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.

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.