Samsung Galaxy Tab Leather Case

I have been testing out the Galaxy Tab for about 2 weeks now. I can say that the Android OS is works very nicely on the Tab, even though the OS isn't really geared towards a tablet. I really think Apple will miss out, if they don't release at a 7" tablet. If Apple did release one, I would more likely pick one up, as my iPad now that I use is great and everything, but at times when I just need something bigger than my iPhone 4 or Captivate screen to do some work, the 7" Tab is just great.

I picked up the Galaxy Tab leather case from Sprint to test and feel how the case works. The case has all opening accessible for the inputs on the Tab. You can connect the charge cable with no problem and have access to the power button and the volume control without too much hassle. As you can see in the video it has several ways to stand the Tab to view it on the desk, or to work on the Tab, or maybe catch a movie that you may want to see. The leather is soft and feels very nice and well made. It does help protect the Tab, only because it is a little bit big. This is like those Franklin Covey Daily Planners they sell. Someone might not even notice that you have a Galaxy Tab in the case, the will think its a paper daily planner. Sprint does carry this case at the stores and sell for $39.99. So if you have someone that owns a Tab and doesn't have a case for it, you might let them know that Sprint has this case and they can give a try and see if they like it.

White iPhone 4

Here is just some pictures of my white iPhone 4, I managed to get. The finish on the white iPhone 4 is very nice. I have put a screen protector and also on the back. Sure don't want to damage my white iPhone 4, even though it feels just like my black iPhone 4. The white color is very nice if you like white of course, but it does stand out in the crowd when your making calls, or just browsing or replying to email. I did go to my local Apple store and had little crowd gather around my white iPhone 4 as they all wanted to take a look at it.




There isn't much to go over between the black and white iPhone 4. Both run the same and no difference in OS. The only thing is that, when out in the crowd, you might get people wanting to look at your white iPhone 4. Here is more pictures of the white iPhone 4.

Samsung Focus or Omnia 7 USB Tethering with Windows Phone 7 OS

Seems that if you got your hands on a Samsung Focus or the Omnia 7 running on the new Windows Phone 7 OS, you can unofficially enable USB Tethering. You would need to dial ##634# to get into a diagnostics menu to switch on the USB tethering. It would be nice to be able to use the WiFi instead of USB, but at least it is a start.

Lenovo Tablet headed to US

 

Looks like Lenovo is going to be releasing the LePad. Chances is this will be at CES2011. CEO Yang Yuanqing told the Wall Street Journal that they planned on releasing the Android tablet and headed to the US in 2011. Hopefully this will have all the Google Market Place as well or I’m sure that there will be some hack to install it. But this is not good for the general consumer, as they really don’t know how to install these apk files to do more and beyond the out of box experience.

Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet at Best Buy

 

If you really want to get your hands on a 7” Android Tablet. Well then head down to your nearest Best Buy store. This is providing that your local Best Buy has them in stock. I checked a few stores and they didn’t have any available. They did have a display model and decided to check it out, and see how well it compared to my Samsung Galaxy Captivate. For starters the touch screen was not that responsive, compared to my Captivate, iPad, tm2 TouchSmart, etc… At times I did have to click twice for it to launch the app. It was running Eclair, which seemed to do pretty good on the device. Didn’t seem to have a multi-touch screen.

Opening applications also had some very slight delay, but for the $299.99 price tag, you might want to try out Walgreens $99 tablet. It didn’t have the Android Market Place, but instead it has it’s own Cruz Market Place to download apps. The quality was good. It seem to have a nice sturdy housing and all plastic that was very solid. The screen appeared to be some type of plastic. They also had the Archos 7 Home Tablet next to it, so I also compared the size of the Cruz Tablet. It was not heavy at all, which would make a nice e-book reader as well. At this point you might be better to wait for the upcoming Huawei Ideos 7” tablet. From the rumors, the price will be $299.99 for the Ideos 7.

I myself, if I was thinking of getting a tablet. I would wait for the S7, but for now I really like my 3G iPad, which I use daily for work and for catching up on the latest news. I will have to check Best Buy November 7 and see if the S7 is available and give it a try if they have a display model. You never know, I might just bring one home. The 7” display makes it a perfect travel device. Not that my iPad isn’t a perfect travel device, but at times I sure could get by with a 7” device. These lower priced tablets, usually don’t have built-in GPS. I kind of got use to having a device with built-in GPS, but it wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me, since most my other devices already have GPS.

 

Here is the specs for the Cruz tablet:

Product Height 4.9"

Product Width 7.5"

Product Weight 1 lb.

Product Depth 0.7"

Platform Android

Total Built-In Memory 1GB; 4GB microSD card

Expandable Memory microSD

Modem Included Yes

PC Required No

Screen Size (Measured Diagonally) 7"

Supports Voice Transmission No

Number of Ports 1

Connection Port USB

Supports MP3 Yes

Display Type Color TFT

Keyboard Entry Yes, on display

Calculator Yes

Calendar Yes

Word Processor Yes

Adjustable Font Size Yes

Backlight Yes

Battery Type Lithium-ion

Connectivity Wi-Fi

HP Slate 500 Now Ready for Ordering

Well looks like HP has finally let the Slate out of the bag. I have been reading in many post that say, the HP Slate 500 is the real first slate to run Windows 7 and be able to buy the slate. Well if you really look back, the Archos 9 was in theory one of the first slates available with Windows 7 and you could actually buy one. The specs on the Archos 9 was not great and got no recognition from the consumers. Hopefully the HP having a Atom Z540 running at 1.86GHz processor can do better. 

The HP Slate 500 price will start at $799 and come with a portfolio case and a docking stand. What it does have for a first in a slate PC is, that it will come with a dual digitizer for both multi-touch with finger or pen input. This is great because it can be good for note taking on the small screen. This will be kind of like my HP TouchSmart tm2 that I have been using the past 3 weeks. Makes touch screen times very easy and when need to take notes, just use the pen and works great.

The 2GB of RAM and 64GB SSD, should get most users a pretty decent device for your daily work activities. Seems that HP might have basic model, that will have 1GB of RAM. With RAM prices not to expensive, HP should have just made all models with 2GB standard. It also has the Broadcom’s Crystal accelerator to handle those 1080p videos that you will want to watch on the road, or when you have a break from doing your work stuff. It also has dual VGA cam’s front and back to use with Skype or other video conference software.

Another thing is, many are going to compare the Slate 500 with the iPad. I don’t believe that you can compare both, because they are completely different devices. Yes they do basic things the same, but they are different in their own way. I use my iPad daily, but I also need my full PC at times or my Macbook Pro for those times I need some real power and be able to run both Windows 7 and Mac OS X.

 

Specifications:

• Windows 7 Pro 32bits
• Atom Z540 1.86Ghz
• up to 2GB of RAM (533Mhz bus)
• 64GB SSD storage
• 8.9" multi-touch display (1024x600)
• Broadcom video hardware accelerator
• Front (VGA) and Back (3 Megapixel) cameras
• 5.91 x 9.21 x 0.58, 1.5lbs
• 2-Cell battery (30Whr)

 

Well we will have to wait for the verdict a time goes by and the HP Slate 500 reaches the consumer to use. Right now if you place a order, HP will ship the Slate 500 starting November 13.

Samsung Galaxy S Captivate

 

 

 

Quick thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate for AT&T network. I won’t go into to much detail, since there is already plenty of reviews of the Captivate. I picked up the Captivate last week, which was on a Saturday to do a review of it. Wanted to see and feel the difference between the Captivate and the iPhone 4. I rooted and installed Froyo 2.2 on the 3rd day. I wanted to use the Captivate running 2.1 Eclair to see the difference once I would install 2.2. I also picked up the Sony Xperia X10 as well to review it and that is on another write up I am doing. Well the Captivate is a very nice mobile phone running Froyo 2.2 now. It is very light, but this to me has caused the phone to feel a little on the fragile side compare to other phones, example the BlackBerry Storm II, Xperia X10, iPhone 4, etc… This can be on the plus side as it will feel very light to use.  With the AMOLED screen, everything looks so vibrant and text is readable outdoors. You will pretty much be able to use you the Captivate any place with that great AMOLED screen. Watching videos on it is very nice on the 4” screen and having the 1GHz processor makes it even better as now you can watch YouTube videos or other videos without any problems. Now that I have installed Froyo 2.2. You can watch Flash video in the browser, which works very well. The power of the Captivate lets you watch pretty much Flash without any problems in the browser. I have set it to only load flash when I click on the download flash video window in the browser so that it doesn’t slow down the load times in the browser. It does slow things down a bit when you have the browser load flash all the time. I believe it has glass screen, because it doesn’t flex at all when you push down on the screen, just like the iPhone 4. The battery door is metal and the rest is plastic. I think that a 4” size screen is perfect for a mobile phone. Not to big or too small, just the right size. Big enough to view web pages, text messages, read email, etc… That brings me to the email apps for the Android. One thing I think Android needs is some way to have push email using some 3rd party app. I know you can set it up with Gmail, but what I would like is something like the BlackBerry email or like on my iPhone 4, I have loaded a app that pushes my email instantly on my iPhone 4 which is just as good as my BlackBerry Storm II I was using. So far all the email apps that I have found for the Android, only let you chose when you want the email app to download the email, and not really a push email.

The touch screen on the Captivate works very well and your able to touch on your icons and responds quickly. I like how easy you can customize your home screen and there is so many apps that you can download to change or add widgets to your home screen. I still haven’t loaded to many at this point, but did have Launcher Pro on the Xperia X10 that I was testing out a couple of weeks ago. I have loaded Beautiful Widgets. It is a must app to install on your Android phone. Also James Kendrick over at JkonTheRun has a good video on how to customize your Android phone. Pictures and video quality is good, but I have compared to the iPhone 4, and the iPhone 4 is a lot better in quality. Pictures do look good but the detail is not very good. When you make the picture bigger, you can see that it is not a clear as the pictures taken with the iPhone 4. Also using the Xperia X10 camera that has a 8MP camera, pictures where not even close to both the iPhone 4 and the Captivate, but then again the X10 has Android 1.6 which doesn’t support the higher resolution for taking pictures. Also missing is the LED flash on the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. The other Galaxy S series have a LED flash, not that it would help that much but would be nice to have for dark shots that are close ups.

Battery life is decent on the Captivate. I can get through the whole day and still have around 20% battery life left, after around 14 hours of the phone been on. I do use it for a good amount of phone calls through out the day and have FaceBook running in the background. I do have a weather widget, that runs also to update weather conditions. I use the web browser for about 15 minutes to 20 minutes through out the day on the Captivate. What I also do is plug in the phone in the car to charge it when going home or going to work, so that I can have as much battery life as possible, so that when I need to be on the phone I can get through the day without having to worry that I will run out of battery. I do leave my WiFi on all the time as well as the BlueTooth. On my iPhone 4, I also always leave the WiFi, and Bluetooth and do get better battery life compared to the Captivate. I do notice that I do get different battery life with the Captivate. Sometimes I end up with more battery life with about the same use, and other days its less. This is when I don’t charge it during the day. With the iPhone 4, it is pretty close all the time.

The Samsung virtual keyboard on the Captivate is not that good at all. I was using the Android keyboard, but when I upgraded to 2.2, all I got was the Samsung keyboard and the Swipe. So I installed the HTC keyboard, which I like very much and works much better than the Samsung keyboard. Again there is another keyboard called “Ultra-Keyboard” that you can use. James over at JKonTheRun did a video using “Ultra-Keyboard” looks like a nice keyboard but I haven’t tried it yet. Might buy it and give it a try, but I am really happy with the HTC one for now.

The call quality on the Captivate is really good and the signal is good as well. The GPS is working without a problem now that I have installed Froyo 2.2 on it. It does take a little longer to get the signal when you have a app that requires the GPS signal compared to the iPhone 4. If your in Google maps or Navigation, the GPS works very quickly. Finds you in a matter of 4 seconds or so.

What’s also really nice about the Android OS is that, you can use Voice Search and find places and have it navigate to it, with very little inputting on your part. Over all, not a bad smartphone and works much better than some other phones out there. It is very easy to root the phone to be able to install apps that are not in the Market Place, because AT&T has blocked you from being able to install apps outside of the Market Place. I think this is a bad idea, but I see that they want to have some kind of control, kind of like Apple with the iPhone’s. 

Penultimate for the iPad update…

 

I have been using the Penultimate app on my iPad for quite awhile. I like how well it inks, but had to make sure that I didn’t put or lean with my palm on the screen or I would get a lot of vectoring or scribbles. Well now Penultimate has updated to 1.1 and have added a feature called “Wrist Protection” and what that does is that you are able to rest your palm on the screen to ink. This is not 100% but it is working great for my needs and taking notes. This just makes this app, much better to use for me. Hopefully in the next update they can really perfect the Wrist Protection and this will be a great app for inkers. This might feel like if the iPad had a active digitizer. Now if they can also add where you can import pictures into the notebook to mark up or even PDF’s, this will be one great app. So for now I will continue to use Penultimate to write down notes. After I take notes, I email them back to myself so that I can have them to attach to either a ToDo or appointment in Outlook.

Could this be the new iPod Touch with 2MP Camera

 

Tinhte from Vietnam have posted some pictures and a video showing what looks like the iPod Touch. It does show “DVT-1” which means this is a testing type unit. It also could mean that the new iPod Touch will be very close to this iPod Touch, or maybe this could be what the Touch will be when released. From the picture it looks to be a 65GB iPod Touch, with a pair of 32GB Samsung Flash modules.

Here you can see the current iPod Touch with no camera and the leaked picture of the iPod Touch with Camera. They look pretty close and if you remember back when the 3G iPod Touch was released, some posted pictures of the iPod Touch opened up, showing that there is room for a camera in the same place this one is showing. Also watching the video it does show something about a microphone, so hopefully it does have one built in. This will make a nice Skype phone using a MiFi or other to tether. From the past Apple tends to release iPods in September, but maybe this will be announced June 7. Lately there has been a lot of leaks from Apple products including the iPhone 4G, and the Video of the new MacBook that was released from Apple.

iPad GPS and Archos 5 GPS...

I happen to be out and about today and brought along both the iPad and the Archos 5. I had upgraded my Archos 5 to the new firmware today so, good time to test it on the road and see how much more stable it was compare to the older firmware. So far it has made a big difference with this new firmware. It is much more stable and is working very nicely so far. Since I had both with me I thought that I about the GPS. I know that the iPad doesn't really have a hardware GPS and the A5 does. So I thought I would test both with Google maps. I reall thought that the A5 would be more accurate, since it does have a hardware GPS. Maybe the firmware has something to do with this, but I was really surprized that the iPad was so much closer in locating me.






As you can see the iPad and the Archos 5 location. I will still give the Archos 5 some more testing maybe just one of those things that didn't work correctly today. I plan on giving a test Monday on the way to work or maybe this weekend.

HP Buys Palm

HP announced that it's acquiring Palm for the small price of $1.2 billion, which works out to $5.70 per share of Palm common stock. The deal is planned to close by July 31. Current Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein is "expected to remain with the company," though no mention of what duty's he would be doing at Palm. This can be intersting, now that HP has purchased Palm. This could be a sign for the new HP Compaq Airlife 100 to run Palm WebOS kit in it. This would give the Airlife 100 a good consumer product, and will be able to compete with Android, iPhone OS, and other mobile OS. Got to keep a eye on this and who knows there might already porting the Palm WebOS on the Airlife 100.

iPad Is in the House...

I had put 2 iPad's on reservation to pick up at my local Apple store for April 3. I got the 16GB for my wife and I got the 32GB for myself. So far this thing is "Magical". This is according to Steve Jobs. There was 2 lines at the Apple store. One was for the non reserved and the other for reserved. There must of been at least 200 people in the line waiting to get their iPad. So far I have set up my email, contacts, and calendar to sync with my BlackBerry Storm 2, so that I can have everything synced up. This works great for me, because no matter which device I pick up I can always check my email or check my calendar.

This makes it easy to update any calendar items when I am using either device.

Netflix runs excellent on the iPad. The Netflix app was added just this week so I was very happy to see that it would work on the iPad. Now I can watch movies when traveling or short outings that we plan with my family. I purchased the CradlePoint CTR350 to use with my BlackBerry Storm 2, so I can have broadband on my iPad for when traveling. Everything on the iPad is very responsive and smooth when scrolling. Multi-Touch is great on the bigger screen vs the iPod Touch and iPhone. Not that the smaller screen is bad, but you have so much more room to work with applications. The Web looks great and works great on the Safari browser. So far most of all the web pages that I go and check daily are working and displaying nicely on the iPad. The sound is very good, I was afraid that by having one speaker at the bottom that the sound would not be loud enough, but it is loud enough to listen in a average noisy area. I have been downloading apps from the app store and trying them out and of course these are the free one's. I will be purchasing Pages, and Numbers to use on the iPad to be able to work with Word and Excel files when I need to do small

changes or create short documents with the on screen keyboard. I can also create long Word d

ocuments by using a BlueTooth keyboard, which then I can type away and create any length of

document. I still have my Stowaway BT keyboard which I will be pairing up to use for on the road typing. I think Apple has a winner with the iPad, not that the up coming slates don't have a chance, but I think the iPad will be what everyone will be comparing too. HP needs to advertise their up coming slate so that the general public knows about it. It always helps if they can get it out to brick and mortar stores so everyone can see and try them.

Is everyone Ready for the iPad…

Looks like if you didn’t pre-ordered your iPad for April 3rd or reserved your iPad for in store pick up, you’ll have to wait till April 12 for the next shipment. Also there has been some leaks out there that show applications for the new iPad. I can see the average price for the iPad application starting or in the $9.99 price range. One feature that I would really like that Apple would include, or be able to do on the iPad is. Be able to use a mobile phone to create a BT DUN to connect your iPad on the road for internet access, email, etc… But I can see why they wouldn’t provide that feature. Then they wouldn’t be able to sell the 3G version that you would use with AT&T. I guess I will just going to have to see how good of a deal I get a Verizon or Sprint MiFi to use with the iPad, and just cancel my Tether option on my BlackBerry Storm 2. I would only be paying $20.00 more per month than what I am paying now. So let the count down begin. 

Marvell Moby Tablet

The iPad is almost here and everyone is talking about it. Now Marvell has announced, that they are developing a tablet computer as well. The claim this will change the way students learn. This also has more options than the iPad, and does more. The Marvell has named the tablet Moby. Here is the best part. Marvell has made a statement that this high-performance device is going to sell for $99 a pop. Now this will be great for schools like they say. Normally textbooks cost anywhere from $60 - $200 so this would be a great cost savings. The Moby is a 10” tablet that has quite a bit for the $99 price, which will include 1080p HD video playback, full Flash support, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM/GPS connectivity and even 3D-capability. This will all be powered by the Marvell ARMADA 600 series processors. This should give great battery life as well. This also could be a great device for some businesses as well, that need to be on the road and need information without having to bring a laptop along. We will have to wait if this does indeed every get released and becomes a real product for the consumers. So for now, I will have to get my iPad. :)

Inking on the Lenovo S10-3t Now Working Great

 

 

I have ordered the Dagi Capacitive Stylus pen to try out on the Lenovo S10-3t. After using the Dagi stylus, I am really getting use to inking with it. As you can see in this short video how well it works with a capacitive screen like the S10-3t. So far I have been testing and writing short emails, and using it with OneNote, and the inking is very good. I am having better luck using the Dagi stylus vs the Pogo Sketch Stylus. The Pogo stylus has a foam tip which makes inking on the capacitive screen much harder and doesn’t register on the screen as good as the Dagi. As you may notice the Dagi stylus tip is made of semi hard plastic tip, that is clear with a red dot to let you see as your inking on the screen. It does take a little bit to get used to using the Dagi stylus because you have to keep it at a angle. Hopefully you can see it on the video. I might just pick up another Dagi stylus to have as a backup because, so far I really liking this stylus. :)

For now the Dagi Stylus is the best option for a capacitive screen, at least it is for me.

Archos 5 Using Free Wi-Fi at Mc Donald’s

 

 

My family and I decided to go out to the local Wild Animal Park today and went spent the day out at the park. Along I brought my Olympus E-500, the S10-3t, ( for uploading pictures), my new Panasonic HDC-SD10, and my Archos 5 IT Tablet. We stopped by a local Mc Donald’s to eat on the way home tried out the free Wi-Fi on the Archos 5. So if you ever need some Wi-Fi and hungry, and passing by a Mc Donald’s, then a quick pit stop will take care of that. As we head back home I am using the Archos 5 for GPS, Music Videos, and Web Radio Station. Since I have the A5A tethered to the BlackBerry Storm. I also can check the traffic with the CoPilot since its tethered.

Archos5 A IT

 

I have installed the Android Market on my Archos 5 IT a few months back. I have been installing application that would not be possible with the Archos 5 IT Applib. By having the Android Market installed I was able to install the Dolphin Browser that James posted over at his site. Using the Dolphin Browser on the A5A, to me is working very nicely. I am able to write gestures on screen of the A5A to open, back, forward, etc… One thing I really like about the Android and Dolphin Browser and wish that this would also work on IE8, is that when you zoom in on a page the text rearranges and you don’t have to slide back and forth to read the article like in IE8. This feature would be very helpful when using slates, tablets, and convertible so that when you need to zoom in you can have everything and just scroll down to read.