RIM putting BlackBerry 10 test units in developers' hands in May
Chrome OS coming to ARM?
Many moons ago, Google made it quite clear we wouldn't
be seeing its browser-based OS on any tablets or phones, but it never said Chrome OS wouldn't run on devices powered by similar silicon. In fact, the issues tracker at the Chromium OS project shows that work's being done to get Chrome OS compatible with ARM architecture, and in particular a Samsung Exynos 5250 chip. That Sammy silicon appears to be inside a new bit of hardware, codenamed "Daisy," but deeper digging failed to provide further details about the mystery device. While it certainly seems like Google's working on a new ARM-powered gadget, it's important to note that the Chromium project functions largely via user contributions, so the work might not be directed by Mountain View. You don't have to take our word for it, though. Head on down to the source link to see the evidence first hand, and feel free to form your own opinion.
Toshiba AT200 review
This waif of a tablet certainly took its sweet time getting here. We first laid eyes on this lightweight beauty last August and while it still hasn't landed in the US just yet (under the guise of the Excite 10 LE) we've brought in the international version -- already in stores in the UK -- to test out the hardware, which appears to be identical. On first appearances, it's an attractive sliver of a slab, due to the magnesium alloy body, of which there isn't much. Measuring in at just 7.7mm thick, we're talking RAZR-scalethinness and a 1.18 pound weigh-in that embarrasses 7-inch devices. Despite this, we still have a 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP processor, running Honeycomb 3.2 on a 10.1 inch touchscreen. But surely, sacrificesmust have been made, right? Well, it looks like it's a financial cost that has to be paid. The 16GB version is currently on sale for £399, matching the new iPad in the UK, and likely to arrive in the US at around $530, pricing itself quite a bit above existing, similarly-specced, Android favorites like the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Are you willing to pay a fair chunk of change extra to skim a few millimeters off your tablet profile? Is it worth it? The full story is right after the break.
Hardware
Toshiba's new Honeycomb tablet seems completely at odds with company's 2011 family. As lame and plain as the Thrive family seemed, the AT200 is cool and sharp in equal but opposite measure. Weighing in at 535 grams, as 10.1-inch tablets go, it's the most comfortable we've found for one-handed use. Augmented by that wee profile, you can just about type in vertical orientation. While it feels incredibly light, it remains solid, with barely any give, presumably due to the metallic backing. However, the build quality is flawed. The outer rim along the back side of the tablet has a nasty sharp edge -- we ended up gingerly handling the thing as it walked a fine line between skin-cutting sharpness and discomfort. The magnesium alloy frame excuses minor scuffs, although our review model -- presumably mint -- arrived with some significant grazes.We're not sure if it was a struggle to cram the mid-range tablet specification into such a featherweight frame, but it's almost like it's bursting at the sides.
We're not sure if it was a struggle to cram the mid-range tablet specification into such a featherweight frame, but it's almost like it's bursting at the sides; the top edge has an odd little hole that looks like it should be hidden under the Gorilla Glass-coated screen. It's as if the tablet needed a little more tightening or a re-press to ensure everything was in the right place before it left the factory.
The sides of the tablet have a metallic piping that both helps make the tablet less anonymous but also help gain purchase when it's lying on a flat surface. This is interrupted on the right side by a power switch, volume rocker and customizable switch that can mute the tablet or lock the screen orientation. Some other options, like a WiFi switch, or possibly a power-saver mode would have been nice, but at least there's an option. Connectivity-wise, there's a hulking power connector on the bottom edge, which satisfyingly connects to the similarly chunky power cord, while the microUSB HDMI output, headphone ports and microSD slot are lined up on the left side.
It's nice to see some easy-to--access ports here and while the tablet will be available in 16 and 32GB sizes, microSD expansion means there should be more than enough space for anyone looking for a tablet with a media-playing focus. This is augmented by stereo speakers on each side of the power connector -- stereo sound remains a feature that doesn't make it to even the very latest top-drawer tablets. Located just off the left and right corners, we never seemed to cover them up when we held the tablet. As they're on the edge, sound isn't even muffled if you rest the device on a surface. Sound is just about loud enough, if a little light on the bass, although a third-party equalizer app can fix this.
The AT200 has a 1280 x 800 resolution display that matches the likes of the Galaxy Note 10.1 and theIconia Tab A200. It's an IPS display which means off-angle viewing shouldn't trouble the AT200 -- and it largely doesn't. However, whatever technology Toshiba is using for the touchscreen has left a visible tattoo across the 10.1-inch display. It's especially pronounced when we were in strong lighting or on dark backgrounds.
Cameras
While tablets certainly don't live and die by their camera performance, it's always nice to have an extra option -- and the opportunity for a video chat. There's a primary 5-megapixel camera on the rear, while a front-facing 2-megapixel camera gives better self-portraits than the standard VGA modules we're used to. The main camera offers pretty typical tablet camera results -- that is, noisy stills that often lacked the color of their real world counterparts. The camera app is cheerfully stock Honeycomb, meaning it was easy to get to the settings we wanted to change, but a lack of touch-to-focus let it down during our tests.
The camera is also capable of up to 1080p video, which was generally sharp and while colors and light adjustment is pretty good, it's another tablet lacking when it comes to autofocus.
Performance and battery life
While Toshiba promises 12 hours of use, we weren't able to eke out such heady figures. In our battery rundown, looped video, at 50 percent brightness with WiFi on, the tablet scraped in at just under six and a half hours. More typical use didn't inspire much confidence either. We found ourselves regularly plugging in for a top-up later in the day. Perhaps in slimming down to this 0.3 inch frame, the device has generated some power management inefficiencies, or more simply; the battery is simply too small.
Tablet | Battery Life |
| Toshiba AT200 | 6:25 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 | 12:01 |
| Apple iPad 2 | 10:26 |
| ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime | 10:17 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 | 9:55 |
| Apple iPad (2012) | 9:52 (HSPA) / 9:37 (LTE) |
| Apple iPad | 9:33 |
| Motorola Xoom 2 | 8:57 |
| HP TouchPad | 8:33 |
| Lenovo IdeaPad K1 | 8:20 |
| Motorola Xoom | 8:20 |
| T-Mobile G-Slate | 8:18 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus | 8:09 |
| Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet | 8:00 |
| Archos 101 | 7:20 |
| Archos 80 G9 | 7:06 |
| RIM BlackBerry PlayBook | 7:01 |
| Acer Iconia Tab A500 | 6:55 |
| Sony Tablet P | 6:50 |
| T-Mobile Springboard (Huawei MediaPad) | 6:34 |
| Toshiba Thrive | 6:25 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab | 6:09 |
| Motorola Xyboard 8.2 | 5:25 |
| Velocity Micro Cruz T408 | 5:10 |
| Acer Iconia Tab A100 | 4:54 |
| Toshiba Thrive 7" | 4:42 |
On paper, the tablet flits between beating and getting beaten by rival models. However, this doesn't tell the full story -- the dual-core tablet seemed heavily taxed when we used the camera app, more intensive gaming apps and media playback. While browser performance was respectable, there was often tiling on the web browser and attempting to stream media would often kick us out to the home screen or take a fair bit of time getting to the point where we could watch it.
| Toshiba AT200 | Acer Iconia Tab A200 | Galaxy Tab 10.1 | Transformer Prime | |
| Quadrant | 1,703 | 2,053 | 2,083 | 3,023 |
| Linpack single-thread (MFLOPS) | 37.8 | 37.2 | 16.9 | 43.35 |
| Linpack multi-thread (MFLOPS) | 68.7 | 60.4 | 36.7 | 67.05 |
| NenaMark 1 (fps) | 45.8 | 45.6 | 42.5 | 60.1 |
| NenaMark 2 (fps) | 23.4 | 20.4 | 18.6 | 46.1 |
| Vellamo | 947 | 1,290 | 886 | 953 |
| SunSpider 9.1 (ms, lower numbers are better) | 2,082 | 2,251 | 2,200 | 1,861 |
Software
The user experience is responsive, although as mentioned in the performance section, throw in something a little more complicated than lightweight apps and email and you begin to see the cracks -- typically longer load times and repeated kicks back to the home screen, There's also some larger problems circulating inside this troubled tablet. Trying to get our sample videos and photos out from the AT200 proved to be very difficult, with files seemingly corrupting irrespective of whether we shared through Dropbox or uploaded to our own Google Plus account. We were unable to detect the tablet connecting through the microUSB port. On the software side, Android's dedicated tablet apps are not exactly bursting out of Google Play and the average quality remain noticeably lower than its Cupertino equivalent.Toshiba's given us Android 3.2 here and it's largely what you'd expect from the now outdated tablet version. At least it's an undiluted stock Honeycomb experience.
Wrap-up
The AT200 is a beautiful tablet. With some great build materials and almost unbelievable lightness in the hand, it embarrasses Toshiba's previous attempts at Android tablets. However, it feels unfinished. Those rough edges, the uneven spacing along the seam; it all adds to a growing dissatisfaction with this final retail model. This is exacerbated by last year's tablet software -- especially when (much cheaper) tablets are arriving with Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box. Toshiba's severely misguided pricing not only puts it above themarket-leading tablet -- which very recently undertook a substantialhardware refresh -- but also above technically superior Android rivals, like the quad-core, higher resolution Transformer Prime. Are you willing to pay $30 more for a lesser product with some performance issues? No matter how good it looks, we're not.
RIM Giving BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha Hardware to BB Jam Attendees
RIM is throwing its BlackBerry 10 Jam in May, a developer's conference taking place in Orlando, FL. Developers attending the event will get to learn more about the upcoming new platform, which we're expecting to see launch later this year. We've just learned that attendees will be receiving a special device to help them get started developing for BlackBerry 10; will this be the first BlackBerry 10 hardware to arrive?
According to VP Alec Saunders, RIM will be giving devs at the Jam what it calls the "Berry 10 Dev Alpha". That sounds very much like it should be an early BB10 device, but that's not exactly the case. We know very little about the handset's actual hardware, but its software will definitely not be BlackBerry 10. Instead, it's going to run some custom hack of the PlayBook OS for a smartphone.
RIM says that developers will be able to use these phones, even without BlackBerry 10's presence, to start preparing apps for the platform once it's finally ready to go. As the PlayBook OS is similarly based on QNX, it makes sense that RIM could go with it as a stopgap measure. We're just a little concerned, though, that the company seems to be jumping through quite a few hoops in order to get something BlackBerry 10-y into the hands of devs instead of just having an alpha or beta build of the actual OS to share. Maybe we'll see something like that in a couple months, but apparently this will be the closest thing around for the time being.
According to VP Alec Saunders, RIM will be giving devs at the Jam what it calls the "Berry 10 Dev Alpha". That sounds very much like it should be an early BB10 device, but that's not exactly the case. We know very little about the handset's actual hardware, but its software will definitely not be BlackBerry 10. Instead, it's going to run some custom hack of the PlayBook OS for a smartphone.
RIM says that developers will be able to use these phones, even without BlackBerry 10's presence, to start preparing apps for the platform once it's finally ready to go. As the PlayBook OS is similarly based on QNX, it makes sense that RIM could go with it as a stopgap measure. We're just a little concerned, though, that the company seems to be jumping through quite a few hoops in order to get something BlackBerry 10-y into the hands of devs instead of just having an alpha or beta build of the actual OS to share. Maybe we'll see something like that in a couple months, but apparently this will be the closest thing around for the time being.
Next iPhone Might Just Stick With 3.5-Inch Display, After All
A little earlier this week, we looked into reports that the next iPhone might see Apple go with a much larger display, moving things up into the 4.6-inch range. A change like that sounds a bit hard to swallow, and not everyone's convinced it could be a possibility. The guys over at iMore, for one, have been hearing a different story from their sources about thenext iPhone, which they summed-up this afternoon.
The most recent news they've heard from their sources indicates that Apple was still primarily looking at a 3.5-inch display for the next iPhone as of a month ago. Though they didn't flat-out discount the possibility of a larger display, and note that Apple hadn't yet internally committed to a size, staying at or close to 3.5 inches looked most likely.
Of course, they've been hearing "LTE" for the next iPhone, and honestly, it would be a surprise to see the phone arrive without it at this point. The only other feature their sources have been discussing for the model is a new, smaller dock, rather than the 30-pin connector we're used to.
Presumably, we'll get the official word on the next iPhone sometime this fall.
The most recent news they've heard from their sources indicates that Apple was still primarily looking at a 3.5-inch display for the next iPhone as of a month ago. Though they didn't flat-out discount the possibility of a larger display, and note that Apple hadn't yet internally committed to a size, staying at or close to 3.5 inches looked most likely.
Of course, they've been hearing "LTE" for the next iPhone, and honestly, it would be a surprise to see the phone arrive without it at this point. The only other feature their sources have been discussing for the model is a new, smaller dock, rather than the 30-pin connector we're used to.
Presumably, we'll get the official word on the next iPhone sometime this fall.
Verizon Looks Ready With an Update For The Motorola Droid R2-D2
It's been quite a while since we've talked aboutMotorola's Droid 2 R2-D2 edition. In the eighteen-some months since the phone's release, we've seen plenty of more modern Droid models come out, but if you're still running down that two-year contract you signed when picking up the R2-D2, and have been holding onto the aging handset all this time, we've got some good news to show you that Motorola hasn't forgotten about you just yet; a new support page up on Verizon's site foretells the coming arrival of a new update for the Android.
Hopefully you've divorced yourself by now from the notion of ever seeing an official Ice Cream Sandwich come down through Verizon. The update we're looking today, bringing the phone up to system software 4.5.622.A957, is very much in bugfix/maintenance territory. Just what changes will it bring?
There are plenty of little tweaks that should be delivering improved performance in one way or another, including those targeting the phone's WiFi hotspot mode. Bugfixes look to correct problems with power cycling, fix Gmail access while using the hotspot, and help with an issue that would cause the phone to become unstable when repeatedly sliding its keyboard open and closed.
Beyond all the improvements and fixes, there are updates to a couple Verizon apps waiting for you, too. Knowing Verizon, having this document up on it site means that Droid 2 R2-D2 owners should be seeing this update start going out in the next several days to a week.
Hopefully you've divorced yourself by now from the notion of ever seeing an official Ice Cream Sandwich come down through Verizon. The update we're looking today, bringing the phone up to system software 4.5.622.A957, is very much in bugfix/maintenance territory. Just what changes will it bring?
There are plenty of little tweaks that should be delivering improved performance in one way or another, including those targeting the phone's WiFi hotspot mode. Bugfixes look to correct problems with power cycling, fix Gmail access while using the hotspot, and help with an issue that would cause the phone to become unstable when repeatedly sliding its keyboard open and closed.
Beyond all the improvements and fixes, there are updates to a couple Verizon apps waiting for you, too. Knowing Verizon, having this document up on it site means that Droid 2 R2-D2 owners should be seeing this update start going out in the next several days to a week.
Panasonic Pushes Back European Eluga Release Plans
Panasonic isn't a company many of us readily associate with smartphones, but a good portion of that might attributed to the fact that the company hasn't been selling its phones on a global scale. Last fall, we heard that Panasonic was planning to finally spread its wings and start getting its phones into the hands of North American and European customers. Specifically, we heard about plans for bringing an Android to Europe this March, and then later saw the company announce its Eluga handset right before the Mobile World Congress. What we didn't have were many other details on launch plans; today, we get a more complete picture of things, only it seems that Panasonic may not be keeping to its original schedule.
Despite this big push for an increased presence in the West, Panasonic is still launching the Eluga in Japan. The nation will see the Android arrive late this month, on March 29. Europe, on the other hand, now won't get the Eluga until sometime in April; just when hasn't been revealed yet, but the phone certainly won't be squeezing-out before the end of March.
The Eluga has a 4.3-inch qHD display, runs a dual-core OMAP at 1GHz, has a gigabyte of RAM, supports NFC, and as we shouldn't be surprised to see on a phone that's launching in Japan, it features water and dust resistance.
Despite this big push for an increased presence in the West, Panasonic is still launching the Eluga in Japan. The nation will see the Android arrive late this month, on March 29. Europe, on the other hand, now won't get the Eluga until sometime in April; just when hasn't been revealed yet, but the phone certainly won't be squeezing-out before the end of March.
The Eluga has a 4.3-inch qHD display, runs a dual-core OMAP at 1GHz, has a gigabyte of RAM, supports NFC, and as we shouldn't be surprised to see on a phone that's launching in Japan, it features water and dust resistance.
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