Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung's super-sized Galaxy Tab 10.1 sports a display a full 3.1 inches larger than the previous generation. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Due in stores soon, Samsung’s newest Android-powered tablet is bigger, faster and cheaper than its predecessor, and Wired.com had some time to test one.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been something of a tease since we first heard about it. After announcing the Galaxy Tab 10.1 earlier this year, Samsung decided to go back to the drawing board when the company saw how thin Apple made the iPad 2.

Finally, the newer, cheaper Tab is redesigned and ready to launch in about a month. And lucky attendees of Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco were given an early limited-edition version of the tablet. My first impressions: It seems cool enough, and in certain aspects the tablet feels like an Android-powered iPad.

When first picking it up, I immediately noticed how light the tablet was. Measuring 10.1 inches diagonally, Samsung’s tablet is bigger than the 9.7-inch iPad, and it’s actually one-tenth of a pound lighter. It’s also 0.34 inches thick, just like the iPad 2.

The new Galaxy Tab has another thing in common with the iPad 2: Both their cameras suck. Many photos taken with the Galaxy Tab were either washed out, grainy or not at all crisp. In reviewing Apple’s tablet, Wired’s Brian Chen said “Apple took some shortcuts [with the camera], presumably to keep the costs down and to make the device thinner.” Could that be the same case for Samsung?

And have we mentioned how weird it is to take pictures with a tablet? Because it is. Maybe we’re used to one-handed Instagram shots on our phones, but using both hands to point a slab of glass and plastic at something to take its photo just feels inorganic.

Just like all the other recent Android tablet releases, Samsung’s offering is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core processor. Swiping my way through Honeycomb’s five home screens is a breeze with the mighty chip.

But there are at least three tablets on the market right now running on the Tegra 2: It’s become an Android-tablet industry standard. Still, the Tegra 2 is a powerful processor, and in smoothly running a 3-D game like the bundled Need for Speed HD app, Nvidia’s muscle certainly shows.

I also tested how the Galaxy Tab handles Adobe Flash, the plug-in famously missing from the iPad. Alas, Adobe has only released a beta version of Flash for Android version 3.0 Honeycomb tablets, and it certainly shows. YouTube videos stuttered often enough to be noticeable. Moving into 1080p only made things worse, as playback choppiness was a fairly common occurrence.

Flash is supposed to get better when the Honeycomb version 3.1 update is pushed out widely over the air in the next couple of weeks. We’ll have to wait and see about that.

We’re glad Samsung went with side-facing speakers instead of some of the back-facing ones we’ve seen on other Android tablets. The sound wasn’t anything spectacular — nothing like the excellent front-facing speakers on BlackBerry’s PlayBook tablet — but it wasn’t terrible either. Side-facing speakers seem to be a compromise between keeping the tablet’s face clean and uncluttered, while trying to keep listening quality high by avoiding back-facing placement.

For the most part, we’re OK with that. But honestly, if you’re using a tablet in public and don’t want to be obnoxious while listening to media, you’ll probably be wearing headphones anyway.

Some glaring omissions: no HDMI output, no USB ports and no SD card reader. Aside from the headphone jack, there’s just one other external port (for charging and file transfers). If you care about things like HDMI mirroring or hooking up peripherals to your Android device, you might miss these important ports. And with Honeycomb version 3.1 supporting Android’s new Open Accessory interface, you’ll be missing out on a whole new wave of connectible devices.

All in all, you’ll be sacrificing a lot of external-interfacing options for a slimmer, sleeker Android tablet if you go with the Galaxy Tab 10.1. If you don’t care about hooking it up to a big screen to watch your video, or increasing storage capacity with a larger SD card, this may not bother you. But knowing how open-minded (so to speak) Android enthusiasts tend to be , we think Samsung’s relatively closed-off direction on this tablet may turn a number of people off.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 hits U.S. shelves in early June, with a $500 price tag for the 16-GB version, and $600 for the 32-GB version (Wi-Fi only).

For humans, coming into contact with the third rail will likely void your personal lifetime warranty, but one accessory manufacturer hopes to apply a similar concept to your iPhone — in much smaller doses, of course. For $90, the Third Rail System includes an iPhone 4 Slim Case, which always surrounds your device, and a 1250 mAh Smart Battery that you can slide into place whenever you need a boost. The removable batteries can charge other devices over micro USB, and can be stacked up to four deep for charging multiple gadgets at once (at $60 a pop). It’s also designed to be compatible with future cases, negating the need to purchase another complete solution each time you upgrade your phone. We’d love to see a similar device that includes inductive charging as well, but for now, this is one of the most intuitive external battery solutions we’ve seen.

Continue reading Third Rail iPhone case has detachable battery, probably won’t electrocute you

Third Rail iPhone case has detachable battery, probably won’t electrocute you originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 19:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stop watching movies and TV shows according to Hollywood’s schedule! With video-on-demand, you can watch TV whenever you want, wherever you want, and you don’t even have to remember to program a box to record it. Here’s MaximumPC’s take on the major online VOD services available today. More »

This article was written on August 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

Kevin Rose claims to know what the new iPod nano is going to look like and if he’s right, Apple is going back to more of the original look. As you’ll see in the photo below, they are ditching the “fat” look and going for a longer/slimmer look:

Here are some claims Rose has made about this new nano and other Apple products:

• The new nano will be priced much cheaper (thanks to the cheaper iPhone)
• The iPod touch will receive a few cosmetic changes
• iTunes 8.0 will launch about the time that the iPods are refreshed and supposedly comes with big changes

If this turns out to be the new look for the nano, is Apple on the right track by ditching the wider nano for one that is more slim and long?

Source: Engadget

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 10, 2008 by CyberNet.

The next 24 hours is going to be pure chaos for Apple fans, and the madness started early this morning when Apple released iTunes 7.7. That was then followed by the App Store launch, then a “leaked” iPhone 2.0 firmware, and more. It’s madness I tell you.

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of Apple news on the gadget sites already, and so we wanted to throw all of the news into one convenient post. Here’s a roundup of the events from this morning:

–Download the iPhone 2.0 Firmware-–

MacRumors somehow grabbed a direct download link for the new iPhone 2.0 firmware on Apple’s servers so that you don’t have to wait until tomorrow to make use of the new App Store. The first thing you’ll need to do is grab the download, and then perform a little trickery:

In order to install the firmware, you will have to do it manually by pressing the Option key when pressing the “Check for Update” button in iTunes. Then select the .ipsw file manually. If for some reason your download is a “.zip” file, rename it to “.ipsw” before proceeding.

Be careful though… this update apparently erases all of the data on your iPhone. Unfortunately this does not work on the iPod Touch.

–iTunes 7.7–

Apple has released iTunes 7.7 today which is a requirement for anyone planning on picking up an iPhone 3G tomorrow. This version also includes support for the App Store, but we’ll get into that a little bit more in a minute.

One thing that jkOnTheRun has already noticed is that there’s now an option to sync your contacts with Google from within the iTunes settings. Apple also added remote control functionality so that you can use your iPod Touch or iPhone to control your iTunes. This will, however, require that you install a free app Apple provides called Remote.

–App Store–

The new iTunes also includes support for the long awaited App Store where developers can share and sell applications that they’ve made for the iPod Touch and iPhone. There are over 500 apps available right now broken up into over a dozen categories, and about 25% of them are free downloads. Of those that do cost money over 90% are under $9.99, which is actually a reasonable price. The most expensive is one called ForeFlight that provides weather and data for pilots. The cost? It’s $69.99.

What’s nice is that Apple has made it easy to browse through the App Store and have it show only those programs that are free. I’ve already skimmed through all of the free offerings, and currently have about 15 that are ready to be installed on my iPhone. These include eBay Mobile, Facebook (not that I’ll really use it), NetNewsWire, Pandora Radio, SportsTap (for sports scores), Twitterrific, WeatherBug, and the Yellow Pages. You can see all of the ones I’ve downloaded in this screenshot:

Note: To get the Applications section in my Library I had to enable it in the preferences. Then to browse through the available apps just click the Get More Applications link shown in the bottom-right corner of the screenshot. Or you can just click here to open iTunes and be taken directly to the top free apps.

The application that I’m the most excited about would have to be NetNewsWire because I felt that Newsgator’s mobile interface wasn’t as slick as what Google Reader offered for the iPhone. This free feed reader will synchronize all of your feeds across all of your computers (both Windows and Mac) which is very nice. I haven’t been able to try it out yet, but judging by the screenshot it should be just what the doctor ordered.

Any iTunes user can start downloading the programs that are currently available in the App Store, but you obviously won’t be able to load them onto your device until you get the new firmware 2.0 upgrade.

–App Store on the iPhone–

Apple hasn’t officially released the new 2.0 firmware yet, but Gizmodo has been posting videos of how the App Store works on the iPhone. I have to say that it’s pretty slick how you uninstall an application the same way that you remove a web bookmark that you’ve added to your home screen (pictured to the right).

Overall Gizmodo seems to be really impressed with how smooth the whole process is. Apple might have really knocked one out of the park with the new App Store.

–MobileMe–

Apple is also preparing for their full scale launch of MobileMe, which is the rebranding process of .Mac. As TUAW noticed there is already an update for both the Mac operating system and Apple TV that switches over the branding to MobileMe.

–AT&T Gets iPhone 3G Shipments–

This is a video of an AT&T store receiving and stocking the new iPhone 3G’s for tomorrow’s big release. There’s really nothing that interesting with the video other than the fact that the white 16GB iPhone 3G’s come in a white box.

Thanks to everyone who sent in the tips!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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