Posts tagged tablet devices
Who needs a Quad-Core mobile device for work?
Nov 10th
by Joseph Fieber
Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core processor powers many of the phones and tablets on the market, and it’s similar to the one found in Apple’s iPad 2. That could change soon, as Nvidia has announced its Tegra 3 quad-core processor, which makes its debut in Asustek Computer’s Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet. Generally, more is better, but does your company really need a quad-core mobile device?
Eee Pad Transformer Prime
The specs
With a design based on the ARM Cortex-A9 processor, the Tegra 3, code-named “Project Kal-El”, boosts by up to three times the graphics performance and five times the overall performance of its Tegra 2 predecessor. The graphics boost is largely due to a 12-core Nvidia GeForce GPU, which lends itself to dynamic rendering of textures and lighting in high-resolution 3D environments, and also makes possible 1080p high-profile video at 40 Mbps. Running at up to 1.3GHz, the extra horsepower comes primarily from the additional two cores, but is also helped by improving the memory bandwidth by three times and doubling the speed of the image signal processor.
Hacker makes iOS look like OS X Lion
Sep 22nd
by Elizabeth Fish
Do you happen to be one of those people that really love Mac OS X Lion? Or perhaps, on the other end of the spectrum, you feel Lion’s a bit too much like iOS?
Well, now it’s more than just similar, because if you happen to have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can now make sure that Lion never leaves your side, with a bit of clever hacking.
Hacker Timothy Elliot wasn’t satisfied with the themes available for jailbroken iPhones, so he created his own. His theme, dubbed Ultimatum, mimics the OS X Lion desktop, and it works with almost any iOS device. This isn’t actually Lion, of course, and while it looks almost identical to the real thing, it’s been slightly scaled down to fit properly on an iPhone’s screen. He created the hack due to Cydia’s lack of good quality themes for the iPhone, naming his creation the Ultimatum theme.
iOS
Are netbooks dead?
Jun 16th
By Nestor E. Arellano
Are netbooks dead? Does any one even care?
Cramped design, underpowered and lacking the tablet’s appeal it’s easy to understand why many pundits would be quick to write off what only two years ago was a blockbuster seller that shook the PC world.
Nestor Arellano
Deloitte LLP’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions speculate that businesses will buy more than 10 million tablet devices throughout 2011. The same report also anticipates production of some 50 million tablets and 375 million smartphones compared to just 390 million computers, laptops and netbooks. Read the rest of this entry »
Why I won’t replace my iPad with an iPad 2
Mar 23rd
Apple released the latest version to its super successful tablet, the iPad2 which went on sale on March 11 in the US. The iPad 2 is expected to be on sale in Canada on March 25th. 
If you are like me you will be asking yourself, should I stick with the iPad or should I upgrade to the iPad2? And if you will be purchasing the iPad for the first time then you will be wondering which one you should choose. Let’s examine the two versions of the iPad. Read the rest of this entry »
iPad 2: Will the ‘magic’ live on?
Mar 8th
By Krista Napier
On March 2nd, Steve Jobs announced Apple’s latest gadget, the iPad 2. The street date for Canada is March 25.
Krista Napier
When the first iPad launched last year, Jobs described it as “magical”. So does that label apply to the iPad 2? It’s always a tough act to follow the wonderment of the first born child. In this case, iPad 2 has some incremental features and functionality that set it apart from the first version, including:
- Rear facing HD camera, and front facing VGA camera
- 33 per cent thinner 8.8mm (13.4mm)
- 15 per cent lighter: 1.3 pounds (vs. 1.5 pounds)
- Two colours – black and white
- Up to 2x faster CPU and up to 9x faster graphics
- Dual core processors
- 3-axis gyroscopes (aids in gesture-based actions, navigation and gaming)
- Running iOS 4.3
These features will also help the iPad 2 remain competitive with the competition that will be in the market in 2011, and will have many features and functions that were missing in the first iPad. Samsung, Motorola, RIM, and others are not in the market yet, but have been announced and expected to launch in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
No Honeycomb OS for Galaxy Tab
Jan 5th
By Jared Newman
Single-core Android tablets like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab won’t meet the minimum requirements for Honeycomb, Google’s tablet-optimized operating system version, according to a manufacturer.
Bobby Cha, managing director of Korean consumer electronics firm Enspert, told PCMag that Honeycomb will require a dual-core Cortex A9 processor to run properly. So far, the only chipset to include this processor is Nvidia’s Tegra 2, due to appear in many Android tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.
Video: Samsung Galaxy Tab joins tablet race
Cha said that a minimum screen resolution of 1280-by-720 may also be necessary, but he noted that Honeycomb-based tablets will come with seven-inch screens and larger.
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab has a 1 GHz Hummingbird processor and a 1024-by-600 resolution display. The company has previously suggested that the Galaxy Tab would update no further than the smartphone-focused Android 2.3 (“Gingerbread”), but Cha’s comments appear to seal the Tab’s fate as a rapidly aging product.
Google, meanwhile, has remained relatively silent about what Honeycomb entails, or for that matter, whether the version number in question is 2.4 or 3.0.
Related story - Microsoft to roll out ARM-based iPad rival in 2011?
Andy Rubin, Google’s vice president of engineering, showed and early version of Motorola’s Honeycomb tablet last December, but shied away from details. All we know is that the tablet-friendly Android version will allow for large-screen apps and software-based home and back buttons. More details are bound to trickle out this week as electronics companies show off their upcoming tablets.
If Cha is correct about Honeycomb’s dual-core processor and screen resolution requirements, Google may be trying to draw a bold line between cheap Android tablets and premium products from companies like Motorola and Toshiba. Unfortunately for early adopters of Samsung’s first tablet, which gambled on Android 2.2 for holiday availability, the Galaxy Tab falls on the wrong side of that line.
Tablet Review: BlackBerry Playbook vs. Apple iPad vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab
Dec 24th
With BlackBerry set to launch its first tablet computer in early 2011, they are a number of positives for RIM with this device, so what are they.
1. Dimensions – The device is slightly bigger than the Samsung Galaxy Tab and about 33 per cent lighter than Apple’s iPad. Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft to roll out ARM-based iPad rival in 2011?
Dec 22nd
Microsoft is reportedly set to release a new version of its Windows operating system specifically designed for tablet devices. The new OS, which will run on chips from ARM Holdings, will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show on January, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Nestor Arellano
It might be easy to dismiss that Microsoft has already missed the boat on tablet devices as reports circulate that rival Apple is already preparing an iPad2 . To date, more than 3 million iPads have been sold worldwide while the market is simultaneously being flooded by Android-based iPad alternatives.
However, window of opportunity hasn’t closed for a Microsoft tablet device to compete with Apple’s iPad. Read the rest of this entry »
CDs, DVDs top iPads as favourite Christmas gift choice
Nov 28th
Forget the iPad. It’s not the Samsung S Captivate or the HTC Sound 7 phone either or the Kinect sensor for Xbox.
While sales of Apple’s iPad is expected to hit the roof and Android phones are enjoying so much popularity the top selling tech gifts this year are more likely going to be something of a tech dinosaur.
Nestor Arellano
Countless articles have been written about their demise of CDs and DVDs and more and more computers are actually doing away with optical drives but these storage devices still have such resonance with consumers that CDs and DVDs are next only to clothes and as the favourite item to give as a gift come Christmas time. Read the rest of this entry »
I tweeted on the Rock
Nov 18th
I tweeted on the rock last week, and the response I got was worth blogging about.
Krista Napier
I was in Newfoundland checking out the startup scene, and while I was there I tweeted a simple 102 character comment on my iPad:
“In Newfoundland this week checking out the tech start up scene out east – hoping I don’t get screeched”
My tweets are synched up with LinkedIn, so faster than you can say “Long may your big jib draw”, I had two people reach out to me. Read the rest of this entry »
