Thursday, July 26, 2012

Android and Me

Android and Me

Google’s Nexus Q now in stock, no shortages expected

Posted: 25 Jul 2012 09:23 AM PDT

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This week Google started selling their Nexus Q, the “first social streaming media player”, for $299 and they expects orders to start shipping in 2-3 weeks. Google’s Nexus 7 tablet has been a massive hit and retailers have had trouble keeping it in stock, but don’t expect that problem with the Nexus Q.

I was provided with a review unit of the Nexus Q when I attended Google IO and it’s one of the most confusing Android products I have ever tested. It is not confusing to operate, but I am baffled trying to understand who is going to purchase this product.

The Nexus Q streams media from Google Play and YouTube, and that’s about it. The same tasks can be accomplished with a $99 Google TV box, which also includes a ton of additional features like Google’s Chrome browser with Adobe Flash Player, on-demand gaming with OnLive, streaming movies from Amazon and Netflix, and thousands of apps from the Google Play store.

I forced myself to use the Nexus Q for a couple of days and I was extremely disappointed with the experience. Streaming a movie was nearly unwatchable because it kept skipping and buffering, and it was annoying to have to switch inputs on my entertainment system. It didn’t take long for me to return to my Google TV, and then I boxed up the Nexus Q to give it to my brother Clark.

Surely someone will purchase the Nexus Q and eventually tell me they love it, but I see no reason to recommend the device in its current state to any of my friends. If you plan to purchase the Nexus Q, please tell us why in the comments below.

Qualcomm again shows off quad-core CPU, expected in devices later this year

Posted: 25 Jul 2012 08:57 AM PDT

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If you want to see what kind of power future Android devices will be packing, check out these latest benchmark scores from Qualcomm’s upcoming quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro. Qualcomm invited us to check out their new tablet mobile development platform featuring the upcoming APQ8064 chip, but we were unable to make it. Thankfully Anand Shimpi and Brian Klug of Anandtech were on hand to run the device through its paces.

The Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064) is very similar to the Snapdragon S4 found in the US versions of the HTC One series and Samsung Galaxy S III, but it features four Krait CPU cores instead of two and it includes the newer Adreno 320 GPU.

After testing the new Snapdragon S4 Pro Anand wrote, “Overall Adreno 320 looks to be a good step forward in performance, although still a bit slower than the latest and greatest from Imagination Technologies [found in the new iPad]. Compared to what everyone else is shipping in Android based tablets/smartphones however, Adreno 320 is easily the new king of the hill.”

Considering these are early benchmarks on development hardware, the results are looking pretty good for Qualcomm. Graphics performance appears to have doubled from the Adreno 225 found in the current Snapdragon S4, and in GLBenchmark it was found to be “72% faster than NVIDIA’s fastest Tegra 3.”

Qualcomm and Bsquare also announced that the new Mobile Development Platform (MDP/T) for Android tablets based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro Processor is now available for developers to purchase for $1,299.

Several handset makers including HTC and LG are rumored to be working on smartphones that will feature the Snapdragon S4 Pro, but most of the details are still a mystery. However, we still expect to see some devices with Qualcomm’s new quad-core CPU in stores by the end of the year.

The latest generation of mobile chips is already good enough for the current apps and games, so it will be interesting to see what kinds of new experiences the handset makers will enable. Qualcomm seems to think that augmented reality apps will start to gain popularity, and I think the faster GPUs will enable mobile devices to drive higher resolution displays.

What kinds of experiences would you like to see with the next wave of faster mobile processors?

HTC Era 42 rumor morphs into the HTC One X+, heading to T-Mobile this fall

Posted: 25 Jul 2012 07:24 AM PDT

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It’s been a few months since Taylor posted a rumor about the Tegra 3 powered  HTC One X heading to T-Mobile. Since then, there’s been nothing but silence, but a new report out of TmoNews may finally prove that HTC and T-Mobile are prepping to launch the device later this fall.

Based on what we can gather, the HTC Era 42 device reference which showed up in a leaked T-Mobile inventory system is actually a device which will launch as the HTC One X+. Specs and software are still a mystery at this point, but we have a feeling the plus may be a lot more than a differentiator to distinguish T-Mobile’s HTC One X from AT&T’s variant.

According to the original T-Mobile HTC One X rumor, the handset will launch with stock Android rather than HTC’s Sense UI. Another plausible reason for the plus is that the HTC One X+ could be the first device to be powered by Qualcomm’s new quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 processor or even the 1.7 GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3+ . Unfortunately, we do not have any evidence to back that up, but we do know that Qualcomm and NVIDIA are expecting commercial devices powered by their new chips to hit the market later this year.

What are your thoughts on the new HTC Era 42/HTC One X+ news? What do you think the plus stands for?

Pebble smartwatch will not ship in September as planned

Posted: 25 Jul 2012 06:13 AM PDT

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With close to 70,000 backers and over $10 million raised, the Pebble smartwatch is one of the most anticipated projects in Kickstarter’s history. The founders originally planned to send out orders for the device in September, but the demand was so overwhelming that they have now announced they won’t be able to start shipping on time.

Before they launched on Kickstarter, Pebble only planned to manufacture 1,000 units. Now they are going to produce an initial run of 85,000 units, so their timetable has shifted. Pebble says they are currently in a phase called Engineering Verification, where they have engineering samples and they are evaluating each individual component. No timeframe was provided for when the first Pebble smartwatches might ship.

This could be disappointing news if you were in the market for a new smartwatch, but there are alternatives. I’ve recently been wearing the Sony SmartWatch, which can be found online for as low as $114, and I continue to be impressed with the device. It’s hard to compare it to the Pebble since that hasn’t launched yet, but Sony already has the advantage of an active developer ecosystem that has created over 100 apps.

Hopefully Pebble will update their timetable soon and let us know when the first watches will ship, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were delayed til next year.
Posted by at 7:44 AM

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