tablet

Asus hears you, lets you unlock the bootloader of the Transformer Prime TF201

Asus follows suit of HTC and provides a tool that unlocks the bootloader of the Transformer Prime. The procedure is not all daisies, though, the downsides are worth considering if you aren’t a hundred-percent sure of what you’re doing.

The new unlock tool is available to those customers who run Ice Cream Sandwich on their tablets, downloadable here (select Android, Utilities).

The bootloader unlock utility is tailored to those who want to take full control over their Transformer Prime. By removing the lock, you can install custom ROMs, different versions of Android or any operating system that runs on the tf201. Since the development had been shunted by the locked bootloader, there aren’t many customizations you can apply to your tablet just yet. If there is going to be a new ROMs coming, it will be announced on the XDA forums.

Please note that removing the lock with the tool provided by Asus voids warranty, shuts you out of further official software updates, not to mention the mysterious sounding warning at the end of the first paragraph of legalese, “your purchased digital content may also be affected.”

via hexus.net

Samsung Galaxy Note notable reviews and ‘Start Here’ center

These are the Samsung Galaxy Note reviews you’ll ever want to read, watch or listen to. By the time you finish reading and watching all these videos and reviews, you’ll be the local expert on all things Galaxy Note. That’s bound to be enough to decide whether you want to go hands-on on the phablet or not.

Let’s dig in!

Video Reviews and other kinds of eye-candy

Looking for a quick in-and-out video review of the Galaxy Note? Los Angeles times gets it right in just 2.5 minutes. The video covers enough to push you off the fence.

Fell in Samsung’s backyard? Then set aside half an hour for this video review. You can sort of listen to it in the background if you don’t actually have 30 minutes to watch it. For the impatient: Browsing capabilities shown starting at 22 minutes. With a phablet this big, all that counts is browsing, right?

You just can’t wait to see what gaming is like on the Samsung Note, can you? Oh, you can… Okay. Anyway, this video takes you through a few popular Android games.

Would you read instead?

Dominating first impressions of the Galaxy Note’s smartphone/tablet bridging form is its monstrous and vibrant 5.3-inch 1280 x 800p HD Super AMOLED display.

T3′s Luke Johnson gives a rather favorable quick glance. There is no need for anything else than his review to know if you’ll dip more than your big toe in the pool.

[...] you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I consider the Note more of a shrunken-down tablet than an outsized phone, in spite of its ability to take calls.

The Verge delivers on pictures, digs elbow deep into the guts of the software and generally leaves no stone unturned. I absolutely love reading their pieces, this Samsung Galaxy Note (AT&T LTE) review is no exception.

Data, Hacks, ROMs and Tricks

You want to know everything, eh? Alright then.

Official technical specifications here, the unofficial wiki provides even more information. More, in fact, than any normal human being can do anything with.

Lesser known features, tricks in video format for budding Note wizards.

Samsung Galaxy Note N7000 User Manual (all 192 pages of the PDF) for those looking for some obscure tidbit of information.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

Asus Transformer TF101 Ice Cream Sandwich release date pushed back, reason unknown

Asus promised to crank up the original Asus Transformers to Ice Cream Sandwich mid-February. It’s the middle of February, yet the company only delivered an announcement regarding the delay.

“We are informed that the ICS upgrade for TF101 will be ready within the Feb/March 2012 period. You will be able to receive the upgrade notification via FOTA once we have a confirmation date.”

announced ASUS Singapore on Facebook yesterday.

It is unclear why the company decided to push the new update back. I personally like to think that the quality assurance team is behind the decision.

A reasonably bug-free release a month from now is undoubtedly better than a hasty patch swung at customers this week. Transformer Prime owners might concur.

update: Asus transformer ice cream sandwich release date confirmed to be 24th of February for US customers.

via BGR

BlackBerry Playbook OS 2.0 to come on the 21st of February

Even BlackBerry fans agree that Playbook has missing features. Since hardware-wise the tablet wasn’t bad enough to warrant the ‘faceplant grade’ reception, one can only guess what the main reason was for such a tragic launch. The starting price of $499 must have pushed a number of would-be-customers off the fence, the rest ran away when they saw the non-iOS, non-Android, non-Windows operating system.

Despite the disappointing appearance the tablet has made, there are approximately 5 to 700,000 Blackberry Playbooks out there, a customer-base RIM prefers not to scare away if given the choice. Hence this coming major software update.

The new release brings anticipated features such as native e-mail, contacts and calendar apps. BBM — easily the most used app on any RIM device — have not made it into 2.0. It remains accessible through the reworked Blackberry Bridge 2.0.

Arguably the most interesting (while not necessarily the most useful) feature Bridge 2.0 brings is the remote control. With it you can turn your touch-screen capable BlackBerry smartphone into a trackpad and a thumb-operated keyboard for the tablet.

The new operating system is scheduled to arrive as a download on the 21st of February.

Below you can watch IntoMobile’s video on the new features in Playbook OS 2 as presented by a RIM employee.

With the new polished software, one almost regrets not picking up a Playbook when it was on sale for $199…

via n4bb.com

Samsung announces a 7-inch tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich for the value segment

Samsung announces a 7-inch tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich for the value segment

Samsung seems to have launched an all-out maneuver to take over as many target audiences with its Android-based tablets as it can. It was only a week ago when the Galaxy Tab 7.7 stirred the still-water with a hefty $600 tag and top-of-the-line features.

Not many people I know would pay $600 for a 7.7″ tablet. Those still looking for a tablet built by Samsung now have another Android-based option to go for. And this one hits a considerably smaller hole in their wallets. Samsung has not released exact figures yet, but the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is expected to come under price range the iPad defines, which is the higher of the two categories manufacturers aim for today. The other one — $200 — is the territory of the Amazon tablet. I’m fairly certain hardware components used in the Galaxy Tab 2 won’t let Samsung go for it.

Speaking of which.

Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) comes fitted with a 7-inch 1024×600 PLS TFT screen. PLS is a TFT technology Samsung developed to achieve wider viewing angles than TN, while still on the budget. The operating system is Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 — Samsung’s first tablet to ever have it –, running on a 1.0 GHz dual-core CPU. There are three flash storage options known : 8/16/32 GB, but a microSDHC card reader slot lets you extend it with a maximum of another 32GB.

If I had to find the feature that suffers the most from the low price, I’d say it’s the 3 Megapixel back-facing camera. Although megapixels still aren’t everything, 3MP is probably less than you should expect from any mobile device making its appearance in 2012. Maybe it won’t break the deal, as very few people actually use their tablets to take photos on a regular basis.

Samsung will sell Wi-Fi only and 3G enabled devices, of which the latter supports up to 21Mbps on HSPA+ where the provider offers it.

via intomobile.com
photo from androidcommunity.com

Toshiba Excite X10 Lands in the U.S. in Early 2012, Changes Name to AT200 and Goes to the U.K. in February

Toshiba Excite X10 Lands in the U.S. in Early 2012, Changes Name to AT200 and Goes to the U.K. in February

Toshiba is on the roll today. Satellite U840 arrived without much fanfare earlier, now the manufacturer announces they’re taking over the tablet market in the UK with Excite X10 renamed to AT200. Android tablet market, that is.

Hardware-wise the device looks decent, if not promising. A 1.2 GHz Texas Instrument ARM chip keeps up with the tasks at hand. Screen resolution remains 1280 x 800 stretched over 10.1″. Toshiba included 1GB of operating RAM for smooth running.

Flash storage capacity starts at 16GB and goes all the way up to twice that in all of one step.

Photographers won’t pick it up just for the back-facing camera, everyone else will do fine with the 5MP sensor. 1.3MP looks forward to when you want to video chat.

There is nothing to really hate about the hardware setup and the chassis isn’t likely to ruin the chances of the tablet either. Brushed metal all around, with a flat bottom. I like it quite a lot, regardless the fact that the whole thing is just 7.7mm thick. Thin or not, I like the way it looks.

Only if Toshiba didn’t settle with Honeycomb for the operating system. Ice Cream Sandwich has been available for months and should have been used accordingly. Toshiba expects to roll out an ICS update shortly. With the track record of certain manufacturers that actively endorse and make use of Android, I wouldn’t bet a significant amount on it coming as if it was a top priority.

Pricing roughly follows that of the iPad 2, getting your mind off of £399 for the 16GB version, helping you out by putting £449 to good use for the 32GB model.

That said, the tablet still looks fun to use with enough horsepower to get you through the day. Or Breaking Bad episode.

Whichever comes first.

Interested? Good.

via the ever so super The Verge.
Photo courtesy of tweakers.net. Thank You!

7-inch Spark Linux Tablet – Insert Witty Amazon Kindle Fire Related Joke Here

7-inch Spark Linux Tablet – Insert Witty Amazon Kindle Fire Related Joke Here

- What runs a Linux distribution that isn’t Android and measures 7 Inches?
- Spark.

Not funny? Well, that’s what you get for even thinking about using a custom-cooked Linux distribution on your tablet computer, punk!

On the other hand, creators of the Spark don’t seem to have a problem with that, which is exactly why they’re elbow deep in the process of releasing a Linux-powered tablet.

The rig is a 7-inch capacitive touch screen measuring 800 and 480 in the important dimensions. Behind that hides 512MB of RAM for muscle, 4GB flash for storage. Of course it’s got Wi-Fi. 3G didn’t make it to the handheld, but it is going to be added along with GPS in a future release.

The device depends on a Mali 400 GPU and a 1GHz Cortex-A9 ARM CPU to run the show. You aren’t seeing things if you find the combination somewhat familiar. Computer-on-a-stick (Cotton candy for the Discworld-impaired) sports the same hardware. So does the Samsung Galaxy S II. Apart from the fact that the Spark is clocked 200 MHz below those.

And what’s the show it runs? Linux. A MeeGo spinoff, Mer + KDE Plasma Active, to be precise. Out of the box it does not run Android apps, but the curious, yet highly-advanced geek that you are will find a way to weld an Android distro on it and do it anyway.

The default operating system goes something like this:

The asking price reportedly stays at the very wallet- and customer-friendly $265 / €200 / £165. Expected time of delivery for the first batch is May at the moment, but pre-orders start in February.

via Liliputing, photo via zockah.de

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