Hasta La Gadget!

Let the Tegra 2-powered, Android Honeycomb tablet announcements begin! Apparently (and understandably) staying away from a Folio 2 moniker, Toshiba is kicking off CES with its new unnamed 10.1-inch Android tablet, and we have to say from our brief look at a non-working unit a few weeks ago, it may just have what it takes to stick out from the rest.. at least on the spec and manufacturing quality front. The tablet has a capacitive, high 1280 x 800-resolution display along with an accelerometer and ambient light sensor (or what Toshiba has dubbed as Adaptive Display technology). It also has a 5 megapixel rear camera as well as a 2 megapixel front-facing one. Yep, this one is well stocked and just a quick look at the pictures below will show that the slab has got full sized USB and HDMI jacks, a single mini-USB socket, and an SD card slot.

While we couldn’t turn on the dual-core Tegra 2-powered tablet, which will eventually run “the next version of Android designed for tablets” aka Honeycomb, we have to say the EasyGrip, spill-resistant, rubberized back felt really solid in hand and the 1.7-pound, .6-inch thick tablet felt comparable to the iPad in terms of portability. Oh, and did we mention that the aforementioned rear cover is swappable, so not only can you change its color but you can replace the battery? We told you it had some of the ingredients to make it go far, but we’re obviously lacking quite a bit of information here to make any further decisions. Toshiba’s maintaining that the tablet will be released in the first half of 2011 (it obviously has to wait until Honeycomb has been made official) and the pricing will be competitive, but we’ll be digging for more when we get to Vegas and hopefully reporting back with some impressions of a working unit.

Toshiba announces unnamed Tegra 2-powered Android tablet, waits only for Honeycomb originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 03:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember at Google I/O this year when Google showed off “something beyond Froyo” in the music realm? The demo included an all-new music player (boy, wouldn’t that be nice!), along with magical features that let you push web-purchased songs to your device, and allowed you to browse your PC’s music library from your phone as if it was on the device itself. Well, none of that showed up in Gingerbread, unfortunately, but the new music player itself has just leaked out. It’s super buggy, and of course doesn’t have any of those fancy wireless features we’re waiting on, but it could offer a bit of a glimpse into 3.0, at least as far as UI tweaks go.

The differences seem minimal but aesthetically pleasing, with blurred background images behind frosted glass widgets as far as the eye can see. One important thing to note is that there is a menu button on the top right, at least in some views, and we went back and watched Andy Rubin’s tablet time at D: there’s clearly the same menu button on each app. [Suspenseful strings begin to play]. It seems Google might be getting rid of its hardware buttons entirely, or at least making menu functionality a more obvious part of its relevant applications, instead of the “surprise!” button it currently represents. There are also points in the video where tapping the application’s icon in the top left takes you to the “home” of the app, and we also found similar icons on the top left of each application Andy demoed at D — and we’re guessing they have the same functionality. Check out a video after the break, or hit up the source link to grab the APK… if you dare.

[Thanks, Andre]

Continue reading Google’s next Android Music app leaks out, gives hints of a 3.0 UI overhaul

Google’s next Android Music app leaks out, gives hints of a 3.0 UI overhaul originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 19:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Acer’s Android tablet (and its gyroscope) previewed on video

Acer’s Android tablet (and its gyroscope) previewed on video originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A teaser video released by Motorola hints at a new Android Honeycomb tablet, and calls the iPad a “big iPhone.”

The two minute spot, which can be found on Motorola’s YouTube channel, is called Tablet Evolution. Beginning with an Egyptian hieroglyphic tablet from 3,200 BC, (good graphics, but heavy) and running through the Ten Commandments and the Rosetta Stone (multi-lingual support), we get to the iPad and then the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Here the tease begins.

The Tab is described as having “Android OS, but Android OS… for a phone.” Ouch. The next item in the virtual museum hall is a plinth with a cloth-covered something on top. A poorly animated bee flies into the screen and we’re promised something at CES 2011.

A bee? Android, but not for a phone? This can only mean Honeycomb, the forthcoming tablet version of the Android smartphone OS. Add in the demo of Honeycomb running on a Motorola prototype by Google’s Android boss Andy Rubin a couple weeks back and it’s pretty certain that this “Tablet Evolution” will be on show at CES in January, although I doubt it will be on sale so soon.

One thing is certain, though. Almost a year after the iPad was launched, the rest of the tablet market is finally heating up.

Tablet Evolution presented by Motorola [YouTube]

See Also:

• Video: Motorola Tablet Running Android 3.0 Honeycomb
• RIM Unveils Tethered Tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook
• Topic Page for Samsung Galaxy Tab

It sounds like all of NVIDIA’s wrangling and cajoling finally paid off, if a couple of analysts are to be believed — both say the company’s dual-core Tegra 2 chipset is racking up wins in the tablet space. We’ve seen it seemingly raise the bar for smartphone silicon in the LG Star and tease us in slate after slate, but Citigroup’s Glen Yeung says that Samsung has “placed a sizeable order with Nvidia for Tegra 2 chips in the first half of 2011, geared for both tablets and smartphones,” and BMO Capital Markets analyst Ambrish Srivastava anticipates the next Galaxy Tab will be one of the devices that use it. If that sounds obvious, remember that Samsung was supposed to be producing a dual-core chip of its own. What could cause companies to embrace Tegra 2, if that’s indeed what’s happening? Any number of reasons, to be sure, but Glen Yeung also says that Google has made Tegra the reference design for Honeycomb, aka Android 3.0, and so Tegra 2 may sound like a fast track to victory in the budding tablet space. Here’s hoping it’s a good choice for consumers, too.

Samsung nabs Tegra 2 for Galaxy Tab 2, Google makes Tegra the Honeycomb reference platform? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Dec 2010 14:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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