Over one million iPhone 3GS have been sold in the opening three days. I’m sure there are millions more customers that are enjoying super speeds, great photo and video capabilities and the upgraded GPS thanks to the integrated magnetometer. But a few owners are not very happy at all. For some the iPhone 3GS seems to be heating up, enough to change the color of the white iPhone 3GS to something a bit less cool: brown.
The likely culprit? Faulty battery cells. Because these batteries are mass manufactured the problems that are being seen by some of the users can affect a lot more. Look at the picture of white iPhone 3GS and you can see the brown outline where the battery is located.
No one should take faulty batteries lightly. If you are experiencing your iPhone 3GS running extpremely hot, make sure to take it to the nearest Apple store and let them know and ask for a replacement. In the long run a hot-running iPhone 3GS will completely fail: battery overheats, produces gas, battery expands, expansion puts pressure on adjacent components, components get damaged, iPhone fails.
Source: Wired
Taiwan’s largest LCD manufacturer AU Optronics (AUO) will be looking carefully at the LCD market for the next two to three months to decide whether or not to invest US$3 billion in a G8.5 TFT LCD fab. AUO already has the land where the massive manufacturing plant will be built. If AUO decides to go ahead and invest in a G8.5 fab operations will commence some time in 2011. According to Andrew Tang, assistant vice president of Taiwan International Securities, AUO is considering the investment to meet the demand for LCD TV panels from China and to improve its competitiveness. Samsung and LG Display, the top LCD producers, already have G8 plants. (more…)
Sharp‘s LCD panels are banned from being imported into the US. The US International Trade Commission issued a ruling that bans the importation of Sharp LCD panels. Why? Sharp LCD panels allegedly infringe one of Samsung‘s wide viewing angle patents. Both Samsung and Sharp use a base technology called VA or Vertical Alignment for their higher-end wide viewing angle LCDs. Samsung’s version is called PVA for Patterned Vertical Alignment and Sharp’s is called ASV for Advanced Super View.
Because Sharp is heavily vertically integrated most of its AQUOS line of LCD TVs use its own LCD panels. This ban will most likely affect many other brands that make use of Sharp’s LCD panels. The ban is subject to review by President Obama and the case can be appealed.
If this ban is enforced Sharp’s performance in the US will be significantly affected. With demand already down considerably from a year ago most LCD TV brands are doing all they can to incentivize customers to purchase LCD TVs. But if Sharp can’t even get its LCD TVs inside the US border it will be at a huge disadvantage. Most likely Sharp will appeal right away. Manufacturing plants in Mexico as well as in China might experience a build up of LCD TV inventory made with Sharp LCD panels.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Lenovo‘s ThinkPad T400s is a 14.1-inch notebook PC that is just 0.83-inch thick and includes an optical drive: DVD burner or Blu-ray player. A couple of notables: the delete and escape keys have been enlarged. According to David Hill, a Lenovo designer responsible for the X300 and the T400s, we use the delete key about 700 times per week. I guess we make a lot of mistakes! The good folks at Lenovo also built in mute buttons for the mic and speakers making it more convenient for those that use VoIP. But more importantly, I’m wondering about the 14.1-inch LCD.
Lenovo states that it has a LED backlight but not much else. In my opinion, even more important than the backspace, escape keys and mute buttons is the LCD. No matter what we’re doing we’re staring into the LCD as long as we’re on the computer. The LCD doesn’t have to be professional-caliber since most T400s users will be using Office applications instead of PhotoShop, but I hope the LCD is not of the crappy kind. Want more effective presentations? Make colors pop and viewable at an angle! To do that you’ll need a decent LCD. I now expect better LCDs in notebook PCs. Do you? You should.
via Engadget
Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning. With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.
That’s from Steve Jobs, Apple‘s CEO. Welcome back Steve! Apple announced on June 22, 2009 that the company had sold more than one million iPhone 3GS models through Sunday, June 21, the third day after its launch. The iPhone 3GS is twice as fast as the iPhone 3G, has a longer battery life and a much improved camera that can also take video. It also has a lot more capacity: 16GB and 32GB–more than some netbooks out there. It took a lot longer for T-Mobile’s G1 smartphone to get to the million mark–I believe it was around six months. Palm’s Pre is considered to be a success, and I agree, but the numbers pale in comparison: analysts put it at 100,000 unit sales. I don’t know the exact timeframe for those sales but I assume they were during the weekend that it launched. Apple’s iPhone franchise is a winner and sales growth does not seem to be slowing down. Unfortunately, I will be waiting until June 2010 to get my next iPhone. Do you own an iPhone 3G? Are you getting the 3GS?