The Honeycomb news isn’t stopping today. I’m actually surprised that we haven’t seen a formal new release from Google yet! Details are likely to come out in the next few hours for the G-Slate but for the time being, at least we know it’s real. Not much to see of the device in the video which appears to be a variant of the Honeycomb video that has been doing the rounds today.
The video is accompanied by this description:
Here’s an exclusive look at the upcoming Androidâ„¢ Honeycomb-powered T-Mobile® G-Slateâ„¢ with Googleâ„¢, by LG. Expected to be available in coming months, the G-Slate will be the first 4G tablet from the two companies powered by Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), the upcoming version of Google’s Android platform optimized for tablets.
Standby for more details soon.
Update: TMobile appear to be putting up more Honeycomb videos in their YouTube CES channel including this one of the browser. notice the tabs
Today at CES LG have gone official with their latest Android smartphone. It sports a 4-inch NOVA display which LG claim is “the brightest, clearest and most readable inch mobile screen available, promising to be extremely bright while at the same time being more power efficient than both LCD and AMOLED mobile screens.
If the name doesn’t give it away, the phone has a black finish and LG also claims it’s the worlds slimmest mobile phone at an impressive 9.2 mm, which is 0.1 mm thinner than Apple’s iPhone 4. It will be interesting to see if it can still claim to be the worlds slimmest phone by the end of CES.
The Optimus Black seems very similar to the LG Optimus 2X that was announced late last year, however the LG press release gives no indication on what processor is at the heart of this phone leaving me feeling sceptical on whether this device is Tegra 2 powered like the Optimus 2X.
LG say this is also the worlds first ‘WiFi-Direct’ phone which is a very interesting technology that allows direct data transfers between enabled devices.
The Optimus Black will launch with Android 2.2 preinstalled however LG plan on updating the device to Gingerbread which they claim will also provide higher quality video calling through it’s 2 megapixel front facing camera.
This appears to be a very promising phone and I look forward to a hands on when it launches globally in the first half of 2011.
One of the big surprises of CES was the LG GW990 smartphone and based on progress I’m seeing with Moblin, the AppUp Store and what we’re hearing from Intel, we should expect to see those devices feeding in in Q3 this year. Moorestown is not only limited to smartphones though. There’s huge potential for ‘smart’ connected devices based around the tablet and larger slider form factors. Intel were showing a number of designs at CES and you’ll see them all in the video below.
Intel have announced more details of their Moorestown based work with LG. The GW990 should be available in Q3 2010 and will run Moblin 2.1 for handhelds. More details on MIDMoves
Intel Moorestown platform with HD 720p encoding and 1080p decoding.
5mp cam (ingle led flash)
1850mah (single cell I assume) battery
A-GPS
Compass
HSDPA/HSUPA
Q3 availability
We’ll be at MWC where Intel are almost certainly going to show more Moorestown devices. Nokia were mentioned in the keynote so maybe we’ll see an Intel Nokia smartphone.
I had a stroke of luck this morning as I was waiting for Sascha from Netbooknews to do a video of an LG netbook today, I wandered across the booth to look at the smartphones and there it was. The LG GW990 built on Intel’s Moorestown platform. Intel’s first ever phone. (Announced back in Feb) The display included some specifications so I’ve listed those below.
At the Intel keynote a few hours later, the GW990 appeared again along with a note from Paul Otellini that not only LG are partnering on Moorestown but Nokia are too. I’ll just say that again. Nokia are partnering with Intel with the Moorestown platform. This is significant.
Finally, after the keynote, we managed to get hands on with a live demo. Here’s the video which, according to Intel, was the worlds first public demo.
We were all impressed with the UI transitions and smoothness of the Mobiln 2.1 for handhelds but questions remain about the web experience (we assume it will continue with a Mozilla based browser) and general usage in terms of phone, connectivity and a million other aspects but this is a fantastic first outing for an Intel smartphone.
Specifications confirmed:
Intel Moorestown platform with HD 720p encoding and 1080p decoding.
5mp cam (ingle led flash)
1850mah (single cell I assume) battery
A-GPS
Compass
HSDPA/HSUPA
Q3 availability
Unconfirmed:
1024×480 resolution
My guess right now is that we will see a lot more of this, and other Moorestown devices, at MWC in Feb.
As CPU and chipset power consumption becomes less and less in phone and MID designs, the power drains of the displays, radio, peripherals and storage technology become more and more significant. One of the biggest issues, display backlighting, has been something that many people have been working on for a long time. In current high-brightness UMPCs and MIDs the screens can take up to 50% of the total power of the devices, which is exactly the scenario you’re in when you’re mobile.
LG will be tackling this issue on their Moorestown phone in 2010 by using a reflective, bi-stable technology from Mirasol Displays, a subsiduary of Qualcomm. It’s complex and vastly different from current backlit screen technologies but I can summarise by saying that it takes a lot less power, provides much more effective outdoor brightness and, due to it’s transflective nature, is easier on the eye. The method used is known as Interferometric MODulation (IMOD.)
Mirasol IMOD Structure
There are some white papers and overviews on the Mirasol website which I have been through to try and get a feel for the power savings and although there aren’t any real figures given (obviously it depends on the size of the display) my gut feeling here is that in 3-5″ devices in bright room conditions, it could save 0.5 – 1W which will be extremely significant in the LG device which may only have a 2-3W profile. If you want to get a feel for the technology, take a look at this PDF which alludes to newspaper reading quality in terms of contrast and reflectivity. There’s also a very good video presentation here which the problems of traditional backlit displays and the ‘on-time’ that I’ve been highlighting recently.
It appears that current Mirasol products are currently quite small in size and obviously the technology is going to be more expensive so we might see this used as a secondary or external display (as in the two screen Nokia E90 design) but with 12-18 months to go before the product needs to be ready, Mirasol may be able to get a full 800×480 screen out.
