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TaiChi, Transformer Book, Zenbook Touch, Vivo Book, and Vivo Tab Revealed — Asus Windows 8 Lineup


Asus has prepared a full device assault to coincide with the launch of Windows 8. Tomorrow at 2PM EST the company will be unveiling their Windows 8 lineup at their Windows 8 touch teaser site. Though Asus is trying to tease the identity of the lineup (see icons below with no names) a quick look into the website source reveals the names of these devices: TaiChi, Transformer Book, Zenbook Touch, Vivo Book, and Vivo Tab (not that we couldn’t have guessed before!) [there’s also an AIO touchscreen desktop but that doesn’t really concern us!].

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Transformer Prime Official Page Leaks Early. Manual, Details, Source Code Revealed


The Transformer Prime is still not featured on the front page of Asus.com, and a support page hasn’t gone live yet, but if you’re sneaky, you can find the Transformer Prime’s official product page on Asus’ website.

It would appear as though the product page has gone live earlier than intended as Asus is still advertising for the original Eee Pad Transformer on the front page of their site. Additionally, the Transformer Prime micro-site still shows the “Prime is Coming” teaser text. Though we already know most of what there is to know about the Transformer Prime, the official product page gives us the first official list of specs as well a the user manual of the upcoming Tegra 3 tablet.

The launch of the official page may indicate that a Transformer Prime release date is not far off.

Don’t miss the Prime first look hands-on video from Ritchie’s Room.

Colors

We can also finally see the two colors (Champagne Gold, and Amethyst Grey) that the Transformer Prime will be available in, thanks to some new photos:

Manual

Though most of us glaze over gadget manuals, I’ve come to find that there are occasionally great tidbits to be found within. Thus, I’ve done you the courtesy of pulling out some of the good nuggets from the Transformer Prime manual so that you don’t have to.

From the manual we can see that you won’t get anything too exciting out of the box, which comes with nothing but the Transformer Prime itself, a USB charger, regional wall adapter, docking-to-USB connector, manual, and warranty card. And yes, you read that correctly — the keyboard is not included standard, it’s an accessory that will cost you $149.

The manual also tells us that the trackpad on the keyboard dock has two defined areas that will function as left and right mouse clicks. This will surely be handy for VPN applications (like the built-in ‘My Desktop’) and make the Transformer Prime even more capable of functioning like a full-blown computer:

Among other keyboard shortcuts, pressing the Fn-key along with the Up or Down arrow keys will jump to the top or bottom of a given page respectively.

We can also peek at some of the customizations that Asus has made to Honeycomb which runs on the Transformer Prime. Most interesting among the adjustments to the quick-settings panel. There is a special screen-brightness button that you can press to boost the screen-brightness for better outdoor readability. There’s also a performance toggle which can switch between Power Saving, Balanced, and Normal modes. It’s unclear whether or not these settings will impact the clock speed of the Tegra 3 hardware or simply adjust some of the system settings such as screen timeout and background app updates:

For the original Asus Eee Pad Transformer, one of the popular tweaks was to download a widget that would independently display the battery life of the tablet and the keyboard; by default the system only specified the overall battery levels. This time around, Asus is adding that funtionality out of the box. Thanks to the Asus Battery Level widget, you’ll be able to see the charge of the keyboard and the tablet without having to download any third-party applications or widgets. In addition to the widget, you’ll be able to see the battery levels on the notification bar and in the quick-settings panel.

 

If you’re curious about the supported media formats for encoding and decoding on the Transformer Prime and Tegra 3, the manual gives us full details:

  • Decoding (audio)
    • AAC LC/LTP
    • HE-AACv1 (AAC+)
    • HE-AACv2 (Enhanced AAC+)
    • AMR-NB
    • AMR-WB
    • MP3
    • FLAC
    • MIDI
    • PCM/WAVE
    • Vorbis
    • WAV a-law/mu-law
    • WAV linear PCM
    • WMA 10
    • WMA Lossless
    • WMA Pro LBR
  • Decoding (video)
    • H.263
    • H.264
    • MPEG-4
    • VC-1/WMV
    • VP8
  • Encoding (audio)
    • AAC LC/LPT
    • AMR-NB
    • AMR-WB
  • Encoding (video)
    • H.263
    • H.264
    • MPEG-4
The Transformer Prime comes with the MyLibrary app which seeks to compile all of your eBook into one place (something you’ve probably been longing for if you’re like me and have eBooks across Amazon, Google, and more). MyLibary supports ePub, PDF, and TXT and has your typical page-turning interface on a sepia background.
If you are thinking about using your Transformer Prime for enterprise work, Polaris Office is another included app which will be handy for your document editing needs. You can hook up your Google Docs or Box.net account to the app for some cloud storage action. It supports the following:

Asus is including the SuperNote app which will let you take hand-written and typed notes, completed with photos, audio recordings, and more. Without an active digitizer and stylus this seems somewhat out of place, but I suppose this will be enjoyed by those who can get along with capacitive styli.

Source Code

In the download section of the official Transformer Prime product page is a section called ‘Source Code’. This 89.9MB file is presumably the Transformer Prime’s software image, and might be useful for those hacksters over at the XDA Developer Forums.

Pricing for the Transformer Prime starts at $499 (+$149 if you want the dock) but the release date has not yet been announced.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Hands-on First Look [video]


The Transformer Prime is the first tablet to be announced with the Nvidia Tegra 3 platform, and while the price and release date have yet to be officially announced, it is likely going to be in even higher demand than it’s predecessor, the Eee Pad Transformer.

Our pal Ritchie has a detailed writeup of his hands-on experience with the Transformer Prime along with some great photos to whet your appetite of this thin and powerful device. If you’re the visual type, he’s also prepared a video summary of the Transformer Prime for your enjoyment:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0D-mXIzlKc

Ritchie says that the Super IPS+ display looks great, and this will be an upgrade over the original Transformer’s regular IPS display, while retaining the durable Gorilla Glass. Asus added a display brightness boosting function to the Transformer Prime which is intended for better viewing during outside use.

Tegra 3’s performance is also in full force; it appears as though it can handle 720p and 1080p video with no problems. That could make the Transformer Prime a great portable home-theater (thanks to the micro-HDMI port), with the only problem being the relatively weak Android codec support. I’m curious to know how well the Transformer Prime can handle software video decoding that comes along with some third-party applications.

The unit itself is slimmer and lighter than the iPad 2, and attached with the keyboard, the Transformer Prime is rated to run for 18 hours which is pretty awesome.

For more detail about the Transformer Prime, don’t miss Ritchie’s write-up.

Unless there are any unforseen issues leading up to it’s launch, the Transformer Prime is certainly setting the new bar for Android tablets, and I would go as far to say that Apple better pay attention as well. The Transformer Prime has nearly everything one could want in a tablet today except for a little Ice Cream Sandwich action.

 

Full Toshiba AT200 Specs


02092011501_2_resizedChippy just showed you how thin the AT200 is (7.7mm!) and now we’ve got full specs to share:

    • Android 3.2 Honeycomb
    • 10.1 inch capacitive LCD touchscreen @ 1280×800
    • TI OMAP 4430 CPU @ 1.2GHz
    • 1GB of RAM
    • 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera
    • Up to 64GB of in-built memory
    • Micro USB, Micro SD, Micro HDMI
    • WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth (unspecified specification), and GPS
    • Accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass), ambient light sensor
    • Stereo speakers
    • Rated for 8 hours of video playback

Nothing groundbreaking here, but this is in line with modern tablets and it is pushing the limits of thickness and weight which is sure to be appreciated by users.

Toshiba AT200: Hands-on With the World’s Thinnest and Lightest 10” Slate [video]


At IDF, Toshiba is showing off its second entry into the 10” Honeycomb slate category with the AT200, which currently holds the title of both thinnest and lightest 10” slate.

Toshiba’s first 10” Honeycomb tablet was the Thrive which went for a utility-over-style approach. The Thrive is 16mm thick and weights 725 grams, but it also offered a range of full-sized ports such as USB and HDMI.

With the AT200, Toshiba is showing that they’re just as capable as the rest when it comes to making a svelte slate. To prove it, the AT200 beats out the current champ, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in both thickness and weight.

The Tab 10.1 is 8.63mm thick which the AT200 bests by 11% at 7.7mm. For weight, the AT200 undercuts the Tab 10.1’s 564 grams by 3% at 550 grams.

Impressively, the AT200 is even thinner than the recently announced Galaxy Tab 7.7 which is in the 7” category and has a thickness of 7.89mm.

Of course, the margin for these titles is quite thin, so things could change slightly, but just enough to unseat it, by the time the unit hits production – especially when they throw 3G/4G into the mix.

Toshiba says that the AT200 will be available in a WiFi-only incarnation in December, while you’ll have to wait for sometime in Q1 2012 for a data-equipped model. Pricing is not yet official and specs are quite thin at the moment, but a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU has been confirmed so far. We’ll track down full details for you though, stay tuned!

Samsung’s Series 7 Slate PC is an UltraSlate!


image

I’m not just playing with words when I say that the newly announced Samsung Series 7 Slate is ‘ultra’ because if you look at the platform, the weight and the price you’ll see that it’s effectively an Ultrabook without the keyboard.

Engineering something like this takes even more skill than designing am Ultrabook because you’re laying the screen directly over the motherboard. That introduces some nasty thermal challenges.

For those that need the keyboard, you can leave now. For those that may not need the keyboard all the time (video editing, photo reviewing, those thinking about Windows 8 touch features, hot-deskers) this is an interesting product.

The specs include SSD, 4GB RAM, capacitive and digitiser layer, a high-brightness 1366×768 screen, quick-start, a 2lb weight and an optional dock. Starting price is $1099.

This Is My Next have some hands-on here.

[ Posted via the Galaxy Tab. Ultra-Mobile at IFA 2011. For more IFA coverage, follow me on Twitter. @Chippy ]

AndyPad Preps to Launch Two Inexpensive Android Tablets Running Android 2.3 [video]


UK company AndyPad will launch a  new line of inexpensive (but hopefully not ‘cheap’) 7″ Android tablets on August 31st. Advertised features for the pair of 7 inch slates include mini HDMI-out, a micro USB port, a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. Both pads will run the same processor, a Cortex A8 CPU listed at 1.2 GHz. The aptly named AndyPad and AndyPad Pro will also share the same Android Gingerbread 2.3 OS, WiFi, and claimed 1080p HDMI out capabilities. The lower-end AndyPad will cost £129 ($210 USD) while the AndyPad Pro is listed at £179 ($291 USD). Right now there is no mention of the AndyPad devices having official access to the Android Marketplace, though the video embedded below does show the Marketplace icon on the device. We’ve reached out to the company to confirm whether or not the device will ship with Marketplace access and are awaiting a response.

The two versions of the device differ is in size of internal storage, touchscreen technology, and cameras. 8GB of storage for the Andypad, and 16GB for the AndyPad Pro. The non-Pro unit only has a rear-facing camera, while the Pro version has both front and rear-facing cameras. The Pro unit also carries a higher resolution screen, with a 1024 X 600 “SensaTouch” (capacitive) touchscreen. The baseline AndyPad has a 800 X 600 “ResiTouch” (resistive) touchscreen. The AndyPad Pro also adds Bluetooth to the mix.

I am a user of the Dell Streak 7, which also features an 800 X 600 touchscreen. While this resolution is passable for browsing, it limits how much can be displayed on a screen when a user is trying to run a productivity application. While we realize that some users may consider productivity use-cases invalid for a 7 inch tablet with an 800 X 600 resolution in the first place, that does not keep me from trying. As far as the AndyPad Pro’s display, I have not had much hands-on time with the original Samsung Galaxy Tab, but it is, of course, also a 7″ tablet with a 1024 X 600 resolution. I have been impressed by the screen on the Galaxy Tab, so if the Andypad Pro can match it, that should count as a plus for potential buyers.

As readers can probably tell from the feature-set so far, the Pro model is targeting the adult, ultra-mobile crowd, while the base model will likely appeal more to tweens and teens. It is still a tough sale to get mainstream consumers to buy into the 7 inch form-factor when 4.5 inch smartphones are available. Still, as 10 inch tablets become more appealing, the “next-step down” effect may continue to bring 7 inchers to the stage as appealing alternatives.

NetbookNews caught wind of an official video from AndyPad showing the device in use:

These devices represent interesting things, both in terms of the implementation, and in terms of what they represent for the market. Android Tablets in this price range have a pretty poor track record for how well they perform once retail product actually hits store shelves. All my hopes are with AndyPad that they score even a mid-range hit with tablets for this price. We’ll be keeping our eye on the AndyPad(s) and see if they can stand up to some other recently announced well priced (albeit larger) devices.

Sources:

AndyPad Official Site

Android Community

GadgetFolder

GeekyGadgets

Today Only! Motorola Xoom 32GB WiFi-only for $399


woot xoomThanks to the folks over at deal-a-day site, Woot.com, you have the option of picking up the first ever Honeycomb tablet, the Motorola Xoom, for $399. This is a refurbished 32GB WiFi-only unit. The 10.1 inch tablet is running Honeycomb 3.1 (the latest version).

If you don’t mind picking up a refurbished unit, you’ll be saving yourself a cool $200 off the asking price of $599 that you’ll find for a new WiFi-only Xoom direct from Motorola. This deal even beats the device new from Amazon which would run you $499.

It is my personal opinion that Honeycomb is not yet good enough for the mainstream. If you want value in a tablet today, go buy an iPad 2. The Xoom itself is a decent bit of hardware, if a bit heavy, but the software still needs time to mature. The Android Marketplace is not yet loaded with enough Honeycomb apps to make the Xoom shine as a tablet, and the Honeycomb interface is not intuitive enough for your average user.

That said, you may not be a mainstreamer, and may be willing to put up with Honeycomb’s rough edges for the sweet customizability that is Android’s hallmark. If that’s the case, we’ve had our hands all over the Xoom; if you need some questions answered, feel free to comment below. We’ve also got some Xoom related content that might aid in your potential purchase decision (also check below for specs):

Have a look at the specs:

  • Android Honeycomb 3.1
  • Dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU @ 1GHz
  • 1GB of RAM
  • 10.1 inch capacitive multitouch screen @ 1280×800
  • Micro HDMI-out
  • MicroUSB port
  • 32GB of built-in memory
  • Rear-facing 5MP camera (capable of 720p recording)
  • Front-facing 2MP camera
  • WiFi a/b/g/n & Bluetooth 2.1
  • GPS, magnetometer, proximity sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope
  • Android Marketplace access
  • 3250 mAh battery
  • 3.5mm headphone jack
  • Adobe Flash capable
  • 249.1 x 167.8 x 12.9 mm / 9.8 x 6.6 x 0.5 inches
  • 708 grams / 25 ounces

Don’t forget that this deal be completely gone at 1AM EST, and may sell out (likely will!) before that time comes. Best of luck!

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