I really like user reviews. You get a longer-term view on the device and the owner has enough time to find those smaller issues that can sometimes grow into annoying ones. There’s one such issue here in the Lenovo U300s review below that Daniel Rourke [Twitter] sent in but in general he’s a very happy U300s customer.
If you’d also like to contribute to Ultrabooknews, drop me a line via our contact page. If you’re in the industry, an expert analyst, an owner/user or just have something serious to put forward, I’ll consider it for publication.
Ugly? Practical? Heavy? Flexible? The HP Folio 13 is a strange Ultrabook in that while it doesn’t follow fashion in terms of looks and weight, it’s possibly a good thing because it also packs ports, features and battery capacity that other Ultrabooks don’t. The HP Folio 13 could turn out to be the sensible choice among Ultrabooks in the first half of 2012
Video overview below. Full specifications, gallery, links to videos and reviews available in the HP Folio information page.
Thanks to everyone that joined in the live testing session yesterday evening. It was totally worth the effort because we uncovered a few more nuggets of information and a lot of data on gaming as well as confirming battery life and performance. The videos are embedded at the bottom of this article.
The bad news first. During the evening we experienced two power-downs on removing / inserting the power plug while we were in a game. It was an instant-off situation [see it on the live video here.]. Apparently others have experienced this too. I testing today, I experienced an instant shut-off while World Of Warcraft was loading (on battery mode.)
When we reported earlier in the week that the Asus Eee Pad Slider had passed through FCC approval, there was no official announcement from Asus. However, yesterday, the official press release announcing the device as part of the Asus product line went live on the Asus website. The official launch brings some additional tidbits that further pique our interest in this device.
One of the trends that is disturbing me in the Android infrastructure is the implementation of proprietary solutions to various use-case problems in new premier devices. Asus bundles Asus WebStorage with the Slider as a solution to cloud storage and populating an on-line archive with data you might need to access from multiple mobile devices. It is a nice touch (I guess), and I am sure one or two users will decide to use this solution instead of already existing cloud file services like Google Docs and DropBox, or cloud notebooks like Evernote or Springpad. My main issue is that every time a manufacturer deploys one of these in-house services on a tablet, the app is usually not uninstallable. The problem goes away if you wipe and root, but if you want to just run the device stock, these pre-loaded apps are annoying. It is very clear that the pre-loaded epidemic that plagued desktops and laptops for so long is creeping into the tablet market, as well.
Fortunately, that rant gets any negative take-aways I have from the press release out of the way. Most everything else is good news, or at least enticing news until we see some more definition from various allusions in the release. One of those items is in the area of the Slider’s ports. We were aware of the microSD port, but the Slider’s specs now also call out a 16/32GB Embedded Multi-Media Card (eMMC) port. This is called out as a discrete port in addition to the microSD port, so it makes me wonder if this will be a full-sized port like the Toshiba Thrive and Dell Streak 7 feature.
Also revealed is the fact that the device will be available in both pearl white and metallic brown color schemes. That designation appears to apply to the brushed layer applied to the slide-out keyboard, as can be seen in the pics attached. Android 3.1 will be pre-loaded and Asus indicates an upgrade to 3.2 as an OTA delivery, as we would expect. In case we were not certain before, the launch announcement confirms an IPS display (similar to the one used on the iPad) with a claimed 178 degree wide angle of view.
You can peep the specs in our product database here. A link to the press release is included in the source citations below. There is nothing in the press release on pricing or a release date.
So…is anyone holding off on that Asus Eee Pad Transformer purchase to snag a Slider instead?
Though it showed up on the web back in March, the Droid 3 has finally received the official treatment. The phone will make it’s debut on July 14th on Verizon for $199 w/ contract or with an upgrade.
8MP rear-camera capable of 1080p record and playback (through HDMI-out)
16GB built-in memory
MicroSD card slot supporting up to 32GB cards
World Phone – WCDMA 850/1900/2100, CDMA 800/1900, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 10.2 Mbps (Category 9/10), CDMA EV-DO Release A, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
WiFi b/g/n & Bluetooth 2.1
GPS & Magnetometer (compass)
3G (HSDPA 10.2 Mbps (Category 9/10), CDMA EV-DO Release A, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps)
Micro HDMI-out
1540 MAh battery
184g
64.1 x 123.3 x 12.9 mm
The processor is unspecified, but considering the dual-core nature and 1080p capture/output support, I think it’s safe to say that we’re looking at Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU.
The obvious omission here is 4G LTE which is a bit of a shame, but if you’re the internationally-traveled type, you’ll appreciate the inclusion of global bands.
I’m most excited about the phone’s 5-row QWERTY keyboard. While devices like the Nokia N900 had great keys, the keyboard had only 3 rows! With so few rows, using punctuation and symbols becomes incredibly hectic and really ruins (slows) the typing experience on what would otherwise be a great keyboard.
The Droid 3’s keyboard, on the other hand, has a dedicated number-row which will definitely reduce the amount of modifier-key usage and this will serve to increase the typing speed. I haven’t had a chance to use the keyboard just yet, but they keys are looking improved over the 4-row Motorola Droid 2 that came before it!
Though it showed up on the web back in March, the Droid 3 has finally received the official treatment. The phone will make it’s debut on July 14th on Verizon for $199 w/ contract or with an upgrade.
8MP rear-camera capable of 1080p record and playback (through HDMI-out)
16GB built-in memory
MicroSD card slot supporting up to 32GB cards
World Phone – WCDMA 850/1900/2100, CDMA 800/1900, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 10.2 Mbps (Category 9/10), CDMA EV-DO Release A, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
WiFi b/g/n & Bluetooth 2.1
GPS & Magnetometer (compass)
3G (HSDPA 10.2 Mbps (Category 9/10), CDMA EV-DO Release A, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps)
Micro HDMI-out
1540 MAh battery
184g
64.1 x 123.3 x 12.9 mm
The processor is unspecified, but considering the dual-core nature and 1080p capture/output support, I think it’s safe to say that we’re looking at Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU.
The obvious omission here is 4G LTE which is a bit of a shame, but if you’re the internationally-traveled type, you’ll appreciate the inclusion of global bands.
I’m most excited about the phone’s 5-row QWERTY keyboard. While devices like the Nokia N900 had great keys, the keyboard had only 3 rows! With so few rows, using punctuation and symbols becomes incredibly hectic and really ruins (slows) the typing experience on what would otherwise be a great keyboard.
The Droid 3’s keyboard, on the other hand, has a dedicated number-row which will definitely reduce the amount of modifier-key usage and this will serve to increase the typing speed. I haven’t had a chance to use the keyboard just yet, but they keys are looking improved over the 4-row Motorola Droid 2 that came before it!
Friday is turning out to be a good day. The iPad 2 launches in Europe (although I still don’t see any official pricing in Germany) and it’s my Birthday. Now, I hear that the Eee Pad Transformer is launching too. Decisions decisions!
The Eee Pad Transformer is an interesting product because it takes the idea of the smartbook one step further. It uses the Honeycomb operating system (which could enable a far superior laptoping experience than 2.x ever did) and it uses a keyboard mechanism that can be un-docked to allow tablet-only usage.
I tested the Transformer out at mobile world congress in February (video below) and wasn’t too impressed with the weight but full USB ports made me wonder if ASUS are building some nice USB hosting capabilities. The weight with the dock also seems a little over the top. With connectors and an additional battery in the keyboard unit, I’m expecting the total weight to tip 1KG. The unit I tested wasn’t running Honeycomb.
Pricing has me a little worried. The price for the tablet seems OK at 399 Euro although confirmation is still needed on storage and 3G capability. 32GB and 3G included is what I’m assuming at this stage. The price of the dock could add 120 Euro to that. The price isn’t too bad when compared with high-end tablets but when compared with the Tegra-2 based Toshiba AC100 smartbook (under 300 Euro with 3G) you get the idea that there’s a huge margin being added here and that the price should come down by at least 100 Euros over time.
The March 25th launch is for Taiwan only at this stage and will only include pre-order. Actual availability around the world is still unknown but we’ll probably hear more on Friday.
The hardware keyboard on the original Droid was a major selling point for many people. Unfortunately, the keyboard really under-delivered. Motorola made progress with the Droid 2, but typing speed still suffered a lot when you wanted needed to punctuate. Here’s an excerpt about the keyboard from our Droid 2 review published last September:
Typing alphabetical characters on the Droid 2’s keyboard is like cruising down the highway using punctuation is like sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The keyboard is speedy thanks to fairly good tactical feedback, but lack of auto-correction that is commonly found on modern OSKs means that you end up having to do more work than you really should. Things get messy when one key is bound with both a shift- and alt-modifier punctuation. Not to mentioned that in order to access the extended symbols list, you have to press alt, space, then tap your selection from the popup menu (taking your fingers from the keyboard slows down the process even more)
Things are looking up for the Droid 3’s keyboard. The keys closely resemble those on the N900 [keyboard section of our review] (which had great feedback and were very easy to type with), but unlike the N900, the Droid 3 has a dedicated number-row (5 rows total) which is very important for speed. By moving the numbers to their own keys, they can free up some of the punctuation congestion that was an issue on the Droid 2 and N900.
Of course, adding an additional row to the keyboard means that you’ll either need to make the device larger, or shrink the keys. In the photo we have, the number-row keys on the Droid 3 are half the height as the others.
Nokia decided to make nice large keys on the N900, and they felt excellent. Unfortunately, they could only fit three rows of keys on the device, and using symbols and punctuation really slowed things down.
Here’s to hoping that the Droid 3 keyboard will combine the strengths of the great key design on the N900 with the less congested punctuation typing that comes with a dedicated number row.
I really like user reviews. You get a longer-term view on the device and the owner has enough time to find those smaller issues that can sometimes grow into annoying ones. There’s one such issue here in the Lenovo U300s review below that Daniel Rourke [Twitter] sent in but in general he’s a very happy U300s customer.
