Capt'n Corrupt | # 2311 | 2011-03-11, 19:23 | Report

Is this the WiFi-only Galaxy Tab?


http://www.droiddog.com/android-blog...b-coming-soon/

The price is $399. If this is true, it brings it in line with the 1st-gen iPad.

Capt'n Corrupt | # 2312 | 2011-03-11, 19:38 | Report

Talk about under the radar.

It seems the official conductive stylus has been released:

http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/gal...ET-S100CBEGSTA

The price is very low, at $19.99.

It doesn't contain the rumored Bluetooth features, though it looks like a very quality device for a great price.

If I were buying a capacitive stylus for any device, I would start with this one. As it stands, without an active digitizer, I'd stay away from this.

Capt'n Corrupt | # 2313 | 2011-03-11, 22:10 | Report

Speed X, the addictive racing (?) game has gone 'freemium':

http://www.androidcentral.com/speed-x-goes-freemium

Try it now on your Tab (works great).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=708Hgf_-eQo

Apparently, it also supports cheap 3D red-cyan (anaglyph) glasses for stereoscopic 3D play! Much fun!

Capt'n Corrupt | # 2314 | 2011-03-11, 22:17 | Report

Well, well, well.

It seems that Android has emerged unscathed at this years Pwn2Own!

http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/03...rry-get-pwned/

With all the news of viruses and trojans, the system has proven to be very secure, and likely the insecurities are the result of poor user choices.

In a bizarre twist, WP7 also remained unscathed!

iOS, BBOS weren't so lucky....

danramos | # 2315 | 2011-03-11, 23:04 | Report

I hadn't even heard about this until you mentioned it. I just checked around and you're right. It looks like it's going away in April. There are plenty of free alternatives to choose from, though.. There's more detail about this at http://www.google.com/gizmo5/ for anyone interested, and a good article write-up at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03...s_down_gizmo5/

Assuming there is an HD version of any particular video available, there are two ways to go about it:

1) When a YouTube video is playing, you can simply tap the "HD" button on the top-right side of the screen (if you don't see it in fullscreen mode, you can either tap the top right edge of the screen to reveal it first)

2) Instead of playing over the mobile data, connect to a wifi network. When you're connected to WIFI, the YouTube app automatically prefers the HD version of the video instead of SD.

That suddenly starts to make form factors like THESE far more attractive:
http://hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/p...=G129689935155
http://hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/p...=G129689092760

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Last edited by danramos; 2011-03-11 at 23:12. Reason: Gizmo5 info added

Capt'n Corrupt | # 2316 | 2011-03-12, 11:04 | Report

Flash 10.2 for Honeycomb, Gingerbread, and Froyo has leaked:

http://www.androidcentral.com/adobe-...nd-gingerbread

Here are some of the features:
+ Hardware accelerated video presentation for H.264 (Android 3.0.1+)
+ Deeper integration with the Android browser rendering engine (Android 3.0.1+)
+ Better content rendering (Android 2.2+)
+ Improved scrolling of web pages (Android 2.2+)
+ In-page viewing of Flash objects (Android 3.0.1+)*
+ Enhanced performance for the latest smartphones and tablets (Android 2.2+)
+ Automatic soft keyboard support including a new ActionScript API that enables developers to automatically launch and display the soft keyboard (Android 2.2+)


Something tells me, that scrolling performance will be greatly improved when on-screen flash elements are visible. If so, it's a worthwhile update.

However, it should have been this way from the first release.

Capt'n Corrupt | # 2317 | 2011-03-12, 17:04 | Report

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 get's a thorough hands-on:

http://androidhd.blogspot.com/2011/0...y-tab-101.html

It looks really, really good...

Judging from the videos, it seems somehow more polished than the Motorola XOOM. The hardware certainly looks nicer.

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Last edited by Capt'n Corrupt; 2011-03-12 at 17:14.

Capt'n Corrupt | # 2318 | 2011-03-12, 21:48 | Report

It seems that Samsung has something else to worry about, the iPad2's GPU performance blows the Tegra's GeForce ULV out of the water.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/a...p2-benchmarked

Samsung really dropped the ball, especially considering that they have first hand knowledge about such things (they design their own chips).

The Tab 10.1 will simply not compare with the iPad 2 in gaming performance.

Lets see if the Tab 8.9 has the Exynos SoC, and if the performance fares better.

crasbelize | # 2319 | 2011-03-13, 04:44 | Report

Ok: I was at Best Buy today.....First I went over and played with the XOOM!

I realized that I was looking at my reflection and the thing was on.......went and checked the brightness and it was cranked all the way up!

Second.......I started to play a track......and the device started vibrating like crazy!

Third.......I realized that my arm was getting weak!

That is the bad!

The good: love the widgets and boy is that thing fast!



N e Way......Then I went to check out the Ipad2!

It was light as ****....the screen was soooooo Bright....I had to put the thing down before I missed around and fell for it!...(in love).

That Galaxy Tab 10.1....better be super light and the screen better be super AM AND LOYD!

O and get this: Best Buy didn't have the price tag for the Xoom posted....one of the reps had to get it off the computer!

They want $800....and Apple only wants $500.....Come on Samsung!

danramos | # 2320 | 2011-03-13, 10:31 | Report

I have to wonder how much of that Xoom performance benchmarking is effected by unaccellerated vs accellerated performance under Honeycomb, though. Didn't Xoom get pushed out kind of early to get it out there ahead of competition... and I thought I remember hearing that this first (3.0.0) version of the OS was expecting to get far better drivers later? I might be misremembering it as some other product, though. Anybody know for sure?