The HP Compaq L2105tm is quite unique. The 21.5-inch 1080p LCD monitor offers multitouch! The L2105tm is Microsoft Windows 7 certified and that means it will work right out of the box and connected to a Windows 7 computer. HP is touting that its L2105tm is the first Windows 7 certified monitor. The multitouch monitor is geared toward consumers and the SOHO markets.
The LCD was specified to run 24/7 and has a rated 50,000 hours to half-brightness. The backlight is of the CCFL variety. I had the pleasure of talking to Darryl Valdes, Worldwide Product Marketing Manager for the Displays Commercial Business Segment, and he noted that HP is investigating transitioning toward a LED backlight solution in the future. With a monitor that can run all the time, target markets include: retail POS, vending solution, retail information & interactive, wayfinder applications, etc.
The multitouch technology implemented in the L2105tm is an optical touch solution and includes two cameras, an infrared light and sensor combined with a reflective film to create a light field. When a finger or almost any object creates a shadow as it approaches the display the sensor detects it and relays the information via USB to provide a multitouch experience. The advantage of this type of touch technology is that it is very rugged and you can use a variety of input methods including a gloved finger. Another benefit is good brightness. According to Valdes, the L2105tm has a rated brightness of 250 cd/m2. He also noted that HP is being somewhat conservative with the rating and the actual brightness can reach a typical 270 cd/m2.
Other specs include: 5ms response time, 170/160 viewing angles, 72% NTSC color gamut, 1000:1 contrast ratio, TCO 5.0 Displays compliance, VGA, DVI-D with HDCP connections. A stylus is included.
RIM: The BlackBerry Storm2 is the company’s second attempt at a QWERTY keyboard-free all touch smartphone. The first attempt, the Storm, sold quite a few but we all know that it failed. The Storm failed on two levels: first, the typing mechanism was weird. When you typed the entire screen moved. Where did RIM get the idea that that was good? Second, it failed to live up to its name (didn’t quite generate a storm in the full screen smartphone space) and failed to topple the best full screen touch smartphone, Apple’s iPhone, by a long shot.
Now the Storm2 has made its debut. The Storm2 will be free on Vodafone contracts of £35 and up monthly payments. The smartphone features a 3.5-mm headset jack, a 3.2 megapixel digital camera with auto-focus, flash and video recording capabilities, a built-in GPS and Bluetooth 2.1. The 1400mAh battery lasts for about 5 1/2 to 6 hours of talk time. The press release states that internal storage is 2GB but read on and you’ll find that it could be quite a bit more. You can pre-order the Storm2 on Vodafone now.
Walt Mossberg:
Overall, I found the Storm2 worked well in my tests.
The Storm2 is round two and it sports a 3.25-inch capacitive touch LCD with a 480×360 (landscape) resolution. That resolution is a bit better than the iPhone’s 480×320. The touch technology is called SurePress and it is new and improved, according to Mossberg. There is now an electronic tactile feedback instead of the mechanical one so the entire screen doesn’t move about when you’re just hitting a key. Mossberg says that, “This allows for faster, smoother typing.” Let’s hope so.
Like the iPhone, now you can use a full virtual keyboard in portrait mode; it was limited to that two characters per key nonsense in the original Storm. The browsing experience wasn’t as good as the Pre or iPhone. Expect the Storm2 to have WiFi BG, 18GB of storage, and a ship date of November with a price of US$200 on Verizon.
You can also hop on over to RIM to see a detailed comparison chart of the Storm2 to its predecessor.
Google announced the Android SDK now supports Android 2.0. a.k.a Eclaire. Here are the main updates to Android 2.0:
- Multiple Google and Exchange email accounts
- Quick Contact: Allows quick communications using multiple services.
- Third-party sync services
- Quick contact menus
- Unified email inbox: Browse email from multiple accounts in one page.
- Expanded search to include SMS and MMS
- Improved camera controls: built-in flash support, digital zoom, scene mode, white balance, macro, color effects, etc.
- Browser: Double-tap to zoom, , bookmarks with webpage thumbnails, HTML 5 support
- Calendar: Agenda view (infinite scrolling), events (each invitee attending status), invite (new guests to events)
- Bluetooth 2.1: Peer-to-peer connectivity, proximity-based social interactions, gaming, OPP (Object Push Profile), PBAP (Phone Book Access Profile)
- Graphics: Better acceleration and rendering for different resolutions.
I like the very last bullet where different resolutions can be rendered equally well on Android smartphones. This feature does not require multiple versions of an application and utilizes the Android UI Toolkit. A single binary can support multiple display sizes and resolutions. Maybe this will foster competition and bring about higher resolution phones for other platforms as well.
Source:
Ruggedized Anything portable has a high probability that it will break, thanks to human error. A lot of us like to sip on something (coffee, tea, Coke, etc.) when we work or play. A few of us have had the unpleasant experience of spilling some of that unto our computers. Heck, many of us have spilled the actual PC onto the floor! Not only that, we all know what happens with our fragile computers when our kids (and their friends) who love to play with the keyboard and touch the screen. Dell‘s Latitude XT2 XFR might have had Verizon Wireless field engineers or the military in mind, but I think a lot of moms and dads would appreciate a ruggedized multitouch tablet PC. (more…)
Weak Pixels Lenovo‘s IdeaPad U150 is a 11.6-inch notebook powered by Intel’s 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo SU4100 ULV CPU and features 2GB RAM, 250GB hard disk, a multitouch trackpad running Windows 7. The glossy 11.6-inch LCD sports a 1366 x 768 resolution and is LED backlit: that’s a lot of pixels in such a small LCD. Integrated graphics is a bit disappointing with Intel’s GMA 4500MHD, but it should be good enough for most simple graphics tasks; just don’t expect it to give you high FPS (Frames Per Second) on your favorite FPS (First Person Shooter) games. You can output video via HDMI or VGA.
Diet? Interestingly the maximum RAM is quite high at 8GB and it is of the faster DDR3 type. There is an integrated 1.3MP webcam, WiFi N, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, three USB ports (with one shared with eSATA) and a multicard reader. The 6-cell battery is good for 7 hours and the U150 weighs 3.3 pounds (1.5kg). It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison but the larger 13.3-inch MacBook Air (which lacks most of the connectivity options mentioned on the U150) weighs just 3 pounds, but doesn’t last as long at about 5 hours.
Source:
- “Lenovo IdeaPad U150 is official in Japan, not very big” – Engadget
- “11.6″ Lenovo IdeaPad U150 Goes Official in Japan” – netbooked