JooJoo was supposed to be the tablet to rule the world, before the iPad was a mere concept. Now, it has been delayed a bunch of times, had a scandal associated to it and TechCrunch and quite a lot of changes, as far as the software, UI and hardware are concerned. This product is becoming more and more like Starcraft 2: a real ghost.
Fusion Garage is solving issues with its capacitive touchscreen right now, as we’ve learned from a previous piece of news. Also, the maker of the tablet took advantage of the product’s delay to also work on its interface. Its homescreen has been revised, as you can see in the shots included in this article.
We have to say that the icon grid looks great on the high-res customizable wallpaper, couple with a vertical swipe that brings down a status bar. The latter includes the Home Button, status indicators and browser navigation controls. An address bar/search field combo is also present in there, while the improvements of the UI also include better scroll behaviour, with two types of actions: a two finger scroll (used like a scroll wheel) and a single finger pan (with the role of mouse arrow).
These scroll mechanisms will be particularly useful in apps like Google Maps and Fusion Garage claims that it wants to deliver the full web experience through such implementations. Text entry has also been improved and now there’s a smaller keyboard shown on screen, for easier one handed operation. More info on JooJoo interface upgrades in Engadget’s piece over here.
Steve Jobs was recently questioned regarding the support for tethering between the iPad and iPhone. The person who asked the question was Jezper Söderlund, a “long time Apple fan”, as he claims. Jezper said that he wants to replace the last computer in the house with an iMac i7 and he also plans on purchasing an iPad. As far as tethering is concerned, he referred to the WiFi only version of the Apple tablet.
Apparently, Jezper is quite famous in Sweden, since he’s a local DJ, but that didn’t stop Steve Jobs from answering his question with a simple “no”. It’s strange to notice that the iPhone officially supports tethering, but not in the US, so nothing should stop it from tethering with the iPad on international carriers.
Would you believe that the tablet in the image below goes for a mere $95 and it runs Android? Showcased at CeBIT 2010, the FirstView PC607V tablet uses an appealing skin on top of Windows CE, while companies like Forsa and Huawei chose Android over this platform. There’s also an Android 1.4 version of this MID/tablet, a strange choice of version, specially since as far as we know Android 1.4 doesn’t exist, so it must be Android 1.5.
Rumour has it that PC607V will be getting the Android 2.0/2.1 in the future, although it hasn’t been confirmed yet. It’s also pretty interesting to notice that the device is supposed to have a 10.1 inch resistive touch display, while some sites reports that it comes with a 7 inch screen.
Other specs include a 60GB HDD, WiFi b/g, webcam, built in speakers, 2 USB ports, an SD slot, a HDMI slot, 2 headphone ports and a 4500 mAh battery.
Archos has been keeping busy lately, announcing new versions of its Android tablets, media players and now the brand new Home Tablets: Archos 8 and Archos 7. The first is a home tablet with an 8 inch display, allowing the user to keep connected with his family. The device can display family pictures, thanks to a digital photo frame app and it’s also able to access the web.
Archos 8 Home Tablet measures 12mm in thickness, weighs 400 grams and also does social networking, video playback and some productivity features. It can even be used as a digital cookbook, but it also has calendar functions and email. Archos 7 Home Tablet costs a mere $179 and it comes with a 7 inch touchscreen display, a 12mm thick case and a weight of 350 grams.
This version supports YouTube, WiFi, USB connections and it comes with a battery that provides 7 hours of video playback and up to 44 hours of music with a single full charge. Both models are based on Android and they use ARM 9 processors @ 600 MHz. Expect Archos 7 to debut in April, while Archos 8 will hit the market in May.
A recent survey done by RBC/ChangeWave claims that the initial iPad demand is greater than the demand that accompanied the launch of the very first iPhone. After all, we’re dealing with a product that was long time speculated upon and hyped. RBC/Changewave found that 13% of its 3,200 respondents are likely to purchase the device, compared to the 9% who were ready to go get the iPhone when it first went live.
A reason for this demand could be the iPad’s relatively low price point, specially in its cheapest version. While many were expecting the Apple tablet to cost around $999, it’ll go for $499 and back to the study, we learn that a mere 8% of questioned people aren’t willing to pay the prices for the iPad.
28% of folks weren’t ready to spend cash on the iPhone, with its initial price, so things are looking better in the case of the tablet. Among the people interested in the iPad, 19% want the $499 16GB WiFi-only version, while other 19% plan on getting the $829 64GB 3G iPad. What do people plan on doing with this device? 68% claim that they want to surf the web, 44% want to check their email on the go and 37% want to read e-books.
Analysts estimated that Apple will sell around 5 million iPad units this year, but let’s wait and see if they’ll work miracles again, with all that competition.
Engadget informs us that Acer might be working on a frameless laptop with a touchscreen keyboard, something like the device pictured below. A rumour first made popular by DigiTimes, this piece of news also claims that the Acer device will give up the display frame and simply print colors directly on the back side of the screen’s reinforced glass substrate.
There’s also a touchscreen keyboard to be used on the device, that’s supposed to be incredibly thin for a traditional laptop. In case you’re wondering, the device above is the Frame Zero concept, created by Fujitsu and even ASUS is working on something similar, a dual display laptop prototype, while the OLPC has a new version planned with a similar approach.
Brandon Shigeta posted a very interesting idea on his blog: a sort of guide showing you how to turn a normal chip into a micro SIM, needed to use the iPad. As we’ve mentioned before, the Apple Tablet uses a micro SIM card, that’s only 12 x 15mm, 52% smaller than the normal 15 x 25mm plastic card. Of course, the new type of SIM isn’t compatible with your phone…
We can’t help but wonder if Brandon’s idea will work or not, but we’d need a 3G iPad to test that and these are… let’s say very scarce these days, at least till summer. The micro SIM was developed by the ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and it provides more storage space on chip for provider apps, better control and security.
Many say that the iPad will succeed because we’ve yet to see a tablet perfectly integrating Windows on it. It’s true that Microsoft didn’t design its desktop OS to be used with finger input, but with a mouse and keyboard instead. Windows 7 improves on this, but still it’s far from perfection. Salvation could come through customization, as shown in the following video, portraying the HP Slate in action:
HP’s iPad killer uses an original interface, probably integrated with Windows 7 and including a HP app manager. This is a demo for Flash and Air on the HP slate device, but it shows the user-friendliness of the product, based on favourite programs and Internet shortcuts, all of those acting responsive.
The browser also behaves perfectly, suiting the touch interface and we can guess that it’s a custom version of Firefox. As you can see in the same vid, multitouch functions are available on the tablet, stuff like pinch zooming, two finger scrolling and much more. We have to mention that Windows doesn’t show up anywhere in this presentation, since this is strictly an Adobe demo, but we can suppose the OS is in there, in a customized version.
Will this versatile HP Slate with such a cool UI totally kill the iPad? Let’s see what Dell and ASUS have to say about that…
We’ve seen handsets tested for resistance in crazy conditions, gadgets getting smashed and blended anywhere on the globe, but how about a tablet review in the cockpit of an airplane? This original video was done by a bunch of Aussie tablet fans, taking the Motion Computing J3400 tablet for a test flight in a small airplane, as shown in the vid below:
The pilot wants a replacement for his HP TC1100 and it seems that he found it, because he really likes the J3400. Its outdoorsy display is great, specially for pilots, having to face shade when flying or luminosity issues.
Motion Computing’s product is available with Windows 7 Professional or Vista Business, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, WiFi, mobile broadband, Bluetooth 2.1, safe computing features, a 12.1 inch widescreen with active digitizer and more. Extra info is available here.
Chinese gadget website Shop Kami is offering a pretty nice piece of gear these days, a multitouch 3G tablet running Windows 7. What’s interesting is that the device is an Apple iPad clone, dubbed the Ezy Tablet and packing a 10.4 inch touch display. On board you’ll also find a 1.6 GHz Atom CPU, 2GB RAM (upgradable to 4) and a 250GB HDD.
Ezy comes with 3 USB ports, a built-in webcam, both advantages when compared to the iPad, that doesn’t sport such feats. The specs made this clone a pretty good tablet, comparable to any netbook on the market. For $680 a piece, this 3G device is worth at least a chance, but we should also mention that the price doesn’t include Windows 7.
Getting the tablet with the OS on board makes its price $860 and if you’re into the retail biz, you can buy 25 or more of them, making the Ezy reach a $52 price tag per unit.
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