Hasta La Gadget!

Android tablets aren’t exactly in short supply at CES 2011, but the Enspert Identity Tab stands out — despite hailing from a manufacturer we’d never heard of before the show. Enspert’s got two slick 7-inch slates on the floor, and while the E201 mostly cribs from Samsung’s WiFi-only Galaxy Tab — right down to a 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird chip — the flagship Enspert E301 pumps up the pixel density with a 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen, adds an all-metal case, a mobile DTV antenna, and 3G connectivity. We poked and prodded these tablets all over and got a peek at the full spec sheets, so after you peruse our gallery below, hit the break for details!

Continue reading Enspert Identity Tab E301 and E201 hands-on preview

Enspert Identity Tab E301 and E201 hands-on preview originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

In case you’re not already sick of tablets, here’s another one that we spotted at a small Taiwanese booth at CES. Sure, this Anadem Q07 — a rebadged Quanta device — was just a dummy, but even this could easily beat the lot of cheap Android slates in a beauty contest. Encased within the chrome bezel and silver body will be a 7-inch 800 x 480 display (which is slightly underwhelming), along with a Samsung S5PV210 processor — essentially the Hummingbird chip but in a different package — underclocked to 800MHz, but still capable of handling 1080p video playback. There’s not much else on the spec sheet, but we did see a micro-USB port, HDMI mini connector, microSD slot, SIM card slot, and stereo speakers on the Q07. Naturally, you’ll hear from us when we stumble upon this Froyo tablet again.

Quanta’s 7-inch Android tablet dummy spotted at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

ViewSonic’s taking tablets to great new lows here at CES, calling its new 4.1-inch ViewPad 4 a “tablet device with smartphone functionality.” Whatever the description, though, this is a pretty handsome, angular Froyo handset with an 800 x 480 resolution, 5 megapixel camera that can record 1080p 720p video, a front-facing imager, 2GB of ROM, and either 512MB or 1GB of RAM. The spec sheet we found online says the former, but the chap at ViewSonic’s stand today told us the latter. Either way, we’re really liking the smoothness of the Android UI on this tabletphone, it was very pleasantly responsive. The most shocking thing about the ViewPad 4, however, might be its launch date, which we were told will be somewhere around mid-June. Froyo in mid-June … really? Get your video hands-on fix after the break.

Update: A second pass through the ViewSonic stand informed us that actually the ViewPad 4 is only capable of 720p video recording. Bogus, man.

Continue reading ViewSonic ViewPad 4 hands-on (video)

ViewSonic ViewPad 4 hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Believe it or not, the tablet world hasn’t all turned into a Honeycomb / Tegra 2 monopoly. Some manufacturers, like industry newbie eFun here, are sticking with ye olde Froyo and looking to conquer a slice of the thrifty consumer market. The Nextbook Next4 is a 10-inch panel aping the iPad in offering a 1024 x 768 resolution and what will be a brushed aluminum back (ours was made out of plastic, but it was just a display prototype). Unfortunately, that’s pretty much where the similarities end, as this device’s software really wasn’t up to scratch. It’s almost stock Android 2.2, by the looks of it, but eFun opted to take the familiar Android soft keys into software, leaving the only capacitive touch for the panel. The biggest problem for us, aside from some instabilities and a random reboot, was lag when navigating through menus and an atypically long load time to get Angry Birds running. Performance might be an issue, in spite of the 1GHz Cortex A8 processor inside, but price likely won’t be. The Next4 is launching in the first quarter of the year with a price somewhere around $350.

Its 7-inch sibling, the Nextbook Next6, is also joining it in Q1 and also eschews Android keys for a software implementation. Its designed primarily for reading ebooks and has a pair of physical keys on the side for flipping pages, which worked well. It had similar issues, however, to its bigger brother, but maybe its target audience will be more forgiving of its lack of immediate responsiveness than we are. It’ll be a Home Shopping Network exclusive for a week when it launches, with an MSRP of $300 that will likely be discounted to $250. Hit up the gallery for the hands-on action!

eFun Nextbook Next4 and Next6 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Would you look at that. Verizon’s ongoing press conference has been accompanied by the appearance of two 4.3-inch LTE handsets coming to the network. Both HTC’s Thunderbolt and LG’s Revolution were pretty well known in advance, but hey, now we have big luscious high-res pictures to gawk at. The Revolution will come with Android 2.2 preloaded while the Thunderbolt has Skype video calling integrated right into HTC Sense. The latter device also boasts a Super LCD display, 8 megapixel camera with HD video recording, DLNA, Dolby Surround Sound, and the honor of being a Verizon exclusive in the US. Now that the devices have been made official, we also know that the Revolution can stream, play and record HD video, perform video chat with a front-facing camera, and share its 4G connection with up to eight devices through its built-in hotspot functionality. Jump past the break for the full announcement.

Update: Hop on past the break for the Thunderbolt specs, courtesy of our friend Peyton (and HTC).

Continue reading HTC Thunderbolt and LG Revolution official on Verizon (update)

HTC Thunderbolt and LG Revolution official on Verizon (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Verizon  | Email this | Comments