Saturday, December 10, 2011

Acer Iconia Tab A100










Acer Iconia Tab A100


We will review another 7inch tablet, this time the Acer Iconia Tab A100, which is of course, another pocket sized tablet ready to go aywhere.

The Iconia Tab ships with the Honeycomb tablet tailored Android version, which is ran pretty smooth on the tablet and of course the custom interface includes pre installed applications like Documents to Go and AUPEO! an application which lets the user to tune radio stations. It also comes preloaded with cloud services.
Then of course we have the Google applications that are a must in every Android based tablet. 

Now moving on to the hardware, the structure is pretty solid, a little bit bulky though, and the weight is pretty much the same as the just reviewed Flyer tab, and it comes with a rear 5MP camera which takes pretty good pics and 720p videos, this time we have the support of a flash as we can see on the picture at the left, but about the front camera, the Iconia tab stay a little bit behind other tablets.

Now..the battery life is kind of a complaining issue, since on full functions working, the user might be able to squeeze something around 5 hours, almost 3 hours less than other tabs.
The Acer Iconia Tab pretty much presents a good battle against other 7" tablets, since the work done by it is fair enough good, only with the battery issue being a minus, and the price is much lower than one of those 10 inc talets, becoming a good option when looking portability but not leaving behind performance.

HTC Flyer

HTC Flyer


Now we will move on with a different kind of tablet, a portable 7inch tablet that can easily go inside your coat's pocket presented by the mobile manufactorer HTC.

The HTC Flyer comes breaking the 10" rule on tablets but still keeping on the style and perfomance.
This tablet ships with the 2.3 Android version, not with the Honeycomb as most of the tablets do, but in combination with the HTC Sense 3.0 custom interface the user would not even remember there is a never Android version in other tablets.
Sense 3.0 comes with the widgets and applications tht you need and that you can find in others but with HTC's special touch, on the main panel we have space for 8 shortcuts, that can be either application shortcuts or folders and we have the big clock and weather report that characterizes HTC products, but then of course we have different panels in which the user is able to organize application shortcuts or whole panel applications, like mail, Twitter, Facebook, special contacts, the amazing weather animations of course and others.

On the lock screen we are able to rearrange 4 application shortcuts and also display the weather report.

Moving on to the hardware, the Flyer feels pretty solid, doesn't feel like plastic at all(i own this tablet by the way, so i just checked the back hehe), and is a little bit bulky but the size is, as said before, pocket sized.
The Flyer comes with a 5.0megapixels rear camera, which is really good compared to the standard ''full sized'' tablets and the pics and vids quality is rich, this time though we lack of a flash LED, and the front camera is what you could ask for a front camera, not a Nikon but it does it's work on pictures and apps like Skype.

On the back of the tablet we have a removable tap where we find a micro SD slot, so the original 32GB of storage can be expanded, also we have the earphones jack and the speaker, which is pretty neat too.


Now, we will mention one of the special things about this tablet, it is an external piece of hardware though, but this accessory makes the Flyer more attractive, the HTC Stylus Scribe digital pen.


With this pen the user is able to interact even more with the tablet, it is not the typical tablet pen that you can see in other place since this pen actually works with electric signals, so the detail is really higher, and the user is able to use it on writing apps but also literally everywhere the user wants to take notes at, for example you find a interesting web page and you feel like adding a note, by touching the screen with the Stylus it automatically takes a snapshot and then by keeping pressed one of the pen's buttons the user is able to write as needed on the snapshot, then it is saved and stored at the snapshot folder.

HTC has promised to deliver the Honeycomb update to the Flyer, but actually it already took longer than everybody was expecting, but still, the user's experience will not be clouded with the use of the Flyer and the Stylus pen experience.








Friday, December 9, 2011

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1


Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 


We will move on to the newest generation of tablets presented by the Korean mobile manufacturer Samsung. Being a strong move from Samsung on the endless Samsung-Apple battle.


The Galaxy Tab 10,1 ships of course, with the Android's Honeycomb version and gets the Samsung's touch running the TouchWiz UX custom interface, becoming kinda of similar to its Galaxy phones cousins about the interface, featuring stuff like different panels, which can be arranged as the user wants either with application shortcuts or full panel application widgets like weather, mail and calendar. Also it presents an integrated messaging application, the "Social Hub" which intends to help the user on keeping updated about his or her social network activities, putting together Twitter, Facebook, Gmail with feed updates programmable as the user wants.


Now talking about the hardware, the Galaxy Tab is powered by a Nvidia Tegra 2 Dual-Core 1GHz, joining the Tegra 2 club and becoming pretty much average among the top tablets but at the same time of course being a powerful tablet with smooth interface interaction and a solid multitasking and application running.
The size of this tablet is pretty much what you see on the iPad 2, but looks like the iPad 2's diet was more effective since its a little bit thinner than the Samsung's tablet. 


About the cameras, since it comes with front and rear cameras, have received pretty good reviews, but of course since we are talking about tablets cameras are not a strong point in comparrison to other electronics.

The Galaxy Tab comes with a rear 3.0megapixel camera supported by a flash, and takes pretty sharp pics with an autofocus option, and the video is taken up to 720p becoming pretty decent between all other tablets. The front camera is not as sharp as the rear one but some users claim is better than the iPad's one.



The battery life is pretty much average, depending on the applications and functions running, the user might be able to get from 5 hours up to 8, but stays somehow behind the iPad and the Asus Transformer.
About the price, its pretty much what the retailers will ask for a 10" tablet, so it comes a good option when opting to buy one of these babies.











Sony Tablet S

Sony Tablet S


Since the tablet business started being such a hot topic on the market after Apple released the iPad, almost every electronics company decided to show their charm with their own products, and until a couple months ago it was Sony's turn with two tablets, in this case we will make a quick review of the Sony Tablet S, released a couple of months ago and rated as one of the best options out there.


Shipping with Honeycomb Android version, the Tablet S comes with a particular shape breaking the typical flat design that every other tablet presents, in this case the design tries to imitate a book and makes the user more comfortable when reading while the tablet is standing flat down on a desk an also gives a better grip on the user's hand when holding it from the side.


The Tablet S is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 on 1GHz dual core chipset, what makes it pretty much average among other tablets about the processor. But it gives the advantage to expand its original capacity with an SD card slot on one of it's sides limiting to a maximum card capacity of 32GB which is pretty fair for your music or pictures.

Continuing with the hardware, the tablet basically comes with Bluetooth, Wi fi and GPS connectivity, but also a 3G version is available on a higher price and of course attached to some mobile communication company's plan.
Moving on to the camera and battery life it presents a pretty much average rear and front camera, so no many comments about it but about the battery life it ends a little bit short compared to the big competition but still gives a better performance than maybe 60% of the tablets on the market.

Now talking about the software, as mentioned before, it ships with Honeycomb but of course since its Sony, it comes with a custom interface seasoned with different widgets and tricks such as shortcuts for the browser, e-mail, remote control app, and Sony Reader store and the inclusion of the PlayStation Suite which is a store exclusively for Sony Android phones and tablets, which will include games and apps delivered for the Sony-Android experience. 





Thursday, December 8, 2011

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablet


Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime


As we mentioned at the beginning of this blog, we will review both phone and also tablet pc's that run on the Andriod Operating System, so it is time to review our first tablet, not released yet but waited for lots of tech lovers, the second on the Asus Transformer family, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

This tablet becomes the most powerful tablet computer yet, with an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, 1.3GHz Quad Core, which could not be discribed as any other way than a monster about it's chip (so far the fastest tablets came with dual core chipsets). So you could imagine the power of an iPad multiplied by two about multitasking speed, application running and interface smoothness.

The tablet ships with the Honeycomb Android version and an Asus custom interface which looks pretty similar to the Samsung's TouchWiz tablet version interface. The available widgets though are not a huge piece of art but the way the user can interact with the interface arranging application, folders and these widgets is fair.
The tablet comes with some pre-installed applications and also a variaty of games like Amazon Kindle, App Backup, App Locker,Big Top THD, Bladeslinger, Google Books, File Manager, Glowball, Movie Studio, MyCloud, MyLibrary, MyNet, Netflix, Photaf Lite, Polaris Office, Press Reader, Riptide GPkShadowGun, SuperNote, WebStorage, yskkZen Pinball THD and Zinio.


Now, going back to its name, specifically to the "Transformer" part of it, we will move on to one of the tricks this amazingly powerful tablet has; a keyboard dock that basically transforms the tablet into an ultrabook, sized not so different to the popular ultrabooks out on the market like the Apple's MacBoor Air.
The keyboard dock is available in different colors to match the tablet and it just snaps in smoothly, the tablet itself of course can close as a normal computer lid.
The dock comes with a solid keyboard, a USB2.0 port and also a SD card reader, giving even more options in order to connect the tablet to the external world. It also has a pretty fair trackpad but since you have a USB port plugging in a mouse would not be a bad idea.


Also we must mention the camera and battery life, in which we must say its an avarage camera, but the battery life is outstanding, assuring almost twice the life of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and more than a 33% of the iPad's capacity, so it gives even more extra points to this Asus tablet.

So far we could say it is the best tablet around so far, but the tablet itself starts at $500 with the 32Gb model and the keyboard dock would take an extra $150 out of your wallet, so it might be a object of thinking before buying one set or just getting an ultrabook which might offer more power and other advantages with $200 extra.

LG Optimus Q2

LG Optimus Q2


We will continue our reviews with another of my personal favorites and also the phone that happens to be own by myself, the LG Optimus, which is the newest of the QWERTY keyboard phones from the Optimus family.

Ships with the Gingerbread Android version and has the personal touch of the LG Optimus unit interface, which allows you to fix several panels with either applications, folders and widgets such as weather, social networking and other tricks.
The Optimus Q2 with it's 1.2Ghz Nvidia Tegra Dual Core chipset becomes one of the finest works from the Korean manufacturer, presenting both a touch screen keyboard and the slide physical one.
What makes the Optimus Q2 superior than other slide QWERTY phones, is the thickness of only 0.48in what keeping in mind that is a slide phone makes it not bulky at all.

Coming with a principal rear camera of 5.0megapixels stays behind most top edge camera phones but it also presents a flash on the back and a front camera which gives it a small boost against other phones, 

This phone comes handy when people like me likes the old school physical keyboards (being much more comfortable though since is a QWERTY one) but not leaving behind the high end tech such as an amazingly sensitive touch HD screen and both cameras which are fair enough to make a good use of picture and video apps and other stunts.


T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide

T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide

Moving on, we have a different species of mobile phones, the latest member of the T-Molibe MyTouch  family which comes with a QWERTY slide keyboard offering both the touchscreen and the keyboard itself at the typing time.

The MyTouch 4G Slide ships of course, with the Gingerbread version and in this case, as any other T-Mobile device, we do not have a own custom interface, since the phone works with the HTC's Sense 3.0,  presenting the same nice interface as other HTC phones. 
Powered with a Qualcomm 1.2Ghz dual core processor the MyTouch gives and excellent performance on apps, gaming and web surfing, supporting Flash content in a solid way.
Although it comes with the Sense interface, T-Mobile has added a personal touch with a different lock screen which can be personalized but only with certain apps and it offers TV streaming on the US where they don't have the free service as in Korea.

As for the hardware, the phone comes what a lot of reviews introduce as the best camera phone on the market so far, a 8.0 megapixels camera with a ''zero shutter lag'' advertising from T-Mobile which means you take instant pictures that can be a little bit blurry since you don't give the auto focus time to lock but works amazingly well on low-light scenes and the 1080p HD vids are clear and smooth.
One of the camera software's features is the called SweepShot, which allows you to take panoramic pictures in parts, capturing from right to left and instantly creating a one picture combining the shots.


Besides the camera, the rest of the hardware is pretty solid, leaving behind a plastic building, the MyTouch Slide comes with a pleasant design but also kind of bulky with its size and 6.5 oz compared with other slide phones, but still presenting a good performance.
The MyTouch is on the top phones due to the excellent camera and software, receiving positive reviews only stained by its size.



Motorola Photon 4G

Motorola Photon 4G


Changing brands again, we move on to the Motorola Photon 4G, being a big step of Motorola into the smartphone market, and also being the first model with a dual processor delivered by the mobil phone pioneer.

The Photon ships with Android's Gingerbread and a 4.3 HD screen, powered by a dual core 1.0Ghz chip coming a little bit behind other phones but running with a GeForce graphic processor being an excellent choice for gaming lovers.

The user interface is about the Gingerbread version and of course Motorola's own custom interace, the Motoblur, which normally needs a Motoblur account but not in this case, still being a good plus considering the social networking advantage this accounts offer working together with different widgets updating on your homescreen.
The interface itself doesn't present as much special tricks or widgets as others become basically a Gingerbread based phone, but pretty much fast so at the end the apps use would not be a complain from the users.

Coming with a rear 8.0 mega pixel camera, the Photon works pretty good on HD vids and good picture taking and with its LED flash taking pics on low-light places won't be much a problem, also the fact that it comes with 2 microphones on the back the sound quality on videos seems to be higher than in other phones.
The Photon also comes with a front camera and microphone, becoming video app friendly but of course not as powerful as the rear one.


As a conclusion we find the Motorola Photon pretty much on the top places between smartphones with pros as the camera resolution, the Nvidia processor, the HD screen and also the stand we can see on the picture above, although it might seem a little bit bluky for some people, for some other the size would be just fine though, and the Motoblur interface does not offer as many tricks as other custom interfaces do, but still it keeps a good rating between customers and is one of the finest Motorola products you could find on the market.