Friday, August 31, 2012

Android Community

Android Community


Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD with 1920 x 1200 display, quad-core coming in September

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 10:18 AM PDT

Earlier today we mentioned Huawei was busy making announcements about upcoming smartphones and tablets, and right now we have the best one of them all. It’s called the MediaPad 10 FHD and we’ve talked about it before. It was originally announced back in February and currently available in China. This full 1080p HD tablet rocks a quad-core and Ice Cream Sandwich. Oh and has a keyboard dock like the Transformer series too.

What we have here is Huawei’s version of the ASUS Transformer Pad 700 Infinity. This tablet comes complete with a 10.1-inch 1920 x 1200 full 1080p HD IPS display, a 1.4 GHz HiSilicon quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and even has an optional keyboard dock too. All of this running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Sounds impressive right? We got our first glance at this slate back at MWC so take a look at our MediaPad 10 FHD hands-on.

The MediaPad 10 FHD features an 8 megapixel autofocus rear camera that records 1080P HD videos and a 1.3 MP front-facing camera. Then you’ll get 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound and they promise around 10 hours of battery life. The entire tablet is wrapped in a brushed aluminum design, and the optional keyboard dock makes it a full out Ultrabook. It offers more battery life, USB, HDMI, and even VGA out.

The MediaPad 10 FHD W-Fi tablet is available now in China, and Huawei will be launching both the WiFi and a 3G/4G LTE version in September although pricing and final details have yet to be announced.

Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : MediaPad 10 FHD
    Manufactuer : Huawei
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : February 27, 2012
    Release Date : TBA
    Also Known As : S10-101u
Display
  • Screen Size : 10.1 Inch
  • Resolution : 1920x1200
  • Screen Type : IPS LCD
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : NA
  • Width : NA
  • Depth : NA
  • Weight : 598 Grams
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Ion
  • Battery Capacity : mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : NA
Software
    Android OS:
  • 4.0.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AAC+
  • AMR
  • MID
  • MP3
  • WAV
  • WMA
    Video Playback:
  • h.263
  • h.264 / AVC
  • 3GP
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
  • WMV
    Messaging:
  • SMS
  • MMS
  • IM
Hardware
    CPU : K3V2
    CPU Clock Speed : 1500 Mhz
    Core : 4
    Ram : 2000 MB
    Internal Storage : 8 GB
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 8 MP
    External Storage:
  • MicroSD
  • MicroSDHC
    Camera Features:
  • Auto focus
  • Flash
  • 1080p Video Recording
  • 720p Video Recording
    Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Ambient light
  • Proximity
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
    Network Technology:
  • GSM
    GSM Band:
  • 850
  • 900
  • 1800
  • 1900
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Bluetooth:
  • Bluetooth 3.0
  • A2DP
    Location Features:
  • Compass
  • GPS
  • Cellular location
  • Wi-Fi location
    FM Radio :
    NFC :


Huawei Ascend G600 announced: 4.5 IPS display and Ice Cream Sandwich

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 09:54 AM PDT

Huawei just made a large set of announcements today to go along with a few product releases in Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2012. One being their brand new smartphone to grace their popular and growing Ascend line. Meet the Ascend G600 with its large 4.5-inch IPS display and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Huawei calls the 4.5-inch screen a “mega screen” but sadly the resolution is 960 x 540 qHD, as we were hoping for an HD display. Running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with a little UI overlay from Huawei the G600 features a 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm S3 processor, 768MB of RAM, and 4GB internal storage. It isn’t quite as powerful as some, but sounds rather impressive and should be aggressively priced.

You’ll get an 8 megapixel camera on the rear with a BSI sensor for auto focus, and dual speakers for DTS surround sound is on board too. The G600 has Huawei’s new battery technology inside its 1930mAh battery. Which is said to take only 4 hours to fully charge (seems long) and the phone offers quick boot mode to completely start in just 5 seconds.

"We are very excited to introduce the new HUAWEI Ascend G600, which gives more functionality and power for people who expect more from their technology," said Shao Yang, Chief Marketing Officer, Huawei Device. "Building on the success of the Ascend range of smartphones, the HUAWEI Ascend G600 is the latest in our range of flagship products that make exceptional product experiences accessible for more people globally."

Other specs include a front facing VGA camera, micro-SD support, micro-USB, full NFC capabilities, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth and DLNA. The all new Ascend G600 will be available in both black and white color options starting in mid September. Pricing details have yet to be announced.


Personalized “Recommended For You” app section hits the Google Play Store

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 09:21 AM PDT

Hey, that’s new! Yesterday Google rolled out another neat new feature for their ever growing, expanding, and maturing Play Store for Android. They’ve been busy with it as of late but today we now have a “Recommended For You” app section that should help with app discovery. It’s a welcomed change so lets take a look.

Now how this exactly works and its algorithm isn’t completely known but Google’s been giving personalized results in the Web Store for a while already. Add in their knowledge of search and you get some seriously impressive results. The Recommended for me list was so accurate it was almost scary.

To see this yourself just go to the Google Play Store and hit the Apps tag, then slide over to featured and you’ll see it. Once expanded the Recommended For You will have a huge list of apps based on your previous downloads or searches, it shows things similar users have downloaded, apps friends from Google+ have +1′d, and even apps local to you. It’s so accurate I was pretty amazed.

This is app discovery at its finest. This has been a growing issue with the hundreds of thousands of Apps in the Play Store and this appears to be an excellent first move by Google. So far I haven’t found anything that blew my mind, but looking through the list was quite entertaining. If the app is of no interest, just clear it by hitting the little “no” symbol. Sadly it shows lots of apps I’ve uninstalled previously, as well as currently installed apps. If those would be hidden with a smarter system and Google let me filter recommendations by paid/free then I’d be completely happy. Check it out yourself guys!


Samsung plays offense, will sue Apple if they release an LTE iPhone

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 04:45 PM PDT

Just when we thought it was almost over, we realize the party has only just started. New reports today are clearly stating that while Samsung might have lost the battle, in the end they’ll win the war. According to the Korean Times Samsung holds just over 10% of all 4G LTE (long term evolution) patents and is prepared to play some offense of their own in the courtroom.

What we are now hearing is that Samsung is basically saying “We dare you” to release a 4G LTE iPhone — which is rumored to be a part of the next iPhone launch — and once they do Samsung will sue the pants off of them and go into full revenge/attack mode. The iPad currently has LTE, yes, but Samsung has been waiting for a much bigger fish and that is Apple’s bread and butter – the iPhone.

Sadly just this afternoon a story came out regarding Apple and Google themselves having private discussions to end these drawn out and angry patent lawsuits — but it appears that Samsung wants nothing to do with that. Obviously these reports can’t be confirmed at this time but we are hearing some reliable information is at hand regarding this.

This is actually a very interesting development in this entire story. If Apple does launch an LTE iPhone (which is pretty likely) they’ll quickly be rounding up the troops once more and headed to court. Samsung will no doubt seek an immediate product injunction and ban from the US, and probably multiple other countries as their patents are very wide. Now obviously Apple needs to release an iPhone 5 with 4G LTE as that is something consumers are basically demanding these days. If they do they will get sued, and if they don’t then people will jump for the Android LTE options available.

The new iPhone should be announced sometime in mid September so we’ll all know soon enough. Will this ever end?


Apple and Google CEOs start private patent settlement talks

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 04:26 PM PDT

A largely talked about report came out of Reuters today regarding the recent lawsuit and patent issues between Apple and well, the rest of Android. Today we are hearing that Apple and Google’s CEOs Tim Cook and Larry Page have begun a set of patent settlements talks by themselves and in private.

Apparently all of these outstanding patent issues are beginning to be a burden for both parties (duh) and apparently private phone calls between both big shots have begun. There was mention that Larry Page and Tim Cook had a conversation earlier this week in private to try and seek a solution, and they have more phone calls scheduled for the future.

These talks have covered a range of intellectual property matters, including the ongoing mobile patent disputes between Apple and Android OEM's just to name a few — and we’re sure that isn’t the only thing either. I wonder if they talked about the weather or any small talk or if it was all big guns. Obviously the recently massive win by Apple at the expensive of Samsung was probably a hotly talked about topic.

We all know the late Steve Jobs had some serious issues with Android and was cited several times calling it a "stolen product," and he’d use every penny of Apple’s to “destroy Android.” And don’t even get me started on his blown up comments about "going thermonuclear war on this." The current state of Apple and Google’s relationship is unknown at this point. Especially after they removed Google Maps in favor of their own, and have recently ended the license with Google for a YouTube iOS app. While for now these reports don’t have any additional details it is extremely encouraging to hear they are at least attempting to settle things in a simple manor. The next discussions between both CEOs was slated for Friday but was apparently canceled due to scheduling conflicts.

Do you guys expect anything positive from these talks? Or will we just hear reports such as this while the lawsuits and lawyers continue their game? Let us know what you think in the comments below.


Lenovo IdeaTab S2110 and keyboard dock hands-on

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 03:59 PM PDT

Lenovo announced and brought a trio of new and improved Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tablets to IFA 2012 here in Berlin, Germany, and today we’re taking a look at the fanciest of them all. This is the IdeaTab S2110 and has had a few changes since we first saw it earlier this year. This tablet hybrid just like many recent Transformer tablets comes with a keyboard dock for added usage and battery life. Check it out below.

Lenovo first introduced this Transformer-like tablet back at CES but it never made it to market. It looks like they’ve managed to improve the build quality, design, and internals all in one fair swoop to make this a much better product. So what about those specs you ask? Lets take a look shall we.

The Lenovo IdeaTab S2110 comes with a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 resolution IPS HD display, and then where things differ from most tablets is the CPU. No Tegra 2 or 3 here and instead rocks the same 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 as many popular 4G LTE smartphones as of late. Then we have 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, dual cameras and of course SD and HDMI ports for additional options.

Sadly according to the folks on the ground the aluminum-like plastic design isn’t quite as nice as it looks, and it was a little quirky here and there. On the other hand the Transformer-esque keyboard dock did have a good feel with the chicklit style keyboard and provides an additional 10 hours of battery life to the currently rated 10 hours the tablet already gets. That makes for over 20 hours of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich goodness.

Lenovo does offer their own App Shop with custom business friendly applications, and now they offer their own alternative to the Transformer series. If this is the device for you over the similarly priced yet more powerful Transformer TF300 — that is up to you. Starting today the new Lenovo IdeaTab S2110 is available for just $399, and then you can add that optional keyboard for another $100.

3T8A2390-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2386-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2377-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2367-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2357-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2349-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2332-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2328-lenovo-ifa-2012
Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : IdeaTab S2 10
    Manufactuer : Lenovo
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : January 08, 2012
    Release Date : TBA
    Also Known As :
Display
  • Screen Size : 10.1 Inch
  • Resolution : 1280x800
  • Screen Type : IPS LCD
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : NA
  • Width : NA
  • Depth : NA
  • Weight : 580 Grams
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Ion
  • Battery Capacity : mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : NA
Software
    Android OS:
  • 4.0.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AAC+
  • AMR
  • MID
  • MP3
  • WAV
  • WMA
    Video Playback:
  • h.263
  • h.264 / AVC
  • 3GP
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
  • WMV
    Messaging:
  • IM
Hardware
    CPU : MSM8960
    CPU Clock Speed : 1500 Mhz
    Core : 2
    Ram : 1000 MB
    Internal Storage : 32 GB
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 5 MP
    External Storage:
  • MicroSD
  • MicroSDHC
    Camera Features:
  • Auto focus
  • Flash
    Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Ambient light
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
    Network Technology:
  • GSM
    GSM Band:
  • 850
  • 900
  • 1800
  • 1900
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Bluetooth:
  • Bluetooth 2.0
  • A2DP
    Location Features:
  • Compass
  • GPS
  • Cellular location
  • Wi-Fi location
    FM Radio :
    NFC :


Lenovo IdeaTab A2109 and A2107 hands-on

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 02:20 PM PDT

In the early morning hours Lenovo announced a slew of new and improved Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tablets they’ll be bringing to the market, and now we managed a few minutes to test them out. The A2109 is clearly a great tablet considering the price and quad-core Tegra 3 but lets go over all the details and hands-on pictures after the break shall we.

The Nexus 7 made it a hard life for a cheap Android tablet these days — but can the A2109 deliver? We think it can. The IdeaTab A2109 is actually available as we speak over at Best Buy, so after seeing a few pictures you might want to run down and pick one up. The A2109 consists of a 9-inch 1280 x 800 HD resolution display (perfect size almost) with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and more all for just $299. Then the smaller brother the A2107 was out and about but sadly it only gets a dual-core processor. Our sister site SlashGear got all the details.

The A2109 also consists of micro-SD for extra storage, HDMI-out options and and front and rear facing camera. You get everything and more that the Nexus 7 offers for just a few more bucks. Only different here is Lenovo of course, and you don’t have Jelly Bean or the all important “Nexus” name. Now lets take a loot at the smaller tablet.

The IdeaTab A2107 comes with a 1280 x 720p HD display of 7-inches, but sadly they dropped the Tegra 3 in favor of a dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP 4 processor. You’ll still get 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage but that makes this already lose out to the popular Nexus 7. The A2107 however does also come with SD support as you can see in the pictures below, HDMI-out, as well as a 5 megapixel rear camera and VGA front. For now Lenovo is being rather quite on pricing or release date for the A2107 but hopefully they announce something soon. It feels amazing in the hand and offers some of the best build quality from Lenovo yet. Just a shame they couldn’t back in that Tegra 3 still. Stay tuned for more details.

Screen Shot 2012-08-30 at 1.59.49 PM Screen Shot 2012-08-30 at 2.00.03 PM 3T8A2459-lenovo-ifa-2012-580x386 3T8A2397-lenovo-ifa-2012 Screen Shot 2012-08-30 at 2.00.15 PM 3T8A2405-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2408-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2413-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2428-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2435-lenovo-ifa-2012 3T8A2189-lenovo-ifa-2012
Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : IdeaTad A2109
    Manufactuer : Lenovo
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : August 27, 2012
    Release Date : August 27, 2012
    Also Known As :
Display
  • Screen Size : 9 Inch
  • Resolution : 1280x800
  • Screen Type : TFT
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : 7.6 Inch
  • Width : 4.8 Inch
  • Depth : 0.5 Inch
  • Weight : 400 Grams
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Ion
  • Battery Capacity : 6000 mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : NA
Software
    Android OS:
  • 4.0.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AAC+
  • AMR
  • MID
  • MP3
  • WAV
  • WMA
    Video Playback:
  • h.263
  • h.264 / AVC
  • 3GP
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
  • WMV
    Messaging:
  • IM
Hardware
    CPU : Tegra 3
    CPU Clock Speed : 1200 Mhz
    Core : 4
    Ram : 1000 MB
    Internal Storage : 16 GB
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 3 MP
    External Storage:
  • MicroSD
    Camera Features:
  • Auto focus
    Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Bluetooth:
  • A2DP
  • Bluetooth 4.0
    Location Features:
  • GPS
  • Wi-Fi location
    FM Radio :
    NFC :

Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : IdeaTab A2107
    Manufactuer : Lenovo
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : June 15, 2012
    Release Date : TBA
    Also Known As : LePad A2107
Display
  • Screen Size : 7 Inch
  • Resolution : 1024x600
  • Screen Type : TFT
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : 7.56 Inch
  • Width : 4.80 Inch
  • Depth : 0.45 Inch
  • Weight : 400 Grams
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Ion
  • Battery Capacity : 3550 mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : NA
Software
    Android OS:
  • 4.0.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AAC+
  • AMR
  • MID
  • MP3
  • WAV
  • WMA
    Video Playback:
  • h.263
  • h.264 / AVC
  • 3GP
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
  • WMV
    Messaging:
  • SMS
  • MMS
  • IM
Hardware
    CPU : MTK6575
    CPU Clock Speed : 1000 Mhz
    Core : 1
    Ram : 1000 MB
    Internal Storage : 16 GB
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 3 MP
    External Storage:
  • MicroSD
    Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Ambient light
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
    Network Technology:
  • GSM
    GSM Band:
  • 850
  • 900
  • 1800
  • 1900
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Bluetooth:
  • A2DP
  • Bluetooth 4.0
    Location Features:
  • GPS
  • Cellular location
    FM Radio :
    NFC :


Amazon Kindle Fire 2 pics purportedly leaked

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 12:35 PM PDT

With the upcoming Amazon event coming soon it’s time to start adding some kindling to the fires. Today a purported picture of their next-gen upcoming Kindle Fire 2 tablet has been leaked according to The Verge. Apparently there is two models on deck and this is the smaller 7-inch version of the two.

Earlier today the original Kindle Fire was changed on Amazon’s site to “sold out” which also hints they’ll be stopping movement on that device in favor of the new and improved Kindle Fire 2 and possibly Kindle Fire 10 later next week. The event is scheduled for September 6th and we expect plenty of flames to be present.

The leakster claims a more refined and streamlined user interface, but the leaked photo shows anything but that. The messy and scattered on-screen buttons look terrible — to say it nicely — and the design seems rather bland too if you ask us. According to The Verge they have another photo showing the user interface better but have been asked not to publish it. Most likely we’ll see it later this week.

The star button up top will likely align with favorite music, books, or apps from the Amazon App Store, and all the other icons seem messy and out of place. Looking at the supposed leaked image this new design is a little different than the original Kindle Fire, and heads in a different direction than the BlackBerry-esque model before. The bezel looks small and we have no signs of the rear so can’t comment. Most likely they’ll be aiming for the Nexus 7 here so it will be interesting what all this features, and where it will be priced. We’ll be live for the Amazon event so stay tuned!