Archive for the ‘Tablets’ Category
Kobo unveils Vox tablet no comments
Not to be outdone by Barnes & Noble and Amazon, Kobo today announced a 7-inch Android tablet of its own. Dubbed the Vox — as in Vox Populi; voice of the people — Kobo’s new tablet will retail for $199.99, about the same price as the Kindle Fire.
The Vox will run on Android 2.3 and features an AFFS+ LCD display. AFFS (Advanced fringe field switching) is the LCD technology developed and licensed by Hydis, a division of E Ink Holdings. The AFFS+ version of the technology is supposed to have improved outdoor readability, and the Vox also has an anti-glare coating to help with this.
The Vox will, of course, feature the Kobo ereading app. Kobo also says that the Vox will have access to an app store containing over 15,000 free apps. It will be interesting to see if the Kindle app is there, as Kobo’s reading app is available at Amazon’s Appstore for Android.
Kobo is beefing up its selection of color ebooks, and the Vox will come with three of these free. Digital Magazines will be via Zinio and a PressReader app will be onboard for newspapers. Unlimited music can be streamed to the Vox from RDIO.
Some of the other features of the Vox:
- Dimensions: 7.57 x 5.06 x .53 inches (192.4 x 128.4 x 13.4 mm).
- Screen resolution 1024 x 600 (same as the Kindle Fire).
- Battery life up to 7 hours.
- Built-in email client; contacts, calendar, music player, photo gallery, video player.
- 8GB internal memory;micro SD card slot.
There will be four colors of Vox tablets to choose from — Hot Pink, Lime Green, Ice Blue and Jet Black — and the Vox will come with the familiar Kobo quilted back.
The Vox is available for pre-order today in the US and Canada, and will be available elsewhere on the planet in the future. In Canada, Kobo’s new tablet will be available from Indigo Books & Music, Future Shop and Best Buy. In the US the Vox will be offered by Kobo, Best Buy and Fry’s.
To promote the launch of the Vox, Kobo is having another contest. Each ebook purchased between today and Oct 31, 2011 counts as an entry into a drawing giving away 10 Vox eReaders. There is as usual a non-purchase route of entry as well — see Kobo for details.
Possibly Related Posts:
Moto Xoom 32GB Wi-Fi $350 at Woot no comments
Today only you can get the Motorola Xoom 32GB Wi-Fi Honeycomb tablet for $349.99 + $5 shipping at Woot. I know the Xoom has gotten mixed reviews, but I like mine. I carry it around with me while my first gen iPad sits at home relaxing on my desk. The number of Android apps for tablets is always increasing, and I’ve found the Xoom to be pretty reliable.
Possibly Related Posts:
Moto Xoom to finally get 4G upgrade no comments
Verizon and Motorola Mobility will finally be upgrading the Xoom tablet to 4G as promised a long, long time ago. Xoom owners who signed up for email notification should be getting that tomorrow. Otherwise Verizon has a page with instructions on how to upgrade your Xoom tablet to 4G that you can visit and start the process now.
After you do the virtual paperwork at the link above you will be sent a prepaid FedEx shipping container to send your Xoom to Motorola for the upgrade. Turnaround time is said to be about six days. There are no charges for the upgrade. Do make sure to back-up your data and it is probably a good idea to secure your content with encryption and a password. The instructions for all of this are at Verizon’s page.
Possibly Related Posts:
Kindle Fire Tablet no comments
Today Amazon finally revealed its long awaited tablet to the world. The Kindle Fire will feature a 7-inch multitouch LCD display and will be backed by a ton of content. 
A quick look at some of the features of the Kindle Fire:
- 7-inch multitouch LCD display with ISP; 1024 x 600 resolution; 16 million colors.
- Dual-core processor.
- Dimensions: 7.5" x 4.7" x 0.45" (190 mm x 120 mm x 11.4 mm).
- Weight: 14.6 ounces (413 grams).
- Wi-Fi.
- 8GB internal memory.
- Email with unified inbox.
- Battery life: With Wi-Fi off will get up to 8 hours of reading or 7.5 hours of video playback.
The Kindle Fire is slightly smaller and about an ounce lighter than the Nook Color. Battery life appears to be about the same.
The new Amazon Silk Web browser on the Kindle Fire is integrated into the Amazon Web Services cloud to make it much speedier than other mobile browsers. Fire users will also benefit from Amazon’s cloud computing services by being able to store digital content purchased at Amazon in the cloud at no charge.
The Kindle Fire will be a delivery platform for all of the digital content that Amazon offers — movies, books, music and apps from Amazon’s Appstore for Android. It will come with a one-month trial subscription to Amazon Prime, which entitles members to free two-day shipping from Amazon and free streaming of around 10,000 television shows and movies.
The Whispersync technology that Amazon uses to sync your ebook reading across the Kindle ereaders and apps also has been adapted for use on the Fire. Not only will your Kindle books be synced on the Fire but also movies you stream from Amazon are synced across the Kindle Fire and the various TVs and other devices that are compatible with Amazon Instant Video. If you pause a movie on one device you can resume watching at the same place on another device.
The Kindle Fire is priced at $199 and will begin shipping on November 15, 2011. It is available for pre-order now.
Possibly Related Posts:
Amazon unveils its tablet, and a new batch of Kindle ereaders 1 comment
This morning in New York Amazon announced its new Kindle products. The Kindle Fire tablet will have a 7-inch screen, cost $199 and come with a 30-day free Prime trial. It won’t have a camera and will be Wi-Fi only. It will come with only 8GB memory, but owners can store content in Amazon’s cloud for free.
I guess my idea that Amazon would not be releasing any new e-ink based Kindle ereaders this year was way off base — which is a good thing as we will have new and cheaper Kindle ereaders for the holidays. Amazon will update the Kindle family with a new $79 6-inch Kindle with Special Offers, a 6-inch Kindle Touch Wi-Fi for $99 (with special offers) and a Kindle Touch 3G for $149.
(via Bloomberg and The Digital Reader)
So what’s it gonna kill?
At less than half the price and with a 7-inch screen I think Amazon’s tablet falls into a different category than the iPad and is probably more of an indirect threat to Apple’s tablet. Apple will loose business from potential iPad purchasers who might be planning to buy Apple’s tablet at some point but decide that this one will do instead. Of course, if Amazon does follow through with its rumored plans to launch a 10-inch version next year it would be a head-to-head competitor with the iPad.
That road is already littered with dead bodies and the formerly much vaunted but now feebly twitching champions that other tech companies have sent forth to duel with the iPad. Amazon’s tablet does bring some new and interesting features to the table along with a wealth of content to back it up, so this time the contest will certainly be interesting at the very least.
On the other hand, the Kindle Fire Tablet is an arrow aimed directly at the heart of the Nook Color and other lower priced tablets. Barnes & Noble is expected to release a new Nook Color very soon. However, there is no way that B&N can match the amount of content that is backing Amazon’s tablet.
Two areas where B&N still maintains a lead are digital magazines and children’s ebooks. Amazon is adding new titles to its newsstand, but if it is to outdo B&N here it will need to not only offer the current Kindle-optimized versions but also offer tablet editions of the mags. Being limited to one or two graphics per article is not the magazine reading experience most of us are used to. Magazines are meant to be a colorful and graphically rich read.
Update: On the Kindle Fire product info page at Amazon there is a bit about hundreds of magazines being available with full color layouts and even some with multimedia an interactive content.
Barnes & Noble also has a huge lead in illustrated children’s ebooks with its Nook Kids section. Amazon already has a Children’s eBooks section, and adding more picture books and chapter books for kids should not take too long now that Amazon has a color reading tablet of its own. For titles not published by the agency model gang we might even see a bit of price competition.
Is that a breach in the walled garden?
The Kindle Fire Tablet will be able to read ePubs from a couple of sources. Say what?!!! Amazon’s new tablet will have access to the Amazon Appstore for Android. As I have noted before, there are ereading apps from both Kobo and Wattpad in the Appstore. This means that the new tablet will be the first Kindle to be able to read ePub files. Unfortunately, the Kobo, Wattpad, Aldiko and other reading apps, while they remain available at the Appstore, cannot be installed on the Fire. This is understandable, as Amazon is using the Kindle Fire as a loss leader and needs to make up the difference between what the Fire costs to make and what it sells it for by selling content. Still, I don’t think Amazon would have lost many sales by allowing the other reading apps. For users with an existing ePub library of ebooks it would have been a selling point, and those users would no doubt be buying Kindle books as well if they had a Kindle Fire.
Possibly Related Posts:
Archos G9 tablets up for pre-order next week no comments
The Archos G9 Honeycomb tablets are expected to be available for pre-order starting next week. The new 8-inch Honeycomb tablet will come in several configurations:
- Archos 80 G9 8GB – 1 GHZ at $299
- Archos 80 G9 16GB – 1.5 GHz at $329
- Archos 80 G9 250GB – 1.5 GHz at $369
- Archos101 G9 16GB – 1.5 GHz at $399
- Archos 101 G9 250GB – 1.5 GHz at $469
The Archos 80 comes with a 1 GHz processor, while the Archos 101 features the TI OMAP 4 dual-core processor running at 1.5 GHz. The 250GB versions come with an ultra-thin hard drive from Seagate. The hard drive comes with a dedicated 4GB flash caching system designed to limit spinning and keep the drive powered down when not in use.
The G9 tablets is expected be up for pre-order at Archos.com on Sept 20 and at other retailers starting Sept 30.
Possibly Related Posts:
New Cruz tablets inbound no comments
Velocity Micro has announced a couple of new Cruz tablets that should be available later this month. The T408 will feature an 8-inch, 4:3 touchscreen and the T410 will sport a 10-inch touchscreen with 16:9 perspective. 
Other than the amount of screen real estate, both tablets share common features:
- Both will run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).
- Processor: 1GHz Cortex A8.
- Front-facing camera.
- Video compatibility: MPEG-4, FLV, H.264/H.263.
- Accelerometer.
- 512 MB RAM; 4GB onboard storage; MicroSD card slot.
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n.
Both of the new Cruz tablets will come with the full version of QuickOffice, Kindle for Android, Amazon Appstore for Android, games and other apps pre-loaded. The Cruz T410 will be priced at $299.99 and the smaller T408 will carry a price tag of $239.99.
It will be interesting to see how tablets in this price range will fare once Amazon releases its tablet.
Possibly Related Posts:
PocketBook unveils new reader tablet no comments
PocketBook International is introducing a new color reading tablet at IFA 2011 in Berlin. The new tablet, dubbed the PocketBook A 10, features a 10-inch TFT screen and runs Android 2.3.4.
Some of the features of the PocketBook A 10:
- 10-inch TFT display; 1024 x 768 resolution; Multitouch capacitive touchscreen.
- Processor: TI OMAP 3621 – 1GHz.
- Memory: 4GB; MicroSD card slot (up to 32GB).
- Dimensions: 207 x 244 x 15 mm (8.15 x 9.6 x .6 inches); Weight is 670 g (23.6 ounces).
- Battery life is around 6 hours or slightly more, depending on usage.
- Plays music (MP3, WAV) and video (AVI, MKV, MP4).
- Built-in accelerometer.
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional 3G.
- Internet browser and email client.
- Text-to-Speech function.
- Microphone; 2Mp front-facing webcam.
The PocketBook A 10 has a black and white casing. The back is not flat but has a raised portion that is designed to make the tablet more ergonomic. The TTS feature supports multiple languages and the A 10 comes with 47 built-in dictionaries for definition and translation. The release from PocketBook says that the tablet will have access to the Android Market, but since the A 10 is running Gingerbread I’m not sure how that will work. Pricing TBA.
Possibly Related Posts:
More Amazon tablet rumors no comments
Bits of news and rumor continue to swirl around Amazon’s impending tablet. The latest — which, according to Digitimes, was leaked by someone at one of the component suppliers involved in the project — is that Amazon’s 10.1-inch tablet will not go into production until the first quarter of 2012. The larger of two expected Amazon tablets will, according to the report, be assembled by Foxconn. Foxconn also assembles the Kindle ereaders and Digitimes also reports that it is estimated 15-18 million Kindles were built at Foxconn in 2011.
Amazon is expected to release a 7-inch tablet within the next couple of months. Reports have, for several months, had the smaller Kindle tablet being assembled by Quanta Computer.
Possibly Related Posts:
Sony tablets available for pre-order no comments
Besides a new ereader, Sony today also announced the availability of one of its previously announced tablets for pre-order. The new tablet is expected to ship in mid-September.
The Sony Tablet S is Honeycomb powered. It features a 9.4-inch touchscreen, NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, front and rear facing cameras and is Wi-Fi only. Its asymmetric design is meant to be more ergonomic, allowing the Tablet S to be held more comfortably for longer periods. The tablet will have access to Sony Entertainment Network Services and is Playstation Certified. DNLA is also supported for interaction with DNLA compatible televisions and other devices.
The Tablet S is available now for pre-order from Sony Style in the US and Canada. There are two configurations: 16GB priced at $499 and a 32GB model priced at $599.
The smaller clamshell Sony Tablet P is expected to be available in time for the holidays.
