Hasta La Gadget!

No, we can’t say we’ve ever heard of Woow Digital before either, but we’ve just received some very legit-looking imagery of the company’s forthcoming tablet, modestly titled The One. Google’s impending Android Gingerbread release is promised as the OS, while the internal equipment includes an NVIDIA Tegra 2 core, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of flash storage. Up front you’ll find a 10-inch display spanning a 1024 x 600 resolution, while wireless connectivity is taken care of with Bluetooth, WiFi and WCDMA 3G radios built in. Woow tells us it plans to launch The One in Japan before Christmas at a price of ¥42,000 ($504), which will be followed up by availability in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Europe. Well, it had better hope that release schedule doesn’t shift, because come CES 2011, we should be up to our ears in Tegra 2 tablets and phones.

Continue reading Woow Digital’s The One tablet cooks up Tegra 2 with Gingerbread just in time for Christmas

Woow Digital’s The One tablet cooks up Tegra 2 with Gingerbread just in time for Christmas originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

No Android Market? No problem! The 10-inch Advent Vega tablet, famously boasting NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chipset, just went on sale across the pond earlier today, and after a matter of hours, the £249 device has already sold out. In a message that sounds eerily similar to that uttered by HP regarding its Slate, PC World has confessed that the first shipment “sold out nearly as quickly as ‘Take That’ tickets.” It’s hard to say just how “unprecedented” the demand was with no actual sales figures, but it looks as if this here tablet will be quite the item this holiday season. The Tickle Me Elmo of slates? Maybe, just maybe.

Update: We’ve touched base with PC World and Currys in the UK, and both reckon that it’ll be “another week or two” before stock is replenished.

Advent Vega goes on sale in the UK, promptly sells out originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Slashgear (1), (2)  |  PC World  | Email this | Comments

£999.99 ($1,612) for a Toshiba Folio 100?! That’s a fair bit more expensive than its original $560 price point — either its Tegra 2 chip’s made out of gold (which would explain its rarity) or someone got super bored at that PC World store in the British Midlands. Soon after receiving this photo, we put on our detective hat and headed over to our local branch in London, only to find that it had already stopped selling the offending Android tablet merely ten days after its European launch. We quizzed the staff about the aforementioned £999.99 pricing and then all was clear: apparently this is a standard internal convention to stop its folks from selling certain products, so the price tag and display unit you see above weren’t supposed to be there at all. Oopsie!

So why is PC World (and the whole DSG International chain) pulling the Folio 100? Turns out this has nothing to do with Toshiba; but it’s simply because of a high return rate from disappointed customers. In fact, head over to MoDaCo and you’ll see a screenshot of PC World’s internal memo that confirms this sad news. We had already given the tablet some decent (and disheartening) hands-on time back at IFA, but since our new friends at the store kindly offered to let us unbox a Folio 100 for a giggle, we decided to give it another go. And boy, it sure was a letdown: you’ll see in our hands-on video after the break that the 10.1-inch LCD is haunted by an inferior pixel density plus narrow viewing angles; and the cheap plastic casing doesn’t help, either. Most importantly, the official Android Market app was still MIA, which is no doubt the biggest turn-off for the buyers. Too bad, Toshiba, but do come back next year when you have Honeycomb and some decent screens.

[Thanks, John L. and Adam C.]

Update: Some commenters are pointing out that many software bugs — especially in the Toshiba Market Place app — and the lack of pinch-to-zoom in the browser are to be blamed as well. Yikes.

Continue reading PC World stops selling the Toshiba Folio 100, we go hands-on to find out why (video)

PC World stops selling the Toshiba Folio 100, we go hands-on to find out why (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

If you’re LG, you wait until Android becomes a tablet-worthy OS before bringing out your Tegra 2 slate. If you’re Toshiba, you’re too busy shipping your 10-inch Froyo tablet to care. The Folio 100, powered by NVIDIA’s latest and greatest ARM SOC, is making its promised Q4 2010 arrival today, as it begins shipping all across Europe. There are still no release plans for the US, but Euros can now enjoy a 1024 x 600 resolution, 16GB of internal storage, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, mini-HDMI, USB and SD card-reading ports, and up to seven hours of battery life. €399 ($560) is the last price we heard for this Android Market-deprived slate, though we’d recommend trying one in person before letting go of that cash — our own impressions of the Folio 100 weren’t overwhelmingly positive.

Update: Toshiba has furnished us with updated pricing. Germany will have to pony up €429 for the 3G-less Folio 100 or €529 for the 3G-equipped SKU (available Q1 2011), whereas Italy gets both of them cheaper at €399 and €499, respectively, and UK buyers will have to find £329 for the thriftier model. All prices include local sales tax.

Continue reading Toshiba Folio 100 now shipping its Tegra 2-powered Froyo wares around Europe

Toshiba Folio 100 now shipping its Tegra 2-powered Froyo wares around Europe originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 06:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Did ViewSonic’s 10-inch tablets catch your eye? We’ve got good and bad news. The good news is that the G-Tablet (with a 1GHz processor and Android 2.2) is now on sale at Sears for $379.99 — even less than we were told. The bad news is that the Intel Atom N455-powered ViewPad 10 apparently is, too. We say apparently because Sears seems to have crossed some wires when putting the latter slate up on its site, most egregiously stating that that dual-booting device does both Windows 7 and Android 2.2 for the exact same $379.99. Last we heard, the ViewPad 10 — like the eerily similar Tega v2 — could only do Android 1.6 alongside Microsoft’s OS and would cost quite a bit more. Don’t rely on Sears to cut you a deal, folks.

ViewSonic G-Tablet pops up in Sears weekly ad, mistakenly claims to be the ViewPad 10 at Sears’ website originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Sears (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments