Update: 4th Nov. The latest I have is that Froyo will be available in Germany on within the next 2 weeks. (3rd week of Nov) Yes, it slipped
We had a great chat with the product manager for Toshiba’s AC100 in Germany at IFA yesterday and we covered a lot of ground about the target markets and future for these smart-books. Toshiba seem quite committed to the ‘smart’ sector and already have a team of 25 working on their Android builds. The next two milestones for the team are the Froyo-based Folio 100 Tegra2 Tablet and Android 2.2 (Froyo) upgrade for the AC100. Yes, it’s coming in 6 weeks and I’m excited because not only will it bring a Cortex core optimised version of Android to the device but it will also bring important browser improvements. We should get access to Google Docs and for me, that’s a huge step forward.
I’ve made Toshiba aware of the battery issue and I’ll be following up with an email. We’re also planning to get up to Toshiba’s HQ near Duesseldorf to get some quality time with the Folio soon. Yes, i’ll be taking the chance to tell them how important the Market is and encouraging them to kick Google hard!
I’m hoping to get my 3G / UK version of the AC100 from Amazon soon so if anyone want’s to buy a German (QWERZ keyboard) Wifi-only version, let me know!
We didn’t get a huge chance for hands-on as we stumbled across the Toshiba press event at IFA today and with the device locked to the wall, without and sort of Internet connection and without any supporting technical staff, it was difficult to do a good test on the Toshiba Folio 100. We want to go back and ask about pricing, Google apps and Android 2.2 availability for the keyboarded version that we’re doing extended testing on, the AC100. I’ve published a video on YouTube (below) that might give you a few snippets of information about the Folio but we’ll be back over the next few days with more information. We promise!
There’s two ways of looking at this. Either you think about the issues of the Toshiba AC100 (no Google Apps, Market, Browser issues, crashes, standby battery life issues) and you think OMG – This is a fail from the word go, or you hope that the 2.2 upgrade and a touchscreen are going to fix it. Certainly if you take away the keyboard you won’t be tempted to try anything silly like writing a document so that at least solves one problem but I fear that the Market is still going to be missing.
There’s no way Google will licence Market for a device that is simply not supported by Android. Developers have no way at all to write screen-efficient apps for this screen size and the apps that do exist look annaemic on a 1024×600 screen.
I don’t want to be too negative but its difficult when you’ve tested three potentially great bits of hardware that were spoiled by having only half of an Android-based OS product.
I like the idea of Tegra 2 (with Android 2.2 it will, seriously, blow everything else out of the water in terms of Android benchmarks – i’ve seen it today) and the tablet form-factor at least ‘fits’ Android a little better but without the Google licensed apps, its only half of what it could be.
If I’m wrong about Google Market then great, we’ve got progress but i’m not holding my breath because I think only Android 3 can fix that.
