LG Optimus Pad pre-orders in Japan to start March 15th

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 24th 2011, 4:19pm
tagged Android, Android 3.0, gslate, Honeycomb, LG, lg optimus pad, MWC, mwc2011, Optimus Pad, tablet, tablet war

LG announced today that the LG Optimus Pad will be available in Japan for pre-orders starting on March 15th 2011 through NTT DoCoMo. The Optimus Pad will have special apps included which have been chosen for the Japanese market, specifically BeeTV for wireless entertainment, and 2Dfacto for reading eBooks and comics.

LG is definitely trying to start a tablet war, not only against Apple’s iPad, but also against Motorola’s Xoom which launched today, as well as the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 inch tab. The LG Optimus Pad launching in Japan is the same in every way physically to the Optimus Pad launching in Europe and rest of Asia, as well as the T-Mobile G-Slate in the U.S, so we should begin seeing the tablet wars rage soon. Hopefully, this results in cheaper tablets faster!

Check out the full press release by clicking here.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Family images from MWC 2011

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 17th 2011, 4:37pm
tagged Android, Arc, family, family portrait, FamilyPortrait, Gingerbread, group, hands on, MWC, mwc 2011, mwc2011, neo, play, pro, smartphones, sony ericsson, SonyEricsso, SonyEricsson, xperia, Xperia Arc, xperia neo, Xperia Play, XPERIA Pro, XperiaArc, XperiaNeo, XperiaPlay, XperiaPro

Here’s a good look at the whole Sony Ericsson Xperia family photos from MWC 2011. Look at how they interact with each other so nicely, without screaming and pulling each others hair, or wrestling over the last cookie in the cookie jar…ok, that’s another family reunion. Moving on.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s a nice gallery by Engadget on the family of devices launched from Sony Xperia line so far in 2011, giving you a good idea the size of each, and how well they’ll fit in your skinny 80′s metal jeans.

[via Engadget]

Android will own 80% of smartphone market predicts Kaspersky Co-Founder

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 17th 2011, 3:15pm
tagged Android, android os, antivirus, apple, blackberry, elop, Google, iOS, kaspersky, market share, microsoft, MWC, mwc2011, Nokia, own, rim, smartphones

In a statement made at MWC, Eugene Kaspersky (co-founder of Kaspersky Labs) said that he believes Android OS will consume 80% of teh smartphone market, leaving RIM and Apple to fight over the last 20% remaining, with Microsoft eating the crumbs off the table essentially. We know that Android has been hot and out-pacing many other mobile platforms in popular growth and activations as well, which may lend itself nicely to this type of prediction.

Eugene also said,”I believe that if Apple, BlackBerry, Microsoft don’t change their strategy very soon we will soon have the same mobile operating system landscape as we have with computers.” What he meant by that was the industry adoption of Windows PC’s, which left OS’s like Linux and Apple in the dust. Stephen Elop of Nokia mentioned that Android is a “black hole for innovation” for the wireless industry, but I’m sure he was just mad cause Google wouldn’t let Nokia mess with Android. I mean, why would you want to radically change something that is obviously out performing your own OS (symbian)?

Basically, it’s early to see if Eugene’s prediction come to light, but Android has definately been on pace to suggest those claims. Time will tell the tale.

[via intomobile]

Intivation Umeox Apollo Solar powered Android smartphone

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 15th 2011, 1:17pm
tagged Android, Apollo, eco-friendly, green, hands on, Intivation, MWC, mwc 2011, mwc2011, smartphone, solar, solar-power, solar-powered, solarpower, solarpowered, sunboost, Umeox, Umeox Apollo, UmeoxApollo

The Umeox Apollo smartphone from Intivation is a fresh new look at how mobile technology can be fused with Green technology. This little device has a solar-powered back, built-in flashlight, and runs Android 2.2. All packed in this neat little body is 320×480 capacitive touchscreen in a 3.2 inch display (about the size of an HTC Magic/T-Mobile MyTouch), bluetooth 2.1, 3 megapixel camera on the rear, 3.5mm headphone jack, MicroSD support, 1GB storage, and 512MB RAM. Also, it’s only 100g weight. thats what you get when you take out those big batteries I guess.

Pretty nice looking device, and a cheap price! $100 is all you’ll need to grab one of these, but don’t expect it to be a super fast device, basic smartphone usage will be lots for it to handle.

[via Engadget]

Acer Iconia Smart – 4.8inch smartphone or tablet?

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 14th 2011, 8:09pm
tagged 4.8inch, Acer, acericonia, Android, android 2.3, Dell, Gingerbread, iconia, MWC, mwc2011, smartphones, streak, tablet

Here is the new Acer Iconia Smart running Android 2.3, and looking long and slender. The look of the device is pretty nice, the fact its running Gingerbread is pretty sweet too. I’m just not sold on the size of this device. I’ll get to that in a second.

The Acer Iconia Smart has an 8 megapixel rear end with a 2 megapixel front, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, and 1024×480 resolution at 21:9 ratio, 720p video playback and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Pretty good specs right? I know. It’ll cost you about $499 and should be in Europe first around April, then the US by June/July.

Now, back to the sizing. It’s a long 4.8 inches…I mean, I have a 4 inch screen with 800×480 resolution and that feels big enough in my jean pocket. The press release says its “100% Smartphone, 100% tablet”…umm, no, I don’t think so. Remember Dell tried that with the Streak at 5inches, and it really didn’t fair well for them, they decided to go to the 7 inch and 10 inch models instead. I’m really not buying the 1024×480 resolution, great for internet usage, and reading ebooks, but terrible for games and watching videos cause you’ll have these blank areas of screen on either side. The UI is much nicer than the Dell UI however with some changes to the notification bar being on the bottom and what not, but the size man! I can’t get over how awkward it’ll feel in my pocket, unless MC Hammer pants come back, then fine.

What do you think?

Click here for the full Press release below.

MWC 2011 – LG Optimus Pad announced – starting a tablet war

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 14th 2011, 2:24pm
tagged Android, Android 3.0, gslate, Honeycomb, LG, lg optimus pad, MWC, mwc2011, Optimus Pad, tablet, tablet war

At MWC in barcelona, we’ve been seeing alot of new tablets being officially announced. One of the ones to get excited about is the LG Optimus Pad, an 8.9 inch tablet running Android 3.0, boasting a NVIDIA Tegra2 dual-core processor, with 32GB storage, and dual rear cameras capable of shooting 3D HD video. It’s a wee bit smaller than the Motorola Xoom, or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and just a bit larger than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 inch version.

LG made a declaration of war at their MWC event, showing slides which stated “True Tablet War” with the LG Optimus Pad beneath the text. You may have heard about LG’s teaser ad against Apple that got pulled rather quickly, most likely cause there were some copyright infringements involved in the context, but regardless, LG is trying to stand tall among a tablet market that is quickly beginning to get saturated. We’ll see how this all pans out for them soon.

What do you think, is the LG too small, too big…or just right in the middle for size?

Click here for Full Press Release below.

At MWC Nokia’s first priority – ‘is beating Android’?

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 13th 2011, 3:17pm
tagged Android, keynote, microsoft, MWC, mwc2011, Nokia, stephen elop, StephenElop, windows phone, WindowsPhon

You’ve probably all heard about the partnership announced by Nokia and Microsoft earlier this week, and maybe even all the hysteria over at Nokia dumping MeeGo and Symbian for WP7. ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures’, should have been the title of Nokia’s event at MWC earlier today, because this is definitely the time for Nokia to do or die.

That being said, Stephen Elop making the statement “first priority is beating Android” is pretty gutsy considering how much market they’ve already lost to Android over 2010 as we reported here. Thing is though, how exactly does Stephen Elop plan on taking down Android? I don’t see Windows Phone 7 showing numbers that even remotely suggest that OS gaining ground on Android, not even close.

With Nokia losing ground constantly, and partnering with a weak selling mobile OS like WP7, i don’t know…2 wrongs don’t make a right…do they?

[via Engadget]

Huawei IDEOS X3 and IDEOS S7 tablet revealed before MWC

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 9th 2011, 4:13pm
tagged Android, front facing camera, Front-facingCamera, huawei, ideos, ideos s7, ideos s7 slim, ideos x3, IdeosS7, IdeosS7Slim, IdeosX3, images, MWC, mwc 2011, mwc2011, pictures, pre-launch, S7, s7 slim, S7Slim, slate, tablet, Tease, Teaser, x3

Huawei has a couple more devices to show us that should be making their official appearances during the MWC conference next week on the 13th. The first is the Huawei IDEOS X3 smartphone. Looks to have a front and rear camera, back, search and menu buttons, and 4 different colors to choose from (red, black, silver and blue). This looks to be more of a mid-range Android device, when compared to the X5 we saw here.

Below we also have the IDEOS S7, which will also a slim tablet device with similar hardware options with buttons, front and rear cameras, and a 7inch screen, unfortunately, we don’t know much more than that. We’ll have to wait for the official MWC.

[via Engadget]

New HTC Android smartphone images leaked before MWC

by Jesse Bauer on Jan 21st 2011, 12:59pm
tagged Android, barcelona, buttonless, HTC, htc buttonless, HTC Desire, HTC Desire HD, MWC, mwc2011, smartphones

A few images have been leaked out over the possible new look of HTC Android handsets. They all look very slick, and no doubt will have great specs for mid-range to top of the line smartphones. These are of cource renders, and not “official” images. We’ll likely see many more official announcements with specs and images at the MWC conference in barcelona taking place on February 14-17 2011. But you can have a look at the images below and tell us what you think.

[via PocketNow]