Best Tablet PC Reviews, News and 2012 tablets » official announcement

Blackberry OS 2.0 to be released on February 17th, will include Android apps

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:39:18 +0000

I think you already know this month is the one when RIM is scheduled to launch to anticipated Blackberry PlayBook OS 2.0 software update, the one people were waiting for the past couple of months (not to say almost one year). So I’m glad to see RIM officially announcing on their developer blog that the update is going to be released on February 17th and will include the native Email, Calendar, Contacts and Messenger apps, together with the Blackberry Runtime for Android, the emulator which will allow apps coded for Android to run on the 7 inch Playbook tablet. There’s [...]

Original article: Blackberry OS 2.0 to be released on February 17th, will include Android apps

ASUS will show a redesigned PadFone hybrid tablet at MWC 2012

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:48:58 +0000

One of the most interesting hybrids showcased last year was the ASUS Padfone, a smartphone+tablet combo that was on display once again at CES 2012, in a functional prototype form, but still ASUS didn’t let people take it into their own hands, so clearly it was not ready for prime time. But as time passes, ASUS is getting closer and closer to the point where they can release this thing for real, so they’ve announced that at redesigned version is going to be ready just in time for MWC 2012 that’s held in February at Barcelona. By redesign ASUS means [...]

Original article: ASUS will show a redesigned PadFone hybrid tablet at MWC 2012

Notion Ink Adam II with TI OMAP 4 and Android 4.0 ICS announced

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:24:13 +0000

I don’t know if you still remember last year’s Notion Ink Adam tablet, one of the first models to ship with Tegra 2, and the only one with an option for a Pixel QI screen, the one that can be switched to a low power gray-scale mode that mimics the characteristics of an eInk eReader screen. It wasn’t so popular for some reason, my guess being the limited quantity in which it was produced, the lack of a price incentive (as Notion Ink is not a household name) and a custom user interface that had less to do with the [...]

Original article: Notion Ink Adam II with TI OMAP 4 and Android 4.0 ICS announced

iBooks 2, iBooks Author and iTunes U: Apple’s vision of textbooks and education

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:20:35 +0000

It’s undeniable that Apple is the strongest IT company at this moment, which means they have the resources to push their vision upon consumers, if it’s something new and exciting. The latest Apple vision is a futuristic look at what textbooks and education should be like. Considering that in the AppStore there are over 20.000 learning oriented apps and more than 1.5 million iPads are used in schools and universities it’s easy to understand why Apple wants to make from teaching the next big thing, and profit from it. Can’t blame them as long as we’re getting something, or better [...]

Original article: iBooks 2, iBooks Author and iTunes U: Apple’s vision of textbooks and education

LG Optimus Pad LTE: a new 8.9 inch Android tablet

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:21:15 +0000

I don’t know if you still remember last year’s LG G-Slate (also known as Optimus Pad), an expensive 8.9 inch tablet with limited 3D capabilities. LG has pretty much abandoned that project and just redesigned the whole thing from the ground up. That’s why today the Korean company officially announced the LG Optimus Pad LTE, a tablet that uses the same 8.9″ form factor, but adds updated components. As the name suggests, the tablet supports LTE data networks, so it will make it to US at some point, even if for now it will only be available in Korea. Let’s [...]

Original article: LG Optimus Pad LTE: a new 8.9 inch Android tablet

Velocity Micro presents the Cruz T510 and T507 cheap Android tablets

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:12:04 +0000

Velocity Micro is known as a cheap tablet manufacturer (and other cheap gadgets), so it’s no wonder their recently announced Cruz T507 and T510 tablets are priced starting at $150. But make no mistake, these are pretty potent tablets for the price you’re paying. The Cruz T507 (7 inch tablet) comes with a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex CPU, a 400 MHz Mali GPU, 512 MB RAM, 8 GB storage and a capacitive touch screen with 800 x 480 px resolution. The T510 (10 inch tablet) features a slim 8.9 mm body, a 4:3 aspect ratio screen (probably the same res [...]

Original article: Velocity Micro presents the Cruz T510 and T507 cheap Android tablets

Coby Announced 5 New Cheap Android 4.0 ICS Tablets for Q1 2012

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:57:01 +0000

Coby is a manufacturer of cheap Android tablets (we’ve mentioned a few models in our favorite list here) and that’s not a bad thing, as customer reviews on Amazon have shown you do get what you pay for, and even a little bit more in some cases. As the Amazon Kindle Fire has demonstrated, there’s a lot of room in the tablet niche for cheap devices, and Coby hopes to reach a sizeable portion of the ‘audience’ with five new models that will make an appearance in Q1 2012. The 5 tablets announced are: Coby MID7042 – 7 inch widescreen [...]

Original article: Coby Announced 5 New Cheap Android 4.0 ICS Tablets for Q1 2012

It’s official: Acer Iconia TAB A200 announced with complete specs

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:07:09 +0000

Acer finally announced officially the Iconia TAB A200 tablet, a 10 inch Android slate that does’t differ too much from the A500 when it comes to specs if you ask me (see the complete tech specs here). What’s even surprising is that Acer begins the A200 description with “Priced right and …“, but fails to tell us how much exactly the tablet will cost and when it will ship. Anyway, I expect the Iconia A200 to be significantly cheaper than the A500 as it doesn’t include a back USB camera, and probably uses cheaper components. While the A500 looks a little [...]

Original article: It’s official: Acer Iconia TAB A200 announced with complete specs

Samsung announces Exynos 5250 2GHz dual core chip for tablets based on ARM Cortex A15

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:21:18 +0000

With huge demand for high performance smartphones and tablets the mobile CPU business has become very profitable past years, with Samsung, Apple, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Marvell dominating sales. Samsung has great ambitions with the Exynos lineup, which just received the Exynos 5250 dual core chip that clocks as high as 2GHz, uses the ARM Cortex A15 architecture and promises some impressive improvements over the current chips. Samsung quotes up to twice the computing power of current ARM Cortex A9 chips and four times the graphics performance. Not only that, but Samsung Exynos 5250 System on a Chip (SoC) supports [...]

Original article: Samsung announces Exynos 5250 2GHz dual core chip for tablets based on ARM Cortex A15

Amazon is working hard on bringing more apps to the Kindle Fire

Ionut Popa (John Pope) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:02:22 +0000

As the official date for the arrival of Amazon Kindle Fire tablet is coming close (next week shippings will begin) Amazon is trying to clear the waters and let users know there will be plenty of apps to install and play with on the $199 tablet in case the over 18 millions eBooks, movies and audio tracks available through the Amazon Prime subscription are not enough. You can’t blame people for not wanting to activate the $79 per year subscription over the 30 days trial included with the Kindle Fire. And since Amazon has invested lots of money into the [...]

Original article: Amazon is working hard on bringing more apps to the Kindle Fire