Engadget’s Joanna Stern is pretty impressed overall with the Sprint version of the Galaxy Tab, although the lack of tablet-optimized Android apps is a major sticking point.
Tag Archives | Google Android
Tablet Phone Seekers, Here’s Your ViewSonic ViewPad 7
When I asked you all for questions on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, I was surprised by how many people wanted to see a 7-inch tablet that doubles as a phone. Since the Galaxy Tab won’t have voice service, tablet phone seekers may consider ViewSonic’s ViewPad 7 instead.
ViewSonic announced U.S. pricing and launch details for the 7-inch tablet today. The ViewPad 7, running stock Android 2.2, will be available in November or December for $479. ViewSonic also announced the ViewPad 10, a 10-inch tablet that dual-boots Windows 7 and Android 1.6, coming in January or February for $629.
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Nexus Two? I Like The Sound of That
I admire Samsung’s phone hardware. And it’s pretty clear that the best way for an Android phone owner to get fast access to the latest OS versions is to own a phone for which Google takes an active role in the software side. So the idea of a Samsung-manufactured, Google-branded Nexus Two is intriguing…
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Logitech Revue Reviewed: Google TV Isn’t Ready for Prime Time
Logitech’s Revue, the first standalone box to run Google TV, has gotten its share of criticism for its $299.99 price. Which is perfectly understandable–that’s three times the cost of Apple TV and five times what the cheapest Roku costs.
But when I attended Logitech’s Revue launch event earlier this month and saw everything the box could do, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t overpriced. It’s designed to play all Web video, not just a subset; it lets you find programs on cable or satellite; it has a full built-in Web browser; it streams your own video and audio; it comes with a real keyboard. In short, it does most of the things you’d get if you connected an even pricier PC to your HDTV.
Most of the Revue’s functionality is made possible by Google TV, which melds Web-based services with Android-based software. Google’s wildly ambitious goal is to make Googling for TV as simple as Googling for Web pages. But when I tried a Revue loaned to me by Logitech, I discovered that the box’s problem is polish, not price. Google TV is profoundly rough around the edges.
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Barnes & Noble Takes the Wraps Off of Nookcolor and Android Developers Program
Well beyond its seven-inch–yet iPad-like–color screen, Barnes & Noble’s new Android-based Nookcolor is packed with new features that include a video-capable magazine library, ArticleView, e-book “borrowing,” and much more, as demo’d at a New York City launch event on Monday night. B&N is in it for the long haul with the color e-reader, with an upgrade to Android 2.2 planned for early next year–and don’t expect the price to budge soon from $249.
Along with Nookcolor, B&N also unveiled a new library of children’s books called Nook Kids, plus the bookseller’s first application development program for Android.
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iPhone and Android Autobrightness: Buggy, Useless
My friend Dr. Ray Soneira of DisplayMate technologies has a long and fascinating guest post up at Gizmodo. Bottom line: He did a ton of testing on the auto-brightness features on the iPhone and Android handsets that are designed to make the screens legible in varying lighting while conserving battery life. And his data shows they just don’t work.
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Please Explain Why Angry Birds is Addictive
Angry Birds is often described as an addictive game, which helps explain why the full version’s launch for Android phones is big news. Starting today, the game can be downloaded for free through GetJar, a third-party app store, and it’s coming to the Android Market over the weekend.
If you’re one of the folks who’s hooked on Angry Birds — and please don’t take this the wrong way — I don’t understand why. Angry Birds is a clever game, for sure. It has cute characters, elegant design and simple goals. But addictive? I just don’t see it.
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Windows Phone 7 Phones: Different, But Not Inconsistent
Wired’s Brian X. Chen has a good story on Microsoft’s strategy for Windows Phone 7: It’s working with handset makers to produce handsets that come closer to the iPhone’s feel of hardware/software integration than to Android’s sometimes patchy relationship with the devices it runs on. It’s too early to tell whether Microsoft has succeeded, but it’s certainly a worthy goal.
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Ford Lets Phones Talk to Cars
Over at Techland, I’ve blogged about a cool demo I saw at the CTIA show here in San Francisco today: Ford’s new SDK which lets Android and BlackBerry developers write apps that control the Ford Sync in-dash entertainment/information system.
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iPhone vs. Android: The State of the Smartphone Wars (and More to Come)
It’s Tuesday, so there’s a new Technologizer column up over at TIME.com. This one’s on iPhone vs. Android, and as I wrote it yesterday, I realized that I had bitten off a pretty gigantic topic for one 700-word column. It ended up being a 1,000 word column, but even then, I could have written on for another 2,000 or 3,000 words. Considering how fast both platforms are changing, the shelf life of this column will be short, so it’s a topic I’ll come back to repeatedly.
Actually, I might return to the smartphone wars as soon as next week. I got an e-mail from a reader who assumed that the fact I don’t mention Windows Phone 7 in the column was a sign I was a Microsoft hater. Nope–I just chose to focus on the big battle well underway between two platforms that are already on the market. I’ll be at the Windows Phone 7 launch in New York next Monday–stay tuned for live coverage of it, and for lots more thoughts about Windows Phone and its chances of success.