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Enspert E201 7″ Android Slate, Cheaper than the Galaxy Tab — 1GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, and Android Marketplace Access


Image 6The Enspert E201 is a 7 inch Android slate out of Korea that’s actually looking rather impressive with a 1GHz CPU, PowerVR SGX 450 GPU, and legitimate access to the Android Market, all on Android 2.2 (Froyo). It’s cheaper than the Galaxy Tab [tracking page] to boot!

We’ve got one inbound for testing and we’re looking forward to it as Chippy was impressed with a family member device, the E301, that he had a look at during CES. Here’s a rundown of the E201 specs which are looking quite right for the price of $349:

  • Android 2.2 (Froyo)
  • ARM Cortex-A8 CPU @ 1GHz
  • 512MB of RAM
  • 7 inch capacitive touchscreen @ 800×480
  • 3MP rear camera and unspecified front facing cam (likely 640×480)
  • WiFi b/g/n & Bluetooth 2.1
  • Mini-HDMI port
  • Mini-USB port
  • Full sized SD-card slot
  • 3.5mm headphone jack
  • And all the usual sensor goodies (accelerometer, GPS, manometer, ambient light sensor)

The Enspert E201 is available exclusively from Dynamism for US buyers. Their pre-sale starts on February 1st with the first shipments going out on the 15th.

As soon as we get our hands on it, we’ll run some benchmarks to see how it stacks up to the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The only places that it’s lacking at the moment seems to be in resolution department (the Galaxy Tab’s screen is 1024×600). Here’s some shots to tide you over until we can give it a thorough looking over, stay tuned:

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Today Only – Give An Android Tablet a Try On the Cheap: Augen 7″ Android Tablet for $109


augenDespite having a presence at CES, my favorite deal-a-day site, Woot.com didn’t manage to snag any of those fancy new tables that were put on display. They did however, managed to secure a stock of Augen Gentouch78 slate android devices that will let you jump into the Android game rather cheaply, but also fit snuggly into the “you get what you pay for category inch.

The biggest letdown of the Augen Gentouch78 is definitely the resistive nature of it’s 7 inch 800×480 touchscreen. You won’t have as good of an input experience as you would on a capacitive touchscreen device. Next to this, the 256MB of RAM and 800MHz don’t remotely stack up to any flagship mobile device, but you’ll be getting Android 2.1 which isn’t too shabby. Let’s also not forget to mention that apps won’t install through the Android Marketplace, despite the fact that it comes pre-installed. I’ll point you to Engadget’s review of the device before you consider this $109 purchase. And let’s not forget, Woot deals are only good for one day (or until stock runs out) and this offer will vanish at 1AM EST.

And hey, even if you aren’t interested in the Augen Gentouch78, jump over to Woot.com to read their always-witty product description for some tablet related laughs.

Linpus to release MeeGo Slate Edition in Q4


LinpusLits1 We’ve had talks with Linpus about MeeGo before but in a discussion at IDF last week we got down to some more details about the MeeGo Slate Edition and it sounds like we’ve got potential here. Remember, Linpus have supplied Acer with Linux builds in the past.

linpus apps What we know right now is that Linpus already have a MeeGo build and it’s highly likely that they will be supplying that to one of the major netbook manufacturers however their plans for Slate Edition are firm for a Q4 release and will build on MeeGo 1.1 that is due in October. Respect to Linpus for their intention to make this a publicly-available distribution. Apparently, Linpus Lite Tablet Edition will come with 7 applications too. (See right.)

What does it mean for us? Well, for N-series tablet owners (ExoPC and similar) it means you’ll get an option. Remember, the Windows 7 + overlay solution offered on some of these products will be fairly heavyweight and switching to the Atom-optimised MeeGo is likely to bring speed and battery life improvements. For Z-series owners (X70, S10 and others) this should be an option too because Linpus are developing with Oaktrail and Moorestown platforms in mind. The GMA600 on those should (no guarantees at the moment though) be backward compatible with the awkward GMA500 on these products.

The best news is that there’s a real likelihood that this will get picked up in an Oaktrail or Moorestown product and that should mean one very significant difference always-on. Oaktrail and Moorestown are built with ‘power island’ capability which can be controlled by core software in MeeGo to bring extremely low-power idle states.

Linpus won’t be the only conmpany working on a touch-enabled MeeGo core but It looks like Linpus are in a good position to be able to step ahead of the rest if they can get this running on an Oaktrail or Moorestown product.

P.S. Don’t forget that AppUp will be compatible with this too so if that takes off, Linpus could be on to a winner.

We’ll be getting updates from Linpus when they happen so stay tuned.

Linpus Lite, MeeGo and Slate Edition (video)


IMG_3506

Linpus are working on Linpus Lite Slate Edition and, in-line with Intel Moorestown and Oak Trail-based products, is planned for tablet PC’s of 2011. We took some time to speak to Linpus about Lite and MeeGo too.

Linpus Lite appears on Acer Netbooks and is expected to be the distribution that will appear on Acers’s MeeGo netbooks.

The video was shot just before the Intel keynote in which the MeeGo tablet UI was announced.

Viliv X10 Android Slate at Computex, 10” with a 1366×768 Capacitive Screen


viliv x10 Viliv is showing off a new product, the X10, at Computex. LaptopMag got their hands on the X10 for a short while and sound rather excited about it, calling it a potential “incredible iPad alternative”.

The X10 is your familiar slate form-factor and has a 10” capacitive touchscreen running at 1366×768. Avram Piltch of LaptopMag points out that the 1366×768 screen size is a 16:9 aspect ratio, meaning it’ll be better shaped and more detailed for your widescreen movie collection than the iPad’s 1024×768 screen which is 4:3 and is subsequently quite poor for widescreen movie viewing.

No word on exactly what is powering the X10, though it was shown playing smooth 720p playback, and Viliv says it’ll do 1080p as well – this could be Tegra 2 hardware. 1080p playback would be pointless on the X10’s 1366×768 screen if it weren’t for it’s HDMI out port. Along for the ride is an SD card slot, USB slot, and front facing webcam as well. Piltch reports that the device is running Android 2.1 at the moment, but that it’ll be running 2.2 by launch, according to Viliv. The unit shown had WiFi, but there will purportedly be a 3G option. Battery life is being quoted as on par with the iPad at 10 hours – Viliv has been pretty good about keeping their battery figures realistic in the past.

Be sure to jump over to LaptopMag’s site for more images and two videos of the device.

No word on pricing or availability at this time.

7″ Acer Android Slate with Keyboard and 3G


David Flynn of APCmag.com in Australia has uncovered an interesting device whilst at Acer’s Source Home conference in Beijing. The as-yet unnamed tablet devices is running Google’s Android operating system and sports a full QWERTY keyboard and embedded 3G.

APCmag qouted Acers CEO and president Gianfranco Lanci as saying the device should arrive in Q4 of these year. Lanci also states that although the tablet is similar to the iPad  “We are not convinced that 10 inches is the right size for this type of device. It becomes too close to a netbook in size, and why should it not be a netbook with full PC capability? inch

The device will have Acer’s own user interface and be used primarily for “books, music and videos, browsing the internet, email and chatting inch Lanci says, he goes on to say that “Android is very good in terms of Internet browsing and connectivity. You can run it on an ARM processor at a certain speed and Android is light enough not to overload the CPU inch.

 

Further details are slim at the moment but from what I can tell it looks like it could make an excellent ebook reader. We’ll be keeping a look out for this at Computex next week.

via APCmag.com

Dell, Archos, BT, Sharp, Smart Devices and Huawei in Internet Device News-Rush!


Not one, not two and not even three items of internet device news to update you on today. I’ve got no less than five news items here!

Lets start with Dell who’s leader, Mr. Dell, has provided an update on the Mini 5. According to reports, he’s let it be know that the Dell Mini 5 is coming to Telefonica O2 in June and to AT&T in the summer. The source article from EWeek is littered with incorrect information but the important info is that it is very close. Telefonica O2 operate in Spain (where they are launching the Android-powered Compaq Airlife 100 and have a big presence in Germany and UK amongst other countries where they have proven to be quite the progressive carrier in terms of advanced internet devices. Low data prices and multi-SIM options should really help the Dell Mini 5 to get off the ground. I’m expecting a 500 Euro SIM-free price but as yet, we have no real pricing indication.

While the Dell looks to provide the complete Google and voice experience, that’s not the case with the Archos 7 Home Tablet that has just been reviewed by Engadget’s Joanna Stern. At under 200 Euro it’s not quite targeted at the same usage model too. I’m encouraged to hear Joanna talk about a useful form factor but it seems to have been wasted somewhat because there’s no auto, or even manual rotation into portrait mode. Battery life looks good but as we’d expect with an ARM9-powered device, performance is not stunning. Here’s an educated guess you’ll be waiting three times as long for a web page to load compared to the iPad. Casual mobile web browsing, Google Reader and eBooks, video payback, photo viewing, podcast-catching and maybe even a little bit of casual gaming will be possible though and if you can add a portable keyboard, it would make a perfect emergency or travel device. Engadget Review

Lets turn to a device that might be a little more difficult to get hold of now. It’s the very interesting Sharp IS01 clamshell-style, 5 inch Android device. Like the Archos 7 above, it doesn’t have the Google Marketplace so Sharp are trying to seed some applications through their own SDK and a preview version of the device. The final version of the IS01 was due later in the year.

Pocketables have news today that not only is the SDK version ready but the final product will ship much sooner than expected. As soon as next month. While the device is targeted at the Japanese KDDI network, it is possible that some unlocked versions get through as imports and if that happens it will be great to be able to try a high-powered clamshell design using Android.

huawei-smakit-s7-live-13 A device that has completely slipped us by here at Carrypad is something I’m imagining the Archos Gen 8 devices (due summer 2010) will look like. Clearly focused on home media and having a very interesting docking station, 3G and what looks like a capacitive screen, the Huawei Smakit s7 could be competition for the Dell Looking Glass. I’m assuming that Huawei are looking for customers for this though so it’s unlikely that we’ll see it soon but we’ll keep it high on the list as we cruise Computex in June.

BT have announced that they are getting into the home tablet game. The UK-based company broke the news at their strategy day. Apparently the device will be able to take calls, sms’ and will show weather and perform other functions. It will be smaller than the iPad and bigger than an iPhone. To us, it sounds like BT might have lined up to take the Intel Moorestown-powered Open Peek OpenTablet. Watch and wait.

OpenTablet7_593x428

Finally today, I want to highlight that the SmartQ V7, a slightly more powerful version of the Smart Q7 I reviewed,  is about to be launched in Android 2.1 form. Android has been running on the device via firmware updates for a while now but a new Android 2.1 release is due soon. The device, an ARM11-based tablet with a 7 inch resistive touchscreen, should be available in the next few weeks from Eletroworld priced at $230. Expect a similar experience to the Archos 7 Home Tablet although there’s potential for some nice hacks from the busy Smart Q7 community. We should be getting one for review soon after they become available.

That’s it for now. Hope it gives you something to think about at the weekend. Let us know if you have any thoughts on the above.

Neofonie WePad Gets Shown off for Real [video]


wepad Last time we saw something about Neofonie’s WePad slate [product page], all we got to see was an emulated version of the interface. According to netbooknews.com, “Neofine finally got sick of hearing how its product didn’t work and provided a working sample inch. And thus netbooknews has lots of footage of Neofonie showing off some actual working devices at a recent press event. Watch below as they demonstrate that giant widget filled home screen (which I absolutely despise), among other things. You’ll see that they actually have an iPad on hand to compare the device to, which is rather brave of them, though I’m not sure they’ve got me convinced (they are comparing an ARM based device to an Atom based x86 device to begin with). Also be sure to jump over to netbooknews.com for two additional videos of the WePad. Maybe now would be a good time to brush up on your German skills as well….

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