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Daily Crunch: Mobile World

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 01:00 AM PST

Why You Can’t Dismiss Nokia’s 41-Megapixel Phone

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:04 PM PST

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My first reaction upon hearing about Nokia’s 41-megapixel 808 Pureview was that it was an absurdity, a perfect example of the very worst of consumer electronics, and a total miss. But the more I read, the better I understood that this phone isn’t just some freak of nature with a ridiculously high number attached to it. It’s just the slightly awkward first steps of a serious move by Nokia to differentiate itself.

If you’ve only skimmed the news, there are some things you should probably know about this strange beast of a camera.

First, the 41 megapixel figure is really misrepresentative, not to say untrue. It doesn’t take 41-megapixel photos in any way, shape, or form. Even in the special high-res creative mode, it “only” produces 38 megapixels. Mostly it will be taking normal-size shots, between 3 and 8 megapixels. So what the hell does this 41 megapixel figure even mean?

It means Nokia is being smart about the way cameras at this size actually work. I wrote a while back about how HD does not always mean high definition, and cameraphones were an excellent example of this. Their tiny sensors and bad lenses meant that while they may produce pictures of a certain size, the quality was sorely lacking. This was because they insisted on wringing every possible pixel out of an incredibly small sensor.

The 808′s sensor (supposedly manufactured by Toshiba) is not small. At 1/1.2″, it’s four or five times the size of most cameraphone sensors, including the one in the iPhone 4S. Bigger in fact than the sensors in most point-and-shoots. Now, when you make your sensor bigger, you can either keep the same resolution but have bigger wells or photosites (which detect light and make up pixels), which usually improves sensitivity. Or you can keep the same photosite size and just put more of them on the sensor, which improves resolution. In this case Nokia has done the second thing.

But they’ve done it almost to an absurd amount, and they know that their lens, good as it is (and fairly fast — F/2.4 is solid, though there’s lots of distortion right now), can’t really resolve detail well enough that 41 megapixels would be necessary. Even on full-frame cameras that many pixels is questionable.

So instead of just bumping this one spec and expecting it to sell itself, they built a whole photo system around the idea. The 808 camera doesn’t take 41-megapixel photos; it collects 41 megapixels of data and uses all that data to create a very nice photo of a much smaller size. Imagine a photo around 8000×5000 pixels that isn’t particularly sharp; now shrink it down to something significantly smaller — maybe around 3000×2500 pixels (~8MP), just as an estimate. You do it intelligently, sharpening and de-aliasing and doing noise removal.

Here’s a rough estimate of the sizes (DPReview lists more specs):

They’re using 41 megapixels of raw material to give you 8 megapixels of product. And that 8 megapixel product is going to be significantly better than a “real” 8-megapixel image captured by a sensor a quarter the size of your pinky fingernail. Their camera really is better.

Of course, this comes with the standard caveat that independent testing must be done and what really matters is how it performs in everyday situations like dimly lit kitchens, restaurants, and out of the windows of cars. We’ll try it out ourselves, and will be sure to let you know if any more photographically-inclined authorities find out anything interesting.

The other shoe

And then there’s the handset itself. It’s chunky, it’s a weird shape, the camera sticks out the back. And it runs Symbian. Symbian! Why would Nokia do such a thing?

Because this project has been going on for five years, and five years ago the idea that Nokia and Symbian would be fighting for dear life wouldn’t quite have been believed. Nokia was still king of the world, iOS was just being born, and everyone was looking forward to Limo instead of Android.

They’re running it on Symbian because it was designed for Symbian, and it was too late to port the software and adapt the hardware to Windows Phone 7, which came along at the 11th hour, and at any rate the design spec for their Lumia phones would never have admitted a lens bump like the 808′s.

But they’re promising to bring the whole package to WP7 — which means Microsoft just got five years of Nokia R&D for free. It also means that if these guys play their cards right (a big “if”), WP7 could be the de facto gold standard for mobile photography in a year or two. When you consider how point and shoots are giving way to camera phones, and WP7 is aiming at the exact population that loves point and shoots, the pieces start looking very complementary indeed.

Nobody will buy the 808. It’s an evolutionary dead end. But the camera is a desirable trait that will be introduced to the Nokia-Microsoft hybrid soon — if either of these companies has any sense. Again, that’s a big if.

But this camera has restored some of my faith in Nokia and in mobile photography, something I truly didn’t expect to happen any time soon, and not by them of all.

A Few New Bag Designs From Golla

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 06:18 PM PST

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I spent a good portion of my adult career as a graphic designer. I still look at the world through that lens, so I am always happy to stumble across some beautiful designs, no matter where they might be.

Stumble I did, into the Golla booth at the Mobile World Congress today (2 hours of sleep and about 300 calories of food in the last 36 hours) to find a pretty killer lineup of beautifully designed bags for all your gadgets.

Based in Finland, Golla’s mission is to create “fashionable bags for portable electronics by blending creative influences of fashion, lifestyle and technology.” They do a pretty nice job.

This array of gadget bags looks to be functional and casual and should suit the needs of most gadget carrying geeks. The designs also make a statement without being over the top. Look for these new styles to be available in the coming months (I believe the woman there told me April, but I was pre-coffee, so…you know, don’t hold me to that).

Texas Instruments Announces New Partnerships For OMAP 5, But Wait…There’s More

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 03:06 PM PST

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Texas Instruments announced earlier today that they are partnering with Harman and iRobot to provide OMAP 5 as the core processor for new products being developed in these two companies. To understand what this means in TI's greater strategy, we need to back up a bit to take a look as some other initiatives they have going on and see where they all tie together.

TI's previously announced WiLink 8 chip promises to offer a unified set of communications controllers to electronics manufacturers. This will manifest itself in many kinds of consumer electronics, especially mobile phones and tablets. What it means is that manufacturers will have a way to easily and more cheaply offer NFC, FM, cellular data and other connectivity all from a single integrated chip instead of having to include individual controllers. This will save board space and time. Oh yeah, and money too.

As I said, the teaser announcement about WiLink 8 came out 2 weeks ago, but today at the Mobile World Congress, we were able to see some practical examples like the one below where physical NFC tokens can be used to authenticate for a variety of services.

Again, this is not announcing that NFC is now in phones or tablets, but rather how NFC can be put into phones and tablets.

The belief is that the integrated approach could speed the adoption of NFC inside devices because it is easier for manufacturers to implement.

This is a powerful B2B strategy.

But Texas Instruments is also revealing an interesting content strategy as well and this is most easily seen with further developments to their OMAP 5 chipset.

So what exactly is OMAP 5? For the unfamiliar, it is a chipset that smartly splits processing power amongst multiple cores.

First announced last year around this time, the OMAP5 enables some fairly compelling content to run well on mobile devices. And many 3rd party developers are taking advantage of the chip's power to push the envelope of mobile video, AR and more.

In this way, you might call TI the brand behind the brands in that they provide the hardware platform that enables some of the most complex mobile content to date. And content is central to their strategy. This is evident in the multiple agreements they have been setting up over the last several months, like the previously mentioned Harman and iRobot agreements.

But Harman is an automotive company. What does that have to do with phones and tablets?

Herein lies another key part of their total strategy which is expanding their hardware development efforts beyond just phones and tablets and including a multitude of consumer electronics. This strategy is for embedding functionality in everything from thermostats to on-board car entertainment to wearables.

And this brings us back to their partnership announcement with Harman and iRobot. These companies obviously feel that the OMAP5 — which uses only two ARM A15 processors, unlike some other architectures that use quad cores — is powerful enough for their needs. (The demo TI played at their press conference showed their processor running a multitude of tests about 100 seconds faster than one of their competitors).

Dude, You’re Getting An Enterprise Solution Based On Best-Of-Breed Dell Technology!

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 02:50 PM PST

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Barring a change of heart or a wild, consumer-driven financial upturn, it looks as if Dell is out of the consumer PC business and is turning its Sauron-like eye towards the enterprise – the one place where people upgrade their PCs at least once a year. According to PCPro, Dell will is “dramatically changing” their entire business with a focus away from “shiny boxes” and more focus on barebones server and fleet hardware.

To be fair, the statement could portend far less than we should expect. Dell has been among the walking dead in PC hardware for most of this decade, producing little of interest (the Adamo was their big consumer play and presumably Alienware will remain a consumer-facing company) but there’s still money to be made in selling commodity hardware for a few percentage points over cost. I doubt the outcry will be as vociferous as it was when HP threatened to pull its consumer business, mostly because Dell has no products of any interest to the enthusiast. The anger at HP was more about their destruction of Palm rather than the possibility that we wouldn’t be able to by a handsome, staid PC in a black/grey case.

As MG points out, the only company to truly pull off this move was IBM. They sold their consumer hardware wholesale to a partner who could do their brand justice and they are thriving under the radar, producing interesting research and machines like Watson, the Jeopardy playing super-computer. I doubt Dell could build a super computer, but they can put together a mean RAID array.

We haven’t heard back from Dell yet about what this decision means to the company, but rather than assume all Dell consumer hardware is going away I suspect we’ll see more focus on enterprise desktops and laptops and less of an emphasis on the low-margin, low-cost netbook, entry-level PC, and tablet/convertible lines. This also means a move away from brick and mortar sales, a place where no one is making money. Maybe this really is the post-PC era?

Quietly Brilliant, But HTC Sure Made Some Noise At MWC

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 12:54 PM PST

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Wow. We expected a lot of news out of Mobile World Congress but who knew HTC would have so. freaking. much.

I was having trouble keeping track of it myself, so for the good of the both of us, I thought it might be fitting to bundle all this news up into something a tad more easily digestible.

And off we go…

The first thing you should know is that HTC is changing up its current branding strategy. Most notably, we have the freshly announced One series which comprises three different phones: the One X, One S, and One V. (More on those later, of course.) HTC has already stated that it would be focusing on more hero devices, rather than pushing out experimental failures like the HTC Status.

While unifying offerings under a singular flagship brand — like Galaxy, Droid, etc. — is great for brand awareness, HTC ought to be careful with the phone-specific naming. Right now we’re seeing the X, S, and V, and Chris Velazco brought up a great point in noting that there’s really no way to logically figure which phone is the “best.” I, personally, have found crazy long names (like Samsung Galaxy S II Epic Touch 4G… or whatever) incredibly annoying, but I’d rather have too much to remember than something vague that I can’t remember.

In other news, HTC has launched version 4.0 of its Sense overlay. While zero percent of the people I talk to actually enjoy vendor skins, these OEMs keep slapping them on their handsets like it’s all that matters. Luckily, Sense 4.0 doesn’t seem to bog down Android the way other skins do, and runs like a breeze on both the One X and One S (we weren’t able to see software running on the V).

The clock and weather widgets are great, as usual, but HTC really put in some extra effort on the camera front. Hardware aside, the Sense camera app can take shots at .2 seconds, meaning that in burst mode it’ll take five pictures in a second flat. There are also plenty of setting controls and fun stuff like that.

Now let’s get to the phones because I’m sure that’s the reason most of you are here.

The One X is officially HTC’s new flagship. Running Android 4.0 ICS along with Sense 4.0, this may be one of the most impressively spec’d phones we’ve seen to date. And even though the spec is apparently dead, HTC has all kinds of crazy numbers to throw at you with this guy.

To start, the One X is powered by a quad-core 1.5GHz Tegra 3 processor and packs 1GB of RAM under the hood of its 9.7mm frame. You’ll also find a 4.7-inch 720p S-LCD screen up front, along with an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera capable of video capture in 1080p and a 1.3-megapixel front-facer for video chat.

I actually played around with the One X this morning, and have to say that it’s quite stunning. Take a look at our hands-on video straight from Barcelona here.

Following just behind, the One S is meant to be HTC’s mid-range device, but thus far I personally prefer it to the One X. The One S sports a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD screen, with Android 4.0 and Sense 4.0 in tow. It runs on one of Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon S4 processors (1.5GHz dual-core, to be exact) and touts 1GB of RAM under the hood.

Its aluminum unibody design is just what we’ve been looking for in a sea of cheap-feeling plastic, and we’re pleased to see little to no difference in performance between the quad-core packing One X and the One S. (Man, I’m already tired of all this “One” business.)

The same camera specs hold true between both models, and you’ll find Beats Audio integration in both as well. Check out our hands-on video in Barcelona here.

Not to be overshadowed by any means, next up we have the little guy: the HTC One V. I actually kind of fell for this little hunk of aluminum at HTC’s media event in NYC (even without seeing any hardware). Don’t get me wrong, the sexy feel of the One S and the gorgeous screen of the One X are worth getting excited about, but the One V gave me this overwhelming sense of nostalgia and I’m actually very sure at this point that I’m just fine with smaller phones.

See, the One V is meant to be the lower-end model in the series, packing just a 3.7-inch 480×800 screen, a single-core 1GHz processor, and a 5-megapixel camera. Still, the little guy runs Android 4.0, Sense 4.0 and feels wonderful in the hand.

But just because these ICS-flavored Android phones are its MWC sweethearts, don’t think HTC has given up on Windows Phone. After sitting down with our own Ingrid Lunden to chat out future plans, chief marketing officer John Wang promised “we have not given up on Windows Phone.” Clearly the focus right now is on Android, but anyone who’s given WP a shot can tell you it’s ready for the main stage.

HTC has also signed a deal with Dropbox to better compete against iCloud. Now that Apple has its own cloud-syncing service (along with Motorola, and others), HTC saw fit to get a cloud service of its own. But rather than bake it up in the HTC labs, the Taiwanese company called on the Michael Jordan of cloud storage, Dropbox.

This means that anyone who buys a One series device will get 25GB of storage free for two years. To put that in perspective, it currently costs Dropbox users $9.99 a month for 50GB of storage and the only free offering from the service is 2GB.

So what do you think? In my book, HTC made quite the showing at MWC, but I guess we should wait until the show’s over before we start handing out awards.

Dropbox Who? Apple Demonstrates The Simplicity Of iCloud In Latest Ad Spot

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 09:06 AM PST

iCloud just works. That’s the message of Apple’s latest commercial titled iCloud Harmony. The service took off like a rocket when it first launched late last year. Partly fueled by the massive success of the iPhone 4S, Apple claims to have more than 85 million users on the service. But as awesome as iCloud is now, it’s set to get even better and this commercial is likely just the first of a larger advertisement campaign.

The genius of iCloud is that once it’s setup, the service runs with virtually zero user interaction. But the current incarnation is still pretty limited. What Apple shows in the video above is pretty much all it can do. However, with Mountain Lion, iCloud is set to become a robust cloud service with a feature set rivaling that of even Dropbox. For better or worse, it’s going to be deeply baked into OS X and able to sync most anything between a user’s Apple devices. Mountain Lion is still months away from its release but Apple needs to start getting people excited about iCloud now.



See What A 41MP Camera Can Do: Nokia Releases 808 PureView Sample Shots

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:54 AM PST

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Nokia’s announcement of the Symbian Belle-powered 808 PureView and its 41-megapixel camera took many (including me) by surprise this morning, and there were more than a few demo photos being thrown up during the presentation.

I got the chance to play with the 808 earlier this morning, but the inside of the Fira Montjuic’s Hall 5 didn’t provide the best vistas to photograph (I really wish I could’ve smuggled one outside, as Barcelona’s architecture is beautiful). Nokia has come through a handful of impressive sample shots though, and while your mileage may vary, they’re a stunning testament to the 808′s downright crazy camera.

Hit up Nokia’s blog for a zip file of the full, uncompressed versions.

Click to view slideshow.


Remember Netbooks? Yeah, Lenovo Has Stopped Selling Them Online

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:42 AM PST

asus1000he

Wow. Netbooks. That’s a blast from the past. It’s like listening to a Maroon 5 song again and going “Wait, is that from that short period when they were ostensibly good or was it from the muddy period after that single about the beauty queen eighteen woman or whatever?” Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Netbooks are the Maroon 5 of electronics: still vaguely recognized but quickly losing value.

Anyway, Lenovo has stopped selling netbooks online, citing good sales traffic for the K1 and A1 tablets. The 11-inch X130e netbook is out of stock and probably won’t be stocked again. PC World notes that netbooks accounted for 6.8 percent of PC sales in fourth quarter last year.

While netbook zealots squawk about the value of a “low cost laptop with a keyboard,” the truth is that a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard will give you a more specialized and smoother experience than any copy of Windows shoehorned onto a processor with the speed and processing power of a particularly energetic blender.

I doubt even Chrome OS will save this sinking space, but bless Google for trying.

Hands-On With The HTC One V: This Little Guy Feels Great

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:18 AM PST

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

There’s been plenty of news about HTC of late. If you’ve been following our MWC coverage, you know all about it and I won’t bore you. Instead, I’ll just let you in on a little tidbit that we learned here at HTC’s New York roundtable and give you a few of my impressions of HTC’s One V.

This is a CDMA/HSPA+ device, will be available both on-contract and as a prepaid phone from various carriers. We weren’t all that thrilled with HTC’s decision to offer its flagship One X smartphone on only one carrier (AT&T), but at least the Taiwanese phone maker is spreading out the love when it comes to their more mid-range handset. As of right now, we can confirm that the One V will be available on-contract from U.S. Cellular and T-Mobile, and as a pre-paid phone on Virgin and MetroPCS.

Obviously there’s still no word on pricing and these babies aren’t even available until spring, but if you’re already planning out your next phone this could be helpful information.

I just got up close and personal with the One V, and I have to say it feels pretty damn good. Where HTC is really winning is in that aluminum unibody design with soft-touch. I’ve been noticing that phones from all the big guys — Samsung, LG, and Motorola — are all feeling increasingly plastic-y, something I attribute to their desire for “thin and light.”

HTC’s new phones may not be the lightest, but at least they don’t feel like toys. I’m also pleased with the One V’s size, sporting that 3.7-inch display. The phone itself is almost exactly the same size as an iPhone, and while big beautiful displays are all the rage right now, the One V took me back to a place where phones were actually comfortable in the hand.

The phone sports a little chin, much like the HTC Status or G1, and the black bezel takes over the entire front portion of the phone. Though the screen itself doesn’t go edge-to-edge, it certainly gives off the impression that it does. You’ll notice that there are only three capacitive buttons down below.

HTC didn’t have the software running on the One V, so I’m focusing mainly on hardware here. However, I’m told that the software is the same across all of these One devices, except for carrier bloatware of course. That said, Sense 4.0 is really snappy. You’d expect Sense (one of the heavier vendor overlays) would slow down Android even more than it already lags, but I didn’t find this to be the case.

At least on the One X, Sense only brings a new layer of dimension to the phone rather than bogging it down. HTC’s weather and clock widget are still beautiful, as per usual, but where we’re really seeing some huge UI changes is in the camera app. Sense has brought way more controls into the camera app, along with a continuous shutter mode which takes five pictures a second.

That’s right. The One series shutter snaps pics in .2 seconds, which far surpasses anything we’ve called snappy before. I’d say it just barely beats out the iPhone 4S, but it’s hard to say without a stop watch. The One phones send a snapped picture straight to the little review square on the bottom left, whereas on the iPhone you watch a virtual shutter as the picture’s being loaded into your gallery. This makes it hard to tell which is really the fastest, but it doesn’t really matter since both are super snappy. The One V, on the other hand, has a camera downgrade to 5-megapixels from 8-megapixels.

Hopefully this guy doesn’t go for more than $200, though I’m thinking we’ll see it land south of $150. Truth be told, even for $200 this seems like a worthwhile offering.



Proview Could Have Been A Contender

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:17 AM PST

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Reuters, usually taciturn in their coverage of technology, has written a nice tick tock about the rise and fall of trademark troll Proview in China. The company, founded around the same time the Mac Portable hit the scene, was once a display powerhouse, producing 4 percent of the CRTs sold during the early dot-com decade and 12 percent of the LCDs. Although it’s probably hard to remember, Proview probably made a monitor you used 20 years ago.

The company began making all-in-one CRT PCs under the iPAD moniker, a move that seemed, at best, quixotic. In the opening years of the 21st century, Proview kept at it, hitting a rough spot in 2008 and never regaining its footing during the financial crisis.

The rest is a familiar story: the company fell into debt and stopped making products and instead generated lawsuits. This tore the company to pieces and now its only refuge is to try to pull more cash out of a trademark lawsuit that was already settled.

This is what gets me most about trolls like SCO, Proview, and the like: that they were once great companies laid low and reduced to trolling for settlements. Like that fungus that infects an ant and forces it to climb to a place conducive to its own parasitic growth – killing the ant in the process – the legal fees strip whatever was good out of a company leave a shell populated by lawyers and hangers on. Even the original creators, in some cases, don’t see the spoils of the legal team’s efforts. All that’s left is a shell company and some letterhead.

Call all you want for patent reform: these companies will still be trying to wring the last ounce of cash out of a failed idea. This is less about reform than about the ease with which lawsuits can be brought, enforced, and scare tactics implemented to cloud the issues of ownership and real value. No one wins.

TC@MWC: Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 Finally Nails The Formula

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:14 AM PST

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I’m no great fan of Samsung’s 5+ inch Galaxy Note — it’s just too darned big for me to use the way I want to. The Galaxy Note 10.1 on the other hand pumps up size to a more familiar level, and the end result is a tablet/stylus combo that makes a lot more sense.

But first, a few of the basics. The Galaxy Note features a (what else) 10.1-inch display running at 1280 x 720, a 1.4 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a Touch Wiz-ified take on Ice Cream Sandwich, all of which led to smooth sailing during my brief time with it. It seems to have more than enough horsepower to handle the everyday tasks likely to be thrown at it, though I wish I could say the same for the lackluster 3-megapixel rear camera.

The software that the demo models used wasn’t yet a final version, and it occasionally showed. I won’t go into too much detail here since Samsung is likely working to iron out the kinks as I write, but the bundled Photoshop Touch app initially had trouble detecting how much pressure I was applying with the S-Pen. It eventually caught up though, and didn’t trouble me afterward.

The design and construction is typical Samsung — that is to say, thin, light, and plasticky. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as more than a few people are fans of Samsung’s M.O., though I’m more a fan of HTC’s weightier design choices. The glossy plastic back does make for a mess when it comes to fingerprints, which is much more apparent on the grey model than on the white.

The S Pen that accompanies the tab has also been upgraded a bit — it’s thicker and apparently more precise on the bigger screen, but given my limited experience with the 5-inch Note, I was hard pressed to tell the difference. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

The kindly Samsung rep who held the Note while I took a few photos intimated that she really couldn’t see a difference in accuracy between the 5-inch Note and its big brother. I know, I know, anecdotal evidence, but the most important thing is that the S-Pen worked, and it worked well.

For what it’s worth, I had no trouble at all whipping up a little TC logo doodle, and while the “eraser” on the opposite end of the S-Pen sometimes had a bit of trouble erasing because I wasn’t depressing the nib enough. It’s a more accurate simulation of using a pencil eraser than, say, using a regular capacitive stylus for the job, but I didn’t much care for that bit of sensory feedback.

Personally, if you absolutely had to get one of Samsung’s stylus-friendly doodads, it should certainly be this one. The tablet itself is solid enough — good specs, decent looks, etc. — but overarching concept of the Note line feels so much more appropriate on a screen this size. I can’t say that it’s the most intuitive thing I’ve ever used, but it’s great to see Samsung take an older concept and really make it shine with the right form factor.

The Samsung Galaxy S III Leaked! 1.5GHz, 4.8-inch 1080p Display, Ceramic Case

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 06:56 AM PST

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Samsung previously made it known that the Galaxy S III would not be announced at Mobile World Congress.

But it leaked anyway. And it might steal the show. Forgot about the HTC One X and Sony Xperia U, the Samsung GSIII will be the Android phone to beat in 2012.

Inside the Galaxy S III is said to be a quad-core Samsung Exynos CPU running at 1.5GHz. It will power a 4.8-inch 16×9 display that’s reportedly a Blu-ray display — whatever that means. A 2MP resides in the front bezel while an 8MP is embedded around back. BGR doesn’t state the target carrier(s) but the phone will rock a 4G LTE radio. An unconfirmed rendering is pictured up top.

The case is reportedly made out of ceramic, which in a world of plastic and aluminum, is a fun change of pace. Ceramic feels great to the touch, can be very durable and since it’s comprised of mostly baked mud, it’s better for the environment. Plus, with ceramic, Apple can’t claim Samsung copied any of its products.

It will ship with Android 4.0 installed sometime later this year. Samsung previously stated that it would hold a launch event for the phone closer to its ship date. I’d expect the phone in late spring/early summer.

Asus Rebrands Its Tablet Line To “Transformer Pads”, Launches The TF Pad Infinity & TF Pad 300

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 05:36 AM PST

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Once upon a time the Asus Eee brand held some weight. The Eee name debuted with Asus’ netbook line, which nearly instantly set the bar for low-cost, but still quality, computing devices. That’s why the Eee brand was used for Asus’ first tablets. But now, in 2012, with netbooks quickly fading into irrelevance, Asus wisely decided it was time to retire the name. From here on out Asus tablets will be known as Transformer Pads.

Along with the rebranding, Asus also used the Mobile World Congress stage to announce two new tablets. The TF Pad Infinity is the first model in the new high-end Infinity line while the TF Pad 300 aims for the budget market. Both are styled similarly to the original Transformer Prime but seem to pack slightly different components that shouldn’t cause as many headaches with non-functioning components. Sorry, early adapters. You were beta testers. Both of these models are better equipped than the two-month old Transformer Prime.

The Transformer Pad Infinity is 8.5mm thick but still packs either a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 for the 3G version or Tegra 3 for the Wi-Fi model. A 10.1, 1920×1200 Super IPS+ screen resides up front and is covered with Gorilla Glass 2. Inside is 1GB of RAM, 16/32/64GB of storage and 2MP front facing and a rear-facing 8MP camera. It will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich sometime in the second quarter for at unannounced price points.

The TF Pad 300 more closely lines up with the current Transformer Prime. It packs a Tegra 3 chip, 8MP/2MP cams, and HDMI-out. The main difference comes in storage size and screen resolution: The TF Pad 300 only rocks 16GB of onboard storage and the screen is a standard IPS screen with only 1280×800 resolution. This tablet will also ship with ICS sometime later this year. No word on price yet.

Both models will have optional keyboard docks that not only add ports but also feature additional batteries.

It seems Asus learned its lesson from the original Transformer Prime. Both of the new Transformer tablets have a plastic strip on the otherwise all-aluminum back plate for improved Wi-Fi and GPS reception.

Both of these tablets will launch later this year with the current shipping window sometime in the second quarter. By that time the iPad 3 will also be shipping, which will likely overshadow the rest of the tablet market for several months. Asus probably knows this and scheduled these tablet’s launches until there’s room to breathe again. Besides, even with connectivity issues, the company’s Transformer Prime still is still winning the Android tablet spec race. There’s no reason to replace it just yet.


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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:05:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:05:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:05:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:05:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:05:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:05:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:06:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:06:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:06:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:06:00 AM

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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/28/2012 05:06:00 AM
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