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Engadget News |
- ExoPC's 40-inch multitouch EXOdesk is coming in 2012 for $1,299 (video)
- CTIA and ESRB team up on new rating system for mobile applications
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus review
- ASUS Padfone crops up in benchmark database, hides its S4 SoC out in the open
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to create music with a tax on ISPs
- HTC Titan arrives on AT&T: pocket-straining Windows Phone for $200 on contract
- Windows Phone Marketplace inches over 40,000 app mark
- Engadget's holiday gift guide 2011: e-readers
- Samsung adds another WiFi-only Series 5 Chromebook, on sale now for $349 (updated)
- Ice Cream Sandwich supports USB mass storage after all, Galaxy Nexus does not
- Spotify wants to show us 'what's next' on November 30th
- Galaxy Nexus coming to Bell and Virgin Mobile Canada December 8th, pre-orders begin today
- Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet review
- Nook Tablet gets torn down, mysteries of the carabiner unlocked
- Flash for Android not quite dead yet, will land on Ice Cream Sandwich by year's end
- Pogoplug lets Drobo into its Cloud, offers 10GB of 'public' storage to sweeten the deal
- Norwegian bookseller begins selling e-books on memory cards, for some reason (video)
- TRIM or RAID 0? SSD owners will no longer have to choose
- European Galaxy Nexus owners complain of erratic volume issue (video)
- STHoldings withdraws more than 200 record labels from Spotify, does so with gusto
- Microsoft patent aims to curb your enthusiasm in the office
- Doh uses RFID and Arduino to help you remember your wallet, continues search for the 'Any Key'
- Developer creates proxy server for Siri, controls thermostat with his voice (video)
- Google+ quietly gets trending topics, dares you to search for it
- Hungry for Chinese yuan, Apple now accepts currency for App Store purchases
- How would you change Sony's Tablet S?
- Inhabitat's Week in Green: LA Auto Show, tidal energy farm and Japan's futuristic eco-city
- Water pump reportedly destroyed by SCADA hackers
- Nook Tablet gets rooted, bootloader stays under lock and key
- Switched On: Between a Nook and a hard place
- Walmart selling Limited Edition Blue Wii for $99.96 on Black Friday
- Nokia's latest EDoF camera demonstrates improvement with macro shots
| ExoPC's 40-inch multitouch EXOdesk is coming in 2012 for $1,299 (video) Posted: 21 Nov 2011 10:57 AM PST  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| CTIA and ESRB team up on new rating system for mobile applications Posted: 21 Nov 2011 10:34 AM PST  Details are fairly light at the moment, but the CTIA has put out a press release today announcing that it has partnered with the Entertainment Software Rating Board (or ESRB) on a new rating system for mobile applications. That's the same ESRB that is responsible for the ratings on video games. Unfortunately, any word on the ratings themselves or their possible acceptance by app makers or distributors will have to wait until the press event on November 29th, but it sounds like there will be a fairly big push behind them when they are announced -- the presidents of both industry groups, along with US Senators Mark Pryor and Kelly Ayotte are slated to be on hand for the announcement. CTIA-The Wireless Association® to Announce Mobile Application Rating System with ESRB WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What: CTIA-The Wireless Association® will announce a mobile application rating system with the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Applications will be rated based on age-appropriateness of their content and context. The details of the mobile application rating system will be released at the press announcement. When: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 Registration & Light Refreshments begin at 9:30 a.m. EST. Press Announcement at 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. EST. Where: Symposium Center (4th Floor) at the Top of the Hill Conference Center at the Reserve Officers Association Minuteman Memorial Building; One Constitution Avenue, NE; Washington, DC 20002. Who: Confirmed speakers are: U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH); U.S. Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR); CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent; and ESRB President Patricia Vance. Media are welcome to attend. RSVP to CTIA: ctiamedrel@ctia.org About CTIA: CTIA-The Wireless Association® (www.ctia.org) is an international organization representing the wireless communications industry. Membership in the association includes wireless carriers and their suppliers, as well as providers and manufacturers of wireless data services and products. CTIA advocates on behalf of its members at all levels of government. The association also coordinates the industry's voluntary best practices and initiatives, and sponsors the industry's leading wireless tradeshows. CTIA was founded in 1984 and is based in Washington, D.C. About Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB): The ESRB is a non-profit, self-regulatory body established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). ESRB independently assigns computer and video game content ratings, enforces advertising guidelines, and helps ensure responsible online privacy practices for the interactive entertainment software industry. For more information, visit www.esrb.org, ESRB's Facebook page or follow ESRB on Twitter (@OKtoPlay). SOURCE CTIA-The Wireless Association | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus review Posted: 21 Nov 2011 10:00 AM PST  Not so fast. We've been here before, and things weren't exactly great. The original Galaxy Tab was, of course, a 7-incher and wasn't universally well received thanks to a number of problems -- the first being a $600 MSRP. Another issue was an Android 2.2 build that tried its best but was ultimately ill-suited for tablet duties. This new 7-inch installment packs a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, a tablet-friendlier build of Android 3.2 Honeycomb and a somewhat more palatable $400 price tag. So, it's clearly better equipped than its predecessor, but that one shipped a whopping 12 months ago. How does the newer, fancier Tab compete in this newer, fancier present? Read on to find out. HardwareSamsung's last tablet really did look like a slate that was run through the wrong washing cycle and came out a size 8.9 rather than the 10.1 it started as. The 7.0 Plus, however, is a rather different beast, slotting in somewhere between the 8.9 and the Galaxy Note both in terms of styling and, of course, size. It has the same faux-brushed metal backing that Samsung calls Metallic Gray -- despite being far closer to black and not having a hint of sparkle. And still being plastic. But, it does look cool and sophisticated and is far more pleasing to touch than the smooth plastic the company originally put on its 10.1. The non-removable back is perforated to allow the three megapixel camera and its LED flash to poke through, units that appear to be borrowed from the 8.9 and 10.1 that came before. That is paired with a two megapixel camera on the front peering through the top-right portion of the LCD's bezel when held in portrait. That's a very different location than on the other recent Tabs, which put the shooter front and center on the top when you're holding the tablet in landscape mode. Why the change? Well, the 7.0 Plus is aping some phone styling here, including a gash in the bezel for a speaker and even a microphone on the bottom. The WiFi-only version we were sent of course doesn't support proper calling, and with Honeycomb it's clearly not meant to be a phone, but with Skype installed those looking to make some calls on a comically large celly are certainly welcome to do so here. The only thing missing is a proximity sensor to disable the screen -- and maybe an invisibility cloak to hide your look of shame whilst holding a 7-inch slate to your face.  So this is a device intended to be held portrait-style, reinforced by Samsung putting its logo on one of the short sides rather than on the long side where it's typically found. This is again similar to the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab, which had its array of four capacitive touch buttons on the same, shorter side. No such buttons here -- Honeycomb has of course nixed that -- but the intent is still the same. The physical buttons here are limited to power and a volume rocker, are also in the same place as on the original Tab -- on the side on the upper-right. However, slotted in beneath them on the same side is something new and interesting: an IR emitter. IR has long-since fallen out of favor as a means of intra-device communication, replaced by Bluetooth and NFC and the like, but it is still the mechanism of choice for controlling home entertainment systems, opening the door for the 7.0 Plus to be the biggest, beefiest Harmony there ever was. The standard 3.5mm headphone jack is found up on the top, shifted to the right, but continue around to the left side of the device and you'll find something a little less common: a microSD slot. Through this you can easily add up to 32GB of storage for music or movies or whatever. Pick up the 3G version of this device and you'll also find a tray for a SIM slot. Finally, on the bottom lies Samsung's proprietary 30-pin connector, flanked on both sides by two tiny little speakers that emit decent sound but at a maximum volume too low to be of much use in all but the quietest of small rooms. Connectivity options on this model include 802.11a/b/g/n at both 2.4 and 5GHz along with Bluetooth 3.0. The 3G model adds on 21Mbps HSPA+ (900, 1900 and 2100MHz) and quad-band EDGE/GPRS (850, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz). Display While the Galaxy Tab 8.9, the increasingly mythical 7.7 and even the Galaxy Note manage to offer the full 1280 x 800 resolution offered by the big boy 10.1, the 7.0 Plus sadly is asked to make do with a measly 1024 x 600. That's the same as the original Galaxy Tab and, while we wish this device had the resolution to match its bigger (and even smaller) siblings, it is otherwise a very nice display. Colors are rich and bright, contrast is good and, while it can't quite deliver the sort of mouth-watering saturation that the company's Super AMOLED Plus panels can manage, color reproduction seems to be spot-on. If the stock color temperature isn't to your liking, there are two others you can choose: Dynamic, which is a little too over-saturated for our tastes, and Movie, which tones things down a bit. Whichever you choose you'll have a great looking picture that doesn't go bad even at extreme viewing angles. Performance and battery life The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus uses internals that are quite familiar at this point: a dual-core 1.2GHz processor paired with 1GB of RAM and either 16 or 32GB of storage. Unsurprising, then, that performance was also quite familiar. Despite being quite smaller than the 10.1, this guy blazes through most tasks with similar aplomb. Apps launch promptly and flipping through and examining pictures in the gallery is as smooth as you like. The only occasional hiccups came into play on web browsing, where webpages occasionally got a bit sticky and browsing became sporadically unresponsive. Disabling Flash helped -- as it usually does -- but out-of-the-box surfing wasn't quite all we'd hoped it would be.
When we ran our usual spate of benchmarks, the results almost unanimously confirmed that this is indeed one speedy tablet. You'll see it bested the 7-inch T-Mobile Springboard ($430 off contract) in almost every test, save for the single-thread version of Linpack. Meanwhile, the 7.0 Plus blitzed through the SunSpider benchmark with an average score of 1,679. But it's in battery life that it really starts to pull away from the competition. In our rundown, which involves looping a movie off the tablet with WiFi on and the brightness fixed at 65 percent, it managed an impressive eight hours and nine minutes. That's really something when you consider the Springboard lasted just six and a half hours and the Acer Iconia Tab A100 came to a wheezing halt in less than five. And in case you're wondering, the 7.0 represents a marked improvement over the original Galaxy Tab, whose runtime was two hours shorter.
Software For the most part the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus feels like any of the other Galaxy Tabs to use. It's running Android 3.2 Honeycomb, customized with Samsung's TouchWiz interface that adds a number of useful tools to the mix: a task manager, a world clock, a finger-friendly note taking app, a calculator and a music player. They're all accessible by tapping on the little up-arrow at the bottom of the screen. TouchWiz also simplifies the look of Honeycomb a bit and adds some useful toggles to the settings menu that you get when tapping the wrench in the lower-right of the screen. All standard fare, that, but the Plus does bring something new to the software table: the Peel Smart Remote app. The app typically requires a $100 accessory to work but, thanks to the IR emitter built into the top of this guy, you can use it like a jumbo-sized universal remote control. To set up the app you're basically asked to turn off all your devices and sit somewhere in their general proximity. Rather than digging through endless lists of obscure product names as you struggle to remember whether you bought the Onkyo SR504 or sprung for the SR604, the Peel app just asks you to remember the brand of your device. It then starts firing out IR commands with wild abandon, asking you after each one whether your device turned on. Once your TV or receiver or DVD player springs to life, happy day, you're configured! That said, if it never does you're in trouble. The app automatically prompts you to email Peel's customer support and enter the particulars of your device, something we had to do for one of our recalcitrant receivers, and they were quite quick to respond.  This does cause problems in some cases, though. For example, we use a Harmony remote with a Nyko BluWave IR receiver to control our PS3. That works great for media playback and navigating through the XMB, but there's no way to turn the console on or off with this. And, if you can't turn the device on, the Peel simply wants nothing to do with it. So, watching movies on our PS3 was not something the Plus 7.0 will allow -- at least with this app. But, we can't wait to see what other developers can do. We also had problems with our TV, an older Sharp LCD that lacks discrete commands for its inputs. With the Harmony you can configure the remote to cycle through the available inputs as you switch from one activity to another. The Peel app, on the other hand, refuses to play nice. So, you certainly lose some configurability with Peel compared to the Harmony platform, but it is a very easy to set up and use app, and once configured it makes finding things to watch a snap. The app asks what your favorite type of shows and movies are and it goes out of its way to help you find those things on live TV. You'll get an easy grid highlighting what's on. Tap anything you like and it'll take you directly to that channel. You can also browse by genre and, in general, look at your TV listings in a whole new way. This is great if you often find yourself struggling to find something good to watch -- bad if you're the type who finds yourself idly sitting in front of the TV when you should be getting things done. The competition Just who exactly is the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus trying to usurp? That's hard to tell, as the 7-inch slate category is still a bit under-served, but it's safe to say that this guy's strongest competition comes from its own big brother, the Galaxy Tab 8.9, which loses the IR emitter and microSD expansion but adds on a higher-resolution screen with a bit more room. If you're squarely stuck on the 7-inch size the T-Mobile Springboard is a solid competitor priced at just $30 more off-contract and, for that money, offering 3G connectivity. Of course you'll have to pay for data if you're hoping to take advantage of that, but anyone willing to sign on for a two-year contract will find themselves paying just $180. We'd also be remiss if we didn't mention the Iconia Tab A100, which costs just $330, though, again, that discount means you'll have to settle for considerably shorter battery life. Stepping away from Honeycomb we have both the $350 BlackBerry PlayBook, $400 HTC Flyer (with Gingerbread), $200 Kindle Fire and the $249 Nook Tablet. The PlayBook and Fire are well-constructed but, with their angular shapes, a bit less comfortable to hold -- they're heavier, too. RIM's tablet adds HDMI output to the mix, making it great for hosting boardroom presentations, while Amazon's tablet offers an easy view into a very impressive collection of premium media, and of course costs just $200. The Flyer adds stylus input to the mix, while the Nook Tablet is of course quite comparable to the Fire -- just with slightly better specs and aesthetics. Wrap-up  The performance is good, the IR capabilities are a nice touch and the expandable storage will definitely tempt those with a few extra microSD cards lying dormant. But, for just a little more money, the 8.9 feels like a much more comprehensive tablet and the 7.7, if it ever releases, will quickly make this guy obsolete with its 1280 x 800 Super AMOLED Plus display. And of course there's the Note, which can do proper double duty as a phone along with everything else the 7.0 Plus can do. While the ideal size for a tablet is a personal decision, amid the increasingly chromatic scale of tablets Samsung is offering we can't help but feel the 7.0 Plus comes in just a little flat for our liking when compared with the almost pitch-perfect 8.9. That said, those looking for something a bit more portable will sing high praise for this 7-inch slate. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ASUS Padfone crops up in benchmark database, hides its S4 SoC out in the open Posted: 21 Nov 2011 09:40 AM PST  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to create music with a tax on ISPs Posted: 21 Nov 2011 09:21 AM PST  Nicolas Sarkozy is worried about the future of his country's music industry, and he's turning to French ISPs for help. Speaking alongside other G8 and G20 delegates at the Forum d'Avignon this weekend, Sarko affirmed his commitment to setting up a "national music center" within France, in the hopes of spurring artistic creativity amid a rather dour industrial climate. Modeled on France's National Cinema Center, the system was first proposed back in September by Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand, and, if launched, would be funded by a tax on ISPs. According to Sarkozy, taxing service providers in the name of protecting French art is only fair game. "Globalization [has allowed] the giants of the Internet to make a lot of money on the French market," Sarkozy explained, echoing familiar Gallic attitudes toward online protectionism. "Good for them, but they do not pay a penny in tax to France." He went on to praise his country's Hadopi copyright law for reducing internet privacy by 35 percent, but stressed that the government must do more to protect what could be a dying French commodity: "The day when there is no more music, the day when there is no longer a cinema, the day when there are no writers, what will your generation search for on the internet?" Other things, probably. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HTC Titan arrives on AT&T: pocket-straining Windows Phone for $200 on contract Posted: 21 Nov 2011 08:59 AM PST While Europeans have been filling their pockets with this dark, handsome smartphone for over a month, the HTC Titan has finally stepped across the Atlantic and is up for sale on AT&T. Windows Phone 7.5 is in attendance, spread across a 4.7-inch screen, the most display real estate it's ever had the pleasure to frolic upon. We made it pretty clear in our full review that you'll be getting a beautifully crafted slice of smartphone here -- if you can wrap your hands around it. It's priced pretty solidly at $200 on a two-year contract, or $550 for anyone not a fan of the pay-monthly schtick. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Windows Phone Marketplace inches over 40,000 app mark Posted: 21 Nov 2011 08:38 AM PST Windows Phone continues to shore up its app and game selection, hitting 40,000 apps in just over a year since its inception. Granted, there's still plenty of catching up to do before Microsoft's third way can go toe-to-toe with Android and iOS, but it's another (substantial) step in the right direction. According to All About Windows Phone, new content is now being added at the heady rate of around 165 apps per day, although it notes that a chunk of previously released apps are now non-existent, subtracting around 5,000 from the scores we have here. However, app devs have cranked it up a gear, adding around the same amount of new apps in only the last month -- presumably galvanized by Nokia's much-publicized WinPho debut and other Mango-powered delights arriving in stores. Will it crack the 50k mark by the end of the year? We're sure Mr. Ballmer won't be betting against it.
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| Engadget's holiday gift guide 2011: e-readers Posted: 21 Nov 2011 08:00 AM PST Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! We're well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties surrounding the seasonal shopping experience, so we're here to help you sort out this year's tech treasures. Below is today's bevy of curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season.  Stocking stuffer
Mid-range
"You shouldn't have..."
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| Samsung adds another WiFi-only Series 5 Chromebook, on sale now for $349 (updated) Posted: 21 Nov 2011 07:41 AM PST  After Samsung released its Series 5 Chromebook, lots of you said you'd buy it -- if Sammy slashed the asking price in half. Well, we're not there yet, but the company did just unveil another WiFi-only version, this time with a more palatable MSRP of $349 and a slightly tweaked version of Chrome OS to match. (It has a black lid, too, in case that snow white number was too precious for you.) To recap, it has a bright, matte 12.1-inch (1280 x 800) display, a dual-core Intel Atom CPU, two USB 2.0 ports and a memory card slot. And design-wise, at least, it's a step up from most netbooks, with a comfortable keyboard and surprisingly solid 0.8-inch-thick chassis. In any case, if you were planning on picking one up for the Chrome OS lover in your life (or, you know, the low-tech person who only ever uses a web browser anyway), it's on sale now at the likes of Best Buy, Amazon, NewEgg and Tigerdirect.Update: Not to be outdone, Acer just sent out a press release announcing it's cut the price of its AC700 Chromebook. It'll now cost $299 for the WiFi-only version (down from $349) and $399 for the Verizon Wireless 3G model (it had been $449). SAMSUNG SPREADS HOLIDAY CHEER THIS YEAR WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF A NEW SERIES 5 CHROMEBOOK | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ice Cream Sandwich supports USB mass storage after all, Galaxy Nexus does not Posted: 21 Nov 2011 07:24 AM PST  When we gave our first impressions of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, we were a bit taken aback by the fact that USB mass storage wasn't supported on the device, leading us to believe that it was a flaw in Android 4.0. Android engineer Dan Morrill took to the 'net to sort out the confusion, explaining that Ice Cream Sandwich does indeed support the feature, but only on devices that offer removable storage cards -- which explains why we weren't able to use it on the Nexus. Here's why, according to Dan:
Mystery solved. To check out the full transcript of his comments, you can head over to the More Coverage link, where Android Police has done a nifty job of putting it together into an easy-to-read format. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spotify wants to show us 'what's next' on November 30th Posted: 21 Nov 2011 07:11 AM PST  Hey, we like Spotify quite a bit already, but we're not ones to begrudge a music streaming site for working on bettering itself. The site sent out an invite this morning for an event that will be held on the 30th, presided over by none other than CEO Daniel Ek and "a special guest or two." If the above image is any indication, the big news isn't a new logo. Either way, we'll find out for sure next week. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Galaxy Nexus coming to Bell and Virgin Mobile Canada December 8th, pre-orders begin today Posted: 21 Nov 2011 06:45 AM PST  Time to start whoopin' and hollerin', Canada -- not only do you have a date with the Galaxy Nexus on December 8th, you can begin pre-ordering it on Bell and Virgin Mobile today. Getting your phone ordered early ensures that you can have the $160 handset (after a three-year commitment, of course) shipped out "as soon as it's available," but it doesn't necessarily guarantee your brand new treasure will show up on launch day. Bell's got a promo going on that we don't recall having seen before: a Twitter line-up. The idea is to sign up on the site on December 1st between 10am and 11am (EST), claim a spot in the virtual line and you'll be given a message to send on Twitter. Then, return to the site once an hour until 10pm and tweet out the latest message. If you remain in the top 100 when all is said and done, your Galaxy Nexus will be guaranteed to arrive on the 8th. 'Course, given the amount of interest circulating around the phone, it's probably best if you're on the site ready to get your Tweet at 9:59am. Check out the press release for the deets. Galaxy Nexus Pre-orders And starting today, customers can pre-order the year's most anticipated superphone at Bell.ca/GalaxyNexus or Virginmobile.ca/Nexus, starting at $159.95 on a three year term. Bell Twitter Line-up For those who want to ensure they're first to have Galaxy Nexus, the Bell Twitter Line-up runs from 10am to 10pm EST on December 1. Believed to be a first of its kind online purchasing opportunity, the Bell Twitter Line-up guarantees 100 eligible people a Galaxy Nexus shipped to their address on launch day December 8. Simply log-in between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on December 1 and sign-up to get a pre-populated Tweet and secure place in the virtual line. Places 1 to 100 need to return to the page once every hour before 10 p.m. and send out the latest tweet. When completed successfully, Bell will get in touch on shipping and other arrangements. For more details, please visit Bell.ca/GalaxyNexus About Galaxy Nexus by Samsung Galaxy Nexus by Samsung has a stunning 4.65" (11.8cm) HD SuperAMOLED display and is the world's first mobile device to come with Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" – the new version of Google's wildly popular mobile Android platform. It's the hottest superphone of the holiday season, available only from Bell Mobility and Virgin Mobile Canada. New features of Galaxy Nexus include: · "Face Unlock", allowing customers to unlock their device simply by looking at it · "Android Beam" for fast and easy sharing of web pages, apps, and YouTube videos · "People app", which lets customers browse friends, family, and coworkers, see their photos in high-resolution, and check status updates from Google＋ and other social networks | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet review Posted: 21 Nov 2011 06:00 AM PST  Back in April, the Nook Color underwent a magical change of sorts: a software update that transformed the device from a color screen e-reader into an honest to goodness Android tablet. It was the company's first swipe at the space -- a backdoor approach that beat out fellow e-reader manufacturers like Amazon and Kobo. Its follow-up, the Nook Tablet, marks the company's first out-of-the-box shot at the consumer tablet market. Not to mention, it also goes head to head with the Kindle Fire, a device that's sure to be one of the best-selling gadgets of the holiday season, thanks to its price and wide content selection. Does the Nook Tablet have what it takes to topple the Kindle Fire? Do the product's benefits justify its $50 premium over Amazon's device -- or the recently discounted and soon to be upgraded Nook Color for that matter? Find out the answers to these questions and so, so many more, after the break. HardwareNeed a fun way to pass the time this weekend? Why not roll down to your local Barnes & Noble for a round of "Nook Tablet or Nook Color?" It's the gadgety game that's sweeping the nation. Yes, it's been said before, but it bears repeating: the Tablet is nearly identical to its predecessor. When we asked Barnes & Noble why it opted to go with the same form factor, a company rep told us it was because the Nook Color was such a successful device with an immediately recognizable design. In other words, the Nook Color wasn't broken, so B&N didn't fix it -- besides, the company surely wanted to make the most of its Yves Behar investment. The only major changes to the body are a lighter color (a metallic silver to the Color's dark gray), and a slightly more textured back, which should help when it comes to keeping the thing from slipping to the floor during a particularly saucy D.H. Lawrence passage. Also, in spite of some revamped innards, the company managed to shed a little more than an ounce on the reader, knocking it down to 14.1 ounces (400 grams) -- half an ounce less than the Fire.  However, familiar it is, the Nook Tablet has a distinctive design in a market filled with iPad lookalikes. And yes, its chief competition, the Kindle Fire, looks an awful lot like the BlackBerry PlayBook, as we've mentioned many times before. The most distinctive feature, hands-down is the little carabiner loop that juts out from the bottom left corner of the reader, a design decision largely to set the device apart from other tablets according to B&N -- and to offer some protection for the slot that lies on the other side. The Nook tablet measures 8.1 x 5.0 x 0.48 inches, making it slightly larger than the Fire in every respect, particularly height. The Nook is tall for a seven-inch tablet. This is thanks, in part, to its sizable plastic outer bezel, as well as a bar below the screen that houses the home button, which is better defined here than on the Color. The black bar is flush with the display this time out and at first glance appears larger than the one on the Color. Still, once you turn on the Color, you'll notice a black bar lining the bottom of the screen, which effectively cancels out the benefit of having a narrower bezel  Two large volume buttons are located on the top of the Tablet's left side, with the power button on the right side. The Nook has four physical buttons in all -- three more than the Fire's solitary power button, a plus for easy access and those moments when the touchscreen acts up, which has certainly been known to happen on these budget tabets. Oh, and unlike the Fire, you can actually adjust the volume without diving into the settings. Point Barnes & Noble. A headphone jack is located along the top of the slate, with a micro-USB port positioned at the center of the bottom. Flip the device over, and you'll see a small speaker grill. The speaker has been bumped up a bit this time out. It can achieve a audible volume, but like the Kindle Fire, the quality is abysmal. You'll most likely find yourself reaching for the headphones (not included). The back of the Tablet is convex (which is why it comes in a tiny bit thicker than the Fire), so it conforms to the hand a bit better than the perfectly flat Kindle Fire. A big, indented lowercase "n" sits in the middle of the non-removable back. On the bottom, next to the carabiner is a silver strip reading "nook." Pry it open with a finger nail and you'll find the microSD slot.  The Nook has a nice size and shape that come in handy during long reading sessions -- something B&N clearly took into account when building it. Your thumb grips comfortably around the plastic bezel, with your fingers on the upside down horseshoe on the rear, which brings to mind the Nook Simple Touch's concave backing.This might have served as another avenue for aesthetic distinction here, though no doubt would have ultimately served to add more girth to what is already a largeish footprint for a seven-inch tablet. The Nook ships with a micro-USB cable and AC adapter, which you'll need to charge it up -- no PC charging for this guy. The former has the device's "n" logo on one end, changing color with battery status: yellow for charging and green for full. Sure, you can simply unlock the device to find out, but it's a nice little extra touch. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tablet | Battery Life |
| Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet | 8:20 |
| Amazon Kindle Fire | 7:42 |
| Apple iPad 2 | 10:26 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 | 9:55 |
| Apple iPad | 9:33 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 | 9:21 |
| HP TouchPad | 8:33 |
| Lenovo IdeaPad K1 | 8:20 |
| Motorola Xoom | 8:20 |
| T-Mobile G-Slate | 8:18 |
| Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus | 8:09 |
| Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet | 8:00 |
| Archos 101 | 7:20 |
| Archos 80 G9 | 7:06 |
| RIM BlackBerry PlayBook | 7:01 |
| Acer Iconia Tab A500 | 6:55 |
| Toshiba Thrive | 6:25 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab | 6:09 |
Performance
[Kindle, left; Nook, right]
As mentioned earlier, the internals are the key distinction between the Nook Tablet and its still very much alive predecessor. This time out, the Nook is rocking a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, and yes, there's a noticeable difference in speed, even with something as simple as loading an app like Angry Birds. The distinction is a bit less pronounced between the Kindle Fire and the Nook, though it is there, with the Nook just beating the Fire when loading apps. The Tablet was able to take just about everything we threw at it with minimal hiccups.
There isn't a ton of distinction between the Nook and the Fire, when it comes to browsing. The Kindle seems a bit more equipped to handle text and the Nook does a better job with images when loading pages. Both devices do pinch-to-zoom, scrolling and the like capably. SunSpider 9.1 told a bit of a different story, with the Book racking up a 4,135 -- that's low, especially compared to the Fire's score of 2,440. The difference in results may have something to do with the Kindle's Silk Browser, which utilizes Kindle's massive server resources, to do the heavy lifting for page rendering -- a tool that the company promises will continue to improve over time.The most clear performance distinction between the Fire and the Tablet can be seen when playing video.
The most clear performance distinction between the Fire and the Tablet can be seen when playing video. We streamed Shutter Island on Netflix and were blown away by the difference. The Nook's video playback handles motion far more gracefully than the choppy Fire. And it picks up on subtle details that bleed and blur when played back on the Kindle. The Nook Tablet definitely wins that round.
Interface
Amazon seemingly went out it its way to mask all traces of the Android interface it was running on top of. Barnes & Noble made some big adjustments to the operating system as well, but anyone who's used Android for any length or time will likely recognize the operating system. Where the Fire is locked into a bookshelf-like UI, the Nook offers up a pretty standard mobile desktop -- one with a default wallpaper that is thankfully less busy that the one offered up on the Color.
The Color's top bar is largely intact here, however, deferring to the Tablet's reader roots by offering up the name of the book you've been reading. Barnes & Noble is having it both ways, however, pushing the device's multimedia functionality at the same time. Click "More," and you get a list of your books, periodicals and Netflix picks, if you're online and logged into the service. A row of icons offers up apps you've used and books you've recently read -- these can be dragged and dropped onto the desktop, if you're so inclined. Below that row are icons for including movies (via Netflix and Hulu Plus), music (via the built-in music player and Pandora), and a list of apps. Barnes & Noble is really driving home the fact that it's got a true multimedia device, this time around.
Still below that row is a battery-level indicator, the time, and an open-book icon, which is visible across many of the Tablet's features, a gentle reminder that, even in the face of streaming movies and music, this device is a reader at heart. Clicking the "n" button brings up yet another menu, offering up options ways of accessing home, library, the shop, search, apps, the web, and settings. Clicking the library icon will bring up an interface more like the Fire's default screen, complete with shelves. It doesn't look as good as the Kindle's classy wood design, bit does the trick. There are shelves for apps, books, magazines, newspapers, kids books and further customizable options.
As with the Fire, the app selection is limited to those Barnes & Noble wants on the device. Of course, there are workarounds -- lots of them, in fact. We were feeling a bit saucy and managed to load the Amazon Appstore on the slate (here's where that microSD card comes in handy) with little effort. Or, you can always just root the Tablet. Barnes & Noble would prefer you score your content through officially sanctioned channels, of course, but the company hasn't exactly made it difficult to find other avenues.
Browser
Where the Silk browser was one of Amazon's major selling points for the Fire, browsing speeds are less of a focus on the Nook Tablet. After all, Barnes & Noble doesn't have its servers doing all of the work for the device. The Nook browser doesn't offer a lot of bells and whistles, though unlike some seven-inch Gingerbread tablets like the Kobo Vox, the thing actually renders pages in their desktop form, rather than as mobile sites.
Layout-wise there's not a whole heck of a lot of differences between the browsers on the Nook Tablet and Color. At top is an address bar, a back button, a star icon for bookmarks and an icon for additional options like opening up new windows, viewing bookmarks, refreshing, and paging forward. Hold down on a page, and you'll get options for searching on it, getting page info, adjusting settings, viewing your downloads and bookmarking.
Zooming and scrolling are zippy on the reader. You accomplish the former by either pinching, double-tapping or clicking plus and minus buttons that pop up as you scroll. And, yes, unlike some other tablets, this one is fully capable of playing Flash video, and it does so quite smoothly.
Magazines
The thought of reading an image-heavy magazine on, say, the Nook Simple Touch, seems like a downright nightmare -- the grayscale images, the clunky zooming, the endless scrolling. Compared to its e-reader predecessors, the Nook Tablet's full-color multitouch screen is a delight. Given the real estate limitations of the seven-inch screen, however, there's a still good deal of pinching to zooming and scrolling happening here to properly take in all of the text and images.
As we suggested in the Fire review, a 10-inch display is a far more ideal size for reading standard format magazines. Many magazines not formatted specifically for the device will show a black bar on the bottom to format them to the page -- of course, this will go away as you zoom in.
As with other texts, the Nook Tablet will offer you the option of picking up where you've left off, if you've been reading a copy of a given magazine on another device. The pages have animation similar to that on the iPad, simulating the experience of flipping through a physical magazine. Tapping a page in the center will bring up buttons for the table of contents, brightness adjustment and a handy gallery of thumbnail pages that you can quickly swipe through to find a spot in the periodical that you'd like to check out. Along the top of the page is a black bar offering up the magazine's name in one corner and a plus in the other that you can tap to bookmark a page, dog ear-style.
Comics
Comixology on the iPad is still the gold standard for digital comics reading. That said, the Nook Tablet's built-in comics reader certainly does an admirable job recreating the experience. The screen offers up vibrant screens for brightly color books. The blues and reds of Spider-man's costume really pop on the seven-inch screen.
Unlike the Fire, the Nook Tablet can pinch to zoom in those spots of artwork that require closer inspection or pieces of text that are just too small to read with the page at full-size. However, the Fire's panel-by-panel reading method is really the ideal way to experience a comic on a screen with limited screen space. With the Nook, you regularly find yourself pinching to get a closer look and scrolling around like mad to make it around the page. Once you flip the page, the whole thing pops back into place.
If you're reading a book with two-page splashes, you can shift the device to landscape mode, to look at two at once. Of course, given the size constraints, the text becomes much harder to read. The preview gallery found in magazine mode is also present here, and it looks really great flipping through brightly-colored action pages.
Children's books
The full-color screen is also great for kids books, and thanks to their relatively limited text, they generally scale better than magazines or comics. Given the Nook Tablet's smaller size and cheaper price point, it actually may be a be a better option for young readers. When you click open a compatible title, you're greated with three options. Read By Myself gives you the standard reading experience, Read and Play offers narration that reads for you as you flip through, And thanks to a built-in mic, Read and Record lets parents record narration on a selection of kids titles, so children have someone to read to them when they're not around.
A little arrow icon on the bottom of a page offers up a similar thumbnail gallery with large images of the book's pages. Some of the titles, like the Michael Chabon-penned The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man offer up activities on each page. Clicking the star icon on the top lets kids know how they interact with the book, such as touching characters to see animations.
Books
This wouldn't be a Nook without the reading, right? In spite of all of its flashy multimedia capabilities present, Barnes & Noble clearly considers the Nook Tablet a reading device at heart. The reading experience doesn't stray too far from the one offered up by the Nook Color. The pages are monopolized almost entirely by text, save for the ubiquitous bar at the bottom offering up WiFi strength and battery level and pages numbers, with both your present page and the total number in the book, a feature curiously absent from the Kindle's default layout. Clicking on the numbers brings up a slider for adjusting your place in the book. You can also just enter number manually by clicking Go to Page.
As with the Fire, you can navigate through the text by swiping forward or back or tapping a margin. Tapping on the center, meanwhile, brings up a menu offering up the table of contents, a search function, sharing, text, brightness adjustments and a Discover feature, which offers up texts similar to the one you're reading. Interestingly, both Barnes & Noble opted not to feature a pinch-to-zoom option in the standard reading interface, a simple method for adjusting text size.
In the menu, you've got a healthy number of options for looking at the page, however, including eight text sizes, six fonts, six color themes from black on yellow to white on brown (for when the white LCD gets to be too much), three margins and three line spacing layouts. Barnes & Noble does a solid job leveraging the color screen here by giving you a ton of viewing options for the reasonably simple task of looking at plain text on a page.
Wrap-up
The market was already crowded well before Barnes & Noble announced the Nook Tablet, a situation that certainly didn't improve for the company with the announcement of the Kindle Fire. Anyone eyeing the Nook Tablet either as a gift or for themselves will almost certainly be cross checking it with Amazon's new much discussed slate. And then there's the fact that the Nook's predecessor didn't actually go away with the announcement of the new device -- rather, it got cheaper and better.
At $249, the Nook Tablet also costs a full $50 more than those products, a difference that's not negligible when we're talking about budget devices. The words "under $200" mean a lot to shoppers. Of course, you get some decided advantages along with that premium, including more RAM, great video, a microSD slot and attention paid to smaller things, like the built-in mic, which lets users do things like recording narration for kids books.
Amazon, on the other hand, offers up a smaller form factor, price and better proprietary media options. There's really no clear winner here, but with the addition of two now solid products to the ever-expanding world of tablets, there's an even greater chance that the consumer will get precisely what they're looking for.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Nook Tablet gets torn down, mysteries of the carabiner unlocked
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 05:46 AM PST
Flash for Android not quite dead yet, will land on Ice Cream Sandwich by year's end
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 05:22 AM PST
Pogoplug lets Drobo into its Cloud, offers 10GB of 'public' storage to sweeten the deal
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 05:10 AM PST
Do you use a Drobo for your RAID storage needs? Wish you could access that data from wherever your travels take you? Well then, wish no more! Today the company has a announced a partnership with Pogoplug aimed at getting your Drobo hooked up to the cloud. So long as you've got an internet connection, you'll now be able to use Pogoplug software to privately access your data and multimedia from wherever you may be. Better yet, Cloud Engines is also throwing in 10GB of free off-site storage on its recently minted -- and Dropbox-like -- Pogoplug Cloud service. Curious for info on getting started? You'll find details in the press release after the break along with a cringe-inducing "demo" video reminiscent of The Office to further explain it all.
Drobo and Pogoplug Partner to Deliver the Personal Cloud
Joint partnership brings Pogoplug Cloud to Drobo customers, for remote file access, cloud storage and media streaming from any device
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Nov. 21, 2011 – Drobo, makers of award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, and Pogoplug, creators of the award-winning line of streaming and sharing devices, today announced a partnership to deliver a comprehensive personal cloud solution for anytime, anywhere access to files. Drobo customers will have access to free cloud storage, remote file access and digital media streaming using Pogoplug Cloud, a new service announced last week.
Using Pogoplug Cloud, customers can turn their Drobo into a multi-terabyte private cloud that provides secure, remote access to their entire digital library of documents, movies, photographs, games and music files. The agreement between Drobo and Pogoplug also provides Drobo users with 10GB of free public cloud storage - ideal for syncing valuable files between Drobo and the cloud.
"Small businesses, professionals, and consumers already store large collections of files on their Drobo," said Tom Buiocchi, CEO of Drobo. "Adding remote access, media streaming and other cloud capabilities turns the Drobo into the ultimate personal cloud – combining the simple, reliable storage Drobo users have come to expect with the flexibility and freedom of the cloud."
Designed specifically for customers who require storage capacity without the complexity and price of legacy storage, Drobo delivers sophisticated yet easy-to-use and affordable storage solutions for professionals and businesses. Every Drobo is powered by the patented BeyondRAID technology that automates traditional storage challenges such as data protection, capacity expansion, and application performance optimization.
"Digital media content has exploded as a major part of our lives, but requires huge amounts of storage, " said Daniel Putterman, CEO and co-founder of Cloud Engines. "The partnership with Drobo delivers a seamless hybrid cloud experience for professionals and consumers alike to access and stream stored digital media and personal content."
Pogoplug Cloud, delivered by Cloud Engines, has changed the way personal content is stored and delivered over the Internet with the advent of its personal cloud. Pogoplug Cloud provides secure storage of digital media from any location, enabling users to access, share and stream their content from a mobile or connected device. Together Drobo and Pogoplug Cloud offer customers with large personal media files remote access to these files under the security of linking a Drobo appliance to a personal cloud.
Customers interested in the new offering can find more information at www.drobo.com/pogoplug.
Joint partnership brings Pogoplug Cloud to Drobo customers, for remote file access, cloud storage and media streaming from any device
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Nov. 21, 2011 – Drobo, makers of award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, and Pogoplug, creators of the award-winning line of streaming and sharing devices, today announced a partnership to deliver a comprehensive personal cloud solution for anytime, anywhere access to files. Drobo customers will have access to free cloud storage, remote file access and digital media streaming using Pogoplug Cloud, a new service announced last week.
Using Pogoplug Cloud, customers can turn their Drobo into a multi-terabyte private cloud that provides secure, remote access to their entire digital library of documents, movies, photographs, games and music files. The agreement between Drobo and Pogoplug also provides Drobo users with 10GB of free public cloud storage - ideal for syncing valuable files between Drobo and the cloud.
"Small businesses, professionals, and consumers already store large collections of files on their Drobo," said Tom Buiocchi, CEO of Drobo. "Adding remote access, media streaming and other cloud capabilities turns the Drobo into the ultimate personal cloud – combining the simple, reliable storage Drobo users have come to expect with the flexibility and freedom of the cloud."
Designed specifically for customers who require storage capacity without the complexity and price of legacy storage, Drobo delivers sophisticated yet easy-to-use and affordable storage solutions for professionals and businesses. Every Drobo is powered by the patented BeyondRAID technology that automates traditional storage challenges such as data protection, capacity expansion, and application performance optimization.
"Digital media content has exploded as a major part of our lives, but requires huge amounts of storage, " said Daniel Putterman, CEO and co-founder of Cloud Engines. "The partnership with Drobo delivers a seamless hybrid cloud experience for professionals and consumers alike to access and stream stored digital media and personal content."
Pogoplug Cloud, delivered by Cloud Engines, has changed the way personal content is stored and delivered over the Internet with the advent of its personal cloud. Pogoplug Cloud provides secure storage of digital media from any location, enabling users to access, share and stream their content from a mobile or connected device. Together Drobo and Pogoplug Cloud offer customers with large personal media files remote access to these files under the security of linking a Drobo appliance to a personal cloud.
Customers interested in the new offering can find more information at www.drobo.com/pogoplug.
Norwegian bookseller begins selling e-books on memory cards, for some reason (video)
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 04:36 AM PST
TRIM or RAID 0? SSD owners will no longer have to choose
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 04:02 AM PST
[Thanks, Brian]
European Galaxy Nexus owners complain of erratic volume issue (video)
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 03:40 AM PST
STHoldings withdraws more than 200 record labels from Spotify, does so with gusto
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 02:42 AM PST
"As a distributor we have to do what is best for our labels," STHoldings explained, in a statement. "The majority of which do not want their music on such services because of the poor revenues and the detrimental affect on sales. Add to that the feeling that their music loses its specialness by its exploitation as a low value/free commodity." The distributor went on to quote one of its labels with a line that rhymes with "duck modify." In comparatively subdued response, Spotify said it respects STHoldings' decision, but still hopes that the labels "will change their minds." The Swedish company also contested STHoldings' study-backed arguments against it, claiming that it has "already convinced millions of consumers to pay for music again," and assuring that artists' revenue streams will "continue to grow." Read more about the study, the stats and the spat at the links below.
Microsoft patent aims to curb your enthusiasm in the office
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 01:48 AM PST
Doh uses RFID and Arduino to help you remember your wallet, continues search for the 'Any Key'
Posted: 21 Nov 2011 12:11 AM PST
Developer creates proxy server for Siri, controls thermostat with his voice (video)
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 10:37 PM PST
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Google+ quietly gets trending topics, dares you to search for it
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 10:03 PM PST
Hungry for Chinese yuan, Apple now accepts currency for App Store purchases
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 07:53 PM PST
[Chinese yuan photo via Shutterstock]
How would you change Sony's Tablet S?
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 06:01 PM PST
Inhabitat's Week in Green: LA Auto Show, tidal energy farm and Japan's futuristic eco-city
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 04:30 PM PST
Water pump reportedly destroyed by SCADA hackers
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 03:20 PM PST
Nook Tablet gets rooted, bootloader stays under lock and key
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 02:23 PM PST
Update: Indirect has updated his forum post to clarify that the root is permanent.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Switched On: Between a Nook and a hard place
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 01:35 PM PST
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In the 1988 comedy Coming to America, a blatant McDonald's rip-off named McDowell's draws the legal ire of the empire built by Ray Kroc. In explaining his pathetic defense that includes noting that McDowell's uses golden arcs instead of golden arches, the eatery's manager notes that while both the Big Mac and his Big Mick both include the 1970s jingle-immortalized ingredients of two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, the McDowell's flagship burger bun has, in fact, no sesame seeds.
This state of differentiation isn't a far cry from what characterized some of the earliest 10-inch Honeycomb devices -- a few fractions of an inch of thickness, a higher-quality display, a full-sized USB port, an hour or two of running time and some bundled apps constituted how many of the tablets asserted their competitiveness. Of course, there was the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer with its keyboard add-on and its follow up, the Eee Pad Slider, which finally brought an integrated one. But whether it's been from a lack of options for manufacturers or disadvantages of the overall Honeycomb approach, larger Android tablets have made limited inroads versus the similarly sized iPad and are now going after it more aggressively on price. A few Android tablet makers such as Acer, HTC and Samsung -- which has returned to the tablet screen size it pioneered with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus -- sought out smaller sizes such as 7-inch. This seemed to be a greener field in which to grow as Apple has all but vowed not to create an iPad in that screen size. Indeed, it was only a few months ago that RIM tried to command the same price as the iPad for its 7-inch PlayBook.
Within the past few weeks, though, that has all changed as those old rivals from internet book-selling days -- Amazon and Barnes & Noble -- have moved forth from the limitations of e-paper and released their (most, in the case of Barnes & Noble) full-fledged tablets. Seeking to build businesses from content and software, their prices are below $250 and the still-attractive Nook Color hanging on to meet the Kindle Fire's $200 price point. Many were so optimistic about the Kindle Fire (or pessimistic about most of its competitors) that they predicted the tablet would be the #2 tablet this holiday season before it was released or even revealed.
Apple may be down on the 7-inch form factor, which is not as satisfying for Web browsing or magazines, to name a few types of media. However, it serves well for a range of experiences such as books, music, e-mail, many games, and of course video, which has become Amazon's next media battleground. (Before tablets stole their thunder, 7-inch was a popular screen size for the leading portable video device: portable DVD players.)
Without a doubt, the competition is finding itself increasingly squeezed on the high end by the iPad's maturity and at the low end by e-reader progeny. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble have done a great job in promoting their products to their millions of customers. The Kindle products have been a home page staple for one of the Web's most visited sites. And Barnes & Noble is redoubling its Nook's sales efforts, including television advertising and a new store section devoted to the tablets.
On the other hand, as Amazon and Barnes & Noble move into the broader world of tablets, they (particularly Barnes & Noble) move further away from their the core customer base (including avid readers) advantage that helped make their e-readers successful. Would the Kindle Fire look so competitive if Amazon had created a $399 10-inch version in the shadow of the iPad, 10-inch Galaxy Tab and other Honeycomb tablets?
There's no magic in matching the Kindle Fire's price; Lenovo has already done this with its IdeaPad A1. The key challenge for other tablet makers lies in the market's youth and malleable definition. Apple essentially defined it last year with the iPad and Microsoft will attempt to redefine it next year with Windows 8. In the range of smaller screen sizes, though, the success of the Kindle Fire and Nook tablets could form a consumer expectation of a tablet that is not a broad computing experience like the iPad but a media experience that weighs heavily on a set of integrated services provided by the same entity providing the content. That could become a far harder barrier to break through than a price point.
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) is executive director and principal analyst of the NPD Connected Intelligence service at The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own.
This state of differentiation isn't a far cry from what characterized some of the earliest 10-inch Honeycomb devices -- a few fractions of an inch of thickness, a higher-quality display, a full-sized USB port, an hour or two of running time and some bundled apps constituted how many of the tablets asserted their competitiveness. Of course, there was the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer with its keyboard add-on and its follow up, the Eee Pad Slider, which finally brought an integrated one. But whether it's been from a lack of options for manufacturers or disadvantages of the overall Honeycomb approach, larger Android tablets have made limited inroads versus the similarly sized iPad and are now going after it more aggressively on price. A few Android tablet makers such as Acer, HTC and Samsung -- which has returned to the tablet screen size it pioneered with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus -- sought out smaller sizes such as 7-inch. This seemed to be a greener field in which to grow as Apple has all but vowed not to create an iPad in that screen size. Indeed, it was only a few months ago that RIM tried to command the same price as the iPad for its 7-inch PlayBook.
Within the past few weeks, though, that has all changed as those old rivals from internet book-selling days -- Amazon and Barnes & Noble -- have moved forth from the limitations of e-paper and released their (most, in the case of Barnes & Noble) full-fledged tablets. Seeking to build businesses from content and software, their prices are below $250 and the still-attractive Nook Color hanging on to meet the Kindle Fire's $200 price point. Many were so optimistic about the Kindle Fire (or pessimistic about most of its competitors) that they predicted the tablet would be the #2 tablet this holiday season before it was released or even revealed.
Apple may be down on the 7-inch form factor, which is not as satisfying for Web browsing or magazines, to name a few types of media. However, it serves well for a range of experiences such as books, music, e-mail, many games, and of course video, which has become Amazon's next media battleground. (Before tablets stole their thunder, 7-inch was a popular screen size for the leading portable video device: portable DVD players.)
Without a doubt, the competition is finding itself increasingly squeezed on the high end by the iPad's maturity and at the low end by e-reader progeny. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble have done a great job in promoting their products to their millions of customers. The Kindle products have been a home page staple for one of the Web's most visited sites. And Barnes & Noble is redoubling its Nook's sales efforts, including television advertising and a new store section devoted to the tablets.
On the other hand, as Amazon and Barnes & Noble move into the broader world of tablets, they (particularly Barnes & Noble) move further away from their the core customer base (including avid readers) advantage that helped make their e-readers successful. Would the Kindle Fire look so competitive if Amazon had created a $399 10-inch version in the shadow of the iPad, 10-inch Galaxy Tab and other Honeycomb tablets?
There's no magic in matching the Kindle Fire's price; Lenovo has already done this with its IdeaPad A1. The key challenge for other tablet makers lies in the market's youth and malleable definition. Apple essentially defined it last year with the iPad and Microsoft will attempt to redefine it next year with Windows 8. In the range of smaller screen sizes, though, the success of the Kindle Fire and Nook tablets could form a consumer expectation of a tablet that is not a broad computing experience like the iPad but a media experience that weighs heavily on a set of integrated services provided by the same entity providing the content. That could become a far harder barrier to break through than a price point.
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) is executive director and principal analyst of the NPD Connected Intelligence service at The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own.
Walmart selling Limited Edition Blue Wii for $99.96 on Black Friday
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 12:52 PM PST
P.S. - Black Thursday is the new Black Friday.
Nokia's latest EDoF camera demonstrates improvement with macro shots
Posted: 20 Nov 2011 11:46 AM PST
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