Archos Forays Into Tablets

Archos, long the benchmark for portable media players,are making a play for the red-hot tablet market with a series of Android based tablets.

There's something for everybody with devices ranging from small personal media player like devices with 2.8 or 3.2 inch touchscreeens and then going up to the7 inch and 10.1 inch touchscreen high end tablets. These will ship with the latest Android 2.2 "Froyo" version.

Only some of these devices will have the more touch-friendly capacitive screen and a front facing camera. They lack the all important applications, but make up in media playback capabilities.
                                                                                                                                                            

India's First Official Tablet - OlivePad

With the iPad yet to be officially launched in India and the Notion Ink Adam taking it's sweet time, Olive Telecom launched India's first official tablet - the OlivePad VT100. The OlivePad is available in all Croma stores from eh first week of August (well, I am a bit late in posting this).

So what exactly can a customer expect from the OlivePad. Let's have a look at the features -

• To start with, it has a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen. 
• It runs on the Android OS. 
• It is 3G enabled along with WiFi (but we don't have 3G facility in India yet. Come on, give me a break...when are we going to have 3G for the private carriers????)
• It has dual cameras, a 3 MP at he back and a front camera for video calling.
• GPS, e-book reader and web browsing with Flash support are some of the other features. 

It's price is about Rs. 25000 INR (which corresponds to about $500 approx). And there are talks that it will be launched in Europe in the near future. 

                                                                                                                                                               

World's Cheapest Tablet - From India

Previously, I have written about the Adam, a tablet which is being built by an Indian company, Notion Ink. But recently, according to Indian Express, Human Resource Department minister of India, Mr. Kapil Sibal revealed a tablet-like device (seems to be a 7 incher) which is in the developmental stage at the moment.

More About the Device
It will be a Linux-based, open source device with a touchscreen of 5/7/9 inches. It will have th basic features like office software, web browser, multimedia capabilities, PDF Reader and also video conferencing.

The Best Part Of The Story
Here comes the best thing about this device. The title of this post says that it is the cheapest tablet. And indeed it is (err...will be). It is estimated that in the beginning, it will cost around $35. It is believed that the price will drop further, ultimately to $10.
So, how will people accept this "Poor Man's Tablet" ?Will every citizen own a touchscreen device? We will have to wait and see.

Image Credit
                                                                                                                                                                  

Notion Ink Adam

I have already mentioned about this product from the Indian company, Notion Ink, in my earlier post. but that was along with some other competitors, so this one is going to be a standalone post about the Adam.

After the fall of the biggies, it's upto this small Indian company to give some competition to the iPad. By "fall of the biggies", I am referring to HP and Microsoft who have called off their plans for the Slate and Courier respectively.

So start with the looks, the Adam has got a sleek look and design, one that will impress almost everyone. It's about 13 mm thick an is quite light weight at around 650 gm.
The powerhouse inside this tablet is something to watch out for, which maintains a good balance between speed and power. It's run by the Dual Core Cortex A-9 processor which gives a nice web experience, supports low power flash and enhances battery life. Further, the Nvidia Tegra 2 low power graphics card enables full flash acceleration, allowing to watch videos at 1080p resolution.
And did I mention enhanced battery life? Yup, the guys at Notion Ink claims that the Adam can play 140 hours of audio and 16 hours of HD video at one go. Now that is something to watch out for.

The display of this device needs a special mention. The 10.1 in Pixel Qi screen has transmissive, transflective and reflective display modes which can be used in regular times like while watching videos or web browsing. The non-Pixel Qi, low power display mode can be used while reading books. Its capacitive screen with multi-touch.

The Android interface has been nicely customized to suit the 10.1in screen of the Adam and has the multi tasking capability. The Adam also comes with a e-book client and supports all major e-book formats. A 3.2 MP swivel camera is mounted on the top. Connectivity options include WiFi and 3G.

But the best thing that will help the Adam to get some market share will be its price. It is believed that the Notion Ink guys will price it aggressively to attract many potential iPad customers. Off course you don't expect an awesome display like the iPad, or millions of apps to choose from the Apps Store, but if priced very aggressively as compared to the iPad, it will be a winner. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the launch date. The developers are still waiting to get a stable Flash for the Adam, then there would be a 2-months testing before it gets launched (source - Notion Ink Blog). So, we will have to wait for a longer time.

Get, Slate, Go - I

This is a sort of second coming that ageing film-stars and out-of-work models would long for. The tablet was an all-but-dead product category, one that never really got off the ground sales-wise, despite the big push from Microsoft way back in 2002. But with the iPad, Apple's wiped the slate clean, opening up the flood gates for a slew of contenders that promise to revitalize an almost obsolete form factor, or to say, completely change the way we interact with our computers. Here's a small peek at what on the cards in 2010.

HP Slate :
Squint a little, and you could easily confuse the HP Slate with the Apple iPad. With a similar sleek profile and a large 8.9 inch capacitive display, it almost is. But it runs on the touch-enabled Windows 7 platform. Along with the netbook specs, it supports Flash and has got multi-tasking capabilities which the iPad lacks. It also packs in 2 built-in cameras (front and back) along with video recording. Looks like HP has all he iPad's bases covered, and then some more.
[Update : This was the specs and info that was available before. But HP has shown dissatisfaction with the capabilities of Windows 7 for a tablet, so it might put off all plans for the Slate. Otherwise, it might surprise everyone by going forward with the plan with the newly acquired Palm WebOS. ]


                                                      Notion Ink Adam :
Here's one from my country, India. Notion Ink, a small Indian start-up is talking big with the Adam. This Android based slate not only boasts of a sleek design, but also of the 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 chip that acts both as a chip and a graphics card, allowing you to playback videos at 1080p on the 10 onch display. The real genius is he Pixel Qi screen  which can switch from backlit LCD mode for web browsing to a low-power electrophoretic reflective mode for power saving (16 hours) and becomes easier on the eyes.


Fusion Garage JooJoo :
This is from the Singapore-based Fusion garage. Other than iPad, JooJoo is the only other slate that is commercially available  at the moment. With a 12 inch screen this Intel Atom/Nvidia ion powered  tablet promises full Flash HD and a decent interface over the custom Linux platform. But it misses out in many things - No Apps, no multi-tasking, no e-books and a 5 hour battery life.


More models to come in the next post.

Micro SIM for iPad

It seems that Steve Jobs is playing a mind game with the hackers and code-breakers. He has thrown down another challenge to the so-called "jailbreakers" (a term for the code-crackers) with his new gizmo - the iPad.

The suspicions back in January about the micro SIM format for the iPad has come out to be true. This SIM is different from the regular SIM used by the telecom industry. The SIM card for the iPad will have a 12mm by 15mm dimension, roughly half the size of the telecom industry's SIM, measuring 15 by 25. This micro SIM format is only used in the US in a GPS watch for children.

This is a bad news for the code-crackers and hackers who might have been hoping to snap up a grey market device and pop their 2G SIM cards into it, and hope to crack the code. Even though there are whispers that the normal SIM could be re-sized to make it compatible with the iPad, but it might have technical issues regarding the usability of such SIM cards.
So it won't be easy this time for the "jailbreakers".

Apple iPad for Techies and Regular Users

" In 10 years of reviewing tech products for The New York Times, I've never seen a product as polarising as Apple's iPad, which arrives in US stores on Saturday. ", thus goes the saying of David Pogue, the product reviewer for The New York Times News service.

As I have already mentioned in my previous post about the hype that the iPad has created, it is now evident from the above mentioned quote that the iPad has attracted comments from all kinds of people, some 'for' it and some 'against' it.

So here I am going to divide the pros and cons of the Apple iPad as per user reviews from various sources. Let’s have a look at the cons first :

i)       The Apple iPad is basically a gigantic iPod Touch.

ii)       There’s an e-book reader app, but with 60,000 titles for now, there’s not much to select from.

iii)      Reading in direct sunlight is poor, and at around 1.5 pounds, the iPad gets heavy in the hand after a while.

iv)      When the iPad is upright, typing on the on-screen keyboard is a horrible experience, and when its turned 90 degrees the keyboard is just about usable. A keyboard dock will be available later, but then the user needs to carry two pieces.

v)      The iPad cannot play flash videos. Even though Apple has already provided a list of “iPad-ready” sites like the CNN and some other, but still flash is the web’s most popular video format.

vi)       No USB ports, no camera. That means no more Skype video chat.

That’s enough for the negative points. Now let’s look at the pros :

i)        The bigger size of the multi-touch screen changes the whole experience. Maps become real, paper like maps.

ii)       The e-book reader is filled with endearing grace notes. On turning a page, the animated page edge follows the finger position and curls, just like a real page. Tapping a word gives its dictionary  definition or the option to look it up on Google or Wiki.

iii)       Apple products are all about apps. The 150000 existing iPhone apps will run on the iPad, either in actual size or doubled to fill the screen. But the real fun will be with the apps made specially for the iPad.

iv)       The battery life is excellent. According to Apple, the iPad can play video continuously for 10 hours, but reviews have confirmed that its more than 10 hours...thats almost 4 times of a portable DVD player.

v)       Finally, the best thing about the iPad is that, it will give a whole new experience to the users.

The iPad will be available in the stores from 3 April, Saturday.

Microsoft Courier :: A Reply To Apple iPad

A lot of hype has been created about Apple's iPad, and I think almost everyone knows about the iPad (exceptions are omnipresent). But how many of us know about Microsoft's new tablet/e-book device?? The number will be much less than Apple's product. Even if you have heard from the blogosphere, you might not know how it looks....

To begin with, the courier is a "digital journal", and is highly portable. It can be folded, got a dual-screen and it measures like a 5x7 photo when closed. The interface is highly dependent on drawing and writing with the pen provided. It will have cloud storage and a feature to integrate comments on shared items back into the journal. Plus, it will have an integrated camera. That's all for now.....

The pictures and info  have been taken from engadget.