Introduction to the WeTab

Throughout this year we have seen the birth of many new devices. All of them are impressive, some more than others. The iPad was most likely one of the most sought after gadgets in the first half of the year, but now, there is a new contender. The WeTab. As tablet PC’s go, the WeTab is not only a marvel in technology, but also in design. The WeTab is not an ugly and cumbersome device, but it is sleek and stylish. This is probably because it resembles the iPad, though that is not a bad thing as the iPad is a fantastic piece of designing. The technology within the WeTab is truly impressive, it has a large 11.6” screen at a resolution of 1366 x 786 pixels. What will surprise most people with this device is the processor it uses. Unlike the iPad and the Galaxy Tab the WeTab uses a 1.6GHz Atom processor. This means that the WeTab is capable of doing many more things that the iPad and other rivals are not capable of doing. The WeTab has a 1 GB of RAM as it wants the multitasking to go smoothly. This WeTab is full of connectivity, with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi b/g/n and 3G if you want it (although it will cost you more). To surprise us, the makers even threw is an SD slot so you can expand the memory of this device, although with up to 32GB of internal storage, I do not know if you would need to, yet this is not the major surprise, it is the TWO USB slots that this device has that really put this device ahead of the competition.

To compete in the multimedia market, the WeTab also gives Java, Flash and even Adobe Air support. It supports most music file types as well as most video formats. Wanting apps on this isn’t a big problem either as this device runs on MeeGo, which means that it is able to run native Linux programs such as Open Office, but it will also have access to the Android store which is constantly growing. With all of the WeTab’s capabilities, and the Atom processor that it hides in its sleek shell, it would have a laptops battery life, yet the WeTab offers up to 6 hours of battery life.

There is bad news though, which, you have probably guessed is the price that it is going to sell at.

WeTab 16GB+, WLAN 449.- €

WeTab 3G 32GB+, WLAN, 3G, GPS, 569.- €

The HTC Revolution

HTC have always been a brand to bring out new phones, each one better than the other. This month, HTC have brought out two new phones, the new Desire line. There is the Desire HD and the Desire Z.

Both of these phones have some incredible specifications. Yet the specifications are not the only things to focus on with these phones.

The new HTC Sense is a new UI that will enable us to share multimedia through the use of more dynamic camera software. Also, the new Sense will offer HTC Locations, which should give less download times, therefore less roaming charges, which is always good. To keep up with the competition, HTC have introduces a new e-reading experience with the new Sense. It will give us the opportunity to use a Kobo powered book store.

The phones themselves have incredible specifications. The HTC Desire HD has a 4.3” display that supports multi-touch. It is all powered by the new Snapdragon Processor which is clocked at 1GHz. Like the N8, it can record at 720p from its 8Mp camera. You can store up to 32 GB on a microSD and it has 1.5 GB of on-board memory. Luckily, it has a 3.5mm headphone jack and has a Dolby Mobile speaker system. This phone is running Android, so it supports flash 10.1, which means that your web experience will be far better. The processor will also make sure that your whole experience with this phone is incredible.

The HTC Desire Z has a smaller screen at 3.7” but also a smaller processor that clocks in at 800MHz, which is not unreasonable, and will give you an excellent user experience, without any lag waiting for the phone to catch up with your actions. The Desire Z has a full QWERTY keyboard that as a unique hinge for faster access. This phone can also record 720p, but it has a 5Mp camera. The Desire Z also has a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Both of these phones will give you the unique HTC Sense experience. This will also enable you to connect to htcsense.com this will give the user the opportunity manage their phone experience from their computer or phone. You will be able to flag the location of the device on a map or even trigger the phone to ring loudly even if it is on silent. You can send messages and manage your contacts but also manage the personalisation of your phone.

These phones can compare to the Nokia N8 and may even be able to trump in certain ways. The phone that everyone tries to beat has to be the iPhone, these phones do this, the Nokia N8 does this, and so do these HTC’s. Yet without an extensive app store, no phone company will be able to take down the iPhone. Yet Android have a growing library of apps, both free and paid, and it will only be a matter of time before Android takes over.

The Up And Coming

Nokia, once again have done it. The specifications for the N8 were breath-taking enough, but the tech specs for the E7. The E7 also uses the same Symbian^3 OS that the N8 uses, along with a 4” touchscreen that supports multi-touch. The E7 has an 8Mp camera with an LED flash, not as incredible as the Xenon flash on the N8, but then again this is an E series phone, for the business sector. The camera should provide them with a camera that is of incredible quality. The E7 also has the same HDMI and Dolby Surround Support. The QWERTY keyboard and the camera are the two things that differentiate the E7 and the N8 in the hardware aspect. The weight difference is noticeable as well; the E7 weighs over 50g more than the N8. (The N8 weighs less than the iPhone 4 by the way).

Another of Nokia’s new rage is the Nokia C7, with a 3.5” touch-screen. This Nokia is just a smidge (1.2mm of a smidge) thicker than the iPhone 4. With the new Symbian^3 OS, it supports an 8Mp camera that can record at 720p. It has a 3.5 mm headphone jack with 8 GB of internal storage. Some may say that this phone sounds a lot like the N8, yet it does not support the multi-touch that the N8 does. It has half the storage space and less RAM. This phone would be aimed at the mid-range phone for consumers who enjoy music and a touchscreen. It does not have the HDMI and the Dolby Surround Sound support that the N8 and the E7 have. This is probably because it was aimed at the mid-range consumer.

Last of the Nokia’s is the C6-01; this phone also has a touchscreen, that comes in at 3.2”. this phone is also quite a bit thicker than the C7. This phone is the cheapest of the three, with only 340Mb of internal storage. The C6-01 also has a 3.5mm headphone jack, 8Mp camera and the capability to record video at 720p. This phone has 3G connections and Wi-Fi as would be expected.

These phones are all incredible and Nokia deserves a lot of recognition for making the game that much harder for everyone. 

The Dark Fruit

The BlackBerry has taken over the world. What used to be exclusively for businessmen is now being used by teenagers and adults all across the world. What has influenced these people to buy the BlackBerry? The answer lies in a program that BlackBerry offers to all of their users. BBM is the service that provides instantaneous communication between two people. Not only is the service free, but it can also be used to any BlackBerry in the world.

Though the service is free, it still uses the internet on your phone to connect to the world, and if you do not have the right contract, you could find yourself with a hefty bill to pay at the end of the month.  Fortunately, many mobile phone companies will make special plans for the internet usage so that your bill doesn’t add up too much.

BlackBerry ‘s have some new and incredible tech specs, such as the new BlackBerry Torch 9800, with a slide out keyboard and a touch screen, this BlackBerry is bringing new ideas to the companies monotonous line of BlackBerry’s. The new Torch is really trying hard to be able to compete with the new phones, such as the Nokia N8. Unfortunately, the BlackBerry doesn’t have some of the hardware that the Nokia does, and falls behind in that respect. Even so, the Torch does a reasonable job with a 5Mp camera; the capability to read and write documents and emails on the move with the full QWERTY keyboard is fantastic.

Bringing a phone that is aimed at businessmen, but also teenagers is very difficult to do as they both have such different requirements. BlackBerry has done an excellent job in using a 3.5mm headphone jack so that you are able to listen to music on the go. For teenagers and businessmen alike, the full QWERTY keyboard is brilliant.

The dual-core revolution

On my previous post "The new generation of smartphones" I introduced the concept of the a new breed of processors that will be used in future mobile phones. These processors are the dual-core processors that are going to be introduced into our mobile phones.

Samsung and NVIDIA are both releasing dual core processors that are clocked at 1GHz. There is also a company called ST-Ericsson that is releasing a 1.2GHz Dual-core processor. These processors are likely to be released and used on most future phones. The integration of these new processors will effectively allow companies to produce phones or tablets that are far more powerful than the tablets and the phones we have today.

Nvidia

Samsung

These new chips will be able to support better graphics and perhaps be able to introduce 3D to mobile phones. Along with better graphics, these chips will allow us to play 1080p video from our phones and record HD content at 30fps. As these new chips are far more powerful and are most likely to have HDMI support, they will of course be able to support multiple displays. Soon the capabilty of taking a 20Mp still photo will be  possible on your mobile (though I am not sure who would want to do that).

We already have phones that have incredible cameras, screens and can do some things such as surfing the web as well as our computers and cameras, but being able to do so with a more powerful processor will unlock a huge amount of features to the phones that might mean phones or tablets start to replace our computers at home. (Unless you are a hardcore gamer and then you would laugh at having a dual core processor that is clocked at 1 GHz.)

Some people argue that the processors will be far to energy consuming and that having a dual-core processor on your phone or tablet could reduce the battery life drastically and make mobile phone less portable as they will not have the battery life that we all now demand in our every day life.

There have been no confirmed OS' to be running off of these processors, but Android and the new Windows Phone 7 seem to be likely candidates as they will be able to utilise the full potential of these processors. LG and Samsung seem to be the only two companies that have announced their involvement with this new line of processor.

The new generation of smartphones

How do we define a smartphone? A phone that can access an email, write a word document, present a slideshow and of course play games.

To do this, these phone are having to ramp up their specifications, a phone use to be able to run on a 200 MHz processor, now however, there are phones running off of a 1 GHz processor. Soon, the major mobile processor manufacturers will be supplying us with dual core processors that mean our phones will be capable of a lot more than just reading and composing mail, using the internet and making our lives simpler just through the menial tasks that our phones do for us now.

What comes next? The next step to the new generation of smartphones has to be the operating system that they run off. Microsoft is in the process of manufacturing their new OS which has a minimum hardware recommendation of 1GHz processor. This operating system is said to be the OS that brings everything together. For Microsoft, this could be one of the very last times that they get a chance to infiltrate the mobile market, as their past OS have been ugly and not very simple to use.

Simplicity has been the key to success as we can see with Apple’s own OS, the newest being the iOS4 which finally gives us the ability to multitask on their OS. Another up and coming OS is the newest Symbian. Symbian^3 OS, will provide a newer and much better basis to run all the incredible hardware that is being developed on. For example, it will enable a more responsive multitouch function, improved memory management with a balance between power and battery life.

The first device to run the new Symbian OS will be the Nokia N8. This newest Nokia will provide the user with a huge amount of functions that surpass anything the world has ever seen. You cannot even compare it to the iPhone as this new Nokia is in a league of its own. For all of you who do not believe me, the N8 will have a perfectly sized 3.5” AMOLED capacitive screen that will support multi-touch. An accelerometer for the UI auto-rotate and a proximity sensor that should work properly! For those who want their music on their phone, the N8 will have a 3.5mm headphone jack and 16 GB of internal storage that will be expandable up to 32Gb. Connectivity wise, the N8 supports 3G, WLAN b/g/n, Bluetooth v3.0 with a microUSB. This microUSB actually allows the user to plug in their USB’s and import their important files onto the phone. With many ways to connect your phone, what are you going to have to share? With the 12Mp camera with Carl Zeiss optics and full Xenon flash there will be plenty of opportunities to take brilliant pictures that are of impeccable detail. The video features are equally impressive with a 720p recording mode. Sharing all of your videos and pictures is incredibly easy through the HDMI port on the phone.

What are the drawbacks? Perhaps the phone is too big? Not a chance! It is only slightly bigger than the new iPhone 4.

This phone ladies and gentlemen, is the new generation of smartphone.

3D

Yesterday, my dad installed COD 4 on his PC that runs on our TV in the living room.

Wanting to have a go before him to try it out on such a big screen, I start the game and noticed an orange hue to the game.

It was very strange, I was worried his graphics card was not capable of playing the game, but I was on the optimal system settings.

I choose the first low-ping server to connect to, and I spawn and all of the colours around me were blue and red. Only just realising that the game had somehow turned into a 3D game, we ran for the 3D glasses supplied by the graphics card manufacturer. I put them on, and directly the game burst into a weird strange life.

If I had been using my PC in my room, and not been sitting so far away from the TV, with a crappy mouse and keyboard, it would have been epic. I think. After about 3-4 minutes of playing my eyes started to hurt and I don't wear glasses or contacts, so it could be worse for people that do.

Having to wear the glasses made me look like a complete idiot, sometimes though its worth looking like an idiot for the most immersive gaming experience. This was not one of those times.

3D gaming needs to become simpler to use, less painful to watch and games need to be tailored for 3D.

This also would mean that companies could charge twice as much for a 3D game, but with the current gaming crisis going on, I think Sony and Microsoft can't afford to be greedy.


Great graphics card by the way, but I still love my 8800GT!

What do you all think about 3D gaming?

Hi,

I am back for my second post on my blog!

I was doing some of the casual browsing I usually do on the internet and I found the new Samsung tablet PC.

I was shocked!

A tablet to compete with the iPad? No, it cannot be.

But it was true, the galaxy really has something to beat here and i am sure that many other companies have tablets in the works.

We know Toshiba are, not too sure about HP and there might be a new 'chrome' based tablet.

It is all very exciting.

What I have now is a small comparison of the two devices.

Apple iPad vs. Samsung P1000 Galaxy Tab

First things first, the name.

Who wants to say "Hey man, I've got the new Tab!"

I would probably respond by asking if he has a new browser or something.

For the name, I have to choose the iPad.

Processors:

Apple iPad : Custom A4 processor

Samsung Tab : ARM Cortex A8 1 Ghz

Draw

Screen:

Apple iPad: Capacitive touchscreen, 768 x 1024 pixels, 9.7"

Samsung Tab: Capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours 600 x 1024 pixels, 7.0"

I have to say the bigger screen has to be better. The Apple screens are magic as well. I would say the iPad takes this one away.

Disk Space:

This is very important, if you are going to have something bigger around, you are going to expect to have some substantial memory.

Apple iPad : up to 64Gb

Samsung Tab: up to 32Gb + MicroSD slot.

Samsung Tab takes it away with the MicroSD slot. Having expandable storage always wins.

Connectivity:

Apple iPad: Wireless a/b/g/n

Samsung Tab: Wireless b/g/n, 3G connectivity, USB

Samsung takes this one away!

Cameras: 

Apple iPad: No

Samsung Tab: Yes, 1.3Mp

Samsung also wins this one.

Battery Life:

Apple iPad: 9 hours

Samsung Tab: 8 hours:

Apple iPad wins, but not by much!

Applications:

Apple iPad: The App store, the iPad has access to all the apps in the store so already it is a hugely diverse peice of equipment.

Samsung Tab: The Adroid market on the other hand, is growing quickly, but still cannot match the app store for variety.

End Result:

Apple iPad: 3/8

Samsung Tab: 5/8

OK, there are a lot of things that i have missed out, and i am sorry if you guys didn't think this was up to scratch.


Apple iPad MB292LL/A Tablet (16GB, Wifi) from amazon.com

No links for the Samsung, sorry!

Hope you guys agree, if you don't, please comment and tell me why!

If you want to see more depth, or a different topic, please tell me!

Hi!

Hello everyone,

It is 21:28 on September the second and I am posting my first EVER post on my blog.

Right now I have no idea if it is going to become successful or whether it will fail miserably.

I hope to keep all of you interested!

Just to start things off, I have a video I found on the internet! (YouTube :P)




Enjoy!