Latest News, Reviews, Rumors and Price on the Apple iPad, Tablet PCs like HP, Dell, Toshiba & Archos, eReaders, PMPs, MIDs and Graphic Tablets
The Netbook Navigator Nav 9 tablet PC
Case in point, the Netbook Navigator Nav 9 tablet PC. If you’re not familiar with Netbook Navigator’s Nav 9, it’s an 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 resolution touchscreen that runs off an Intel Atom N270 processor. It features 16GB of SSD storage (optional upgrades for 32GB, 64GB or 128GB SSDs are available), 2GB of RAM, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth and optional 3G. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium and has 3 USB ports, a 1.3MP webcam, microSD slot, SIM card and a 3 cell battery rated for 2.5 hours per charge. It measures 10 x 6.6 x 0.8 inches and weighs 2 pounds.
The Notion Ink Adam
Now some new details have emerged from Slashgear. In a few direct comparisons with the iPad, Notion Ink says that their battery life will be much longer than the quoted “up to 10 hours” of the iPad’s due to better power management available through the Tegra 2 processor and Pixel Qi screen. There’s also talk that the Adam could have two versions (and Eve perhaps?). One would measure 11.6mm (0.46 inches) thick and the other 12.9mm (0.5 inches) thick. By comparison, the iPad measures 0.53 inches thick. Slashgear speculates that the other version could possibly feature a cheaper LCD screen although no price information has been released.
The Chuwi P7II PMP
The Chuwi P7II (meant to be read P7-2) is just that — a second version of their previously released P7 PMP. The P7II, however, grants you 1280p decoding and playback (just in case the previous P7’s 1080p wasn’t enough) and boasts a 9Mbs transfer speed through HDMI. The case, screen and most other specs are mirrored from the P7 including its 5-inch 800 x 480 display and ARM processor. It has 16GB of internal storage and supports H.264, XVID, MPEG2, MPEG4, VC-1, WMV9 and the other typical codecs. It’s currently for sale in China for 699 yuan ($102 U.S.).
Source: Cloned in China
The ViewSonic VM-MB7001 MovieBook
ViewSonic has been introducing new PMPs into the market like wildfire recently. Their latest MovieBook is VM-MB7001 which has a 7-inch 1366 x 768 resolution display and can output HD video via its HDMI port. It also can be used as a picture viewer and TXT eBook reader. For now, there’s little spec information surrounding this unit including music file support, price and availability.
Source: Cloned in China
A side-by-side of the Samsung E61 and Kindle 2
The Samsung E61 is basically the E6 with a physical QWERTY keyboard. It has the same 6-inch, 600×800 resolution resistive touchscreen, 2GB of flash memory, an expandable microSD slot and WiFi. The form factor of the E61 begs to be compared to the Kindle 2, as it mimics the same hard QWERTY keyboard, screen size and page selector as the Amazon offering. The Samsung E61 does have a smaller footprint, is slightly lighter and of course has a resistive touchscreen that you can use a stylus on, but the touchscreen also means the screen clarity probably won’t be as good as the Kindle’s.
The main question is how much will the E61 cost? After seeing Samsung’s pricing on their other two eReader models, we’re guessing this will still be in the high $300’s — far, far away from mid-$200’s price of the Kindle 2.
Source: PC Professionale via Engadget
All this can be yours for under $150
This new review of the Aluratek Libre eBook Reader Pro by The Gadgeteer does a great job of comparing the Libre against the Kindle in Nook and walks through the differences you’ll find with the cheaper eReader. They find the build quality very solid, like the plastic casing and the way that it feels in their hands. The Libre offers front-facing button sets: a dedicated page forward/back on the left, a menu system that includes menu, screen rotation, font resizing, selector and page turn, a spring-loaded slider that offers a third way for you to turn pages and finally 0-9 letter grouped keys along the right side for shortcut navigation.
The Infibeam Pi eReader
Billed as “India’s first eReader,” the Infibeam Pi features support for ePub, PDF, HTML, TXT, MOBI, DOC files, JPG, PNG and BMP image files and can also play music. It has 512MB of internal memory and can expand up to 4GB through its SD card slot. The Pi is 0.39 inches thin and weighs 6.35 oz. It features language support in Hindi, Sanskrit and other Indian languages as well. Infibeam will start shipping units February 22nd.
Source: Mtaram’s Daze
Google's Chrome OS. Not Google's tablet.
You see, as interesting as the OS concept is (and what possible use it has for tablets in the future) the news released yesterday had nothing to do with a tablet design or a possible mockup of a tablet by Google. It was simply a basic black border that literally framed the OS. But now, those same pictures are exploding all around the blogosphere with the titles “A First Look at Google’s iPad Killer” and “A Taste of What Google’s Tablet Will Look Like.” These titles aren’t merely misleading. They’re outright lies. Any journalist who even bothers to glance at the source material can easily tell so. It even states on the page that the renderings are in no way associated with possible tablet designs. The problem is that journalism and blogs are quickly speeding in opposite directions.
And here we go (again)
According to TechCrunch, who is basing their entire post on an admitted second-hand source, Apple may be working on a larger, beefier tablet that would run Max OS X and be able to handle traditional Mac software. They expect that Apple could be playing its cards close to their chest (the only way Apple plays their cards, by the way) until the WWDC event in June. The tablet, maybe the iSlate we’ve been waiting for, would most likely feature a larger screen and a much larger price tag. In essence, if the iPad was a tablet replacement of the netbook, this new tablet would be a replacement for laptops.
We can’t help but hold our head in our hands after hearing this so soon after the iPad announcement. While it represents something that could grasp much more of the missed potential of tablets that the iPad missed out on, can’t we just have a breather at this point? Let’s just call a cease fire on Apple talk until we can all gather our wits and sanity (or at least until we have time to check with our sources).
This last month we held a Twitter giveaway for a brand spankin’ new Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet. We had an amazing turnout but only one could win. We hope that those new followers we gained during the contest stick around and that Best Tablet Review proved to be a great resource on tablet news, reviews and rumors.
Using Random.org we narrowed the contest entries first by randomly selecting the date (January 29th) and then using advanced Twitter search to find posts with the #BTRBamboo tag. We then counted up the entries for that day and generated another random number who pointed us to the winner…
Best Tablet Review is your go-to source for the latest tablet news, reviews and rumors on tablets. If it's flat and has a screen on it, we're talking about it. Check out our sections on the Apple Tablet, Tablet PC's (like HP, Dell, Toshiba, Archos, MSI and Pegatron), eReaders (like the Kindle, Nook and Sony Readers), PMPs, MIDs and Graphics Tablets like the Wacom series.
