tablets - page 15

HP will be releasing its own would-be iPad killer on Friday. Called the HP Touchpad, it’s the first tablet running webOS 3, the tablet-sized operating system HP picked up from Palm last year. But what is the critical consensus? Is the HP Touchpad a viable competitor to the iPad?

Across the board, the answer is no, but most critics agree that six months from now, webOS 3 — if not the Touchpad itself — could be a viable threat to iPad. Right now, though, the HP Touchpad is unpolished and messy.

Here’s the only review of the HP Touchpad you need, glommed together from the Internet’s gadget blogging hivemind.

It’s a total embarrassment, but less than a year after Microsoft finally “caught up” with Apple’s three year lead and released a modern, multitouch smartphone operating system in Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is having to do it again, this time having been caught with their pants down by the iPad.

Their solution? Windows 8, the next version of their desktop operating system, carefully optimized to support power-sipping ARM processors and skinned with a special, tablet-specific operating system. Now a report suggests that Microsoft will rush Windows 8 to market to make sure that the iPad 3 doesn’t eat Microsoft’s tablet lunch before they’ve even sat down to the table.

RIM, Samsung, Asus? Time to give up. Your belief that there’s a tablet market is wrong. There is no tablet market, according to the latest comScore results. There is only an iPad market.

Four years after it set the smartphone world on fire, Apple has won a patent for the original iPhone.

This isn’t just old news: it’s a huge win for Apple that will not only help Cupertino out in their case against Samsung, but according to some patent specialists could even allow Apple to go to war against other smartphone makers.

Turns out, creating a tablet that sells like an iPad is simple: just make it look and feel just like Apple’s device. Yes, you might run into the knee-crackers from Cupertino’s legal department, but you’re guaranteed a winner.

It’s been a bad year for RIM so far. Their BlackBerry business has been harried on all sides by the iPhone, and their stock has delated largely thanks to the arterial spray of customers they are losing to Apple.

Worse, in response to the iPad, RIM released the much heralded BlackBerry Playbook, which might just go down in the books as one of the worst, least functional and woefully misguided pieces of consumer technology ever.

Finally, just last week, Apple totally eliminated RIM’s sole advantage over iOS by announcing iMessage, which Wall Street is already saying will kill BlackBerry’s remaining prospects in enterprise.

Anyone surprised that RIM”s now announcing layoffs after seeing their first quarter results? I thought not.

Here’s a bit of sweet timing. Just as the PC Era collapses and everyone moves to the cloud, what is Apple selling? Why, the MacBook Air, a light mobile device that seems perfect for the iCloud generation. Oh, yeah, it’s also a “quasi-tablet.” No wonder analysts predict Apple will make billions off the device.

Apple has just confirmed that they are recalling a limited number of Verizon iPad 2s, and now we know the reason why.

When it comes to mobile, Microsoft has been caught with its pants down twice in the last four years.

The first time was when the original iPhone completely turned the smartphone industry upside down overnight back in 2007. Microsoft was so slow to respond that by the time they released their first true touch-based operating system, Windows Phone 7, in November of last year, they had gone from a dominant player in the smartphone market to losing almost all of their market share.

Before Microsoft could even get Windows Phone 7 out the door, though, it happened again. Apple released the iPad in 2010, and this time, iOS didn’t just revolutionize smartphones… it attacked the very foundations of Microsoft’s Windows empire itself, cannibalizing laptop sales and utterly destroying the netbook market.

PC makers looking to ride the tablet wave and overcome Apple’s lead have had a rude awakening.

At Computex 2011 in Taiwan this week, Asus unveiled its Padfone – a new smartphone that can be placed into the back of a magic dock transforming it into a tablet. But before you stick your iPhone 4 on eBay and start waiting for one of these things, check out this dock from ECS which does exactly the same thing with your iPhone.

One of the best attributes of Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphone series is that beautiful AMOLED display, which could find its way into Apple’s third-generation iPad and finally deliver that Retina display iPad we’re all longing for. However, we’re skeptical Apple and Samsung will shake hands on this occasion.

The placement of the cellular and WiFi antennas between the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 couldn’t be more different, but that’s not stopping a small but vocal minority of iPad 2 owners to cry about an Antennagate of their own.

First, Apple takes Acer to the woodshed over netbooks, now the PC maker takes a bruising for demanding a lady-sized 7-inch tablet. They’ve just figured out what Apple has known all along: the iPad’s the perfect size for a tablet.

They say that no one but Apple can make a decent sub-$500 tablet, but Amazon not only thinks they can undercut the iPad in price once… they think they can do it with two tablet at once.

Oh, Research In Motion! Can you for one moment stop making your would-be iPad killer suck even harder than it already does?

Panned critically at debut, RIM recently had to recall over a thousand half-baked units. Now reports indicate that a recent patch has made PlayBook performance even worse than it was before.

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for since the iPad first launched in April 2010. It’s the reason we all stood in line for a day to get our hands on one. And it’s the reason why the iPad has been such an overwhelming success all over the world. Yes, I’m talking about Playboy magazine… which is now available on your tablet.

The iPad 2 already has phenomenal, 10-hour battery life, largely thanks to a combination of Apple’s custom-built, power-sipping A5 chip and the fact that inside, the iPad 2 is mostly battery.

Thanks to a new, cutting-edge tablet coating, though, your next iPad could run for twenty hours or more on a single charge, while providing Kindle-like outdoor readability.

‘Coyote’ and ‘Hollywood’ are the code-names of two tablets rumored to be a part of Amazon’s
upcoming tablet ‘family’. Details obtained from one tipster reveal the Coyote will boast a dual-core processor much like Apple’s iPad 2, whereas the Hollywood has something even more audacious up its sleeve: hardware that Amazon hopes will potentially make the iPad 3 obsolete even before it launches.

Apple is still yet to announce an official launch date for the iPad 2 in Taiwan, but some sources are claiming the device is set to hit the country before the month is out, while Android tablets in the country are suffering from its delay.

Faced with the incredible juggernaut of Apple’s iPad, Amazon may have no choice but to gang-tackle Cupertino with an “entire family” of Android-based Kindle tablets.

Initial reviews deeming the device “half-baked” meant a bad start for the BlackBerry PlayBook, and things just got a little worse as RIM recalls nearly 1,000 units.

Samsung is preparing to launch a new 10.1-inch display next week which will boast a resolution of 2560 by 1600, making it the first ‘Retina’ display to be announced for tablets. But will it be making its way into the iPad 3?

The SyncMate 3 program from Eltima Software has been providing Android users with a way of seamlessly syncing their phones with their Mac for some time, but the latest update integrates support for Android powered tablets as well.

A Chinese gadget maker of dubious distinction, vowing to directly clone a popular, in-demand Apple product? Is this even real life????