LG is holding a Digital Press Conference on the 14th of September at 6pm Korea time and it seems it will be centered around the company’s Optimus brand. From the looks of it LG is probably introducing its Optimus tablet. Rumor has it the name will be Optimus Pad.
The new iPod touch is out, and there are a lot of things to like about it: dual cameras for FaceTime and HD recording, and the most spectacular mobile display on the market–the Retina Display with 960×640 pixels–in a package that’s impossibly thin. Despite the goodies, I’m very disappointed.
Apple states 720p HD video recording. Take a closer look at that claim and it seems there’s a bit of marketing fluff mixed in. 960×720 isn’t really 720p HD; 1280×720 would be. 30 frames per second is decent, but still the iPod touch doesn’t capture videos at 720p. The front camera seems to be the same as found on the iPhone 4 at 640×480 at 30fps. And what about the pixel format for stills? Just 960×760. Terrible.
Did design trump function? I think so. Must the iPod touch be so much thinner than the iPhone? I’m not so sure. The iPhone 4 tops out at 32GB but the iPod touch goes up to 64GB; push it to 128GB next time and keep the same ID. I would rather have an iPod touch that looks identical to the iPhone 4 but without the phone function and everything else, including the 5MP image sensor for great stills and real 720p HD recording. Source: Apple.
I used to own a Motorola Motoroi and when I returned it I was so relieved. I didn’t have to deal with the craziness that involved the Android smartphone self-rebooting about a dozen times a day. Was it Motorola’s fault? Google? SK Telecom in Korea? Who knows. What I do know is that I’m not touching any smartphone from Motorola for quite some time. Read the review. Yes, I know it is irrational to generalize based on just one experience, but I tell you the experience was just too painful. Ranting aside…
The Motorola Milestone 2 is the Motorola Droid 2. I guess Droid can’t be used outside of the US. Here’s the skinny on the specs: 1GHz OMAP SOC, 512MB RAM, 5MP camera, 8GB internal storage, Android 2.2 (Froyo), Motoblur, and 720p video recording. Motoblur is unfortunate but 720p video recording is a major plus and about time. A faster CPU would have been appreciated. I wonder why there wasn’t any mention of the display… Probably the same 3.7-inch LCD sporting a 854×480 pixel format found in the original Milestone/Droid. Source: Engadget
Engadget strolled through LG’s yet-to-be-fully-constructed booth at IFA and found that the electronics giant will be showcasing the world’s thinnest (2.9 mm) OLED TV and it’s 31 inches. Coming to a store near you? Probably not any time soon.
Samsung’s Galaxy S Android smartphone hit one million units in just 45 days. It took 74 days for the Motorola Droid to get to 1.05 million. FYI, Apple’s iPhone 4 sold 1.7 million units in three days. So far there are three Samsung Galaxy S models: Vibrant on T-Mobile and Captivate on AT&T and Epic 4G on Sprint, which was just made available on the 31st of August. Fascinate on Verizon is coming soon, on September 9th. That’s about double the current potential market and will likely boost sales of the Super AMOLED-touting Hummingbird Android 2.2-upgradable smartphone from Samsung.
HP’s Mini 210 and Mini 5103 netbooks now are powered by dual-core Intel Atom CPUs, the N550. The US$399 Mini 5103, a 10-inch netbook, will be powered by a 1.5GHz N550. The consumer-oriented Mini 210, also a 10-inch netbook, starts at $330 with a single-core Atom but can be optioned with the dual-core N550. The Mini 210 can also be equipped with a Broadcom Crystal Accelerator for 1080p HD video playback, which is nice.
I like the overall industrial design of these two HP netbooks but there is something that is lacking. For instance, the neck that connects the chassis to the display doesn’t jive with the overall sleek design: there’s just too much… stuff (plastic? aluminum?) there. And 10 inches isn’t that big so this might not matter much but the display is sitting way up; I like the way Apple has designed the hinge so the display when opened settles down a bit. And the border around the display is too thick; it’s not like we’ll need the borders to hold the display as we see on the iPad. Thicker-than-aesthetically-pleasing borders are acceptable only when they are necessary; it is not in the case of these two high-powered netbooks from HP.
The Mini 210 and the Mini 5103 10-inch netbooks from HP sport very decent designs and are powered by capable dual-core Intel Atoms for a reasonable price. Just make sure you’re okay with the overall design. Source: Engadget
Researchers at the University of Michigan claim they can beat the resolution (pixel density as in PPI) of Apple’s Retina Display by an order of magnitude. How? With plasmonic nanophotonics. They’ll need to change that name if they want any chance of succeeding in the market place. How does this work?
Vary the spacing between the grates, and white light appears in different colors. Instead of the multiple layers of glass, metal polarizers, and filter sheets in a conventional LCD, the polarizer is the color filter. The whole color component of the screen is a three-layer all-metal dielectric stack.
What’s it great for? High resolution, low power consumption, flexible displays, etc. The whole display is made up of just three metal dielectric layers. Very cool technology but my question is: when can I have a state-of-the-art smartphone with this plasmonic nanophotonics display technology for $199 with a new two-year agreement?
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is a 7-inch tablet running Android 2.2 and is expected to be announced during the IFA show in Berlin, Germany on September 2nd. What I like most about the Galaxy Tab is that you can wrap your fingers around it, unlike the iPad. The iPad, with its 9.7-inch IPS display, is one awesome tablet that does quite a lot. But the problem with the iPad is that it is a bit heavy when all you want to do is read, and it’s a bit big when all you want to do is check email. Maybe Samsung’s Galaxy Tab will fit that gap between a smartphone and the iPad.
There’s a video of the Galaxy Tab on Wired (make sure to lower your volume) and it looks like portrait thumb typing is a go; there seems to be some type of phone functionality; the Android 2.2 seems to be quite responsive but the webpages, though they load quickly, seems to lag a little when scrolling, mobile TV is there (probably just for Korea) and finally the display is a non-OLED LED-backlit LCD. I wonder what the pixel format is… probably something like 1024×600 in landscape. Although that’s fairly on-par with the iPad’s 1024×768, I’m guessing the next iPad will have quadruple that: 2048×1536. Check out my rumor post about Liquidmetal iPhones and Retina Display iPads.
Although it might be weird to be handling such a big device for photographs or video capture I’m glad Samsung decided to include a camera on the back of the Galaxy Tab. Video calls is a feature touted in the official video (link below) so there should be a front-facing camera too. Rumors: The Galaxy Tab is headed to Verizon Wireless in the US (Source: Boy Genius Report). Official Samsung Galaxy Tab site… and it works without Flash. Interesting.
China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT), a subsidiary of TCL, is expected to begin equipment installation at its 8.5G TFT LCD fabrication plant in May 2011 and commence mass production of LCD panels in the fourth quarter according to company CEO Cheng-Ming He. CSOT’s 8.5G LCD fab will focus on 26, 32, 46, and 55 inch LCD TV panels.
TCL and Century Science & Technology Investment share 50% each of CSOT. 170 or so key engineers have been recruited from Taiwan and Korea. CSOT is aiming to bring component suppliers close to its 8.5G fab and has already signed a cooperation agreement with glass substrate suppliers. Co-location of a primary glass supplier will be important in improving LCD panel production efficiency. Source: Digitimes Displays
Like clockwork Apple will be having a media event next week, on the 1st of September. Expected announcements are a retooled iPhone 4-like iPod Touch but one that’s thinner sporting a Retina Display and two FaceTime-ready cameras. An iOS-based Apple TV (iTV) might also make an appearance. The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, California. Source: Loop Insight
