Acer’s 7-inch Iconia Tab A100 brings 3.2 Honeycomb for $330

The first 7-inch Android 3.2 tablet, Acer’s Iconia Tab A100, has gone on sale in the US, offering a compact Honeycomb experience in a Galaxy Tab rivaling form-factor. Priced from $329.99 when it hits US shelves today – it’ll arrive on Canadian shelves next month – the A100 will come in 8GB and 16GB versions each with NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor, a 1024 x 600 touchscreen, 5-megapixel main camera supporting 720p HD 30fps video recording, and 5hrs battery life.

Connectivity includes WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, along with microUSB 2.0 and a microHDMI port for hooking the A100 up to a bigger display. There’s also a gyroscope and digital compass, 3.5mm headphone socket and a docking station connector. Up front Acer has slotted in a 2-megapixel camera for video calls.
Three versions of the A100 will be on offer, with one a Walmart exclusive. The A100-07u16u has 16GB of internal storage and will retail for $349.99 in the US, while the A100-07u08u has 8GB of storage and will retail for $329.99; the A100-07u08w is Walmart’s special version, functionally identical to the 8GB regular model. All three have microSD card slots for extending storage.

Device Specifications and Information

Device Info

Device Name : ICONIA A100

Manufactuer : Acer

Carrier :

Announced Date : February 14, 2011

Release Date : June 21, 2011

Also Known As :

Display

• Screen Size : 7 Inch


• Resolution : 600x1024


• Screen Type : LCD

Dimension & Weight

• Height : 7.68 Inch


• Width : 4.61 Inch


• Depth : 0.52 Inch


• Weight : 470 Grams

Battery & Power

• Battery Type:


• Lithium Ion

• Battery Capacity : mAh


• Talk Time : NA


• Stand By Time : NA

Software

• Android OS:


• 3.0.x

• Audio Playback:


• MP3

• Video Playback:


• MPEG-4 (MP4)

Hardware

CPU : Tegra 250 Dual Cortex A9

CPU Clock Speed : 1000 Mhz

Core : 2

Ram : 512 MB

Internal Storage : 8.192 GB

Front Facing Camera :

Camera Resolution :5 MP

• External Storage:


• MicroSD


• MicroSDHC

• Camera Features:


• Auto focus


• Flash

• Sensors:


• Accelerometer

QWERTY :

Cellular Network

• Network Technology:


• GSM

• GSM Band:


• 850


• 900


• 1800


• 1900

Device Connectivity

• Wi-Fi:


• 802.11b


• 802.11g


• 802.11n

• Bluetooth:


• Bluetooth 2.0

• Location Features:


• Compass


• GPS


• Cellular location


• Wi-Fi location

FM Radio :

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Samsung gets court date for attempt to overturn Galaxy Tab ban in Europe

It has been a few days now since German courts banned the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet in most of Europe. Samsung and Apple have been fighting a legal battle there over Apple’s allegations that Samsung is copying its design for the Galaxy Tab series. The courts in Germany set a date for Samsung’s appeal to try to get the ban overturned. The date is set for August 25 and a decision will likely come a few weeks after the court date.

Apple is also attempting to ban the import and sale of the Galaxy Tab tablets in other areas too. Apple filed an injunction with a court in The Hague reports Reuters that seeks to stop the Samsung gear from being sold in the Netherlands. That filing is also seeking to stop the import of the Samsung products into the EU via the Netherlands.
The judge in that case is going to deliver his ruling on September 15 and if he rules for Apple, the injunction would go into effect on October 13. The judge presiding over the case in the Netherlands is Edger Brinkman. Samsung has filed suits of its own against Apple.
[via Reuters]

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Dell Streak 5 axed

Dell has quietly killed the Streak 5, its 5-inch Android tablet/smartphone hybrid. Confirmed on the company’s site - with the message “Goodbye, Streak 5. It’s been a great ride” – the decision follows various discounting drives on the tablet as well as stock shortages.

The Streak 5 was already over a year old, having been initially released in the UK on June 4 2010. It arrived with Android 1.6, which Dell had reskinned, but was later – and after some delays – upgraded to Android 2.2 Froyo. Despite vocal support from a minority subset of users, the Streak 5 failed to achieve mainstream success, perhaps because of its “tweener” scale – falling in-between a phone, the functionality of which it offered, and a tablet – and non-tablet-centric OS.
Dell still offers the Streak 7, it’s 7-inch slate, and is expected to release further Android tablets in the near future. They will likely run Honeycomb, Google’s tablet-specific OS, rather than the phone build that the Streak relied on.
[via SlashGear]

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Acer Iconia Tab A500 Receiving Android 3.2 OTA Update August 25th

Acer announced on their Malaysian Facebook page that they will be releasing the 3.2 OTA update for their Iconia Tab A500 on August 25ht. Apparently, there was a minor setback due to a few policy changes from Google and that’s the reason for the delay.

Dear Fans, due to some policy changes from Google where Acer has to comply, the A500 Honeycomb 3.2 OTA update will be postponed to 25th August, we apologize for the dissapointments and upsets but we will be bringing the final and stable update to all of our A500 fans asap! Please be patient guys :)

First time I’ve heard of Google crackin’ the whip. Hopefully this isn’t just limited for Asian markets and this OTA will be pushed out stateside as well. Either way, it doesn’t look like all you Iconia Tab users will have to wait much longer to get your taste of Android 3.2 Honeycomb.
Thanks, Andrzej!
[Via TabletBlog.de]

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T-Mobile Rolling Out 3.1 OTA Update for the LG G-Slate Starting Today

For all you crazy kids with an LG G-Slate from T-Mobile, you’ll be happy to know that the Android 3.1 update for the device is being rolled out starting today. You will be notified when the update is ready for your device or if you want to receive the update as soon as possible you can do so by manually checking for the update in your Settings. Here’s all the great new features you have to look forward to in Android 3.1:

• Google Videos – A new Videos app has been added that allows you to buy and rent movies.

• Recent apps list expanded – The recent apps list has been expanded to show all apps recently used. After opening the apps list, touch one of the apps to access it.


• Home screen resizable widgets – Widgets built-in to Android 3.0 (Calendar, Email, Gmail, etc.) can now be resized vertically or horizontally on any one of the five home screens.


• USB accessory support – Customers can now attach a keyboard, pointing device, or gamepad to the G-Slate for use with typing, gaming, etc.

Also, in addition to those typical 3.1 features users can also look forward to bug fixes and enhancements like force closes when using Google Talk and Music apps and improved browser and widget responsiveness. Let us know when you get the update!
[Via T-Mobile]

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Apple working on pico-projector tech for iPhone, Mac

Apple is exploring possibilities for making pico projectors and integral part of iOS devices.
And, unlike its many smartphone competitors, Apple isn’t focused only on technical gimmicks. They are trying to find actual use cases that could make pico projectors an indispensable part of iOS ecosystem.
In a patent application “Projected display shared workspaces” Apple describes pico projector accessory that can be connected to your iPhone or Macbook, or even integrated into an iPad. The projector also comes with a camera, and can read multi-touch gestures performed on a projected images.

The business environment/presentations are the most obvious place to use the projectors. By having several projector enabled iOS devices beaming their output to the screen on the wall, and coupling them via NFC or Bluetooth, users can create several shared workspaces. With a flick of the finger, they can transfer presentation files, graphics and images between devices, or create a single unified display from several projected screens.

Pico projectors have been promised to become an integral part of our mobile devices for a while now. We even have some projector smartphones like LG Expo and Samsung Beam, already in the market. And LG also has some similar camera/projector integration ideas to those above. But nobody has found a compelling use case for them yet and projector phones remain a niche curiosity for geeky show-offs.
So don’t hold your breath for finding this in your iPhone 5 or iPad 3, pico projecting technology does not seem to be up to Apple’s standards yet. But not so long ago camera in a phone was also a niche curiosity, taking really crappy pictures of your geek friends. And look where we are now.
Give it a few years, and Apple may figure out how to make pocket projectors work.

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7-inch HP TouchPad Go leaked with 1.5GHz processor

HP’s TouchPad Go was recently approved by the the Federal Communications Commission, which revealed some information on the unannounced tablet. The webOS device could be equipped with a dual-core 1.5GHz processor and a 3G radio, which would indicate HP is looking to launch it with at least one U.S. carrier. We first heard word of a 7-inch TouchPad tablet in January of this year and the most recent rumors revealed that HP could launch the device this month. It is possible we’ll hear more about the TouchPad Go in the coming days, and we hope it gains more consumer traction than the original TouchPad, which just had its priced slash by $100 to make it more appealing.
Read

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Motorola DROID Bionic Spotted at Verizon Store

I know we have heard and seen plenty of the all might Motorola Droid Bionic the past few weeks but they just keep on coming. It recently cleared the FCC, and was even caught on camera running some 4G speedtests. Now the Bionic has been spotted at a Verizon store being held by a Motorola Rep and she even had a laptop dock for it too.

Tonight these pictures leaked over on Howard Forums from a Verizon employee stating a Motorola rep came to his stand welding the mysterious device in their hand. We can’t really call it mysterious because we’ve seen it a thousand times so maybe I’ll just say illusive as this device has been able to illude everyone for months on end and was recently delayed but that is nothing new.

The newbie in the photo above is the laptop dock accessory that was also being carried by the rep from Motorola. We have been expecting these types of accessories but this appears to be the first one we’ve seen unless its the same one the Atrix uses. I know everyone has been patiently waiting for the Bionic and all these leaks over and over are probably making a few of you impatient, but it will be here soon enough.
Is anyone sick of hearing about the Bionic yet? I’ll start preaching and waiting for the HTC Vigor as it has my full attention off of the Bionic for now.
[via Phandroid]

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News360 for Android Tablets 2.0 Update Hands-On [Video]

What we’re getting here today is the newest version of one of our favorite news apps, that being News360, one we called the App of the Week a few weeks ago, now in its second full version, version 2.0, one that introduces the social networking world into the tablet in a very large way for the iOS version and a soon to be large way for Android. The biggest change in the Android version of this application at the moment is the instant access to news videos. Right alongside tabs for your regular news feed at the awesome 360 view of images linking to news stories is a Videos tab that’ll allow you to check out the news in purely video form.

The interface for this application is fiddled with a bit, certainly no taking anything away from the amount of control you have over what News360 is calling their “reverse search” method of bringing content to the user. Much in the same way Google is attempting to connect people with the news in it’s “Sparks” interface in Google+, their new social networking site, News360 has you create your own categories in which they’ll supply you with news. Subject matter is all you really have to enter in if you like, and if you don’t want to do such a thing, you can follow the categories News360 already has prepared for you. All of this is prepared in several different ways, it being your choice in the end how you view the news through this diverse app for Android.

As far as the new web-based look at the app and the iOS version go, it’s a slightly different situation. Check out the images provided in the gallery below and you’ll see how social networking integration is just slightly above what it is in the Android app thus far. This slight advancement along with the fact that it’s still sort of rare to see a blog site such as Android Community in the mix are two updates we hope to see made in the next wave for Android tablets as well as handsets – Google Reader included!

Beyond that, this app is still a mightily magnificent vision for each of the main platforms, and yes, if you’ve got an HTML5-able web browser on any device (or so it seems,) you’re able to run the web-based version of News360, a force to be reckoned with all on its own.



Finally, remember that this app is [totally free on the Android Market] right this moment. Go grab it.
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