While the sub-9-inchers tablets are fighting over in the other post, over here is a match between the high-rollers – the 10″ tablets. The newcomer, the Archos 101 G9 tablet, is the main interest here as it takes on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Apple iPad 2. While those two stick to 1GHz dual-core CPUs, the Archos shoots for the top with two 1.5GHz cores.
The Archos 101 G9 is also offering an unusual 250GB HDD version, but that adds quite a bit of thickness and weight and, I’m guessing, is a real battery drain. Still, the 101 G9 has some goodies like (gasp!) a standard USB port plus a miniHDMI port, while both the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the iPad 2 use a proprietary port. Despite boasting such impressive specs, the Archos 101 G9 is surprisingly modest in price. Read more »
Archos dropped a tablet bomb. Two actually as the new G9 Android tablets – the 80 G9 and 101 G9 – put Android 3.1 and 1.5GHz dual-core processors in the same package. Better yet, they will go for peanuts when they come out later this year.
Oh, and they come with a full-sized USB port and there’s an option for a 250GB HDD (there are flash memory versions too). Interested? Wait till you hear the price. Read more »
The Hulu team released the Hulu Plus app for Android, which means you can finally put your Plus subscription to good use on your droid. It’s a pretty exclusive club for now – only six phones are officially supported.
It doesn’t seem to be a question of processing power, so I don’t really know how they picked them them. Read more »
Yesterday ICANN decided to allow custom domain suffixes. Right now companies have to settle for .com or .org or one of the 20 others standard suffixes or use country-specific ones. Starting 2012 they can create custom suffixes – if they’re willing to pay for it.
It’s pricy but I’m sure sites ending in .google or .apple are not very far off. It would allow companies to offer very memorable URLs for their important products – think mail.google for Gmail (instead of the current mail.google.com) or iphone.apple (instead of www.apple.com/iphone). Read more »
When Sony announced their S1 and S2 Android tablets, they left a few things out – like a launch date for example. Now there’s chatter that the tablets (or at least one of them) will be arriving in Europe in September.
An alleged note from Sony says that a tablet (which the note doesn’t explicitly name) will be available through three retailers in September, after a pre-order period in August. Read more »
Google introduced a trio of new features that make searching from a desktop computer so much better. The first feature is Voice search, something that has been around on mobiles for a while.
Then there’s the Search by image feature, which does what it says and is surprisingly good at it and convenient to use too. There’s Google’s latest attempt to speed up browsing as well, called Instant Pages. Read more »
It’s updating time for Symbian Fring users. The new update is hot off the presses in fring HQ and promises improved audio-visual experience during calls and the stability of the app should be better too.
HTC used the canned response “Every phone experiences a slight variation in signal strength when the antenna is covered in its entirety by a palm and/or fingers” when questioned about the death grip issues on the HTC Sensation.
While that’s true, it says nothing about the severity of the problem – it could be a small signal drop for completely covering the phone, or a large drop for barely holding it. HTC also said the problem was exaggerated in our video, so we decided to record a new one. Read more »
Samsung earned some serious brownie points – all four of the CyanogenMod devs that work on Samsung ports (“teamhacksung”) received a free Samsung Galaxy S II to help them develop a version of the Mod for Samsung’s new flagship.
One of the devs, Atin, explains that they can only port CyanogenMod to phones they have available – and now they can add the Galaxy S II to that list. Read more »
Death grip is a sensitive topic, but I’m afraid we’ll have to stir it again. The HTC Sensation barely entered our office and we’re already trying to strangle the (wireless) life out of it. The problem is two-fold – the Wi-Fi antenna and the cell antenna – they both get attenuated when you hold the phone in what you may call a natural way.
The two antennas are positioned on both ends of the phone – the cell antenna is at the bottom and the Wi-Fi antenna is at the top. Cover them with your cupped hands while holding the phone naturally in landscape position and you will see the signal degrade. But don’t just take our word for it, we have it shot on video. Read more »
Breaking news – it’s a Sensation! Yes, the new super droid from HTC has dropped by our office. It’s got almost every feature in the book, so we’ll have to do a lot of tests – and if you’re as impatient as us, you’ll want to join us for the unboxing.
The HTC Sensation is all screen – whole 4.3″ of it with qHD resolution (that’s 540 x 960) – and very little bezel. What hides behind the screen is a lot of processing power oomph – a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8260 chipset with Adreno 220 graphics. There’s 768MB RAM in there too. Read more »
So, the rumors were true – Sprint’s HTC EVO 3D will hit the shelves on 24 June. It will be accompanied by the HTC EVO View 4G tablet. The 3D-loving droid phone will go for $199 on contract, while the tablet will set you back $399.
Here’s how you can get an EVO 3D or an EVO View 4G: Read more »
Here’s something from the “curious, but is it useful?” category – MSI have released an Android version of their Afterburner utility. Afterburner allows users to overclock the MSI graphics cards on their computers.
So, with this new app you can do it remotely from your droid phone or tablet. Read more »
The HTC Flyer tablet and ChaCha Facebook-loving phone have started receiving their first updates in the UK. That was quite quick, considering both have been on sale there for under a month.
Both updates are available Over-The-Air and offer some under the hood improvements to both. Read more »
Every time Steve Jobs is presenting an Apple product, he uses the word “magic” a lot. Well, it seems that they really mean it with the upcoming iOS 5 update, which should be announced tomorrow at the WWDC.
Simon Pierro, who may or may not be a wizard of some sort, is demonstrating a beta version of iOS 5 running on his iPad 2. Let’s watch… Read more »
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