New ASUS lineup at CES 2011

ASUS has just releaased its lineup of new products at CES 2011. I’ll  give you a brief lineup here:

• Eee Slate EP121 – A typical touchscreen tablet form running Windows 7 and supports the use of a stylus which is stored in the body. The inclusion of an SSD makes it snappier and suitable for those rough tablet handlers but also ups the cost a bit. It’s said to be due out later this month but we’re not sure how soon it will reach Malaysia. Price will be around RM3000 to 3400.

• Eee Pad Transformer – Looks like Motorola is not the only one with dual core tablets on Android Honeycomb. And the name of this Samsung product will make Michael Bay (the director of the Transformer movies) so proud. The ‘Transformer’ is an Android tablet with a detachable full size keyboard and touchpad. This is coming out in May officially (Malaysia uncertain to us) and will cost around RM1200-2200. Certainly price competitively to the current Galaxy Tab.

• Eee Pad Slider – Another Android tablet like the Transformer, the Slider is only 5mm thicker. The thicker body is due to the attached sliding keyboard. When you need the keyboard, just slide it out and the screen will tilt at a nice angle. When moving the tablet around, just slide it back and carry it easier as one single unit. Compared to the Transformer, you lose a touchpad on the Slider keyboard due to the space taken up by the tilting screen but the Transformer keyboard is detached so you would have to carry two separate items instead of one for the Slider. The sliding mechanism and the construction has a higher price of around RM1500-2500, RM300 more than the Transformer. Expect to see it somewhere around the world as soon as May this year.

• Eee Pad MeMo – Just when you thought you had enough of mid-sized Android tablets, Asus has another one planned for you. This tablet is claimed to come with a stylus like tool (cylindrical object tucked between the function buttons and the ASUS logo in picture below) to help with drawing and writing. It also comes with an wireless bluetooth accessory with earphones and mic callled MeMic to help with phone functions. Other specs such as ram, internal storage and connectivity functions still unconfirmed at this point but with mid sized tablets, you can expect more or less the same. Coming out in June for around RM1500 to RM2200.

source: Engadget [1], [2],[3],[4]

Android Honeycomb power hungry?

A few weeks ago, Motorola release a teaser video for the new tablet which is coming soon in CES, January 2011. Their teaser video completely trashed the Samsung Galaxy Tab, saying that the Tab is running an older version of Android meant for smartphones. Check my post here.

Looks like Motorola could have their feet on solid ground when they put the Tab down because one OEM said that honeycomb would require a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor to run properly with a resolution of  1,280×720 for 10″ tablets. So far Google has no made a statement regarding this news, so it might be true. Previously, LG wrongly claimed that Gingerbread upgrade requires a minimum 1 Ghz for the LG Optimus line which Google refuted quickly. We are still keeping an eye out for word from Googler regarding this matter.  [source]

If this is true, then existing Tab users would sadly be only stuck at Gingerbread (if Samsung ever decides to upgrade it from  Froyo). But Samsung however are not keeping silent. They have placed a large order of Tegra 2 (dual-core A9 cpu) from Nvidia for their upcoming ‘Tab 2’.  [source]

Looks like the era of smart-tablets are finally here. Where Microsoft has failed to produce (Eg: HP Slate), Google has triumphed.

UPDATE : 6-Jan-2011

Dan Morril with the Google Android team tweeted here that there’s no hard mininum requirement for Honeycomb. Sigh of relief..

Asus : Eee Pad E121 to come in CES

Asus is moving on from netbooks to tablets, one of their products to come being the Eee Pad EP121. This product isn’t entirely new because Asus has been sitting on it for the past half year. It was first show cased in Computex Taipei in June 2010. The information provided on the tablet at that time was:

• 12″ touchscreen tablet
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
• Intel Core 2 Duo.
• comes with docking station (transforms into laptop)
• cost around USD1000 (RM3100)

[source]

Just recently, prior to the CES event in January, Asus has released a teaser video for the Eee Pad. It will finally be launced. The press conference will be on Tuesday, 4th January 2011,2-3pm at Ballroom of Aria Hotel. Since it’s initial preview back in June, somethings have change and more features are revealed. The only thing that remains the same is the steep USD1000 price.

• 12″ touchscreen tablet, capable of multitouch and stylus
• Intel Core i5 (instead of C2D)
• HDMI-out, Full HD playback
• SD card slot, web camera

Watch the video below:

 

Update: 5-Jan-2011

Check out my latest post on all new Asus products announced at CES 2011 here.

Motorola’s new 10″ tablet with Honeycomb

On December 14th 2010, during the Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco, Andy Rubin from Android showed off a prototype Android tablet, running the latest version of Android called Honeycomb. It showcased improved functionality of Android on bigger screen called tablet, where you get different fragmentation (or columns) of a screen, instead a small smartphone screen dedicated to one function at a time. Check out the video below, sample of new Gmail app with fragments at 5:20.

The prototype tablet is made by Motorola and based on some early photos, it seems like the tablet will be sold first on an American telco called Verizon. Check out the photo gallery from Engadget here.

The tablet is running on the latest processor called Tegra 2 from Nvidia, which features a dual core processor and also better built in graphics chip. Motorola will officially launched this tablet at an event called CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas early next month (January 2011).

Motorola has already made some teaser video for the new tablet, comparing it to some ‘ancient’ tablets like the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The honey bee appearing at the end of the video confirms the fact the it will be running the new Android Honeycomb.

Finally, the new Motorola Tablet is rumoured to be called Motorola Xoom which i think is a good name, instead of having usual names that associate to something flat like Pad, Slate, Tab or even Book. You don’t really hope to hear another name like MotoPad, MotoSlate, MotoTab, etc bla bla bla, do you? We’ll only really know at the event.  Price of this tablet is also still unknown at the moment.

Hopefully we’ll see Malaysian telcos like Maxis to bring in this Motorola tablet like they did the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Time to ditch the old Samsung tablet which runs Android OS built for phones and bring in the new tech. Don’t expect Samsung to put the new Honeycomb on the Galaxy Tab anytime soon. Samsung is VERY VERY slow at updating their software once the device has been released. Samsung has updated some, but not all their Galaxy S phones to Android 2.2 Froyo. FYI, Samsung modified the Galaxy S for different parts of the world so there are many variants of it, namely the European and Asian Galaxy S, US AT&T Captivate, US T-Mobile Vibrant, US Sprint Epic 4G, US Verizon Fascinate, Samsung Continuum, etc . That is a lot of phones. Detailed list here at the Samsung Galaxy S Wikipedia page. And Samsung is getting left behind further as Android 2.3 Gingerbread is already out. Next month Android 2.4 Honeycomb is coming.. I very much doubt Samsung can keep up.

iPad 2 (or 2G) case on sale!

You know you’ve got a pretty good and hot selling product when accessories for your product appear on the market before your products does.

But what’s good about this early accessory release it that we get a slight  glimpse of the upcoming product. And what do we see? Rear facing cameras on the new iPad. Hoorahhh..

[source]