Items tagged with Honeycomb
Heads up folks, the latest version of Google Play services will be the last one to support Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Android 3.0 Honeycomb devices. Google put the word out in a blog post on Monday, saying that Google Play services 10.0.0 and Firebase 10.0.0 client libraries for Android will be the last versions to support Android API level 9 (Android 2.3 Gingerbread). The next scheduled release is Google Play services version 10.2.0, which will increase the minimum supported API level from 9 to 14 (Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich) when Google releases it to the public sometime in early 2017. That will effectively leave Gingerbread and Honeycomb behind, rendering them obsolete platforms. For...
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According to leaked reports on the web, a new tablet could be coming to Sprint early next month that features a $100 price tag. The information suggests the ZTE Optik tablet, which is powered by Android, will be available for this budget-friendly price provided you're willing to sign a two-year agreement and purchase a compatible rate plan. The ZTE Optik tablet is expected to feature a 7-inch display and a dual-core 1.2GHz processor. Other key hardware specs include 16GB of onboard storage as well as a microSD card slot, 1GB of RAM, a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. The Optik will run Android 3.2, aka Honeycomb. Rumor suggests Sprint's Optik will support...
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Sony's New Year's resolution must have been to sell a more affordable tablet, as evidenced by the Tablet S receiving a much needed price cut. The 9.4-inch tablet now sells for $400 on Sony's website for the 16GB model, and $500 for the 32GB version, down from $500 and $600 respectively (though both were recently selling for $50 off MSRP). The $100 price cut isn't exactly shocking. Sony, like everyone else, is suddenly faced with the reality that there are at least two low priced and capable tablets on the market, one of which belongs to Amazon (Kindle Fire, $199) and the other to Barnes & Noble (Nook Tablet, $249). The Kindle Fire is proving especially popular with millions of sales during...
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If 2011 was the year of the tablet, then Q4 2011 had to be the quarter of 7-inch versions. With a late-in-the-year burst of releases from various manufacturers spurring break-out products like the Kindle Fire and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, it's as if manufacturers made a concerted effort to target lower price points in an move to capture opportunity upsides during the holiday season. There's little question Amazon's product, with its $199 price tag and an entire platform of media services and brand recognition behind it, made a big splash and now the competitive offerings are ramping up. Meanwhile, Toshiba was a shade on the late side to the 10-inch tablet party with...
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We called the 10-inch Toshiba Thrive the "Swiss Army Knife" of tablets when it first arrived, with its copious amounts of connectivity options and full-sized ports. It's a large-than-most tablet but the sort of device that differentiates itself in a crowd of too similar designs. The second coming of the Thrive, the Toshiba Thrive 7 that we're going to take a look at today, however, has to squeeze features and functionality into a decidedly smaller form factor. Though Toshiba once again does there level best here, to offer as much openess to connectivity as they can in this smaller version of the Thrive. We'd almost call this version the "Thrive Mini." At the internal...
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Fans of Google's Android platform are proving to be a patient lot. It hasn't been easy pulling for Android in the tablet space, which for a period of time was limited to a few overpriced and underwhelming Gingerbread slates. Things began to change when Honeycomb came out, the first version of Android designed specifically for tablets, but even then it started to feel like if you've seen one Android tablet, you've seen them all. Lately we've found ourselves asking, 'Where's all the innovation that's supposed to be associated with an open source platform, and with so many different manufacturers concentrating on Android, where's the outside-the-box mentality?" Apparently over at Sony, that's where....
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Fans of Google's Android platform are proving to be a patient lot. It hasn't been easy pulling for Android in the tablet space, which for a period of time was limited to a few overpriced and underwhelming Gingerbread slates. Things began to change when Honeycomb came out, the first version of Android designed specifically for tablets, but even then it started to feel like if you've seen one Android tablet, you've seen them all. Lately we've found ourselves asking, 'Where's all the innovation that's supposed to be associated with an open source platform, and with so many different manufacturers concentrating on Android, where's the outside-the-box mentality?" Apparently over at Sony, that's where....
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How do you make a splash in an Android tablet market that's suddenly fleshed out with a high-end Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tablet (or soon will be, courtesy of the Eee Prime Transformer 2 by Asus) and low-cost 7-inch slates built by Amazon and Barnes & Noble? By being the first to release a Honeycomb tablet for less than 200 bones, is how Archos answers that question. The Archos 70b IT is an enhanced version of the Archos 70 IT Gen 8 and features an upgraded capacitive touchscreen and 1.2GHz processor. It also has 512MB of RAM, a 1024x600 screen resolution, HDMI output, microSD card slot, and of course Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) software. "Very slim and light, the newest version of the...
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The Motorola Xoom was a notorious flop thanks to a sky-high price tag, features that didn't work for months (the company didn'ts tart upgrading the tablet to its promised 4G capability until late this fall), and a buggy implementation of Honeycomb that was a direct result of Motorola pushing too hard for an early launch. Moto, defiant in the face of such failure, went back to the drawing board and has given us the Xyboard / Xoom 2. The new tablet doesn't just replicate some of the mistakes that doomed its predecessor, it adds new flaws and foibles. This, my friends, is dedication at its finest. First, let's talk specs. The new Xyboard comes in 8.2" and 10.1" flavors with full retail prices of...
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Lenovo's first business-class Android-based tablet has arrived. The ThinkPad Tablet comes with many of the features business users want and demand from a tablet, including full encryption, remote wipe capabilities, productivity apps, VPN support, pen-based handwriting recognition technology, and more. Running on Android 3.1, the ThinkPad Tablet comes preloaded with more than 25 free apps. Many of these apps will be useful to business users. With the tablet's full-size USB port, full-size SD card slot, and microUSB port, transferring files to and from the tablet is easy. The ThinkPad Tablet also has a mini HDMI connector so you can connect the device to a larger display or HDTV for displaying...
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Lenovo's first business-class Android-based tablet has arrived. The ThinkPad Tablet comes with many of the features business users want and demand from a tablet, including full encryption, remote wipe capabilities, productivity apps, VPN support, pen-based handwriting recognition technology, and more. Running on Android 3.1, the ThinkPad Tablet comes preloaded with more than 25 free apps. Many of these apps will be useful to business users, such as Documents to Go by DataViz, PrinterShare, Computrace Mobile by Absolute Software, and Citrix Receiver. With the optional digitizer pen, you can also take advantage of the preloaded MyScript Notes Mobile app which lets you take notes, draw, and insert...
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Asus and Nvidia have collectively taken the wraps off the next-generation version of Asus' well-received Transformer tablet line, and the new system aims to carve out a slice of the premium tablet market. It's far from a sure bet given the tremendous difficulty Android tablets have had cracking into the iPad-dominated industry, but the Prime impresses—at least, so far. We reserve final judgment until we've actually seen shipping hardware. The Asus Transformer Prime, in docked configuration. The Transformer Prime incorporates Nvidia's new Kal-El processor and it's one of Tegra 3's upper-end launch systems. We've discussed Kal-El in depth several times before; the new chip contains a fifth...
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Google announced an update for the Google Docs app so that it works better on tablets. The update includes a new design that takes advantage of the larger screen found on tablets. Included in this new design is a three-panel layout which lets you navigate, view your document list, and see document details from a single screen. The details panel includes a thumbnail so you can preview a document before opening it. You can also see who can view or edit a document from this panel. The new features are available for tablets running Android 3.0 and higher. An enhanced Google Docs experience on Android tablets Wednesday, October 5, 2011 | 10:02 AM Earlier this year, we introduced the Google Docs app...
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The Asus Eee Pad Slider is a break-out device, much in the way the Asus Eee Pad Transformer broke the mold not so long ago when it was announced. Though it's built on the same base NVIDIA Tegra 2 platform that many 10.1 Android Honeycomb slates are these days, the Slider offers a netbook-like slide-out keyboard solution that takes the standard tablet experience to a whole new level. For not a lot more size and weight (or cost for that matter), you also get a full-sized USB port and HDMI output with Slider. We stepped through the device in detail in our full review recently, but today we thought we'd update our coverage with a quick video demo of the Slider in action. Enjoy and...
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