Browsing Category: "Android Tablets"
The Acer Iconia Tab A200 is a brand new 10 inch Android tablet that features a hi-res 1280 x 800 pixel display, an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor, and 1GB of RAM. Essentially, it’s the current Iconia Tab A500 in a new case, add a few color options, but without the rear camera.
Although not shipping in the US yet, it seems to be available in the UK via the retailer Very. They are currently taking orders for the A200 in black or red for £299.
Under the hood of the A200 is a 2MP front-facing camera, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a microSD card slot. It ships with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, but Acer promises that an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich software update will be available soon. The tablet measures 10.2″ x 6.9″ x 0.5″ and weighs about 1.6 pounds.
via EuroDroid
Coby is planning to bring five new Android tablets to market in the first quarter of 2012. The range covers everything from 7 inches to 10 inches, but all five tablets will have the following in common:
- Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
- Capacitive touchscreen displays
- 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processors
- WiFi
- HDMI
- Up to 1GB RAM, 32GB Storage.
The five new models are as follows:
- Coby MID7042 with a 7 inch widescreen display
- Coby MID8042 with an 8 inch 4:3 display
- Coby MID9042 with a 9 inch widescreen display
- Coby MID9742 with a 9 inch 4:3 display
- Coby MID1042 with a 10 inch widescreen display
Coby says the tablet will have access to thousands of apps but they don’t specifically mention whether or not they’ll have access to the Google Android Market. To date, Coby’s talbets have shipped with third party app stores because they were designed for older versions of Android which weren’t designed for tablets. However, Google Android 4.0 is designed for phones and tablets, which means that Google may allow Coby and other budget device makers to include the Android Market and other Google apps such as the official Gmail and Google Maps apps.
Chip designer MIPS has announced a new $100 tablet with a 1 GHz Ingenic Xburst processor called the Novo 7. The new tablet will also run the brand new Android 4.0 OS as the company is taking advantage of the fact that Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is the first version of Google’s mobile operating system that’s designed to support phones and tablets. Up until recently budget tablet makers had to Android 2.3 and below since Google only allowed selected partners to use the tablet-friendly Android 3.0 and newer software.
Of course for $100 US, this tablet won’t be as fast and won’t have the same kind of graphics performance as more expensive devices. Many Android apps may also not be designed to run on devices with MIPS chips, so the software available for the tablet may be limited. But it will have the same tablet-friendly user interface.
The tablet has a 7 inch capacitive touchcscreen with support for multitouch input. It has 802.11b/g/n WiFi, HDMI, and support for 1080p HD video playback. It has a Vivante GC860 graphics processor.
The tablet also has front and rear cameras and USB 2.0. Models with 8 and 9 inch displays are also in the works.
via Android Central
It’s not possible to buy a tablet running the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in North America or Europe yet, but in China a company has started showing off Android 4.0 on a 10 inch tablet.
At the moment, most of the cheap Chinese tablets ship with Android 2.3 or earlier. That’s because Google hasn’t released source code for Android 3.0 Honeycomb. But, they have released the source code for Android 4.0 though, which means that pretty much any device maker with a little know-how can slap it on a tablet, phone, or other device.
This particular tablet has a 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor, a 10.1 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel capacitive touchscreen display, front and rear cameras, and a 700mAh battery. It supports WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS, and has HDMI, USB, and SD card slots.
Chinese chip-maker Rockchip has also said that Ice Cream Sandwich will soon be available for devices with its 1.2 GHz RK2918 processor, which means we could start to see more Android 4.0 tablets from China soon.
The Sony PRS-T1 is not a tablet, but rather a 6 inch ebook reader with a E Ink touchscreen display. Normally, it runs Sony’s homebrew software for reading digital books. However, that software is based on Google’s Android OS and it turns out it’s able to be hacked to run Android apps. In fact, one hacker has managed to add an app launcher, an Android terminal application, and a couple of alternate eReader apps including CoolReader and FBReader.
Of course, not every appworks. If you try to run Angry Birds, it’ll crash. But you probably wouldn’t want to play on an E Ink display anyway? In all seriousness, this could open up the Sony PRS-T1 for use with a wide variety of eBook apps, news apps, web browsers, or other applications.
Sony PRS-T1 is available from Amazon UK for £154.66
A company called Epesitec has introduced two new Android tablet offering the cheapest tablet with a 1 GHz processor and a capacitive touchscreen. The Epesitec E515 tablet features a 1.2 Ghz Freescale processor with PowerVR Series5 graphics and a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen display. The WiFi-only model will sell for $189 (in the US). That’s about $10 cheaper than the current prices for the Amazon Kindle Fire, Lenovo IdeaPad A1, Archos Arnova 7 G2, or pretty much any other budget tablet offering.
Epesitec will follow up with a 3G capable model called the E516 which will run $249. Both tablets have 4GB of storage, 512MB of RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth, and front and rear cameras — as well as a USB port and TV output. They’re both due out on November 1st.
The CyanogenMod team today made public a Google Android built for the HP TouchPad tablet. It’s still in alpha phase, so there will be bugs, but most functions (including WIFI, multitouch, and bluetooth) are working. There are still a few bugs with the accelerometer, Bluetooth, camera, and other functions, but overall Android is running on HP’s Touchpad and anyone can install it with a little effort.
The current version of CyanogenMod for the TouchPad is based on Android 2.3.7. When Google releases the source code for Android 3.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, developers will start working to port it to the TouchPad, but it will likely take a few months for that process to complete after the source code is released.
You can see the full installation instructions over at Liliputing, or click past the break to see a video of the HP Touchpad running Google Android.
Indian officials have been promising to launch a $35 Android tablet aimed at students for the past year, but today it’s finally available. Unfortunately, the tablet is about twice as much as promised, but at $60, it’s still dirt cheap for a mobile computing device.
Production of the tablet was outsourced to British company DataWind, makers of the UbiSurfer line of mobile devices. But the device will be manufactured in India.
There are two versions of the tablet. The first, DataWind Ubislate be available at retail stores for 2999 Rs, or about $60, and it will feature a cellular modem and SIM card slot. However, the Indian government acquired about 100,000 units of a cheaper version which will be called the Aakash Tablet for 2250 Rs or about $45. Those tablets will be distributed to students for free as part of a pilot program. That version will be WiFi-only.
The tablet is a pretty barebones device, with a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel resistive touchscreen display, 256MB of RAM and 2GB of flash storage. It runs Google Android 2.2 Froyo and has a 366 MHz processor plus an HD video co-processor. The tablet also has a microSD card slot for expansion and 2 USB ports.
The tablet also has a headphone jack and a battery that’s good for about 2 to 3 hours of run time. The device does not include the official Google Android Market, but users should be able to install apps using third party app stores.
It’s starting to look like the second half of 2011 will be dominated by 7 inch tablets. Acer, ViewSonic, and Lenovo are all trotting out 7 inch devices. Not only are these devices more portable, but they’re also easier on the wallet.
The Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is one of the most interesting, notable for its great screen, and a very low price tag. Lenovo will sell tihs tablet in the States for just $199.
For that price you get a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display - Graphics are sharp, colors look good and there’s a wide viewing angle. The Ideapad A1 tablet weighs less than a pound and is easy to hold in one hand.
Read more and check out the video after the break.
Intel has posted a video promising that the Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system would soon be optimized to run on Intel Atom processors. In case you were still sceptical though, today at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco today, the two companies made it official: All future versions of Android will support Intel’s low power chips.
Of course, independent developers have been compiling Google’s open source operating systemto run on x86 chips for years, but Android chief Andy Rubin says the new partnership goes a few steps further by ensuring that Android will be support kernel-level power management as well as multimedia processing and other Atom chip capabilities.
Chippy from CarryPad grabbed a little video of the announcement as well.
