Asus Transformer Prime is the first Android Tablet to feature Tegra 3 with Iee Cream Sandwich goodness, Honeycomb for the intial launch. Not only is thinner than Galaxy tab 10.1 and iPad 2, its also lighter and more powerful. Tegra 3 is the first quad code ARM cortex A9 processor that has industry standard graphics processor, without being hard on the battery.

Priced at $499 the Eee Pad Transformer Prime will be available in North America during the week of 12/19. Most of the buttons on this device are plastic, but even those plastic buttons look and feel great. The tablet is just beautiful.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer vs. Galaxy Tab 10.1 vs iPad 2

The usual suspects are carefully placed around the perimeter of the Transformer Prime. Held in landscape mode the power/lock button is at the top left corner, with the volume rocker perpendicular to and just below it on the left side. Also along the left side is a micro HDMI output for display cloning and a microSD card slot. A standard 1/8″ headset jack finds itself on the right side of the tablet, and ASUS’ standard dock connector is bottom center. The original Eee Pad had two speaker grills, while the Prime has a single, larger speaker on the back of the device. Audio output is surprisingly full but the tablet doesn’t get loud enough to overpower a noisy environment.

Tegra 3 CPU Performance:

image credit: anadtech

It’s not hard to use the tablet in such a way that you do stress more than two cores. You won’t see 100% CPU utilization across all four cores, but there will be a tangible benefit to having more than two. Whether or not the benefit is worth the cost in die area is irrelevant, it only means that NVIDIA (and/or its partners) have to pay more as the price of the end product to you is already pretty much capped.

Despite having many cores at its disposal, NVIDIA appears to have erred on the side of caution when it comes to power consumption. While I often saw the third and fourth cores fire up when browsing the web or just using the tablet, NVIDIA did a good job of powering them down when their help wasn’t needed.

Battery

The battery life on this thing is not as good as the iPads or Galaxy Tab 10.1, but it can give you 9hours of 720p HD continuos video playback on single charge compared to 12 hours of iPad and 10hours of Galaxy Tab.

The Keyboard Dock

The best part is when it transforms to a Netbook with a default Keyboard dock accessory. This dock is not an ordinary keyboard, it has a battery inbuilt that give double the juice to transformer Prime tablet.  For $150, you get a docking keyboard and 100% more battery, what else could you ask for. Using the dock on a desk is fine, but use the dock on your lap and you’ll have to keep applying a little bit of downward force with your wrists to keep the system from leaning backward. The dock is angled forward so if you’re not typing on a flat surface the system might pivot backwards. It doesn’t have enough area for wrist to rest.

The Display

I had a chance to compare the Eee Pad Transformer Prime against iPad 2 & Galaxy  Tab 10.1. I’m pleased to say, it blows out any other display ever seen on Tablets. It produces Rich colors, sharp images, with minimum glare from the screen. The difference between blacks and bright area and hence the contrast ratio is also the best. The resolution is a Honeycomb-standard 1280 x 800. It delivers 145 pixels per inch compared to the iPad 2′s now quite-dated ~132 PPI. But that’s not all, it has the highest brightness ever seen on a Tablet.

Video Playback:

Thanks to the Tegra 3 SoC, 1080p BluRay movies are butter smooth. High quality 1080p on other tablets have been a problem but not for this one.

Graphics Performance:

Tegra 3 delivers 300% more graphics performance, in GLBenchmarks, but is still slightly lower than A5 iPad 2 GPU. OVerall, the Honeycomb experience is butter smooth and there’s never a judder, no matter what you do. Tasks like bringing up the apps launcher or even swiping between home screens are finally far above 50 fps. While Tegra 2 didn’t have the fill rate to deal with some of the more complex overlays in Honeycomb, Tegra 3 does.

For more texture bound tests, A5 shines but in a heavier shader environment Tegra 3 isn’t bad. Tegra 2 just wasn’t enough for the Tablets, but Tegra 3 sure is.

Overall

The best Tablet you can get in $499. Best display, Superb Tegra 3 Soc, great accessories, thinnest and the brightest. If you’re an Honeycomb / ICS fan, it cant get better.

Read more: A5 graphics vs. Tegra 2

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@geeknizeron Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage, Google+:

Best & Top News, Magazine apps on Android Honeycomb for tablets

1. News 360

One of my favorite apps. Aggregates news from various sources and displays them beautifully.

2. CNN for Android Tablet
Clean, and very well designed app that brings world class news right to android tablet.

3. Pulse

Pulse aggregates news content from various top internet blogs and displays them in a very natural scrollable thumbnails. This is my fav app on Android phones, tablet. Syncs and downloads news for offline reading, automatically.

4. USA Today

Latest news, scores, weather, stocks and photos from USA TODAY. The latest news, scores, weather, stocks and photos you’ve come to expect from USA TODAY and now available in a beautiful new way, on the Android Tablet. Staying informed has never been this quick, easy or enjoyable.

5. Feedly

Integrates with Google Reader, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Read it Later and Instapaper.

6. Newsr:

Sync and read Google Reader feeds.

7. CNBC Realtime

Get real-time stock quotes, watchlists, news, videos & more. The CNBC Real-Time App for Android gives you free access to real-time stock quotes – before, during and after market hours, directly from both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ Marketplace. Additionally, you will get CNBC breaking news alerts, top news stories & analysis, and access to the latest CNBC business video clips, CEO interviews and market updates via CNBC video-on-demand.

8. HackerNews
Love HackerNews? You’ll love this easy to user Hacker news navigator.

9. Press Reader
PressReader for Honeycomb brings over 1,900 full-content newspapers from 95 countries in 51 languages to your favorite Google Honeycomb operated tablet.
Choose from a growing list of the world’s most popular publications, including: The Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune.

10. F5 Reddit browser

Like Reddit? You would love this. Browse through various top links from around the web.

11. Financial times

Ge the latest in Finance via the official FT app.

12. Sports Illustrated

A Magazine that covers all your sports.

13. News Republic

Choose your favorite category of News and be bedazzled with them in a beautiful interface.

14. Time Magazine

The Famous Time magazine is now on Honeycomb. Various pay models for subscriptions.

15. SkyGrid

SkyGrid is the most powerful & only app for you to stay up to date on your interests. Follow your own topics and get updates on the exact interests you care about!

15. Appy Geek

APPY Geek, the best-rated Tech news app on Android is now available on tablets!
With hundreds of news articles every day (including TechRadar, New Media Age, Pocket-Lint, Technology Blogged, Tech Watch and more)

16. Honey Reader

A Simple RSS reader.

17. Fashion news app

A simple app that gives you different Fashion apps for android.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@geeknizer on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Metro UI

The initial response to the tablet is sure positive but if don’t like Metro UI, you would hate this. Microsoft is calling Windows  8 a post-post-PC device, which in other words means a post-Tablet tablet.

Microsoft is  trying to unify the User interface across PCs, mobiles and Tablets and Windows 8 is their first step towards it. Like Apple, Microsoft has inspired its tablet and PC devices from the mobile interface, making it easier than ever. Windows 8 borrows largely from its mobile kin, Window Phone 7, bringing its signature live tiles to tablets and PCs, and from what we’ve seen it does so effortlessly.

Samsung’s prototype is claimed to have a all day battery life, but can run all PC applications like Photoshop, Excel and Outlook. You can connect upto two external monitors, without hiccups.
Update: You can download Windows 8 developer preview now.
The Samsung Tablet Hardware Specifications:

The Series 7 sports following specifications:

• a bright (400 nit), 11.6-inch capacitive panel (1366 x 768 resolution),
• CPU: Intel’s 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M CPU,
• GPU: Integrated Intel graphics,
• 64GB SSD
• 4GB of RAM.
• 2 megapixel camera and a light sensor on front, and 3 MP rear.
• Connectivity: 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, USB 2.0 port and a micro HDMI port.

The Windows 8 – The OS Feel
Hardware sure looks competitive with any Android Tablet out there in the market. But we can’t be certain that Win8 tablet will boast the same level of wow factor once these begin hitting the market at some point next year (Q2 2012?). What also concerns is whether a full fledged OS (windows 7++) will need a better horsepower.  Of course Windows 8 is a Full desktop OS unlike the iPad or Honeycomb Android tablet.

Windows 8 Handson Video

Not the whole experience is smooth at this point fo time and 1.6ghz trying to run Photoshop can sure be a painful thing. But what is worth applauding here that Microsoft has managed to trim the fat surrounding Win8 in order for it to run shockingly well on a tablet.

But the real question is: By the time NVIDIA’s Tegra 4 and hexacore CPUs hit the tablet market, Windows 8 would still run on dual cores.

OS Customization
You can do all the customizations you could do on a Metro UI Windows Phone 7. You can customize lock screen and choose between standard password, PIN, or picture password.

Live tiles are same from WP7 world, nothing fancier. Navigation in Windows 8 OS is a left-to-right affair, as oppose to up and down, and is indeed very smooth. Heavy apps really brings the tablet to ground level but the launcher is never slow.

Along that right edge reside a series of five “charms,” as they’ve been unfortunately named: Search, Share, Start, Devices and Settings. If you’re in an app, you can use the share charm to Tweet your latest Facebook update, or Facebook your favorite recipe. It’s another point at which it becomes apparent that this is a desktop OS with a mobile mind.

Full-screen apps
All apps run in fullscreen mode. If you swipe from the left, you can navigate through other open apps, even snapping them in place for a split-screen view. The right side contains the hidden charms, while the bottom and top are reserved for app-specific controls.

Apps & Desktop
It all nails down to apps. It would run Windows apps, thats sure a big win. It would also run WP7 apps, unaltered but they face same problem as android mobile apps on honeycomb tablets.

The normal desktop view is actually a Tile, which one touched displays the conventional Windows 7 desktop, which will play host to your more serious applications like Excel and Photoshop, is treated just like your Twitter client and RSS feed. It’s an app like any other on the Start page, but in reality it’s an entirely different user interface.

Verdict

Apple created a Post-PC tablet and then brought the features back to the Mac. Microsoft is taking the idea further, giving tablets power of  desktop apps, without giving the hardware enough boost. The whole thing, in our opinion, would depend on how great the hardware is that ships with it. Everything else looks good.

Related: Windows 9 Features & improvements

We write about Google, Twitter, Security, Open Source, Programming, Web, Apple, iPhone, Android and latest in Tech @geeknizer on Twitter or by subscribing below:

TouchDroid was one of the first projects to get started on porting android to touchpad. Joining the force were couple of other small groups. Here’s a list of ROMs that will be available on Touchpad:

• Touch-Droid (Android 2.3) [link], Jivanish & AndroidBall showcased Android 2.2.1 already ported [link]
• Unknown ROM using Quic bootloader [link] and [link] and [link]
• Cyanogenmod 7 (Gingerbread) [link]

Cyanogenmod 7 on TouchPad

The video (see below) shows CyanogenMod running on the TouchPad as of last week, but the team says more progress has been made since that was filmed. As of today, the build offers more tablet tweaks, includes LVM support (for managing storage), and will include 2D hardware acceleration “soon.”

TouchDroid on TouchPad

Communities, Forums for Android On TouchPad

• RootzWiki
• TabletRoms
• XDA

Running Ubuntu Linux on the TouchPad has already been made possible, although its not very easy for the beginners. It involves partitioning the storage space on the tablet, and Dual booting.

You will have tha standard HP WebOS keyboard within Ubuntu, but you also attach an external bluetooth keyboard.

How to Install Ubuntu Linux on HP TouchPad

Pre-requisite: Install Preware

PreWare is an app store for homebrew apps that are not on webOS App Catalog, just like 3rd party markets on android or Cydia on iOS. For installation, you can follow Internals Wiki. To summarize, you would either need Official HP SDK and using the webOS Quick Install tool, or you can even use using a standalone installer.

1. Install Meta doctor

Refer to Guide: Set up Meta-Doctor

Summary of what you need to do:

• On Mac OS X or Linux, install Git and Java runtime, install Palm Novacom software, and download the meta-doctor scripts.
• Download and run the webOS Doctor.
• Create an ext3fs partition on your device (chrooting), ideally it should be large enough to accomodate a Ubuntu install, 4gb min.
• Then mount the ext3fs partition when your device boots. (More instructions at the PreCentral forums).

2. UbuntuChroot

Refer to Guide: UbuntuChroot

Summary:

• In PreWare, make sure the WebOS Internals Testing Feeds are enabled.
• Install Xecutah and Ubuntu 11.04 CHroot.
• Run XServer.
• Return to Xecutah and tap Ubuntu 11.04 Chroot.

Enabling Graphical Ubuntu.

If you made it to here, you will have full access to Ubuntu CLI. To get the graphical interface, use apt-get install to install Ubuntu packages. Run either of the following:

apt-get install icewm Xfce

apt-get install icewm LXDE

Running Gnome, KDE

You can install your favorite GUI its just that they are more resource hungry (more prominently RAM) and you don’t really want to kill your tablet.

App compatibility

Its obvious that you will only be able to run apps that are compiled into ARM binaries. When downloading an app, just look for ARM compatible ones. If you are a developer & find an open source app that doesn’t have a ARM binary, you can always build it for ARM architecture.

However, out of the box, standard apps like firefox, chrome (along with plugins) work well. Other apps like Eclipse, GIMP, LibreOffice office suite, Transmission bittorrent client, and VNC work.

You can also refer to this guide in case you get into trouble or get in touch with me @geeknizer or Google+.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us @geeknizer on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Both the overclock and volume boost hacks come packed in a single app from a xda developer, here’s a list of all the things you get:

• CPU speed. Total custom CPU speed stepping.
• Headphone analog gain.
• External speaker analog gain
• Separate DAC (digital to analog amp) gain.

From the developer’s notes:

You can also use this app to help get rid of hiss and noise on your headphones. With B&N default settings, one can only turn up the "Android media" volume to 25-35% before its too loud. This means the volume difference between the noise floor and the audio is very small which makes the noise noticeable. The workaround is that you can either lower the DAC volume in this app or lower the headphone analog gain.Its better to lower  the analog gain until you increase the "Android media" volume to 85-90% for comfortable listening levels.
If the external speaker is too quiet you may need to increase the DAC gain. Note that this will also increase the headphone volume so you may need to subsequently decrease the headphone analog gain.

The Nook Color Tweak app makes low level changes in the driver to increase volume helping to ensure that audio quality versus hardware level changes remain balanced.

Note:

You need a newer 2.6.32 kernel found in CM7 Nightly 88+ or my(Dalingrin) overclock kernel for B&N Froyo 1.2 and CM7. For CPU settings you will need a 2.6.32 overclocked kernel from 06/09/11 or later.

Get it on Android Market

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@geeknizeron Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Windows tablet fan Justin Campana found a couple of  apps and tweaks that can be combined with a few custom scripts to make the Windows 7 touch experience much more appealing.

He describes in detail which all docks, widgets, scripts, and applications he used to create a better Windows 7 Tablet experience, which had been dull and boring. He used a variety of software such as ObjectDock, Fences and Rainmeter along with a bunch of tweaks to make Windows 7 look like it was born for tablets.

The tablet used here to demo the optimizations is a ASUS’ 12-inch Eee Slate EP121. Watch the video after a break and get modding:

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us @geeknizeron Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Asus Padforne is an Android smartphone device that comes with a tablet it can dock into. It swiftly switches so that reading emails or browsing the web on the phone portion expands itself seamlessly once it’s connected into the pad. What you get in addition is the extended battery life. The tablet dock has inbuilt cellular that also cutsdown the stress ont he phone for the battery.

Padfone is 4.3-inch smartphone with a 10.1-inch tablet dock.

The smartphone is actually the only smart aspect of this hardware pair — the slate part acts as a display, a set of speakers, an extended battery, and an I/O extender, but it has no extra cpu/gpu/ram or any other piece of hardware. Compatibility between the display dock and subsequent phone generations is being contemplated but couldn’t be confirmed, and as to the UI, ASUS says it’ll be almost the same as its second-gen Android tablets.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@geeknizeron Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

iRobot has developed a new series of autonomous Robots called Ava that are equipped with array of sensors like 3D cameras (like Kinect), scanning laser, ultrasonic transducers, driven by omnidirectional wheels. They are powered by base hosts batteries, motors, as well as electronics and supports a telescopic mast that carries a pod containing touch ribbons, speakers, and a microphone.

iRobot Ava is based on Intel Core-based computers with a tilt capable head on top of with is basically an Android tablet. Ava is capable of roaming around by studying the ambiance, even with people walking around, it can save itself from actually hitting anyone. The onboard computer does all the computations to let it walk without trouble.

Google and iRobot have worked together and created APIs that allow Android developers to write apps — from telepresence to roaming testimonials — that control Ava wirelessly from the docked tablet. This would bring new projects which combine the power of robotics and Android devices. Its hard to talk about prices and timelines at the moment, but they are about to hit the market and developers sometime later this year. Stay tuned.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@geeknizer on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Today’s announcement brought a new promise to MeeGo tablets. The announcement came from Tencent and Intel launching the new renewed vigour and Tencents dedication to bring games to MeeGo tablets.

China is a perfect breeding ground for MeeGo because of their new grown hatred for Android. The Chinese journalist confirm that the lack of marketplace support leaves a bad taste for consumers.

Meego Fair is the new Tablet hardware based on Oaktrail. Its a 10.1 inch tablet tat is just 1cm thick (10mm) powered by the Z670 1.50GHz processor and 1GB of RAM and 16GB and up SSD drive. It has all the stuff you would fin in a Honeycomb or iPad tablet : Micro SD, wifi, accelerometer, etc.

The best part of this Tablet is the all new UI that hates vertical stuff, and sports horizontal scroll to navigate among app widgets. Checkout the UI, you will be amazed with the number of improvements:

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@taranfx on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Adobe went ahead and has demoed three apps for on iPad 2 — Adobe Color Lava, Adobe Eazel and Adobe Nav. They let you create custom color swatches, paint and use Photoshop tools directly from the tablet.

The SDK is pretty rich in features and the integration between your Tablet and desktop photoshop is just steps away. I’m just way too excited about the possibilities of the apps produced using this pattern.

Watch the video:

How does it work?

Your tablet connects to the PC via a secure connection, and your Tablet is able to exchange the image data on the go. With Adobe Eazel you can create content on the tablet and have it seamlessly imported into Photoshop.

Photoshop Remote is a heads-up-display for all of the Photoshop CS 5.5 installations on your local network. The dashboard gives you a live thumbnail of each connected client while giving you the ability to perform global actions on all connected clients like saving open images to your iPad photo library, opening the same image on all connected computers, or sending a message to all connected computers. When you drill down to an individual screen, you have even more functionality such as tool selection, color selection, filters, adjustment layers, and more.

CS5 has been upgraded to CS5.5 that includes these features. Developers can access the free SDK at www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@taranfx on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Blackberry realizes the fact that it landed in the modern smartphone/tablet OS market quiet late and that’s why they would like to cover-up the shortcomings by letting users run Android apps on their Playbook, which are already available in large numbers.

RIM today announced that the PlayBook will be able to run Android 2.3 (interesting that they’ve assigned an OS version requirement) applications via runtime environments that will handle both BlackBerry OS phone apps and Android apps.

Of course we would love to see them running but there are a number of problems that Blackberry would run into.

Android apps run on top of a customized Java virtual machine aka Dalvik virtual machine that is cleaner and meaner than the desktop counter part. The apps are written in Java using the Android SDK but at the runtime, these API calls are translated to call core system libraries that are written in C/C++. This is done using JNI (Java native interface). These system libraries talk provide the core functionality and often interact with the kernel that provides Hardware abstraction layer. Kernel is also responsible for interactions with the hardware. So in order to run android apps outside of the android eco-system, you would need to have the fullstack implemented. Alternatively, you can translate java calls into your OS specific (QNX here) native calls which in turn controls the hardware. But doing that is both tricky and incomplete solution.

Alien Dalvik made it possible to run Android apps on Blackberry, Nokias and its not hard to guess that as a hacker hobby, this project is way to wonderful, and its too far from being “usable”.

So where is the Problem with Running Android apps on Playbook?

• Barely any Hardware acceleration: None of the Android apps on Playbook would leverage hardware acceleration. Clearly most graphic intensive apps especially Games would run painfully slow and glitchy on the device.
• Poor Hardware support: You might not even get access to your hardware through android apps to Playbook. Even when it does, it would have slower response times, defeating the purpose. e.g. accelerometer used to play games would create an almost unbearable experience. And don’t forget that your camera, NFC, bluetooth, wifi apps (that directly talk to hardware other than for network connectivity) would not work.
• Fragmentation to a new Level: If you look closely at the some of the apps (especially games and highend apps), they have different flavors of the apps designed to run optimally on a different hardware using NDK. On Playbook, such apps would not be just slow, but also incompatible most of the time.
• More Resource hungry: The customized Dalvik that would run on Playbook would be an additional layer for the QNX based tablet device. It would crunch more CPU, memory when trying to run android apps vs. blackberry native apps. Even the RIM’s CEO agrees with this, Jim Balsillie noted that the virtual machine could have performance issues, and that games and other resource-heavy apps will want to be coded specifically for the PlayBook using RIM’s QNX platform and SDK.
• No Honeycomb support: Oh yeah, even if they plan to cover up all those drawbacks, they just actually ported smartphone apps to a tablet device, not Tablet OS/apps. Would you be ever happy with Gingerbread apps stretched onto 7″ screen?
• No Android Market: RIM will run its own android market, and will not have license to run Android Market. So it would be purely upto the mercy of the android developer to publish their app to Blackberry’s android market which would be called “App Player”. To me that sound like VMWare or  Wine on Linux.

Porting a VM alone would not help Blackberry get where they want. There has to be a deeper OS-wide integration to support full Android apps. As far as we know, they have actually done a part of that with Playbook, but its not good enough for the claim. It would be much worse than running a Mac OS X inside windows using Virtualbox or VMware.

Of course we can achieve near-native experience but it would take years to have full deep down integration with Android. It won’t be as easy as RIM is touting it to be. We won’t be surprised when we get handson on one.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@taranfx on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

iPad 2 was a decent upgrade for the iOS lovers giving them more power and camera. On the Android side of things Motorola XOOM and Samsung Galaxy TAB 8.9, 10.1 Samsung’s 8.9-inch Android tablet based on Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

Samsung has done some brilliant job making the Galaxy TABs 8.9, 10.1 slimmer and lighter than any of the tablets. Also what it comes with is a custom UI called TouchWiz 4.

Let’s look at how these Tablets stack up:

Samsung Galaxy TAB 8.9 10.1 vs Motorola Xoom vs iPad 2

The Display

Needless to mention, the most vital part is the screen quality.

Motorola Xoom: A 10.1-inch widescreen panel at 1280×800 with sharp and well produced colors.

iPad 2: With 9.7-inches and 4:3 ration screen at 1024×768,  makes video a little more awkward to watch, but the tablet can be comfortable to use in portrait or landscape orientation when compared to widescreen tablets like XOOM.

Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy TAB 10.1 8.9-inch model has brilliant pixel density endorsing 1280×800 on a smaller screen. Tab 10.1 has exactly same pixel density as XOOM, and obviously better than iPad 2.

Design: Size and weight

You will be holding your Tablet in your hand most of the time, and if its not designed for comfort, you would lose the interest. The biggest trouble I had with iPad 1 was the bulkiness which actually made me like the Galaxy Tab 7.

Xoom:  Xoom weighs 1.6lbs (730g), nearly a third of a pound heavier than iPad 2 (601g). And since its widescreen, it would actually feel alot heavier than iPad 2.

The Xoom is 12.9mm thick, whereas the iPad 2 is much thinner at only 8.8mm. Xoom did well against the progonal iPad, but against iPad 2, it really gave us set back.

Galaxy Tab 8.9, 10.1 beats both of these tablets by significant margins. Galaxy Tab 8.9 weighs just 470gwith thickness of  only 8.6mm (same as Galaxy S2 smartphone), making it the thinnest Tablet you would find out there.

Software: The OS & apps

Xoom is running stock Honeycomb, its great with its nitty gritty new graphics and ease of Multitasking. Honeycomb lacks variety for apps, but it would get better over next few months.

iPad 2 runs Apple’s iOS  4.3. UI, just like any other apple’s interface, has the appeal of ease but its is less powerful. Unlike Android, there’s a little users can tinker with look and feel but the focus is on ease. There are plenty of apps already out there from music creation to pro gaming.

Galaxy Tab 8.9, 10.1 also runs Honeycomb, but with custom re-skining on top of Honeycomb. The UI is called Touch Wiz 4, which endorses so-called Live View interface with its own set of widgets designed to take advantage of the extra space on tablets. Samsung has also tinkered with the multitasking UI, making it more like the BlackBerry Playbook app switcher. But if you are a power user, you shouldn’t really bother about the custom UI, you can always get a custom ROM running to get the look and feel you want.

Hardware & Specs

Xoom is powered by atop Nvidia’s dual-core Tegra 2 SoC running at 1GHz per core. This enables high-end games on Android. There’s a dedicated app store for Tegra games.

iPad 2 runsApple’s custom A5 dual-core SoC which is 900MHz per core. The graphics did get a better jump with 8x times power from iPad 1, making it actually more powerful than Xoom for all graphics rich applications, especially OpenGL Games.

Galaxy Tab 8.9, 10.1 is a Nvidia Tegra2 Dual core (or Exynos).

Specs Comparison

VERDICT

If I’ve to buy a tablet today, what would I go with? I love apps on iPad but learning from the past experience of Android, I believe theres no risk in waiting for the right apps on Honeycomb. I do love some awesome accessories in iPad 2 like Smart Cover, but I would rather settle with a Galaxy TAB 8.9 which is the lightest, thinnest and the smallest of all. Being a power user, I would love owning a Tablet that can do more and can still fit my hands without hurting them during long usages.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@taranfx on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

The reviews state positive attributes of the new Tablet and even call it the First Real competitor of iPad, that actually does better at most of the tasks. Motorola XOOM vs iPad is really a question of comparing an older generation device with a new one, which makes Xoom rock on every front minus the number of apps available for the Tablets on each platform.

The battery life is slightly lower than iPad too, but that would not be a show stopper as it beats iPad at everywhere else, thanks to the all new Android 3.0 HoneyComb that features some awesome UI overhaul including smoother transitions, responsive UI, better notifications, faster performance.

There would be endless number of Motorola Xoom video reviews on web, we’ve shortlisted some of them which are wothy of being given a shot. Catch them after a break:

Scobleizer:

Engadget:

GigaOM(jkOnTheRun)

Gadgetlite

Android 3.0 Honeycomb Features, Factsheet – Everything you need to know about Honeycomb Tablets, Phones

For latest Google, Open Source, iPhone, Android, Tech news @taranfx on Twitter or subscribe below:

We knew it if there would be a Tablet that impresses every kind of user, it would be WebOS based and here it is: HP’s TouchPad Tablet.

TouchPad is a WebOS 3 Tablet beautifully designed weighing 1.6 pounds and measuring 13.7mm thick. HP’s TouchPad is based on its own Beats audio engine, and brings on Tap-to-Share (a feature that lets users easily transfer a website, document, song, text or call from the phone to the tablet — or vice versa — simply by tapping the two devices together) and a huge backing from the cloud.

The device is sized similar to iPad at 9.7-inch display (1024 x 768 screen resolution) but is much more powerful with a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon CPU.

HP TouchPad Full Specs:

• 10″ IPS display 1024×768
• CPU: Snapdragon 1.2Ghz
• RAM: 512mb
• Sensors: inbuilt gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, notification light.
• Stroage: 16GB / 32GB
• Camera: There’s also a front-facing 1.3 megapixel webcam, support for video calling,
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 3G (optional), AGPS
• Stereo speakers, microphone.
• OS: WebOS 3.0 optimized for tablets.
• Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Battery: 10 hours, 24Wh
• Size (w/h/d mm): 240/190/14 mm
• Size (w/h/d inches): 9.4/7.5/0.6

• Others: Full Adobe Flash, Touchstone support, Tap to share across all devices, online services.

HP TouchPad has superb UI, unmatchable from Android or iOS world. There’s a new paneled email application a Growl-like pop-up notification system, plenty of cal / email integration courtesy of HP Synergy, a slick virtual keyboard, VPN support, wireless printing as well as Google Docs, QuickOffice, Dropbox and Box.net compatibility.

Early video (check back for more videos)

The Touchpad also syncs with your Pre 3 in that they share text messages and phone calls over Bluetooth, so you don’t need to dig out your phone if you’re on your tablet.

Using apps is the same as on older Palm phones. You launch apps using the dock on the bottom or using the app launcher screen.

Emailing supports multiple accounts, of course, and looks very similar to email on the iPad. The left side gives you the list of messages, and the right side is the actual message. You can also slide everything over, giving you the ability to select between accounts.

One of the killer features that can’t be found on a competing tablet right now is this one’s ability to talk to the Pre 3 — so long as there’s a Touchstone involved, one can have their Pre 3 and TouchPad communicate, even piping over notifications and texts from the phone onto the slate.

TouchPad will be available later this year.

More Photos

Related:

• Android 3.0 Honeycomb Features, Factsheet – Everything you need to know about Honeycomb Tablets, Phone
• Motorola XOOM vs iPad
• Motorola XOOM – Dual Core Honeycomb Tablet with 10+hours Battery, HD screen, Video Recording

For latest Google, Open Source, iPhone, Android, Tech news @taranfx on Twitter or subscribe below:

Lets run down all the new stuff in Android Honeycomb:

• Tablets & Phones: Honeycomb is designed for Tablets, but would run on Phones aswell, without trouble.
• All Existing Apps work: No matter for which android os an app was developed, it would still work on Honeycomb as-is. So you already have 200,000 apps in Market plus new apps coming soon.
• Even Faster: Google did a good job in Gingerbread at performance improvements, Honeycomb is even faster.
• Smother Transisitons, more polish: Did you hate Android for having almost no animations, transitions, smoothness in UI? The days are gone, its now polished, smooth. Even iOS users would love it.
• Smarter widgets. Widgets are now more powerful,inherently more graphics capable in terms of scrolling, speed & transitions.
• Notifications Revamped: Android did great in notifications, now its even better. Gone is the pull-down notification shade used by earlier Android versions. Instead, notifications pop up much like Growl on Mac OS X. Notifications scroll better, display more info e.g. shows contact photo when someone pings you on gtalk.
• New graphics Engine. Honeycomb uses dual core, and is hence capable of producing Richer graphics using Renderscript engine. This brings fluidity and advanced visual 3-D effects, much like Apple’s Core Animation. Renderscript will also bring 3-D games that are visually stunning: one area where Android lacked.
  
• Application fragments. Apps can consist of small fragments that work together seamlessly. The new Gmail app for Honeycomb is a perfect example: The Inbox view will change to a message view as needed, with different panes or fragments sliding on- or off-screen.
• Intuitive camera: The new camera interface exposes settings in a rotary dial, making it easier to manipulate photo settings. The dial rotates off the screen as new controls rotate on to it.
• Google Talk Video chat. This is a great feature which had been awaited for long. Quality would really be decided by the network you are in, but it works.
  
• Easy multitasking: Multitasking has been Android’s true strength, but its wasn’t very accessible to users. Switchign between apps is now easier, and faster. Application shows their screenshots along with icons.
• Better Market. This is not just limited to Honeycomb, but worth mentioning here. With a few clicks from the desktop browser, you can isntall the apps on all your android phones in a flick of an eye.

Google had recently announced Android 3.0 SDK for Tablets with all new set of features. Today Google would be going handson & present demos to the attendees.

Motorola XOOM is a state of the art Honeycomb Tablet with some awesome specs and features, kicks iPad hard right on the face.

What to Expect from Honeycomb Event:

• Honeycomb Tablet handson, details
• Google Music Store, yes! iTunes competitor.
• New Google Market, compatible with browsers. (leaked android honeycomb music player)
• Update: Google Talk Video Chat ..  Video chatting on GTalk was definitely all over the Honeycomb preview video. We just got extra excited when we saw it in a press release.  Now we’ll set our eyes on it coming to Gingerbread.

You can always follow Live blogs but For users who wish to see it Live (coz live is better) you can tune into Youtube stream and catch the Live video feed of the Honeycomb Event.

Tune into the video below at 10 A.M PST (2 Feb 2010) to Watch Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb event live online,

Youtube.com/android

Flavor of What’s coming: (Keynote by Vic Gundotra)

Now here is good news for those Nook color owner eagerly waiting for instructions & honeycomb image file for Nook Color.

The complete Honeycomb Android 3.0 image file along with instructions on how to flash on Nook Color is available at XDA forum.

Check the Video of Nook Color running Honeycomb

What works:
-Graphics acceleration
-Accelerometer
-Wireless!
-Touchscreen
-Buttons
-Sleep/Wakeup stuff

Doesn’t work:
-Sound (sadly! Despite my efforts the last hours I didn’t get it working properly yet)
-DSP e.g. no hardware video decoding

The whole thing is based on the honeycomb emulator images, the B&N V1.1 kernel+modules+driver, pieces from the upcoming CM7 and manual patching ARM assembler in libraries and writing ugly scripts to hack around various issues.

Use this on your own risk! I’m not responsible for any damages!

How to Install Honeycomb on Nook Color:

1. Download the ROM below:

Download Honeycomb ROM for Nook Color

2. Check guidelines for installing ROM on Nook from Rooting Nook Color guide

The unzipped image is around 4gb. I recommend using it on a 8gb sd-card. In principle the image should work on a 4gb card.

We write latest in  Google, Android, iPhone and Tech news, Grab them all via @taranfx on Twitter or subscribe below:

New UI designed from the ground up for tablets

Google calls the new UI “truly virtual” and “holographic” UI design, as well as an elegant, content-focused interaction model. Android 3.0 features refined multitasking, rich notifications, Home screen customization, widgets, and more — and transforms them with a vibrant, 3D experience and deeper interactivity, making them familiar but even better than before.

The new UI is fully backward compatible with 200,000 existing android market apps but applications specifically designed for Android 3.0 are able to use an extended set of UI objects, powerful graphics, and media capabilities to engage users in new ways.

System Bar, for global status and notifications

No matter where you are, you can have a quick access to notifications, system status, and soft navigation buttons in a System Bar, available at the bottom of the screen. The System Bar is always present, and dims for video.

Action Bar, for application control

Android Honeycomb removes the need for Physical buttons and replaces it with Action Bar that lets users access contextual options, navigation, widgets, or other types of content in every app, displayed at the top of the screen. The Action Bar is more like of Bar from Mac OS, is always present when an application is in use, although its content, theme, and other properties are managed by the application rather than the system.

Customizable Home screens

Users can select and manipulate 5 Home screen widgets, app shortcuts, and wallpapers using a dedicated visual layout mode. Visual cues and drop shadows improve visibility when adjusting the layout of shortcuts and widgets.

Recent Apps with Previews, for easy visual multitasking

Multitasking is the true killer feature of Android. iPhone never did True Multitasking (iOS 4 still pauses most apps when they move to background). As users launch applications to handle various tasks, they can use the Recent Apps list in the System Bar to see the tasks and quickly switch among them. The list shows a snapshot of its actual state when the user last viewed it.

State of the Art Keyboard

Entering Text into Honeycomb Tablets is fast and accurate on larger screen sizes. The keys are reshaped and repositioned for improved targeting, and new keys have been added, such as a Tab key, to provide richer and more efficient text input. Users can touch-hold keys to access menus of special characters and switch text/voice input modes from a button in the System Bar. Improved text selection, copy and paste, inherited from Gingerbread.

All New connectivity options

Built-in support for Media/Photo Transfer Protocol lets users instantly sync media files with a USB-connected camera or desktop computer, without needing to mount a USB mass-storage device.

You can even connect external keyboard, mice (USB or Bluetooth)
For improved wi-fi connectivity, a new combo scan reduces scan times across bands and filters.
New support for Bluetooth tethering means that more types of devices can share the network connection of an Android-powered device.

Tablet optimized Android Apps

1. Browser

The stock android browser has been replaced with a Chrome-like browser that supports Bookmark sync, Tabs, History, Incognito mode.

New multitouch support is now available to JavaScript and plugins. Users can enjoy a better browsing experience at non-mobile sites through an improved zoom and viewport model, overflow scrolling, support for fixed positioning, and more.

2. Camera and Gallery

The Camera application has been redesigned to take advantage of a larger screen for quick access to exposure, focus, flash, zoom, front-facing camera, and more. The Gallery application lets users view albums and other collections in full-screen mode, with easy access to thumbnails for other photos in the collection.

3. Contacts

The Contacts app uses a new two-pane UI (two activities) and Fast Scroll to let users easily organize and locate contacts. The application offers improved formatting of international phone numbers as user types, based on home country and an international number parsing library. Contact information is presented in a card-like UI, making it easier for users to read and edit contacts.

4. Email

The Email application uses a new two-pane UI to make viewing and organizing messages more efficient. The app lets users select one or more messages, then select an action from the Action Bar, such as moving them to a folder. Users can sync attachments for later viewing and keep track of email using a home screen Widget.

Video Preview:

Android 3.0 HoneyComb Core OS & SDK changes:

UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices: Developers can use a new UI components, new themes, richer widgets and notifications, drag and drop, and other new features to create rich and engaging apps for users on larger screen devices.

High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation framework lets developers add great visual effects to their apps. A built-in GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of common 2D rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific activities or views. For adding rich 3D scenes, developers take advantage of a new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript.

Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance.

Rich multimedia: New multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through MTP/PTP, give developers new ways to bring rich content to users.

New types of connectivity: New APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP let applications offer audio streaming and headset control. Support for Bluetooth insecure socket connection lets applications connect to simple devices that may not have a user interface.

Enhancements for enterprise: New administrative policies, such as for encrypted storage and password expiration, help enterprise administrators manage devices more effectively.

We write latest in  Google, Android, iPhone and Tech news, Grab them all via @taranfx on Twitter or subscribe below:

Now its time to compare the latest Tablet from Android world with iPad.

Here’s a video preview of Motorola Xoom (Honeycomb tablet):

Seriously, iPad is nowhere near the Android based Motorola XOOM tablet. However, we’ve to wait for iPad 2 to see if it can match the latest contenders. From the rumors, iPad 2 looks good.

We write latest in  Google, Android, iPhone and Tech news, Grab them all via @taranfx on Twitter or subscribe below:

Evolve III Maestro has built world’s first tablet that Triple boots Android, Windows 7 and MeeGo. The tablet has a 1.83GHz Atom N475 DualCore CPU based on OakTrail processor.

With Windows 7, you would be able to attain 8 hours of battery & 16hours of battery with Android, not bad for a Tablet that weighs less than 2 pounds.

The tablet features a large 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 32GB of solid state storage, 3G and 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and 2 USB ports.

What Evolve Three hopes will make this device stand out is the fact that it’ll ship with Android, MeeGo and Windows 7 out of the box. Although a custom layer for Windows was in the works – imagine a mash-up of Windows Phone 7 and Android – it was MeeGo that had the developers really excited. A virtualised version was running on the device, and while the combo of pre-release software and hardware were still a little rough around the edges, it certainly seemed like it would make for a finger friendly consumption focussed interface.

The device is set for launch in Q2 2011 and at a price of $500, it could be a steal.

Unfortunately, there’ll be no quick way to switch between the different operating environments.

Stay tuned for more  on Windows Phone, Android, iPhone, Programming and Tech news via @taranfx on Twitter or:

The device looks incredibly thin, and from what we saw at the event, it will be one of the most powerful tablets on the market in 2011. Featuring a dual-core 1GHz processor, the device will first launch in a 3G version with a 4G version coming later in the year. It’s worth noting that it was said the 3G version can be easily upgraded to 4G once it’s made available. The device will not only feature impressive specs, Android 3.0 Honeycomb has been completely redesigned for the larger screens of devices. Building upon Android it will feature both widgets and multitasking and everything we have come to expect from an Android OS.

Motorola XOOM specs:

1. 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2
2. Display: 10.1-inch 1280×800, highest resolution ever on a Tablet
3. Connectivity: Wifi, 3G, upgradeable to  4G in Q2. 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR,
4. Camera: 5 megapixel camera, 720p video recording and 1080p video playback,
5. Storage: 32GB of onboard storage.
6. Battery:  The battery is rated to be capable of supporting 10 hours of video. If you do regular browsing, that should be 10hrs+.

Availability: Q1 with 3G on Verizon, Q2  $g (via software update) on Verizon.

Handson Video:

As per sources, minimum requirements for Honeycomb would be a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, in order to run properly as per Bobby Cha, managing director of Korean consumer electronics firm Enspert.

This clearly reflects that Honeycomb will be built with dual core processor support, ground up. So, the existing Android tablets will not be (officially) upgradeable to Honeycomb, as most of them run a single core processor. However, few devices like eLocity A7 (cheapest dual core tablet) will get an upgrade.

Google’s plan would be to support Nvidia’s Tegra 2 platform as the exclusive chipset, but it would be a matter of time when there will be software ports available for other single core ARM devices, which is of course upto the mercy of Custom ROM developers like Cyanogen, MIUI. Some manufacturers (like samsung) might release non-Tegra2 tablets and will officially bring Honeycomb to those tablets, early on.

Screen Resolution: Processor apart, it would mandate a minimum threshold for the display resolution. 1,280×720 might become the minimum spec for any Honeycomb Tablet. But that doesn’t mean you would not see devices with lower resolution. Someone will definitely still build (Say a 5″ tablet) with lower resolution. Google had demoed Motorola-based Honeycomb tablet-prototype, that device did look to be running at the specified resolution.

Sources also confirm that Google might run two flavors of Tablets in parallel:  First (current gen) Cortex-A8 processors and 1,024×600 screens (like Samsung Galaxy Tab) line of Android tablets run the “Froyo” version of Android, and can be updated to Gingerbread, 2.3, but not to Honeycomb.

Another pointer int his direction comes from eLocity (manufacturer of A7),

Hello Tarandeep

Thank you for your interest in the eLocity A7. The A7 will be upgraded to Gingerbread when its made available. As with regard to Honeycomb, we are releasing tablets with a much higher resolution that will support all aspects of Honeycomb in a better way.
Let us know if you have any other question. Thank you once again.
-Team eLocity

So, the minimum requirements for resolution seems obvious.

The good point is that doing so will not create Fragmentation among Android Tablet. Gingerbread supports split Activities, which allow multiple activities to be run at a time, removing the disparity between different screen layouts. Going further, “fragments” API will let apps display multiple views on tablets versus phones. Presumably, that will come to fruition with the next version of Android, codenamed “Ice Cream” – and that name is all we know about that upcoming version.

There will be lots of Honeycomb devices at CES. And if Cha is to be believed, the new OS will probably be ready for manufacturers to install “towards the end of January.” However, there is no official word from Google.

For more Android, iPhone, iPhone apps, Tips n Tricks, Gaming, Tech News, catch us @taranfx on Twitter.

Notion Ink has been working on a Dual core TEgra2 Android Tablet for a year now.  It recently became available for preorders and now it has just released a video of the Adam tablet in action, complete with that snappy new Eden UI.

Unfortunately, the video is not of a high quality but you can get a fair idea of what this device is all about – Real multitasking, running more apps at the same time on the screen. The device is worthy of the hype, with a responsive screen, a multitask-friendly interface and plug ‘n play peripherals via  USB.

iPad vs. NotionInk Adam Tablet

Adam Video Preview:

Another Video Preview:

Another interesting feature places the touch pad on the back, its a new experience to control a tablet from touchpad which is actually not seen during normal operation. The Adam tablet also features 3 USB ports, one HDMI out port for full HD in 1080p, eco-friendly using a tenth of the power, and boasting 24 hours of battery life (more than 10 hours 1080p HD video).

Notion Ink is based on a modified Android Gingerbread OS to fit the large screen. Also, there is a special SDK available for the device. The final date is not announced, but it should be in next 2 months time frame, with a price tag of $400-$550.

We write latest in Tech: Android, Tablets, Apple, iPhone, Open Source and more@taranfx or subscribe to us below: