Smart Bar Android 2.3 Gingerbread phone brings us back to 2007

In what I can only describe as one of the most amazing looking phones of 2011 (I mean 2007) we have the amazingly awesome Smart Bar Android phone from eAccess. This is a new phone that will be called the Smart Bar that should hit the streets of Japan starting September 22nd. Who wants one? I know I do.

This phone instantly reminds me of my old favorite Sony Ericsson K750i that I used forever. The Smart Bar combined that awesome candy-bar design with a new and improved user interface called… Android! What we have is Android 2.3 Gingerbread running on a modern 3.0″ WVGA display with a pixel density of 311ppi. That is about the best spec for the device though because the rest is a bit lacking. We do have an 800 Mhz Qualcomm processor, 512MB of ram and even a powerful 5.0 MP camera on the rear.
Not only do we have the usual four capacitive Android buttons on screen, but we also get not only a D-Pad, but a full numeric pad also. I think I even see a dedicated email button on there somewhere. Now all I need is a antenna and this would be the most epic phone ever. I’ve yet to decide if this is just funky, or plain out awesome but I’m digging the retro look that is for sure. Who’s with me?
[via Engadget]

Read more »

Viewsonic ViewPad 7e Tab $199 Pre-Order available at Amazon

ViewSonic recently showed us their new budget Android tablet offering the ViewPad 7e, and today it is available for pre-order over at amazon.com already.


It may not be the best tablet offering around, or come with Honeycomb but for $199 it will more than get the job done. What you get is a 7″ 1024 x 600 resolution display, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 1 Ghz cpu with 512MB of RAM, 4GB internal storage and a few cameras. We also have micro USB and mini HDMI-out is there too for those in need. Overall this is a good for those that don’t need the best but would like a tablet.
Currently listed for pre-order at $199 on Amazon but they don’t give any indication of a shipping or release date. We haven’t heard anything else regarding this tablet from Viewsonic but from what we heard at IFA it would be available “next month” so it should be shipping soon enough.
[via Amazon]

Read more »

Motorola DROID Bionic Rooted with one-click-root [Download]

We already knew this was going down but you can now root your DROID Bionic using the simple one-click-root method found to work on a slew of other recent Motorola phones such as the Droid X2 and the Droid 3 all running on Moto’s latest Gingerbread builds. Last week we saw the Bionic was already rooted, but today we have instructions and the download for you.

This literally took me about 1 minute to download the latest Motorola drivers and another minute or two to actually root and it was a done deal. Now I’m free to fly around and do titanium backup’s and all that good stuff. Obviously this doesn’t fix or do anything with the bootloader “situation” but we’ll take root any day for now. Image thanks to kellex.
Instructions:
-Install Motorola drivers – [click here]
-Download the MotorolaOneClickRoot
-Plug phone into PC and select “Charge Only”
-Enable USB debugging
-Navigate to MotorolaOneClickRoot folder and run MotorolaOneClickRoot.exe.
-Just follow the instructions in the command window.
-Your phone will reboot along the way, unlock it when it finishes — ROOTED!
Quick, easy and simple right? We have heard a few rumors that the hole that was found to achieve root on most of these recent Motorola phones has been figured out my Motorola and they will be patching this shortly. While we can’t confirm this if you wish to stay rooted I’d be cautious of any OTA updates for now and make sure to check with popular DROID developers (or just watch Android Community) for more details on future updates.
Root that new Bionic and enjoy the freedom at hand.
[via RootzWiki]

Read more »

Sprint Announces Android 2.3 Kyocera Milano, Priced at $49

Sprint today introduced a new low-end offering from Kyocera, the Android 2.3 Kyocera Milano. The pint-sized handset rides the line between messaging feature phone and full-fledged Android smartphone. It features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 3-inch display, and 512MB of onboard memory. It also gets the Sprint ID treatment for device personalization. The handset can be switched to ‘Eco Mode’ to better manage device battery life.
The Milano will be available for $49.99 when it launches, though a specific date has not be revealed.

Read more »

HTC claims to have paid for patents acquired from Google

Yesterday it was learned that HTC filed another lawsuit against Apple, but this time it was citing infringements on patents that it acquired from Google. What was unclear was how HTC got the patents from Google. HTC said today that it bought them from Google.

In a statement provided to All Things D, HTC says that it did indeed purchase the patents from Google, and that Google did not just give them to HTC free of cost. HTC did not state how much it paid for the patents. HTC could have paid fair market value for them, or Google could have subsidized the cost of the patents to ensure that HTC had them to use in its battle with Apple.
Google confirmed that it transferred the patents to HTC, but it would not reveal any more details about the transaction. The transfer of these patents to HTC, which were originally granted to Palm, Motorola, and Openwave, is the first time that Google has stepped in to help an Android manufacturer fight a lawsuit against Apple.

Read more »

Google purchases Zagat, will integrate ratings into Google products

Google has announced that it has acquired Zagat, the restaurant rating company. It intends to integrate Zagat ratings into a number of existing Google services.
Google did not reveal how much it paid for Zagat in its announcement. Zagat currently has guides in over 100 cities across the world, and covers 13 different categories with its ratings books. The company compiles ratings and surveys from real restaurant visitors to provide guides and scores for each restaurant.
Google says that it will integrate these ratings into its current local services, including Google Maps, Places, and Search. Zagat currently offers mobile apps for the iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, and Windows Phone platforms that cost $9.99 each. [Google]

Read more »

ViewSonic and Acer to pay Microsoft royalties for Android products

While Windows Phone 7 may not be doing as well as Microsoft had hoped, unlike Apple, Microsoft has been more or less content with sitting by the sidelines and try to make money off their competitors through royalties and licensing. One such example is where HTC is currently paying $5 to Microsoft for every Android handset that they sell, and now it looks like Microsoft has added more companies to that pool.


Microsoft has just confirmed that they have reached licensing agreements with both ViewSonic and Acer, companies who are probably best known for their tablets – the ViewPad and Iconia Tab series respectively. The deal will see both companies paying Microsoft royalties on sales of their Android handsets and tablets, and will also cover future Chrome OS devices made by either company.

It was not disclosed as to how much either company will be paying to Microsoft, but personally this seems like a smarter way for competing companies to deal with patents, as opposed to chasing their competitors all around the world seeking injunctions against their products.

Read more »

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Review

Despite the similarity to an increasing number of ultra-slim notebooks, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 stands out from the crowd – especially for ThinkPad fans.
Being a ThinkPad means the X1 has a distinctive design that has been given a welcome refresh without losing its signature look and feel. The magnesium alloy chassis has the familiar soft-touch matte black rubberised paint finish, which shrugs off fingerprints, stands up well to scratches and gives you a superb grip.
The sharp angles give the illusion of being thinner and lighter than the X1 actually is -it slopes from 17 to 21mm thick and weighs in at 1.71kg, which is noticeably thicker and heavier than the Samsung Series 9. It's an evolution of the classic ThinkPad look, only sleeker, but sleek isn’t always better and here, sealing the battery tidies up the underside of the case but means you'll need to invest in the 'slice' battery if you want to carry a spare. We also don't really care about the port cover on the left-hand side, as it's as much for looks as for protection.

You do get plenty of protection though. The glossy screen is covered by Gorilla Glass which does add enough weight to be noticable and gives the same irritating reflections around the screen we disliked on the plastic bezel of the Samsung Series 9. The spill-proof keyboard has drainage holes, the chassis has an internal cage to protect it and Lenovo counts up eight military specification tests for ruggedness that the X1 passes. Sturdy doesn't mean chunky or ugly, although there's no designer bling, just practicality here.

Keyboard and trackpad ?

A ThinkPad keyboard is something you either love or hate and while the 13.3-inch size doesn't leave room for all the ThinkPad idiosyncrasies, there are still a few. The action of the keyboard is excellent, with plenty of travel -though not the full firm click of classic models. The rounded keytops with concave surfaces locate your fingers wonderfully so you don't roll off onto the next key. That's useful because there isn't much space between the isolated island-style keys.
The keyboard is also an?oddity with the function key where the control key is on almost every other keyboard. There's also a print screen key between alt and ctrl on the bottom right of the keyboard. The page up and page down keys are a little cramped in the corners of the navigation arrows, and a long way away from the home and end keys at the top of the keyboard.

The secondary commands on the function keys include microphone and camera settings as well as the usual brightness and media playback keys. Dedicated volume controls at the edge of the keyboard are a nice touch, with mute buttons for both speakers and microphone that business users will find very useful. There's also a tiny button that launches one of the many ThinkPad software tools as well as a fingerprint scanner.
The trackpad combines a ThinkPad signature feature – a second set of buttons between itself and the keyboard, to use with the TrackPoint in the middle of the keyboard. As on Apple's laptops, the usual two buttons found beneath the trackpad are gone. The Lenovo advantage here is that you can use the buttons intended for the TrackPoint, if you hate these new button-less trackpads.
Extending the touch surface over the button area gives the touch pad a square aspect ratio that doesn't fit the widescreen 1337 by 768 resolution at all and while we like the deep palm rest, the touch pad itself feels a little small. The pronounced texture does give you an excellent combination of smoothly responsive cursor and accurate clicking.
The trackpad also offers multi-touch gestures. These work as well as they ever, but their sheer number can confuse. Should you be a gesture fan, you'll be pleased to see the three-finger click, three-finger tap along with the more common pinch-zoom, rotate, scroll and flick. It's also possible to tweak the settings for the TrackPoint and use that as a button.

Inputs and ports ?

Nearly all of the ports on the X1 are on the back of the case. We find this odd on a machine designed to be ultra-portable because this layout works best for keeping cables out of the way on a desk, rather than putting ports where you need them on the move. It's also a very modest selection too. The left side has only a memory card reader, the right has a fiddly cover over the headphone socket and a single USB port.

Along the back you get power, HDMI and DisplayPort, but no VGA. There's one USB 3 port and one combined eSATA/USB 2 charging port and gigabit Ethernet. As well as Bluetooth and dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11n, you get unlocked mobile broadband too. Because the battery isn't removable, the SIM slot is conveniently on the back of the case as well.

Processor and battery

The Sandy Bridge Core i5 2520M is a full-power processor (with the business vPro option); it runs hot when you're watching video and you only get the built-in Intel HD 3000 graphics. This is an ideal everyday workhorse of a processor and you can play games at reasonable frame rates on medium detail, but a multimedia powerhouse it is not.
Battery life is disappointing. Our usual mix of streaming audio, video, continual Web browsing and general Office use gave us only two hours twenty minutes of use. You could stretch that to well over four hours without Wi-Fi though. The bright spot is that 30-40 minutes of recharging gives you an almost full battery. An SSD instead of the 320GB hard drive would improve battery life as well as boot times. From a cold boot, Lenovo's RapidDrive fast boot gets you to the login screen in 40 seconds. That's around half the time it takes most 13-inch Windows laptops, but far slower than an SSD system like the Samsung Series 9.

Screen and audio quality

The screen is crisp and bright, with excellent contrast ratios even in dark areas. We didn't like the reflections from the gloss finish or the even more distracting reflections from the Gorilla Glass surround. Streaming 1080p video from the Web played smoothly, but the details weren't as crisp and clear as we'd like to see on a premium laptop. 720p video streamed from the local network also played back smoothly but the colours are subdued and we didn't see the exceptionally crisp detail other notebooks have delivered in recent reviews.
Audio quality is generally good, with more than enough volume and reasonable bass, mid-range and treble. That said, it's good sound for a business machine rather than the highest sound quality we're hearing from the best consumer models this year. We also noted that there was a lot of distortion at high volume.
Along with the usual Office Starter, Live Essentials, Skype and Norton Internet Security, you get Internet Explorer 9 with a Lenovo-branded 'Bing bar' and a collection of 1,500 business document templates called Business in a Box.
Lenovo is one of the few PC makers to use Microsoft's Device Stage to organise the tools and utilities you get, and it works well for organising what would otherwise be hard to find but useful tools. It's confusing that there's also a PC-Doctor powered Toolbox with tools and tips in. We particularly like the power controls, instead of making you tinker with individual settings you can just drag the slider to show whether you want more performance or longer battery life. There's also a 'battery stretch' option that can eke power out for another 60-90 minutes when you just HAVE to keep working, and with this battery life, you need it.
Verdict:
Practical is the X1's middle name, along, perhaps, with pricey -although this depends from whom you buy it. The choices Lenovo has made won't suit everyone though, and at this price you start to resent something that would be a mere quibble on a cheaper system.
Overall, you get almost everything you need, from performance, sturdiness through to the ports people actually need and useful extras like 3G. Nothing is arranged the way you're used to though, and the screen and battery life are slightly disappointing.
We think X1 willl make a great business machine though, and business users will mind the price less, especially with the three year guarantee.




           

Read more »

Sony Tablet S vs HTC Puccini

HTC's new 10-inch Pucinni, which isn't a variety of pizza, goes head-to-head with Sony's S Tablet

We take a look at HTC’s forthcoming 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet, the HTC Puccini (also known as the Jetstream), to see how it fares against Sony’s new Tablet S.

Form
HTC Puccini - 251x178x13mm, 709g
Sony Tablet S - 241.2x174.3x10.1-20.6mm (tapers), 598g
The HTC Flyer, the company’s first foray into tablet territory, was garish and unsightly, but it seems lessons have been learned as this newest device is a much more tasteful affair.
The bodywork is sleek, black and shiny and there’s very little border space around the screen – a look we feel works well more often than not.
HTC has also given the Puccini some visual interest with carbon fibre styling on the back panel, while the camera port is subtly integrated in the top corner.
Logos and motifs are also kept unobtrusive which helps the aesthetic considerably.
It’s quite a thick and heavy device though, but visually things are looking good.
Sony’s Tablet S is a little more unconventional as it’s an unusual wedge-shaped device starting at 20mm thick on the top edge and tapering to 10mm thin at the bottom.
The whole front panel of the device appears to curve elegantly over the top edge and round to the back in a continuous line, which is very appealing to the eye, while a textured surface helps things too.
As much as we like the Puccini and think it’s a massive step forward for HTC’s tablets, we also feel Sony’s styling is much more adventurous and that is something to be commended in our book.
Winner - Sony Tablet S

Display
HTC’s Puccini tablet has the larger display size of these two devices, with a 10.1-inch LCD capacitive touchscreen.
The Puccini’s resolution is WXGA at 1280x768 pixels and with a pixel density of 147 pixels-per-inch (ppi). Multi-touch and an accelerometer sensor are par for the course.
The Tablet S is only a bit smaller at 9.4-inches but it boasts a slightly higher resolution of 1280x800 pixels and subsequently a higher pixel density at 161ppi. It’s a TFT capacitive touchscreen display featuring multi-touch, accelerometer and gyro sensors.
The Tablet S's display might be a bit smaller but not by much and the higher resolution and pixel density will make a difference to image clarity. Sony wins this round.
Winner - Sony Tablet S

Storage
Sony’s Tablet S is the more diverse device when it comes to internal storage, with options for both 16GB and 32GB of onboard capacity.
It is, however, a little more limiting for external support with only SD cards catered for rather than the more common, and arguably more useful, micro SD.
External storage is still up to 32GB though which can only be a good thing.
The Puccini has only one fixed internal storage option at the S Tablet’s higher end of 32GB, it’s also got one-up on the Sony by supporting micro SD up to 32GB.
Both devices prop up their respective processors with 1GB of RAM storage.
There’s not much between these two as, at the higher end option for the Sony they’re both equal on internal storage, and in either case they’re even on RAM.
However, we prefer the micro SD support the Puccini brings and that closes the deal as far as we’re concerned.

Winner - HTC Puccini

Processor
We’re dealing with a couple of dual core monsters here: Sony’s offering packs a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor on Nvidia’s turbo-charged Tegra 2 T20 chipset.
Nvidia also provides the S tablets graphical prowess with a ULP Geforce graphics processing unit (GPU).
Against this HTC has brought something a bit special to the table, opting for Qualcomm technology with a 1.5GHz MSM8260 Scorpion backed up by an Adreno 220 GPU.
There’s no question that each of these tablets is a heavy hitter, easily capable of delivering consistently fast performance in pretty much any tablety task you put them to.
However, that extra half a gig of clock speed on the HTC will certainly make a noticeable difference running Android, which benefits significantly from a more heavy handed approach to processing power.
Winner - HTC Puccini

Operating System
Both tablets run on Google’s Android platform and they’re each sensibly using the tablet specific Honeycomb build.
We’re rather fond of Honeycomb, of course there’s always room for improvement but we feel it certainly made Android a more complete and well-rounded system, at least in terms of what we expect at the most basic level of functionality these days.
It ironed out a lot of the kinks present in previous builds and means everything runs much smoother.
The interface has also had a few intuitive tweaks which make things much easier to use – a new app tray, much like the ones provided by third party launchers, makes switching between apps a breeze.
Multi-tasking never gets left out in the cold on Android and it’s as good as its ever been on Honeycomb.
There’s also all the perks from Gingerbread’s enhanced app management suite and system auto-management facilities, so you not only do you have total hands-on control but if your attention is elsewhere you need never worry about system resources getting hogged.
Android’s much-mimicked notifications bar has returned with a bit of a facelift, this time it shows more detailed text information for each alert as well as displaying relevant pictures so you know exactly what it’s talking about.
All in all it’s the best Android build to date and performance is top-notch on dual core processors such as the ones found here.
Winner - Draw

Camera
The Tablet S is fitted with a 5-megapixel primary at 2560х1920 pixels, plus a VGA secondary. Video capture is 720p and video calling is supported.
Features include autofocus, touch focus, image stabilisation and face and smile detection.
With the Puccini you’ve got a much more impressive setup: the primary camera comes in at 8-megapixels and a 3264x2448 pixel resolution while the secondary is also considerably better than its rival at 1.3-megapixels.
Video capture is also higher quality with 1080p capability and like its opponent the Puccini also supports video calls.
The standard autofocus and geo-tagging are on board along with a dual-LED flash.
Clearly HTC’s Puccini tablet is better equipped when it comes to snapping pics on the go.
Winner - HTC Puccini

Final Thoughts
We really like Sony’s Tablet S but it’s very much outclassed by the HTC on paper and actually that’s a situation we’re more than happy with.
We’re glad to see HTC has upped its game from the frankly disappointing HTC Flyer to offer a much more competent piece of hardware this time round.

Read more »