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The Notion Ink Adam II has been a long time coming, with the Indian manufacturer having announced two years ago that it was using Texas Instruments components inside the upcoming device. It finally became available for purchase just last month - in India. While the tablet is still not shipping to most of the planet, today is the day that the Adam II becomes available in Europe. The WiFi model goes for 219 euros, while the 3G model goes for 30 euros more.
The interesting Notion Ink Adam gained quite a lot of notoriety (if not actual fans) in its initial version. The company's second tablet has been anticipated for almost two full years, and it looks like it's finally on sale. But for the moment you'll only be able to get your hands on it in India: the price is in Rupees, and the order page is only accepting Indian addresses. If you've got room in Link's wallet, the Wi-Fi version is RS16,499 (about $265), and the 3G version is RS18,999 ($305).
Notion Ink Adam 2 Revealed: Meager Specs And One Interesting Quirk
Unveiled in December of 2010, Notion Ink's original Adam was intended to be an innovative, disruptive Android tablet that could compete with the iPad.
Unveiled in December of 2010, Notion Ink's original Adam was intended to be an innovative, disruptive Android tablet that could compete with the iPad. Its primary selling point - besides a relatively high-end (at the time) dual-core Tegra 250 processor and 1GB of RAM - was a UI overlay known as Eden, which promised to make underlying the Android 2.2 more tablet-friendly. Launched to much fanfare in January 2011, the Adam never quite caught on the way Notion Ink had hoped; shipping delays, software issues, and poor build quality led the company to sell fewer units than anticipated. Two years and several versions of Android later, Notion Ink's ready to give it another go with the Adam 2.
The Notion Ink Adam has had a long sordid history. The 10" tablet that promised a full-color LCD display in the same housing as a transflective display that provides e-ink-like readability without a backlight looked great but failed to catch on in the market. The device still has its share of devoted followers, though. If you're among them, then we've got a tasty treat for you: an Ice Cream Sandwich beta.
In a post to Notion Ink's official blog today, the Indian manufacturer announced a new partnership with Texas Instruments. The company indicated that the Adam II (a follow up on Notion's first Android tablet) will feature TI's OMAP44xx processor, as well as a few other TI components:
Rohan Shravan, CEO of Notion Ink, updated a blog post yesterday with a rather nonchalant statement revealing that the source code behind Ice Cream Sandwich may be released November 17th. Yes, you read correctly – this Thursday may be the day.
The successor to the odd little tablet that is the Notion Ink Adam is set to hit the streets in December 2011 and will be featured at CES in January 2012 in Las Vegas, according to Notion Ink founder Rohan Shravan. Hardware details for the Adam 2 are pretty scarce right now, but we're hearing rumors that it could include the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor and an updated Pixel Qi display that allows for better use in direct sunlight.
The founder of Notion Ink has updated the corporate blog with a number of changes that are coming to the company's Adam. For those of you interested in the Tegra-2 powered 10.1-inch tablet, the company is also opening up sales again, albeit by invite only.
Ok, so we have some good news and some not-as-good-as-you-would-like-it-to-be news for Notion Ink Adam owners. Let's start with the good: according to the official Notion Ink blog, the kernel source code for the Adam has been released. Great, right? Now all of the custom fun that you've been waiting for is just around the corner, you just have to wait on developers to download the code and get to work.
There has been a lot of confusion regarding this post on NVIDIA's Tegra developer forum that was misconstrued as vaguely implying NVIDIA would stop supporting the "Harmony" generation of Tegra devices going forward (ViewSonic gTablet, Notion Ink Adam, ViewSonic ViewPad 7, Advent Vega, and others) and would instead only stick to the "Ventana" generation. Rather than panicking and freaking out, we pinged our contact at NVIDIA to get a straight answer and held off until we heard the official response.
Notion Ink is one of the most controversial companies in recent Android history - it's gone through product delays, building up one of the most passionate communities around, followed by communication issues that you could write a suspenseful thriller about (I am fairly sure there is enough for a trilogy with twists at the end of every chapter), and some of the weirdest reasons for shipments delays we've ever seen.
Notion Ink's Adam has been through quite a bit on the long road to last month's launch, including concerns over its legitimacy and policies, ordering snafus, booting problems, and various bugs, but it hasn't stopped the company from steadily working on Adam's second major software patch.
Well, this didn't take long - the hackers over at NotionInkHacks.com played around with Notion Ink's dual-core Adam Android tablet that finally started shipping last week and already managed to root the device.
Update: Shortly after the update botch was noticed by Notion Ink, they halted distribution of the update in question because it was not downloading completely. If you have a bricked Adam, here is the fix as e-mailed to Notion Ink Fan:
Great news for those who have pre-ordered Notion Ink's first tablet, the Adam: they're starting to ship. Notion Ink has apparently just received their first large shipment, and posted their own unboxing and hands-on photos, while some pre-order customers now have tracking numbers in their hot little hands. Very exciting, no?
Red tape seems to be getting in the way of Notion Ink's plans to ship initial pre-order customers' Adam tablets today. An email sent to us by one of those pre-order customers this morning indicates that it is the FCC's certification process which has put the brakes on the Adam's release:
Engadget has scored some hands-on time with the much anticipated Notion Ink Adam and have captured it on video for all to see.
Earlier today, we received a tip regarding Notion Ink's yet-to-be-released developer program for its "Genesis" app platform. Indeed, while the developer homepage remains relatively useless, the leaked developer program registration page the tipster sent us does appear to be legitimate and even comes complete with terms and conditions.
UPDATE: Here's the second video: