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All posts tagged "ics"


Friday, July 6, 2012

ARCHOS ELEMENTS 97 carbon Tablet Announced

Posted by Michael Knutson in "Other Slates & Tablets" @ 12:00 AM

"ARCHOS, an award-winning innovator in consumer electronics, is pleased to introduce the ARCHOS 97 carbon, the first of its new tablet range called "ELEMENTS", an entry-level line up of 7, 8, and 9.7 inch tablets that combine ARCHOS design and engineering with full access to Google PlayTM and a full suite of Google apps at an affordable price."

Interesting to see the new tablets coming to market at consumer-friendly prices. This 9.7-inch tablet sports an IPS screen, plays 1080p HD video, weighs 21.8-ounces, and is 0.45-inches thick. With a 1-GHz processor (no further processor details were available), 1GB RAM, and 16GB storage, the Carbon 97 is running Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0 and is set to debut this July (2012) with a price of $249.99 or less. Interesting to also note that the carbon 97 supports expandable memory via SDHC cards up to 32GB and (or?) USB flash drives from a full-sized USB port. It'll be interesting to see if ARCHOS can crash the tablet party, and give the bigger players some competition at this price point.


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Coming to the US: Kyocera Rise, Qwerty Slider with ICS

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 10:00 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/08/...-qwerty-slider/

"Kyocera is looking to regain a foothold in the US smartphone market, and curiously enough, it's doing so by catering to niche audiences. First we saw the Hydro, a waterproof handset, and alongside it is the Rise, which features a sliding QWERTY keyboard."

The Kyocera Rise should be an inexpensive phone with the latest version of Android for people who mainly want to do texting. It's CDMA so you can look for it on Sprint or Verizon. It has a 3.5" 320x480 resolution IPS LCD screen, 512MB of RAM, 2GB of built-in storage and it comes with a 2GB MicroSD card. It has a single-core 1GHz Snapdragon S2 processor that should feel very fast especially with such a low screen resolution. It also has a 1500mAH battery that should provide plenty of juice to get you through the day on this device. We don't know which carrier it will go to but my guess would be Sprint.

It's great to see Kyocera ready to ship the Rise with Android 4.0 but it's really too bad they gave it a screen that's so small and has such a low resolution. Really, I can't believe any manufacturer would release any phone with a lower screen resolution than 480x800. At least they put the needed system buttons on the phone so you don't need to waste more of the screen just to show the system buttons. The keyboard looks like the keys are nicely spaced and I always like having an inverted T layout for the arrow keys but I'm also a fan of a 5 row keyboard so you don't need to use a function button to get numbers.

Are you looking for a lean, mean, texting machine? Are you OK with the screen size and resolution? Check out the hands-on video after the break!


Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Make ICS Fit Your Needs With This Custom ROM

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 05:00 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/08/...navigation-bar/

"Still dallying at the corner of Custom ROM Road? Then maybe the forthcoming update from Team Kang (AOKP Build 30, no less) will entice you onwards."

With this new custom ROM on the way from the Android Open Kang Project you can add up to five new buttons to your navigation bar. Each button can also have a second function for tap and hold. There are move features too including the ability to use actions from Nova Launcher on the bar. If you like Ice Cream Sandwich but wish you could do a little more with the interface you should check this out. The added customization options may be just what you're looking for. Follow the "Read" link for a demo video. While it's not available now it looks like it should be coming soon but I didn't see a specific release date.


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Coby Releases a Bunch of ICS Tablets

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 10:00 AM

http://androidcommunity.com/cobys-c...lable-20120327/

"It’s a sad but nonetheless true fact that small and sometimes unconsidered manufacturers can often get their act together faster than larger and well-regarded ones. So it is with American low-end electronics maker Coby, which has just made its latest round of Android tablets available for purchase, according to Liliputing."

Many of these have strange and/or poor displays like 9.7" 1024x768 or 8" 800x600 but the 9" and 10" models with 1280x800 resolution could be just what you're looking for. While only a single core CPU they still have 1GB of RAM, MicroSD slot, HDMI port (I'm guessing it's MicroHDMI), and USB port (I'm guessing MicroUSB here too). Not sure about the GPU but it should be something respectable for an ICS tablet. I'd be more concerned about the GPU then having a dual-core processor as far as it being a useful device. One down side, they don't have access to Google Play Store but it comes with GetJar installed for you to find your favorite apps. The Amazon Appstore is always an option too.

So, would you buy a tablet from Coby? For only $279 to get the best model that's not a bad deal. Of course there are deals out there on dual-core tablets from last year that could come close to this price.


Saturday, January 21, 2012

ASUS Transformer Prime: Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) Improvements

Posted by Michael Knutson in "Other Slates & Tablets" @ 11:30 PM

http://www.businessinsider.com/fina...used-to-2012-1#

"I've been hanging on to the Asus Transformer Prime for the last month for a reason.

Even though the tablet launched a few weeks ago, the real news was that Asus was going to push out a major update to the new version of Google's Android called Ice Cream Sandwich."

Looks like a very good Android tablet has gotten better with Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) - better performance, better multitasking, and the hardware just feels faster. In fact, the author states that swiping between screens is now faster than on the iPad2. Improved browser performance is another advantage, and there is now a control panel "for controlling stuff." Unfortunately, quality tablet apps are still lacking, according to the author, and there appear to be bugs in the ICS update process, and with the tablet's GPS. Despite these improvements, again according to the author, the iPad2 still is ahead in the overall user experience, but this is the best Android tablet to date.


Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Google and Samsung Announce Ice Cream Sandwich and the Galaxy Nexus

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 10:30 AM

http://lifehacker.com/5851162/first...-cream-sandwich

"Google just unveiled their new Nexus phone, the Galaxy Nexus, along with a preview of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, coming to phones next year. Here's a look at the creamy new update to the Android operating system."

Yesterday Google introduced the newest version of Android, version 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. Along with Google, Samsung was there to unveil the newest Nexus phone, the Galaxy Nexus. Ice Cream Sandwich has been anticipated for quite a while now. It's the first version of Android to combine the phone (under version 3) and tablet (version 3.x) versions of the Android OS back into one version 4.0 for both form factors. In doing that Google has brought a number of features and UI characteristics from the tablet version over for Android phones to use as well. They redesigned a lot of the interface and added tons of new features like Face Unlock and new app level data usage details and controls. Follow the "Read" link to see more of the new features.

I love the look of Ice Cream Sandwich. They say they revamped the UI and while it still looks like Android it does look cleaner and better. I'm glad they brought things like stacks and scrollable widgets over from Honeycomb. I also love their phone implementation of the Honeycomb multitasking interface.

Don't forget to check out the latest Nexus phone - the Galaxy Nexus. It's a high-end phone for sure with 1GB of RAM, a dual-core 1.2GHz CPU, huge 720x1280 4.65" Super AMOLED display, a barometer, NFC, and most everything else you would expect. Some will be disappointed that the rear camera is only 5MP or by the lack of a microSD card slot. The Galaxy Nexus will be available in November.


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