Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
Barnes & Noble are said to be preparing to launch the new Nook Color 2 this month. The new device is being manufactured by several companies in Taiwan as follows:
“TPK Holding will supply touch panels used in the e-bok reader, while Inventec will be responsible for the assembly, the sources said. Pegatron is also said to have received orders for Nook Color 2. It is reported that Inventec and Pegatron would be able to supply two to three million units of Nook Color 2 by the end of 2011.”
There’s been a lot of talk about Amazon getting in to the Tablet game over the last few months. Most reports hint at both 7 and 10 inch devices that will perhaps fall in to the Kindle name and be a tablet version of the popular Kindle reading device. TechCrunch managed to take a look at the device and have revealed a few details of what it’s all about.
The Sony Tablet S is now available for pre-order here in the UK. It is set to launch on September 16th with a price tag starting at £399 for the lower spec model. The device actually went up for pre-order at 4:01pm a couple of days ago, so if you want one pre-ordering now then act quick.
The pre-order availability is an exclusive to the Dixons Group which means you’ll be able to pre-order from Currys, PC World or Dixons.co.uk ready for the launch on September 16.
Toshiba will soon launch a new tablet called the AT200. This new model is the next generation version of the original AT100. The new Toshiba tablet will have a 10.1 inch screen with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels. It will run the Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system and be powered by a 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor.
Samsung has announced the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. This new tablet is powered by a dual-core 1.4GHz CPU. It runs the Android 3.2 operating system and has HSPA+ connectivity built in.
A report today from Digitimes is hinting that Amazon could be launching one of its tablets sometime in October this year. At the moment it is believed that two Amazon Tablets will launch with one having a 7 inch screen and the other having a 10.1 inch screen. The 7 inch tablet is the one that is rumoured to be arriving in October with the 10.1 inch model launching early next year.
HP has announced that it will build more TouchPad tablets. Before you start to think that they have changed their minds on shutting the tablet business down, we will warn you that this will be a final run.
Before I share, let me first say thank you for enthusiasm for this product. Since we announced the price drop, the number of inquiries about the product and the speed at which it disappeared from inventory has been stunning. I think it’s safe to say we were pleasantly surprised by the response.
Ian Barlow of Mozilla has provided a quick glimpse of what Firefox for Tablets will look like when it launches. When used on a smartphone the company tried to hide away a lot of the navigation to keep as much of the screen available for the web page you are viewing. Due to tablets having a larger screen, this has allowed the company to use some of that space for navigational purposes.
QuickOffice for the HP TouchPad has received an update. The new version allows Microsort Word and Excel spreadsheets to be edited. Prior to this update all documents were read only which was an original disappointment with the software.
Last week, HP announced that it was closing down its webOS device business. This lead to HP dropping the TouchPad price down to $99 which then sparked a huge wave of people wanting to buy the heavily discounted tablet. It appears that an update will be coming soon though. When speaking to CNET, HP said “HP TouchPad owners can look forward to an over-the-air update that will enhance the platform and add functionality and a growing applications catalog.”
RIM is getting ready to bring an update to the BlackBerry PlayBook that will finally bring native email to the tablet computer. At the moment the PlayBook lacks basic functions to a number of people because you cannot check email with it unless you connect to a BlackBerry Smartphone through a bridge service. When connected to a BB smartphone the emails show up on the device, but as soon as you break the link the emails vanish.
Samsung has released a teaser app for Android smartphones which will be used to detail the launch of three new products. The actual details of the products will be announced on September 1st at IFA in Berlin. Luckily, some smart snooping around the APK file has revealed 3 logos as seen below:
