Hasta La Gadget!

If 3D and tablets are the two unstoppable forces of modern consumer electronics, doesn’t it make sense to meld them into one, fearsome, trendsetting device? LG’s T-Mobile-bound G-Slate might be doing exactly that, we’re hearing, as a pair of different sites are reporting it’ll come with a 3D-capable display. The guys at GPS And Co have apparently heard directly from LG’s French arm, who told them the G-Slate would have a glasses-free 3D display and 3D camera, though the validity of that information is diluted somewhat by TmoNews‘ source finding 3D glasses listed as future accessories for this rather mysterious tablet. Yes, it’s contradictory information, but then Pocket-lint has also heard directly from LG and received a promise of “an actual working 3D device,” which should be expected shortly. That could be the 4.3-inch autostereoscopic panel we scoped out at CES or it could be another hint that the G-Slate’s been camera-shy for a very particularly, three-dimensional reason.

LG G-Slate to have an 8.9-inch 3D display? Rumor mill says ‘maybe’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I hate to be the one to utter the “f” word here, but it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the signs of fragmentation in the Android world these days. According to new numbers from the Android Developers blog, a mere 0.4 percent of Android device owners (handsets, tablets, et al.) have the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system–2.3, Gingerbread–installed.

That version’s predecessor–Android 2.2, Froyo–is far and away the most widely installed version of the operating system, at 51.8 percent. Due to hardware limitations, manufacturer delays, and other reasons, however, a full 35.2 percent of Android owners still have Android 2.1 installed. The number drops significantly for Android 1.6 and 1.5, at 7.9 and 4.7 percent, respectively.

The above numbers were arrived at by monitoring the devices that accessed the
Android during a two week period ending January 4th. Given the relative recent explosion of Android devices on the market, perhaps these numbers ought be regarded as something of a cautionary tale for Google and the manufacturers about the direction the operating system is going and where it ought to be headed.

A new Sammy christened SGH-T959V just passed through the FCC, and we’ve got a good feeling this is the Vibrant 4G that we know is on its way to Big Magenta before too long. Why’s that? Well, most notably, SGH-T959 is the model number for the original Vibrant — and like the Vibrant, this device has support for AWS, which any T-Mobile 3G / 4G device would need. Furthermore, take one look at that outline up there — certainly looks like a Galaxy S of some sort, doesn’t it? More on this soon, we suspect.

Samsung Vibrant 4G for T-Mobile gets FCC clearance? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 23:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bad news for all of you Sprint-subscribing, bandwidth-hogging data gluttons out there: The company will soon implement a new $10 monthly data-plan fee for smartphones activated after Jan. 30. And it applies to all Sprint smartphones, including those capable only of using Sprint’s 3G network.

Sprint announced the upcoming change in a press release Tuesday. But in a leaked memo sent to third-party retailers, the company more narrowly defined the types of phones and customers affected by the new fee. It includes “all smartphones operating on the CDMA, iDEN and 4G networks,” where a smartphone is defined as “a device that supports a robust operating system including: Android, BlackBerry, Instinct, Palm and Windows Mobile.”

The $10 premium-data charge currently applies to all HTC EVO 4G, EVO Shift 4G and Samsung Epic 4G smartphones in the Sprint network, so now 3G smartphone users will feel the same financial burn as 4G users, but without being able to access the 4G networks’ faster speeds.

For those of you that already have 3G phones on the Sprint network, fret not (or at least not yet), as you won’t be dinged with the new charge unless you either upgrade your existing smartphone or activate a new smartphone on your existing account. If and when you do decide to upgrade or change your plan, however, even those of you that aren’t packing the latest 4G phones will still have to pony up another $10 bucks a month.

Sprint claims a “wireless data explosion” in smartphone user growth and network popularity have necessitated the company’s fee expansion. Complaints about fees first circulated in June, when Sprint debuted the HTC EVO 4G with a mandatory $10 data fee for 4G. The company’s initial statements made the fee seem a necessary counterpart to 4G access.

Before griping, we should remember that giving Sprint that extra 10 bucks a month gets you unlimited 4G data with no tiered pricing structures for different monthly caps. (Sprint does cap its 3G data plan at 5 GB monthly, however.) That means there are no overage fees for exceeding your monthly data-plan limits, either. AT&T currently offers a tiered system, with a $15 fee for a 200-MB monthly limit, or a $25 fee for a 2-GB monthly cap. AT&T ceased offering an unlimited data plan in June 2010.

Verizon may follow AT&T, but for the time being maintains a $30 monthly unlimited-data-plan option. We may see that change, however, with the company’s recent iPhone 4 deal. Verizon also offers a $15 monthly plan for 150 MB of data.

So, after looking at other pricing models, the $10 monthly option from Sprint doesn’t look half bad. But with Gartner’s report that smartphone sales in the fall of 2010 were up 96 percent over the same period in 2009, we’ll wait and see if Sprint’s pricing model is sustainable.

Photo: Samsung Epic 4G/Samsung

See Also:

• AT&T’s Data Limits Rein In Cloud-Based Media Services
• Verizon to End Unlimited-Data Party
• Samsung Launches 4G Phone on Sprint

Edited at 8:33 a.m. for a clarification on iPhone network capability

Add Acer to the growing list of companies with new tablets in the pipeline. The Taiwanese computer manufacturer has announced plans to release both a 7-inch and a 10-inch tablet in 2011.

The new tablets are intended to gradually replace the company’s line of netbook computers, said Acer’s Taiwan sales manager Lu Bing-Hsian. “That’s the direction of the market,” Lu told Computerworld. The company will still continue to produce netbooks, but will begin to phase out its range of netbook models while producing the new line of tablets.

The tablets will run the Android OS (version unspecified) on Intel’s new line of quad-core Sandy Bridge processors. With the move to Sandy Bridge, Acer is aiming to outmuscle the numerous Nvidia Tegra 2–powered smartphones and tablets announced earlier this month at CES.

Acer’s Lu declined to state price points and specific release dates for the new tablet offerings.

It’s a huge shift for Acer, a company which has sold tens of millions of netbooks over the past decade and has relied on the ultra-portable netbook as the key component of its business strategy to date. The announcement comes on the heels of a recent Gartner report on worldwide PC sales that shows Acer’s 2010 growth down 1.9 percent from 2009.

“Media tablets undoubtedly intensified the competition in the consumer market,” said Gartner analyst Mikako Kakagawa in the report. “These devices do not replace primary PCs, but they are viewed as good enough devices for these who want to have a second and third connected device for content-consumption usage. Mini-notebook shipments were hit the most by the success of media tablets.”

Also, this isn’t the first tablet we’ve seen from Acer. After sales of the company’s 11.2-inch convertible tablet-notebook combo fizzled on arrival in May 2010, Acer discontinued it after only a few short months.

Acer’s tablet offerings also appear to completely reverse the company’s position as of only a year ago, when Acer’s Taiwan president Scott Lin said the company had no plans to pursue a tablet option, and that the iPad would be unlikely to impact the netbook market.

“Apple has built [its] business out of carving its own niche,” Lin told the DigiTimes last February, “which means that while Apple could see success with devices like the iPad, other players are unlikely to be able to replicate its result simply by copying.”

Tablet sales overall have been robust, with industry analysts estimating Apple’s 2010 holiday iPad sales somewhere in the range of 5 to 7 million units, and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab hitting the 1 million sales mark in early December. The market is expected to continue to grow, as many of the dozens of tablets we saw at CES make their way to shelves this year.

See Also:

• Acer Debuts New E-Reader, Android Phone
• Acer’s Google Chrome OS Devices Likely in June
• Acer Gives Sneak Peek of New Kindle-Shaped 7-Inch Tablet

A MacBook modified into a tablet: Jim Merithew/Wired.com