingerbread or Honeycomb, which certainly sounds like a fair assessment to me. After all, Google recently said that Android 2.x isn't designed with tablets in mind, but Android 3.x would be.

Sep

New Survey Says Consumers Want Tablets, Android Has High Brand Loyalty But Low Brand Recognition, And Bigger Is Better

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Devices By Manufacturer, News

Sybase (owned by SAP) commissioned a survey on tablets, and the results are rather surprising. Before I dig in, however, I feel it's only fair to point out what I perceive as a flaw in the survey: they provide minimal information on the survey questions and how it was conducted. As a result, it's hard to tell whether the survey was free of bias; based on how the results are presented with bias, I'm guessing not.

That said, Sybase made a spokesperson available to talk about the results, and I'm sure they could clarify things (or pull the wool over my eyes - I'm a sucker for slick talk).

Sep

Rumor: HTC To Launch Tegra 2 Powered Android Tablet In Early 2011

Posted by Rainer Unwin in HTC, News, Tablets

Take this one with a huge grain of salt: DigiTimes is reporting, yet again, that HTC is about to enter the tablet market by leveraging their expertise with Android and their relations with carriers around the world. The rumours point to a launch date in early 2011 and specs that certainly look good, but would you pay the rumoured price of $790 for it?

The claimed specs:

1280×720 display (from earlier reports, that may point towards Gingerbread)
nVidia Tegra 2 SoC
32 GB SSD
2 GB RAM
WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS
Full Android Market
Support for Chrome Web Apps

That Tegra 2 chipset should provide enough power to surpass the iPad and make for a very fluid experience.

Sep

Android Police Samsung Galaxy Tab Press Event Report - Galaxy Tab, Media Hub, Details, Hands-On

Posted by Brett Gmoser in AT&T, Devices By Manufacturer, Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless

Rain, shine, or literally freakin' tornado in the part of the country which isn’t supposed to have such weather, Android Police is there. As promised, I attended the press event thrown by Samsung on Thursday, during which they were to announce their "latest Android-powered device" as well as their new Media Hub service.

While the fact that Samsung was to announce a tablet device was officially a secret, we all pretty much knew the mystery device was going to be the Galaxy Tab.

Samsung also took the occasion to announce the launch of their new website, which went live the day of the event.

Sep

Motorola Mobility CEO: No Tablets Until "Early Next Year" At Best; We're All "Oh, Really?"

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Motorola, News

During the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference yesterday, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha said, “I will only develop a tablet if it is sufficiently compelling. Hopefully, that is early next year.” In fact, according to his comments, it seems that they haven't even started development of a tablet yet.

This doesn't quite jibe with what we've heard before. In mid-August, word around the 'net was that a Motorola tablet device was coming to Verizon sometime in November. The next day, rumor had it that Moto was working directly with Google on a 10.1" Android 3.0 tablet. We're talking separate rumors here, not one stemming from another.

Sep

HTC Developing Tablet, In Cahoots With Google, Expected Release Q1 2011

Posted by Brian O'Toole in HTC, News

From the Unsurprising But Still Exciting department comes this fresh tip, via everyone’s favourite rumour rag, Digitimes. With a suitably vague allusion to “Taiwan component makers”, Digitimes claims that HTC will be leveraging their strong partnership with Google in releasing a tablet worldwide.

Much like the Galaxy Tab, HTC’s take on the new tablet market will be powered by smartphone components and will feature similar performance and design quality. This doesn’t really give us much to pin our hopes on, but as AndroidCentral points out, the supposed Q1 2011 release date aligns with the previous release of the Nexus One, and we know how special that was.