China’s rural subsidy program accounted for 66% of total TV sales in rural areas of the country, according to All View Consulting (AVC) and as reported by Digitimes. Total TV sales were 5.57 million units in the first half of 2010. Four million were LCD TVs. AVC expects total TV sales to due to the subsidy program to reach 13.36 million units in 2010; 10.74 million of them are forecasted to be LCD TVs. Local brands made up 90% of TV sales in rural areas.
There seems to be no changes to the 3.7-inch 16:9 aspect ratio 854×480 TFT LCD that is used in the original Droid. Why mess with a good thing? Engadget’s Chris Ziegler reviews the new Motorola Droid 2:
If you’re just looking for the baddest-ass Android phone on Verizon that money can buy, we’d recommend a Droid X or Droid Incredible any day over this, especially since all three are the same price — unless you’re hell-bent on going with a physical keyboard, of course. Both of those other handsets offer superior cameras, a better UI (in the case of the Incredible), and a better display (in the case of the X).
Droid 2 changes and non-changes: The oversized completely unnecessary d-pad has been deleted, leading to a much larger keyboard with larger keys including double-width Alt and Shift keys. According to iFixit a TI OMAP 3630 running at 1GHz is onboard, faster than the 600MHz CPU in the original Droid. WiFi is a faster N variety. There is still no 720p video capture: for some this is a major strike against the Droid 2 and will probably knock it off the list of smartphones to get. The max video pixel format is 720×480. Stills are five megapixels. Here’s what Ziegler had to say about the photo/video-taking capabilities of the Droid 2:
The original Droid has a famously bad shooter, and we regret to say the Droid 2 doesn’t seem to be much better — autofocus is still noisy and slow, macro mode doesn’t really work, and images are often hazy and heavily artifacted. Making matters worse, Motorola has started using the same cumbersome camera UI featured on the Droid X, which makes changing modes awkward and a less efficient process than it has to be.
I don’t think I’m alone on this one: I don’t want to carry a compact digital camera if I don’t have to. Since losing my Canon S90, the photo/video-capturing feature of smartphones has been gaining importance to me.
Ashley Harrell in iHelp for Autism:
Since the iPad’s unveiling in April, autism experts and parents have brought it into countless homes and classrooms around the world. Developers have begun pumping out applications specifically designed for users with special needs, and initial studies are already measuring the effectiveness of the iPod Touch and the iPad as learning tools for children with autism. Through the devices, some of these children have been able to communicate their thoughts to adults for the first time. Others have learned life skills that had eluded them for years.
Mike Pereira, director of clinical services at California Autism Foundation:
I don’t think there’s anything revolutionary about any new technology. The revolution is being conducted in the classrooms and in determining causality. … That’s where the money and the effort should be.
Harrell:
Children with autism usually have a narrow range of interests, so they need additional motivation to learn. Research and anecdotes concerning the iPad and iPod suggest that the devices grab the children’s attention.
While reading this article there are a few improvements that could be made to the iPod touch and the iPad to greatly enhance the experience especially for children. Here’s the list of opportunities:
And here’s the list of iPad apps that were mentioned that I thought were worth exploring to help kids learn and have fun at the same time: Stories2Learn, Proloquo2Go, First Then Visual Schedule, iEarnedThat.
Engadget: There’s a rumor that Apple will be rebranding Apple TV to iTV. Makes sense since almost everything Apple makes has the letter ‘i’ in front of the name. Well ITV, the British television network, isn’t happy about this rumor. Mike Large, ITV’s director of communications, pointed out that the company has “vigorously defended” its intellectual property in the past. And that past is probably when Apple approached them back in 2006 and the reason why we have Apple TV today instead of iTV. I’ve always wondered what kind of whacky name Apple TV was… I say go retro and call it iTelevision.
According to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, the next iPod touch will be coming shortly, in a few weeks actually and will be sporting the Retina Display from the iPhone 4 and dual cameras for your FaceTiming pleasure. I also shared a similar story a few days ago conjecturing the 2010 iPod touch will feature the Retina Display, dual cameras and the A4 CPU. I’m very excited about the next-gen iPod touch because I think with iOS 4, multitasking and Skype I can finally save a bundle on my regular voice plan from AT&T. I plan to go prepaid.
I’ll focus on the HP Envy 14′s display:
The 14.5-inch, 1,600 x 900-resolution display is a breath of fresh air compared to the laptops we’ve recently reviewed. Not only is the resolution better than the 1366 x 768 displays we’ve been staring at lately, but the quality of the flush glass LCD is miles better than the others HP’s used lately. A lot of that has to do with the HP Radiance Infinity LED panel, which was also on the Envy 13. The 350nit display has a higher color gamut than other displays, and you notice the difference upon first boot — even the blue of the Windows Start button sticks out more than on other screens.
Colors pop. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t like overblown colors; I much prefer accurate ones. Viewing angles were good according to Engadget. I’m not sure what the “flush glass LCD” is suppose to mean but if it is referring to a possible optically laminated LCD like the one we see on the iPhone 4′s Retina Display then this 14.5-inch display should be quite nice. But I have my doubts.
One comment about the pixel format: 1600×900 is a nice even number but it really isn’t good for anything. You see 720p HD content has to be scaled up. 1080p HD content has to be scaled down. All HD has to be scaled so the overall video quality will be less than ideal. I would much prefer horizontal pixels that match 1280 or 1920. For all the details of the review hop on over to Engadget.
Engadget: The rumored RIM BlackPad will sport a 9.7-inch display, Bluetooth, WiFi, two cameras (one front-faced the other rear-facing). Quanta will be building the BlackPad for RIM. Manufacturing is scheduled to ramp to two million units in September. Retail launch is planned for November. Eight million units are planned for 2011. The display size isn’t surprising and neither is the price? US$499.
According to Digitimes, Apple will be coming out with a 7-inch iPad in 2011. The smaller iPad will sport a pixel format of 1024×768, the same as in the current iPad. The display of choice will be an IPS LCD. What this suggests is a lot more pixels for the 9.7-inch iPad. I’m guessing the aspect ratio will remain the same and here’s another hunch:
Apple quadrupled the number of pixels on the iPhone 4 compared to previous-generation iPhones by doubling the pixels horizontally and vertically. I think the company will do the same with the next-generation iPad.
So here’s what my crystal ball is telling me: 2048×1536. That’s the pixel format that we’ll see on the 2011 iPad.
Other rumors: CDMA iPhone in 2011. Pegatron Technology will be making them with volume production to start in December. The back plate will be metal instead of glass. Maybe the Apple’s acquisition of Liquidmetal’s space-age metal alloy IPs for consumer electronic products has something to do with that. Here’s what NASA has to say about Liquidmetal’s metal alloys:
In the same way that the inventions of steel in the 1800s and plastic in the 1900s sparked revolutions for industry, a new class of amorphous alloys is poised to redefine materials science as we know it in the 21st century.
Welcome to the 3rd Revolution, otherwise known as the era of Liquidmetal alloys, where metals behave similar to plastics but possess more than twice the strength of high-performance titanium.
Interesting stuff. The metal alloy developed by Liquidmetal is in a class of glassy metals that have been used in golf clubs, tennis rackets, Vertu, SanDisk memory sticks (Cruzer Titanium), Omega, armor-piercing munitions, etc. I wonder if Liquidmetal conducts electricity. If it doesn’t it could be the perfect replacement for the current stainless steel-based external antenna design. Check out this cool video about how Omega used liquid metal.
On August 9, 2010 Chimei Innolux (CMI) announced financial results for July 2010:
Unit shipments don’t say much at all. What we need to know is the size mix. Panel shipments are down but sales are up. Seems to me CMI must be focusing on higher-priced larger-sized LCDs. Source: CMI
Engadget took it for a spin and here are some takeaways.
Bottom line first: The 11.6-inch LCD on the IdeaPad U160 by Lenovo sports a fairly high 1366×768 pixel format resulting in a pleasant 135.09 PPI. Unfortunately viewing angles are terrible: major color and contrast shifts make it quite unpleasant when looking at the display from anywhere other than straight on. In terms of the display the U160 is a loser.
Graphics is integrated, with Intel’s GMA HM55 HD. Good enough for 720p/1080p video playback, and World of Warcraft ran at 27fps, but falls short the ATI Radeon HD 4225 that’s packed into the Acer Aspire One 721 and HP Pavilion dm1.
Starting at a price of US$1149, Lenovo’s IdeaPad U160 is a 11.6-inch notebook PC powered by an Intel Core i7-640UM CPU running at 1.2GHz. Despite the i7 name performance came between a regular Core i3 and AMD’s Nile CPUs: not the greatest but still snappy. The U160 is just 0.9 inches thick but weighs a hefty 3.2 pounds. I say hefty because a much larger 13.3-inch MacBook Air weighs just 3.0 pounds. Unfortunately the chassis is plastic with cutouts for: two USB ports, a single USB/eSATA combo port, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, a 4-in-1 card reader (SD), microphone and headphone ports.
Engadget’s conclusion:
Yes, the U160 packs more CPU power, but at the end of the day you’ll have to live with the heat and battery drain that it ultimately causes. And frankly, we wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.
A lot of heat? No thanks. The first thing hardware designers need to get when it comes to portable computing is: minimal heat. The price doesn’t help either.
DisplayBlog is written and produced by Jin Kim. Subscribe via RSS.