Don’t forget that we’re doing a Live Review of the Flyer on Wednesday evening at 2100 CEST (your timezone here) where we do a detailed, 2hr review of the HTC Flyer with you in the chat session asking questions and steering the testing. It’s free, fun, detailed and interactive and likely to give you all the answers you need.
In the meantime, here’s the unboxing and overview video. I’ve got no comments at the moment apart from saying that the start-up sequence was smooth and that I’m a little bit underwhelmed by the pen input. Annotations seem OK but this is nothing that competes with the pen input capabilities of Windows 7, even on mobile PC devices.
Our Motorola Xoom [tracking page] has finally managed to find the Android 3.1 Honeycomb update that Google pushed out the other day. We gave you a thorough overview of the 3.1 update based on the official information provided, but there’s only so much that text can say. To understand the changes sometimes you just have to experience them. Often times a lot of the little changes go largely undocumented. So to answer that call, we’ve got a hands-on video for you. Have a look:
WARNING: Please turn your volume down before 14:20. I forgot to enable airplane mode on my phone and the subsequent vibration is frighteningly loud. My apologies!
I’m happy to see that the Flyer includes a good-looking case. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen any decent included accessories in today’s tablet-world.
Chris’s video will take you through the box and into the software for a brief look at the totally new HTC Sense and you’ll see some stylus action.
I’m really disappointed to see that the stylus doesn’t work system-wide. As you’ll see in the video, there are times where the stylus can be used for some things, but the finger has to be used for others. I’ve seen such issues before on the Nokia N810; it creates a bothersome disconnect between finger/stylus input usage for the end-user. This could likely be fixed through software, but it’s going to cause some annoyance for people who are interested in using the stylus.
I managed to snap off this quick video testing HDMI out on the Acer Iconia A500 [tracking page]. The retail unit doesn’t include a HDMI cable (it requires a mini HDMI connector) so I had to scrounge one up to test it on a monitor. I shot it with the Motorola Atrix [tracking page] so you’ll have to excuse the sometimes shaky video but I was keen to see and share how the HDMI worked. The video test shown is using the Windows 7 sample video “Wildlife” and is a wmv file shot in 720p HD I find it’s quite a good test as it challenges a lot of PC’s to play it without skipping frames. The Atrix, and the Viewsonic Gtab play it without issues. Since the included media player on the A500 couldn’t play the wmv I downloaded, I installed Rockplayer Lite and while it played the file it was very jumpy.
Being able to play videos or view slideshows on a big screen is a great feature for using this tablet in a business setting but unfortunately I wasn’t able to play the architectural render that one of my co-workers needed to show at an afternoon meeting so he had to take the laptop.
You might also notice I used the Sniffer file explorer (from the Notion Ink Adam [tracking page]). Since the A500 comes with both a full sized and mini USB connection, which enables simple file transfer and is a great connectivity option for all kinds of USB peripherals, I was surprised and a bit disappointed to find that there was no file explorer included out of the box. I actually installed Sniffer using dropbox so I could access some files for testing off a USB thumb drive. I actually prefer Sniffer over other file explorers as it is intuitive to use and has some nice features I haven’t found on other such as the simple copy and paste functions.
Thanks to everyone (350+ people) that dropped in on the live session with the Acer Iconia Tab A500 last night. I have to say that there’s no better way than to spend a focused 3 hours testing a new device than with a camera and knowledgeable audience!
We recorded three sections of the live session and the important notes and videos are below. I will continue to test the A500 and if I find anything of major importance, will report it here. You’ll find further reports on Honeycomb over at UMPCPortal as I take on the task of tracking productivity apps that become available in the ecosystem.
So far I’m seeing good hardware from both looks, materials and an efficiency perspective but a number of software problems from the OS to the apps level that really fall below expectations. At 499 Euro I would expect to see multiple video codec support, a supplied micro HDMI cable and at least a simple stand or case. With the stability issues and application issues seen, it raises a red flag at the moment. Unless you need the Iconia Tab A500 (and this applies to the other 2 Honeycomb Tablets available right now) I’d say wait for two things. 1) Price drop of about 15-20% should arrive within months. 2) Asses ongoing firmware updates and progress of Android applications for Honeycomb. Of course, you’ll also need to track future products from competitors. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is likely to be available in the next week or two.
Notes:
Battery life: 6hrs full use. WiFi, 50% screen, testing. I suspect you could run it dry by gaming on it for 5 hours but on the other hand, you might get more than 6hrs use if you’re gentle on it.
Battery life: 100hrs on, WiFi, screen off. In idle state, with the Wifi on and screen off and with the device set to synchronize various apps, it will last between 75 and 100 hours. (Up to 4 days.) That’s a good figure.
Here’s the battery drain graph showing our testing, an overnight ‘sleep’ and some work I did with it today.
More notes:
Honeycomb observation: Why no HD available through YouTube application?
Stability. When using a USB keybaord the device crashed 4 or 5 times. I also saw the A500 crash twice without the keyboard but under heavy testing. Stability could be better.
Screen resolution and viewing angles are very good. Color, contrast too. Brightness average.
PDF one-page view is readable. That’s something you can’t do on a 7″ tablet, whatever the resolution.
Speakers clear, loud
Finish of design is excellent. Metal back gives it a stylish look and feel.
MicroSD card works. 3G Card slot is blocked off on this Wifi-only model.
Docking port was a surprise. No details of what is passed through that though.
No MicroHDMI cable supplied to test the HDMI output.
No extra codecs. (WMV, Divx and other formats don’t play) Have yet to see a 1080p file play back on the device.
Camer quality and video quality is so-so.
Gtalk video quality also, so-so. Easy to use though.
Weight (and this applies to many 10″ tablets) is still too heavy for one-hand holding for any length of time.
No built-in, or supplied stand
No USB mouse support
USB keyboard and mass storage supported. 3G dongle not tested.
Honeycomb apps seem few and far between. Existing apps in Market are often for portrait mode only and do not use all the space well.
Performance is comparable with other Honeycomb/Tegra2 tablets.
There’s possibly a Gyroscope sensor that improves responsiveness in games that use it. (Unconfirmed)
Compass, GPS confirmed.
Skype audio works without headset (built-in mic and speakers work. Rear faceng speakers help cut down feedback)
An announcement on the Google mobile blog tells us that Google Talk with video and voice chat will be released to Nexus S [product page][review] devices in the next few weeks as part of the Android 2.3.4 update. This is great news in itself, but once you realize that it’s only for Android devices running Android 2.3 or higher, you’ll see why it’s actually sort of upsetting.
According to data released from Google Android 2.3 only represents 2.2% of current Android devices so it may be a while before we see it on the majority of devices out there. Froyo (2.2) is currently the most popular Android version with 63.9% of devices.
Some neat features include: while video chatting, any text chats from that person will also appear overlaid on the video; also when switching to a different application while video chatting, video is paused but audio continues to run in the background. Unlike Apple’s Face Time, the Google talk video works over Wi-Fi and 3G which is nice. The app will work with desktop users (which includes Mac/PC/any platform that has a browser than can access the webcam) by enabling video chats from within Gmail.
For Android users it seems like this might be a good option if you need video calling functionality for your device, PC, tablet or smartphone, but it’s a ways away for the majority of users out there. There’s still no real news on when Skype will add video calling support for Android and indeed it’s hard to think what to make of the recent announcement that Qik was purchased by Skype for around $100 million.
Google has a short video showing Video Chat in action:
Tablets increasingly seem to want to go from companion device to dedicated device, but there’s a lot of catching up to do in terms of productivity before that can actually happen. Today, most modern smartphones are capable of capturing 720p video, that means that if a tablet wants even a chance at being a standalone device, it’s going to need to at least be able to edit those files.
Android 3.0 (honeycomb) comes pre-baked with a Movie Studio application which wowed the press with what appeared to be full-fledged video editing on the tablet. But now that the Xoom [tracking page] is available to the public, we have to ask (and I can’t believe I haven’t seen people be more critical about this): Is the video editing really up to the task? You be the judge:
Incidentally, this video was shot, edited, and processed on an iPhone 4 (but not uploaded, damn YouTube file size limitations!).
We’ve mentioned the other day that we had an Enspert e201 [tracking page] inbound for testing, and it has arrived. I had to chase the FedEx truck several blocks down to get the box yesterday, and I did it all for you, dear readers! The Enspert e201 (which is available soon, exclusively from Dynamism) is being branded as the Identity Tab, here in the US.
I’m really surprised with the build-quality of the Identity Tab so far. It looks just like an iPad and I’m dreading the “hey is that a mini-iPad? inch questions that I’ll get when I’m using it out of the house; they may have copied the aesthetic, but they were fortunately also able to nail the build-quality. I’m really digging the physical buttons on the Identity Tab. The last three Android devices that I’ve tested (and numerous ones that I’ve covered) all use capacitive Android buttons (the Home, Back, Hidden-Menu, and Search buttons). The Identity Tab (though it might be lacking the search button) actually has physical clickable buttons, and I love it! The feedback on them is great, I don’t have to guess whether or not I’ve actually pressed them.
As I mention in the video, the Identity Tab is running Android 2.1 at the moment, but will be updated to 2.2 before shipping to customers. I think this is much better than promising a 2.2 download at some point later because companies sometimes don’t come through (*cough*Samsung*cough*), and even if they do, the process isn’t always easy! The device will also have official Android Market access when Android 2.2 comes through (we’ll have it on the device in about a week) and that will enable us to do much more with it. Stay tuned for more to come from the Identity Tab over the next week or two.
