Hasta La Gadget!

The Eee Pad Transformer is one of many Android tablets aiming to stand out among the crowd. (Photo courtesy Asus)

If you’ve seen one tablet, you’ve seen ‘em all: a flat slab with a glass front. A few hardware companies want to break that image with a different kind of slate: the hybrid.

It’s based on the idea that your tablet can be more than just an armchair device. Hook your pad up to a keyboard — sometimes provided, sometimes an optional accessory — and it’s an instant laptop solution, a relatively low-cost netbook for times when a touchscreen keyboards may not suffice.

“Hybrid tablets represent an attempt by manufacturers to fully explore the space of design possibilities,” Gartner research analyst Ray Valdes says. Hardware companies need to find a sweet spot with their tablet offerings, or “sustainable market niches” as Valdes puts it, in order to differentiate from what other companies are doing.

As new tablets hit the market every week, manufacturers are doing everything they can to stand out among the crowd. HTC was one of the first to experiment with the option of adding a stylus with its Flyer tablet, and Lenovo also plans to offer a tablet with an accompanying pen. Other companies have played with the idea of the form factor, sizing tablets anywhere from 7 to 10 inches in screen size. The tablet-laptop lookalike is the latest iteration of the theme.

“With hybrids, product designers are moving the needle in one direction and then back again,” Valdes said. “First strip out certain aspects of a netbook or laptop, such as the keyboard, and then reverse course by adding these pieces back in.”

The Asus Eee Pad Slider, for instance, is playing with the idea of the tablet-netbook hybrid. Essentially, Asus takes the concept of a smartphone slide-out keyboard and brings it to the tablet form, somewhat like a gigantic Motorola Droid phone. It’s an evolution of the company’s first big hybrid option, the Eee Pad Transformer.

The aptly named Eee Pad Slider includes an attached keyboard, which slides out from underneath the tablet screen. (Photo courtesy Asus)

Similarly, Lenovo plans to debut its ThinkPad tablet this fall, easily the most interesting of three tablet devices the company will release this year. Aimed at the business crowd that needs to respond to e-mails quickly, the ThinkPad comes with an optional folio-style case, complete with keyboard attachment. From what we’ve seen, it looks like a nice compromise between a carrying case and a functional peripheral input device. Keeping in line with the ThinkPad laptop heritage, the signature red-dot arrow controller appears smack in the middle of the keyboard.

Being an honors student at the University of Southern Mississippi just got a little more awesome. The college is hooking up its highest performers with brand new Galaxy Tab 10.1s, pre-loaded with software from the popular (and widely loathed) Blackboard educational portal. As you’d expect, syllabi, textbooks, and grades can all be easily pulled up by students in the Honors College, McNair Scholars, Southern Style, and Gulf Coast programs. With only a 1,000 going out now, the initiative stops shy of similar pushes by the Webb School and Seton Hill where everybody gets an iPad. And, while the educational value of tablets is still debatable, at least they’ll be able to read Engadget in style. Check out Sammy’s guitar-laden promo video after the break.

Continue reading University of Mississippi hands out Galaxy Tabs to honors students (video)

University of Mississippi hands out Galaxy Tabs to honors students (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM’s 7-inch PlayBook may be lovely to hold, and that gesture area along the bezel is downright genius, but the QNX-powered slate hasn’t had the easiest time taking on the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Apple’s iPad 2. Still, RIM’s following is amongst the most loyal in the industry, and those who wouldn’t leave the house sans a BlackBerry handset may have been inclined to give this guy a go. If that’s you, we’re overly interested in hearing how you’d do things differently. Would you have preferred a larger screen? Android app support right out of the box? A beefier software store? Go on and get creative in comments below — something tells us RIM isn’t exactly in a position to turn a deaf ear.

How would you change RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jul 2011 22:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Having trouble selecting those tiny links with your big, ol’ digits on that swanked-out slab? Don’t you worry, Google’s just made some slate-friendly improvements to its bread and butter search site, and it’s available for iPad and Honeycomb 3.1+ users. On deck for this UI refresh: a much simplified search results page, larger-sized buttons and text, and a quick access button located below the search box that skips you off to “Images, Videos, Places, Shopping and more.” There’s also been some visual tweaks made to its image search results, with enlarged previews, faster thumbnail loading and continuous scrolling. If you’re not seeing this overhauled layout just yet, sit tight — the update’s expected to roll out in the next few days.

Google refines search experience for big-fingered tablet owners originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fusion Garage’s Grid 10 tablet clears the FCC, begs us not to call it the ‘JooJoo 2’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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