Tablet Malls

Google’s Motorola buyout set for go-ahead after China approval

Chris Smith — Sun, 20 May 2012 14:24:00 +0000

Google’s $12.5 billion (8 billion) deal to buy Motorola has cleared the final hurdle and is heading for the finish line, after China became the last country to approve the takeover.

The acquisition, which was agreed in principal back in August, had been subject to a worldwide review process with each country testing the proposal against its own anti-trust regulations.

Europe and the United States approved the alliance in February and now China has given Google the green light to rubber stamp the deal.

However, various news outlets are reporting that in order to win the regulatory approval, Google had to assure the Chinese that it will keep Android free and open for the next five years.

Patent arsenal

Motorola is now officially expected to come under Google’s control early this week.

Through buying Motorola, the company is expected to work closely with the hardware manufacturer to develop phones and tablets for the Android operating system.

However, with the assurances supposedly given to China and its other Android partners, there’s no way Google could favour its new plaything too heavily.

As well as the hardware, Google pursued the deal in order to acquire the Moto’s hefty patent portfolio and increase its arsenal in the ongoing patent war with Apple.

For Sale ThinkPad Tablet X61T in Excellent Condition

norcimo1400 — Sun, 20 May 2012 14:08:52 +0000

Lenovo ThinkPad X61T $500.00 OBO , I accept paypal.

Specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo
4 Gigs Memory
120 Sata Hd
SVGA Screen
Operating system: Lion 10.7.3
The App Store works, no authenticating issues.

Power Supply and Stylus Included.

Items that do not work:
PCMCIA Card slot ( drivers exists but does not work great)
Bluetooth, though this can work natvily, it has issues enumerating. You are better of with a USB BT dongle.
Screen Flip.

Items that work:
Accelerated Graphics. (720p movies), you can do 1080 also)
WIFI
Ethernet
Sound, MIC
Digitizer (wAcom)
Finger print scanner
Glidepoint
Digitizer Buttons. ( requieres a mapping software)
SD card slot.
Firewire
All Usb ports
Battery holds charge 3-4hours aprx.
Volume buttons

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Kindle Fire Holds 54% of the Android Tablets Market

55 tablets — Sun, 20 May 2012 12:41:40 +0000

Amazon’s first tablet was a total hit among consumers and already holds 54.4% of the market in the segment, driven by mobile operating system Android, said Mashable.

Kindle Fire won the hearts of consumers with low price, decent quality and good technical parameters. According to research firm comScore, the tablet overtook its main rival Samsung Galaxy Tab and now has a substantial lead at the top.

Motorola Xoom tablet is in third place. It was officially presented last December and managed to reach a market share of 11.8% but is now given way to their positions and hold only 7%.

In December Galaxy Tab had a share of 23.8% but the Samsung device also lost ground and now has 15.4%. With smaller units down the list can be seen Asus Transformer, Toshiba AT100 and Acer Picasso.

In the category of the tablet as a whole iPad is the undisputed leader of Apple, but machines with Android overtake champion slowly but surely. According to analysts IDC, iPad already lost a substantial part of their positions. In the middle of last year he had 61.5% of global market and to end its share fell to 54.7%. The main contribution to this is Kindle Fire.

Among other things, the tablet is the Amazon best-selling product in the company’s online store.

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101 Gets Android 4.0 ICS Fix

Radu Iorga — Sun, 20 May 2012 09:29:28 +0000

It appears that the Android 4.0 ICS update for the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101 tablet brought not only new features, but also new bugs, since now ASUS had to push a fix for those. They also added Face Unlock with the new update and improved the email and System Bar Unlock.

The update version is 9.2.1.24 and it’s available via Over the Air. It appears that ASUS tried 4 times to fix the problems of its first update and let’s hope that this is the last time they need to push a fix. If you own the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101, try the latest Android 4.0 fix and tell us if your problems are solved. I have to say that ever since the first Android version launched, Android 4.0 has been the version that was hardest to update on devices and it gave users the most problems, when provided incorrectly.

Let’s hope that the wave of Android 4.0 updates coming to Samsung tablets won’t have to face such problems… if only they came faster. Any other tablet owners here with problems caused by ICS?

Chameleon Launcher is an Extremely Customizable Android Launcher

Radu Iorga — Sun, 20 May 2012 08:55:39 +0000

Android tablets are so widespread nowadays, that they come in all shapes and sizes. However, there are times when their interfaces aren’t satisfying, so custom ROMs come in. Today we’re going to detail a launcher, the Chameleon, that you can see pictured below.

Chamelon is a very customizable home screen for Android, that runs only on tablets and requires Android 3.2 or higher. It offers full featured widgets, that look very pretty and gets rid of all the clutter from the screen. Just like other custom UIs, Chameleon allows the user to arrange and set unlimited numbers of home screens with varied widgets. You can make a custom home screen for the office, one for fun and one for home use. You can also make the launcher switch your home screen when you change your GPS location and leave the office to go home.

An example given by the maker of this launcher is the Morning Home screen, that’s created based on a time range specified by the user. During that time frame the tablet will display news, social feeds, the weather and your schedule for the day. Then there’s the Office mode, where Chameleon will recognize when you’re at the office and display a Work screen. That organization in vertical columns reminds me a bit of MeeGo, that’s not a bad thing, since MeeGo is a cool OS.

Amazon Preparing 10.1 inch Tablet Instead of 8.9 Incher?!

Radu Iorga — Sun, 20 May 2012 00:04:27 +0000

A while ago, Amazon was rumored to be preparing an 8.9 inch tablet to follow-up the well selling 7 inch Kindle Fire. Now, it appears that those rumors were not true, as the new device is expected to be a 10.1 inch unit. It’s a pretty strange choice since companies that so far made big tablets are focused on smaller models.

We’ve got Motorola, that moved from the 10 inch Xoom to a 8.2 inch tablet, Apple that’s rumored to be making a 7.85 inch iPad and ASUS supposedly preparing the cheap Nexus 7 inch tablet. Now, Amazon does the opposite thing and it’s actually preparing a bigger slate. The new 10.1 inch Kindle Fire is supposed to debut in Q3, if rumors are in fact true. Sources say that Amazon expects to ship 30-40 million tablets this year alone. It will be interesting to see if this model ends up being a quad core tablet, since when the first Kindle Fire was launched everyone was expecting both a dual core and quad core slate.

Also, I wonder what the OS on it will look like. It will probably be Android 4.0 all wrapped up in the Amazon experience and providing revenue via the Amazon services and ads. The price will probably be close to the original Kindle Fire’s price, so maybe $200, maybe $250 or so.

BlackBerry PlayBook Getting BlackBerry 10 OS Update After the First BB10 Phone Ships

Radu Iorga — Sat, 19 May 2012 22:30:23 +0000

RIM’s greatest product over the last years is the BlackBerry 10 OS, or that’s the conclusion we can draw from the first shots of the platform that have appeared online. Now it appears that the OS will come to the BlackBerry PlayBook, but only after the first BB10 phone is shipped.

If you own a BlackBerry 7 device you won’t get the BB10 update in October, but if you own a PlayBook you’ll be lucky enough to get a taste out of the fresh platform. The BlackBerry Developer team announced that on Twitter this week, letting owners of the 7 inch tablet know that they’ll get the BlackBerry 10 fix ASAP. Sadly we only saw the look of the operating system on a phone during BlackBerry World 2012 and it was pretty clean UI-wise and its icons reminded me of the QNX OS.

There’s also a fresh inbox area, that’s ready to come up from the corner wherever you are on the screen. I also spotted some widget-like thingies on the main homescreen. Will the $200 PlayBook become even more appealing now? What do you think?

Asus N56VZ-DS71 15.6-Inch Full HD Entertainment Laptop

NetvoomCom — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:35:38 +0000

style="text-align: justify;">Asus has just introduced a smart-designed entertainment laptop, the laptop comes with an aluminum chassis. Although these devices do not come from a ultrabook family, but offered a very attractive specifications. Asus N56VZ-DS71 laptop has a 15.6-inch Glossy Display that offers a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. For graphics card, 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GT-650M available which is able to offer a clearer picture.

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In order to obtain good performance, the device is equipped with the Intel Core i7-3610QM (2.3GHz) is capable of supporting up to 8GB of DDR3 SDRAM. Asus N56VZ-DS71 running on Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit) operating system. Devices with sizes 15-inches x 10-inches x 4.25-inches x 13/38.1-inches x 3.3-inches and weighs 2.72kg has provided a 2 megapixel camera for video chat.

For connectivity, it has been available 2 x USB 2.0 ports and 2 x USB 3.0 ports to facilitate the exchange of data. If you want to display video, images, or material of your work to a wider view can use the HDMI port. Not only that, other connectivity features include WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v4.0.

Laptop with 6-cell battery has been supported also by the expansion slots such as SD Card, Memory Stick, and MMC for exchange of data. For storage space, this Asus laptop is capable of supporting up to 750GB Hard Disk Drive. Asus N56VZ-DS71 is available for purchase in some countries, the price offered is around $1,299.

Asus N56VZ-DS71 15.6-Inch Full HD Entertainment Laptop

NetvoomCom — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:35:38 +0000

Amazon Kindle Fire 10.1-inch tablet coming in Q3?

Chris Smith — Sat, 19 May 2012 15:58:00 +0000

Amazon will launch a 10.1-inch iteration of its popular Kindle Fire tablet in the third quarter of 2012, according to new reports.

Digitimes reckons the company plans to take on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 after cornering the 7-inch tablet market with the original Kindle Fire.

A 10.1-inch tablet, especially if priced similarly to the $199 (125) Kindle Fire, may raise a few eyebrows over at Apple HQ, with the demand for cheap, functional tablets extremely high.

Apple itself is rumoured to be going after the Kindle Fire with a 7-inch iPad mini later this year.

8.9-inch model ‘suspended’

Supposedly, Amazon had been planning a more modest size upgrade to 8.9-inches with its second offering, but that has now been shelved, says Digitimes.

Overall, the company expects to ship up to 40 million tablets in 2012. Not a bad return is it?