Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Review: The New Best Android Tablet, Again [Video]

By Brent Rose Oct 10, 2011 5:30 PM 21,362 64

I had major deja vu writing this. That's because as cool as the Galaxy Tab 8.9 is, it's basically just the Galaxy Tab 10.1, but slightly smaller. Which actually makes it noticeably better.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the best Android tablet I've used. It's light, slim, quick. The Galaxy 8.9 Tab is almost perfectly identical to the 10.1, they just managed to get the same goodness into a smaller package.

Everyone I've handed the 8.9 to has had this moment of, "Oooh, this feels nice!" It really does. It's an extremely tight package. The 10.1 felt a little flimsy, but despite having a similar plastic back plate, this one just feels much stronger. I don't know if they've upgraded the plastic, or if it's just stronger because it isn't stretched across as large an area, but that worrisome flex is gone, and that's a very good thing.

It comes running Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) with Samsung's TouchWiz UI overlay. I'm not generally into these 3rd party skins, but this is one of the least offensive ones. It comes pre-loaded with some of Samsung's proprietary software like Media Hub, Music Hub, and Social Hub, none of which are particularly compelling, and it just emphasizes why I kinda wish Samsung would stick to hardware. It does come with a full version of Polaris Office, which is excellent for creating/editing documents on the go.

I'm loving the 8.9-inch screen. It really feels like they've hit the sweet-spot, size-wise. It's big enough that watching movies and playing games looks good, but it's small and light enough that it's super portable. I can fit it in my jacket pocket and walk out the door, which is more than I can say for some 7-inch tablets that are thicker. Also, while the screen is smaller it has the same number of pixels as its 10.1-inch brother, giving it a little better pixel density. It's no retina display, but it's damn good. It's also light enough (0.98 pounds) that, though it's bigger than 7-inch tablets, it's easier to hold than most of them. This will provide a great digital magazine experience.

This thing is just as fast as its big brother, making it one of the fastest tablets you can get your hands on. Even with a ton of apps running at the same time, it was nearly impossible to slow this tablet down, and when it did slow down, it wasn't by much. The slightly reduced size makes it better for typing, too. Battery life was excellent. With moderate use I was able to get three or four days on a charge, no problem, and standby time is even better.

The one thing that seems to have suffered for this size reduction is the audio. The speakers weren't great on the 10.1, but they sound even tinnier on the 8.9, which is too bad. It employs the same rear camera as the 10.1 which isn't great. That said, you probably don't need it for much more than taking a picture of a business card or something, and the 2 megapixel front-facing camera is plenty capable for video chat. One thing I did notice is that sometimes the screen seemed to miss touches. It wasn't constant, but it was enough to kill me a few times while playing Samurai II: Vengeance (which is awesome, by the way).

While it feels stronger than the 10.1, I'd still feel much better about this thing if the whole body were aluminum, not plastic. The only ports the 8.9 has is a headphone jack and a proprietary connector. If you want to connect your tablet to an HDMI display, you have to buy a special adapter. Yeah, I'd really rather not, thanks. (It's DLNA compliant to stream content over Wi-Fi, but most consumers don't have DLNA TVs and stereos yet.) There's also no removable storage slot, so you're stuck at the capacity you buy, and there's no USB port (mini, micro, or otherwise). This makes putting your media on the device more of a chore than it should be. Oh, and maybe most significantly, at $469 for the 16GB model and $569 for the 32GB version, it's just too expensive.

If this tablet cost $300, I would recommend the crap out of it. Of all the Android tablets I've played with, this is my favorite (with the Sony Tablet S coming close). For 470 bucks, though, it just doesn't make much sense. Obviously this is a more capable device than the Kindle Fire, but the Kindle Fire is only $200. Is this thing really $270 dollars more capable? No, it isn't. It's about $100 more capable. Also, in the coming months we are going to be seeing tablets that are way better. My crystal ball tells me there will be quad-core processors and true HD displays. Those much beefier tablets will probably launch right around this price-range, too. Tech moves too fast. $470 and $570 just barely made sense in January of this year, but here in October it makes no sense at all. As soon as there's a real, significant price-drop, then I'd absolutely recommend it. If Samsung is smart, they won't wait.

Specs
8.9 inch 1280x800 screen
1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor
1GB RAM
3MP rear-facing camera, 2MP front-facing
No expandable storage
Wi-Fi only
Weight: 0.98 pounds
Price: 16GB/$469 32GB/$569
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The Samsung Windows 8 Tablet Appears [Tablets]

Hey, look, it's Samsung's rumored Windows 8 tablet, appearing in a box before it's announced. The word on the cyber street is that this thing packs quad-cores, but we'll find out soon. Shocker: it looks kinda like an iPad!

The spy shot surfaced on Chinese Twitter clone Weibo, and looks legitimate enough, with the expected Microsoft and Samsung packaging. There's really nothing else we can surmise from this, other than the fact that it's a Samsung tablet running Microsoft software, and it has a screen. And it'll come in a box. The bezel does look a bit thick though. More details we get 'em from somewhere better than a Chinese Twitter clone. [BGR via This Is My Next]

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Someone Really Needs to Make a Good $100 Tablet [All Giz Wants]

Today we heard that the UK is getting jobbed out of its final shipment of $100 TouchPads, with only HP employees being eligible to buy them. Sozzlepops, UK chaps.

But that got us to thinking: With all the fuss over the TouchPad firesale the past few weeks, when will this very obvious demand for a good, cheap tablet be met?

First off, yes, there are a ton of reasons why a good, cheap tablet hasn't happened yet. For starters, there's cost. Building the TouchPad cost $306 in materials and manufacturing per tablet, and the 32GB model $328—plus whatever R&D went into it. That's a bloodbath. And no one's really in position to challenge Apple's incredible integration, from supply chain to retail, which allows it to keep its price lower than competitors.

But this can definitely be done, people. The Nook Color is the closest we have so far, but it's a measly 7 inches and still $250. It has also to be rooted to run Android at the moment. Any tablet that's going to make a run at the saliva-inspiring TouchPad price range is probably going to have to run stock Android by default.

What probably needs to happen, though, is for tablets to make a much bigger impact than they have to this point. There's plenty of room: as of May, only 8 percent of Americans owned a tablet, even though 90 percent wanted one. If Amazon's Kindle tablet sells at a hurricane clip, it should go a long way toward pushing down supply chain costs across the board.

And if tablets can make that inroad, it's basically a waiting game for them to hit their sweet spot, like anything else in tech. The first iPhone cost an insane $500 and $600—on contract! Now you can get a 3GS for 50 bucks. And we don't really need anything near that level of price depression to see a good tablet for ~$100. We just need a few generations to go by to lower manufacturing costs to where the previous gen is both good and affordable. Would you jump on an iPad 1 for $150 next year? I think you would.

Know this going in: the TouchPad firesale is in all likelihood a singular event, and you're not going to get this class of hardware for ~$100 anytime soon. But obviously we're willing to make concessions—we're all drooling over the same chunk o' junk that we poo-pooed with lukewarm and disappointed reviews just a few months ago. But it also can't be so dumpy that it's basically one of the cheap ass Android tablets that are already available.

The reason the $100 tablet is so attractive is that every decent tablet to this point has been at least $500. So those of us who want a tablet to be a unitasker device (sorry Alton!), but don't necessarily want to pay handsomely for handsome performance in every other area are sort of stuck. I just want it to read comics; Sam Biddle only wants to watch movies on the subway; Matt Buchanan wanted an Instapaper and magazine machine. I suspect most folks fall into a similar category.

That list of tasks means it probably has to be around-or-about 10 inches, and pretty good quality. The TouchPad's screen was $69, so that's a good chunk of our budget straight away, but we can also probably skimp on accuracy a bit for the capacitive touchscreen to make up a few dollars.

As for what's important specs-wise, it's probably the classics: an above-average processor, a usable amount of RAM, and decent battery life. The TouchPad has 1GB of RAM, but the iPad 2 gets along just fine with 512MB. We could also probably tolerate a thicker profile, and the battery doesn't have to last all day—just long enough to get through a movie on a plane, and maybe catch up on news in the cab.

Whoever makes a run at this is going to have to have an established marketplace in place to reap the benefits of bringing in a huge amount of users with a low-maybe-negative-margin product—sort of like Sony did with PlayStations for several years.

Google seems like a possibility, since they've shown that they're willing to give stuff away just to get people on the internet and in their sandbox. But even with their recent acquisition of Motorola, they don't really have the infrastructure to make a big tablet push.

So it probably falls to Amazon. Again. They have the ecosystem in place to capitalize on a huge influx of users, they're already jumping into the tablet game, and they've already been rumored to consider straight up giving hardware away to funnel customers to their services. And actually, they might already be working on all of this.

Or I suppose the alternative is for us all to start hoping really hard for Samsung to go under so we can make a run on Galaxy Tabs.

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Pixely 90s Computer Cursors Make for Retro-Wonderful Tablet Styluses [Tablets]

There was a lot of charm to the bygone experience of using a computer in the 90s; I remember the nuances of my modem's soothing screech better than the hook from "I Want It That Way" (which is reallyreallyreally well). And the goofy pointer finger cursor was so wonderful that this novelty cursor tablet stylus is actually kind of tempting.

The Big Big Cursor and Big Big Arrow styluses have rubber tips that are apparently fairly accurate, and can glide for scrolling and drawing. But let's face it, if you're buying this thing, it's not for functionality; it's to be the quirky guy in class taking notes on an iPad with a little white finger. The Arrow and Cursor are $13 each and available now. [Big Big Cursor via Wired]

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This Is What Amazon's Kindle Tablet Looks Like [Rumor]

Behold the new Amazon Kindle! A full color 7-inch tablet that is basically a front to all their books, music, movies and products, just like we imagined. TechCrunch has a nice description, so we made a nice mock-up.

This is what it will have, according to TechCrunch:

Hardware

• Full color 7-inch touchscreen.
• Unlike the iPad, it will probably only support two finger multi-touch, not ten fingers.
• It apparently has one single-core processor.
• Maybe only 6GB of storage—possibly more cloud oriented
• No physical buttons on the front
• No camera
• Rubberized back, like the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Software

• It's built on a forked version of Android (apparently older than 2.2), but there are no visible Google apps of any kind—you'll be able to get Android apps through Amazon's appstore
• It has Apple Cover Flow-ish user interface, with all the content—books, movies and music—showing in a carousel. The UI is "very responsive," unlike the Nook Color.
• In portrait mode, it has a dock where users can add their favorites. It hides in landscape mode.
• The book reader app is much like the iOS and Android Kindle app.
• The music app connects to Amazon Cloud.
• Logically, the Amazon Kindle will provide a storefront for the whole of Amazon (I imagine this looks a lot like the Amazon Window Shopping application on the iPad).

Apparently the tablet is not in production yet, but they are very close, with a release in November. And the big deal? It will only cost $250. And, it might come with a free Amazon Prime subscription, which is normally $79 a year.

The first true iPad competitor

I like their idea a lot. In fact, this may very well be the first true iPad competitor because of four key factors:

First, Amazon will be the first company to have the complete ecosystem. Like Apple's closed garden, but plugging into all of Amazon's products and services.

Then, they count with the customer base. They can attack their customers from their store and offer them this device as a simple, quite inexpensive tablet that acts as an extension to their content and services.

The third factor, and perhaps the most important, is that the Amazon Kindle will offer a super simple user interface that is centered around the content itself. If what you want is give consumers access to stuff to consume, that seems like the best option. Anyone would be able to use it. Their approach is a lot better than replicating Apple's app-oriented iOS interface, like every other iPad-clone maker does.

And finally, their tablet will plug directly into a very strong cloud solution. Unlike Apple—who is now only about to deploy the unproven iCloud after multiple previous failures—Amazon has a lot of experience in cloud services for serving content. If they manage to offer the same experience as in the desktop—and there's no reason to think otherwise—Apple will have a formidable enemy. Not an iPad killer, but certainly a real enemy that could damage them. [TechCrunch]

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Lenovo IdeaPad A1 Is a $250 Android Tablet for the Masses [Lenovo]

The Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is not a cutting-edge device. Nor is it a niche product that will attract a minuscule subsection of fawning geeks. But it is a 7-inch tablet that only costs $250. Your shamelessly cheap friends will be thrilled.

The A1 runs on ARM's last-generation, 1GHz Cortex A8 processor and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), which is designed for phones. Not so innovative. It has a 1MP front camera and a 3MP rear camera to go along with a 1024x600 resolution screen. It's not particularly thin, either. But according to Engadget, who got some hands-on time with it, the A1 is more impressive than its specs or price tag would suggest.

Price is the main appeal here. There's not much else that separates this from Samsung's 7-inch Galaxy Tab that came out last year (except for a newer version of Android), yet the Galaxy Tab was going for $400. If you need a junk tablet to keep around the house, or, um, in the bathrooom, this might be the one. A 16GB version of the A1 will cost $250, while the 32GB version will cost $300. And there's actually an 8GB version that will sell for around $200, but it's not coming to the US (?!). [Engadget]

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Toshiba AT200 'Excite' Is the Thinnest Tablet Yet [Toshiba]

If you were already amazed by the thinness of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the iPad 2, prepare to have your mind blown. Toshiba's AT200 checks in at 7.7mm, which is about 1mm thinner than the two aforementioned tablets.

And not just content with form (which looks great, BTW), Toshiba made sure the specs on this wafer-thin Android device are nearly as impressive: a 10.1-inch, 1280x800 resolution screen, a dual-core 1.2 GHz TI OMAP4 CPU, 1GB RAM, and Honeycomb 3.2, along with up to 64GB of storage, dual cameras and 8 hours of battery life.

Those specs match (and in some areas, best) the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in every way. and though it's harder to compare, are also more impressive than the iPad 2 on paper (hardware isn't everything, ya know?). And compared to Toshiba's first effort, the AT100 (aka Thrive) this looks far more appealing, even if it lacks some of the overall functionality. [Pocket Lint]

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It's a Phone... It's a Tablet... It's Samsung's New Android Things [Android]

The 5.3-inch Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 come in shapes that make them hard to classify. Is the Note a phone? Or a notepad? Or a tablet? Genius, right? Or, uh, foolish?

The Galaxy Note is the more unusual choice of the two. With a 5.3-inch screen, it's kind of in a weird no-man's land, size wise. But hey, it's a phone, too! Who has pockets big enough for a 5.3 inch screen? MC Hammer, sure, but who else? As Dell can tell you, after their failed Streak 5 experiment, pretty much nobody.

The Note does have a stylus and built-in software for scribbling, which may be a saving grace but probably not? I suppose Samsung's trying to aim it at business folk who want to take notes on the go. Using a stylus on a hard, slick capacitative touchscreen isn't generally the easiest thing in the world, and it will be interesting to see if Samsung has come up with some software to improve the experience. The other significant feature is that it's the largest device to rock Samsung's new HD Super AMOLED display. It runs Gingerbread with Samsung's TouchWiz over it, has a 1.4GHz single-core processor (which may eat your battery), and will be available state side in the coming months.

The Galaxy Tab 7.7 is similar to the original Galaxy Tab's size but far more interestingly, it runs Honeycomb 3.2, which is newly optimized for 7-inch tablets. At only 12 ounces (0.74 pounds) that like carrying a can of soda (if you could read the NY Times on your soda). Samsung says the Tab 7.7 is the thinnest tablet out there, too, at 7.89mm thick, for those who prefer their mobile computer katana-ish. It's also the first tablet to use a Super AMOLED Plus screen, which is bright, vivid and gorgeous, and it's packing a blistering 1.4GHz dual-core processor.

It'll be interesting to see how Samsung's bounced back after their terribly unfortunate previous foray into 7-inchers. Both tabs are tentatively set to be released later this year, no word on price yet. Check out the gallery for the press shots. You can keep up with Brent Rose, the author of this post, on Google+ or Twitter. Related Stories

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Sony Tablet P First Impressions: Is the Taco Tablet Tasty? [Android]

I really love Sony for trying something different. Between this foldable Tablet P and the company's indescribably-shaped (but very palmable) Tablet S they are genuinely trying to leave the hardware pack mentality behind. But enough congratulations. How good is it?

I only had a very short time to play with the Sony Tablet P, and I was warned that it was a prototype and that the software was very much unfinished. Fair enough. The basics: it's a small tablet, with two 5.5-inch clamshell screens, that folds in half to get even smaller. Like, fits-in-your-pocket small. It'll be launching later this year as an AT&T exclusive, running Android 3.2 and and packing Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity. There's no Wi-Fi only model planned as of now.

The best thing about the Sony Tablet P? Portability. If you hate carrying a bag around (like me), being able to slip the tablet in your jacket pocket is a big plus. The hinge that splits the clamshell is sturdy. I mean it feels like it could stop a bullet, which is great. It weighs only 13 ounces, which is featherweight for a tablet.

Sony has pre-loaded a fair amount of exclusive apps to utilize the dual-screen design. Some of these implementations are very good (and just, you know, logical) like text messaging with the keyboard taking up the bottom screen and the text on top. The PlayStation app* takes advantage of the dual-screens, too, putting controls on the lower screen while the upper screen becomes your "TV". The email app and a few others are good, too.

Unfortunately, most of my praise ends there. Opening the tablet up you're met with a strange, square-shaped screen with a very thick, black line in the middle (the bezel where the hinge is). It's not something you can ignore. The size and shape really isn't optimal for anything. Holding the Tablet P vertically should feel a bit like reading a book, but the ebook app makes the text just a hair too small when you have a page on each screen. In other apps, things simply get lost in the chasm between the screens. The worst implementation of all was the app for watching movies, where it put the movie on the top screen and the player controls on the bottom. Seriously? Do you really think I need the entire bottom screen for Play/Fast Forward/Rewind? I do not. But I'm relegated to watching a tiny movie nonetheless. Which, on the other hand, might still be preferable to watching The Thin Red Line with a thick black line bifurcating the action.

What stings even more is that the apps that will actually leverage this dual-screen setup are going to be extremely limited. There are the ones Sony made in-house and... well, right now that's about it. Sony plans to release APIs to the world, but traditionally endeavors like that have failed miserably. It's been hard enough to get developers to adapt their apps for Honeycomb because they just aren't seeing the demand yet. Does Sony really think that this odd, niche tablet within the Honeycomb ecosystem is going to somehow incentivize developers more than Honeycomb as a whole? Does not compute. It also uses the same cheap, soft glass as the the Sony Tablet S, which, as we mentioned in that review is waaaay not good enough.

Anyway, like I said, my time with this thing was limited and the software wasn't finished (nor will it be until later this year), so don't let this be a final judgement. I really wanted to like this device, and as I say, I salute Sony for thinking out of the box. That said, I think they need to go back to the drawing board. This form-factor, ultimately, doesn't have much more of a prayer than the ill-fated Kyocera Echo or Toshiba Libretto did. The giant gap in the middle needs to go away, and it needs to be a more landscape form-factor (4:3 at the very least). Let this one incubate a bit longer, Sony. You're close, but you're not nearly close enough.

*This tablet and the Sony Tablet P are the first two tablets to be PlayStation Certified.

Specs
Two 5.5 inch screens
1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor
1GB RAM
5MP rear-facing camera, 0.3MP front-facing
4GB internal memory
Full-size SD Card slot (for media exchange only)
Wi-Fi + 4G
AT&T Exclusive
Weight: 13 ounces
Open - 6.22l x 7.08w x 0.53h (inches)
Closed - 3.11l x 7.08w x 1.02h (inches
Price/Release Date: Unknown
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The HTC Jetstream Tablet Is AT&T's First Tablet with 4G LTE [Tablets]

The HTC Jetstream, formerly known as the Puccini, is headed to AT&T on September 4th. It's running Android 3.1 on a 10.1-inch screen (nice!) and will be AT&T's first tablet with real 4G LTE (really nice!). For some reason though, it's going to cost $700 (ugh).

Not only that, the HTC Jetstream is "discounted" to $700 only after you sign up for a 2-year contract that requires a new $35/monthly plan that gives you 3GB worth of data to play around with. AT&T hasn't mentioned how much it'll cost without that $35/month plan.

Other specs of the Jetstream include a Snapdragon 1.5GHz dual core processor, front-facing camera, 8-megapixel rear camera, HTC scribe stylus pen (included for free for a limited time) and HTC Sense running on top of Android 3.1. Everything sounds so good but the price hurts so bad. [AT&T]

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Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet Comes A-Courtin' Business Folk [Android]

The lid is off the Lenovo ThinkPad, touted as the first tablet for enterprise-level business. I just spent some time sizing it up, and you know what? It's kind of exactly what the suits are looking for.

This tablet doesn't try to be particularly sleek or sly; it's just a big, businessy rectangle. I'm fine with that, but it may lose some consumers in the looks department. The thing feels solid. It's not particularly light or thin, but it feels like it could probably survive a drop (and the 10.1 inch Gorilla Glass display doesn't hurt on that front). Its case packs in a full keyboard with an optical red pointer that'll look familiar to any ThinkPad user. It comes pre-loaded with a ton of software from Lenovo and their partners which give it enterprise-class security. Throw in the now-standard front-facing 2MP camera and a rear-facing 5PM camera, video chat software, and oh yeah, an included stylus, with a handful of software to make it app-friendly, and you've got yourself a pretty well-loaded machine.

PORTS! I love ports. Especially full-sized ports. The ThinkPad Tablet has a full-sized USB port and a full-sized SD card slot, which makes it great for photographers. It also has a SIM card slot so you can get your 3G on (in addition to Wi-Fi, naturally) and a mini-HDMI port. The keyboard/case was really, surprisingly good, given how iPad cases so often disappoint. ThinkPad laptops generally have the best keyboards out there, and this skinny-sized version follows suit. It's thin, but there's ample space between the keys, and they have a nice sturdy click to 'em. I was typing like a mo-fo with very little adjusting (though at first I kept hitting the right-click button instead of the spacebar).

The enhanced security can't be dismissed; that's something that's really slowed up Android's adoption in the business world, and the case for enterprise tablets has been a tough one to begin with. The ThinkPad offers higher levels of encryption than competitors have, and a lot of control for your IT manager.

Lenovo also brings their own app store which has a nice UI, and features apps they've vetted themselves and declared ThinkPad compatible and free of malware. Smart, and that vetting process makes it not feel like just another bloatware bazaar. One of my favorite enhancements is that in Honeycomb's app-switcher, Lenovo has added a way to close your open apps with just one click. Why isn't this built into Android? It's a welcome change, though I do wonder if closing apps in this way could cause the same kind of crashy-problems we see with task-killers that already exist for Android.

Despite the ThinkPad tablet's Nvidia dual-core processor, it seems to lag a lot (maybe all that pre-loaded software is bloatish after all?). Flipping from landscape to portait would often take a while, which was annoying. I really wanted to like the stylus, but it didn't work particularly in the demo unit I was playing with. While the handwriting recognition software generally worked all right, when I was scribbling fast it didn't work so well. Going back and editing was extremely problematic, and sometimes it would just stop accepting input. It's got a few bugs to be worked out, for sure.

The plus-sized Toshiba Thrive tablet is its closest relative, as it also packs in a bunch of ports, and that makes them both chubbier than a lot of the competition. The full-sized USB port could have been so good, but they kinda screwed it up: the tablet connects to the keyboard case is through the sole USB port, meaning that you can't use a thumb drive or anything else when you're using the keyboard. It seems to me that when it's in laptop mode is exactly when you'd want USB the most. Ooops. Also, the ThinkPad tablet has hardware buttons for home/back/search/etc. While normally I am categorically pro-button, it seems weird in this tablet's case. A) You don't really need them for Honeycomb, and B) they are extremely stiff and don't work very well.

There are some really good ideas at work here, and this thing has a lot of potential. For business users, it's very likely the best tablet solution out there. It's available now, but it seems like there are some software gremlins that still need to be worked out. Hopefully they can resolve those in an over-the-air update in the near future. We'll update a little later with video.

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Does a Waterproof Tablet Make Any Sense at All? [Qotd]

When we first saw Fujitsu's Arrows Tab F-01D, we were nonplussed. The guts are completely standard, but it's waterproof! You know we're totally wet for waterproof phones (for good reason!), but tablets? Hmm. Does the world need this? Do you?

The immediate response is a stiff No. No, I don't need a waterproof tablet, because unlike your phone, it isn't really susceptible to the same aquatic carnage. You don't tote them around in your pocket. You don't whip them out in the rain. Tablets are portable, but not pocketable, and that cuts your risk down a hell of a lot.

But is waterproofing just about risk? What about the wonderful wet world that might be out there for you and your tablet of choice, if only it could survive some squirting?

A tablet in the tub? We like to read in the bath, after all.

A tablet on a boat? Paired with a wireless hotspot, it'd be a killer maritime mapping device.

A tablet for camping? See above.

Getting some work emails fired off while floating in the pool sounds nice to me. I mean, I'd need a pool first, but you know.

What do you think? Is a waterproof tablet just as necessary as a hardened handset, or a frivolity? [Engadget]

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Sony's Clamshell S2 Tablet Is Now the Tablet P [Blip]

It's got the same dual 5.5-inch screens, and the same 3G power, courtesy of AT&T. Just not sure about the name. What does the P in Tablet P stand for? Pencil case? Purse? I don't understand this.

I guess we'll know more next month. [Engadget]

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Amazon's Tablet May Cost "Hundreds" Less Than the iPad [Amazon]

According to the New York Post, when Amazon releases its tablet in the next few months, they're not just going to be cost competitive. They're going to be cost kamikaze.

The Posts's source said that the Amazon tablet will cost "hundreds" less than the iPad—whose cheapest model weighs in at $500—currently does. A $300 (or lower!) price point isn't necessarily unheard of; Vizio's 8-incher can be had for $330. But it's definitely aggressive, especially for a (reportedly) 9-inch Android tablet made by a company that actually cranks out solid hardware?

We've already seen what rock-bottom pricing can do to sales of a decent tablet. And even though no one's supposing that Amazon's giving theirs away for a hundred bucks, there's got to be a magic number in there, a balance between quality and cost, that no one's managed to scratch yet. But a $250 tablet that's 75% as good as the iPad? That'd be pretty special. [NYP]

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Engadget Says Sony's S1 Will Be Known As the Tablet S for Its September Release [Sony]

Engadget has some new details for the Playstation-Certified Sony S1 slate. Set maaaybe for release in the first two weeks of September, the gorgeous if drably-named Tablet S will now ship with Honeycomb 3.1, and will be ready for an Ice Cream Sandwich update. [Engadget]

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The Logitech Tablet Speaker

by Mark R - on August 17th, 2011

Let’s face it, tablet PCs don’t have the best speakers. So why not make them louder with the new Logitech Tablet Speaker.

The Tablet Speaker might look like it is only made for the iPad, but it is actually good for any tablet, thanks to the rubberized clip. So if you have a Galaxy Tab, Motorola Xoom, or any type of Android tablet, you should get it.

The Tablet Speaker uses a 3.5 mm audio cable connection, so it will work on smartphones, laptops, or any other type of device with a headphone jack. As for power, it has a built-in rechargeable battery that is good for about 8 hours worth of sound via USB charging.

I wonder if I could use it on my laptop, or would the weight of the speaker weigh my screen down until it is bent over flat. I guess that I would have to try it out in order to see what the result would be. Whatever the case, something tells me that we will be seeing a lot more tablet accessories like this in the future.

I’m not certain when the exact release date for the Logitech Tablet Speaker is, but you can pre-order it for a price of about $49.99.

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The Best Tablet Devices for Video Chatting / Video Conferencing

Few years back it was text chatting which made it as a way to communicated and stay in touch with your friends and make friends. But over the time technology has evolved into video chat and voice calls. Now you can video chat in your favourite social network, on PC and Macs, on your mobile devices and on Fring and Skype.

On the other hand, the tablet PC has ruled the gadget market in 2010 and it would be the device of the year in 2011. The video chatting feature is quickly grabbing the people attention as it provides intrusive way for chatting. It’s a fun filled and useful way to communicate; many of the tablets applications allowed video chat with multiple people and users. Though getting video chatting is very easy but there are many thing in particular which make you overall satisfied with the video chat. The parameters like video quality, voice over phone, features does count when you have device intended for video chat.

We have gone through several of the tablet devices which are best suited for the video chatting and video conferencing.

Apple iPad FaceTime

You would love to use FaceTime app from Apple which is their specific application which works on Apple products like iPads, iPhone and iPods and Macs.

The good thing about FaceTime is that it provides the best video quality and you can connect to any Apple devices. The video interface chat and the video looked sharper.

For FaceTime you need to have an Apple ID and an email address to ready and roll. The FaceTime works directly from your Address Book. Overall its fine and good with Apple but the biggest problem is that it works only for devices which uses Wi-Fi. Secondly, Apple hasn’t made it as an platform independent and thus the use of FaceTime is limited to your friends and people who are using Apple products only.

HP TouchPad using Skype

The HP TouchPad collaborates with Skype for voice call and video calls. The Skype gets integration all over the HP TouchPad from messaging app to contact list and you can start a call from anywhere. The Skype is alsmost like a phone app that can be used for video chat.

But much to the bad luck of HP TouchPad, the rear camera has very less quality as it goes with 1.3 megapixel. Now that limits the HP TouchPad users and moreover for users to chat using Skype, they should on Skpye and so it doesn’t support cross platform video chat.

Samsung Galaxy Tab uses Google Talk

The Samsung Galaxy Tab runs on Android Honeycomb operating system which made by Google. So its obvious that when you have Google Product, you have their services directly available for you to use.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab uses Google Talk for video chatting which is one of the most used cross platform chat program available. Since it is available both in embedded from in Gmail and as a standalone installer which means that you can chat regardless of the users is on smartphone or on PC or on Apple iPhone or on other tablet.

But just a worry, Google Talk video is improving from time to time and as of now it’s under low resolution which looks bad on big screen. Looking into the future, it would be improved services with improved experience. So Samsung Galaxy Tab with Google Talk would be the future of tablets and an ideal platform for video chat.

BlackBerry PlayBook

The BlackBerry PlayBook doesn’t have an app on its own but it does include in the App World through the software update now which would relax the BlackBerry users.

The BlackBerry PlayBook video chat app has a good camera quality and the video looks good which can be stream from either the from or the rear facing side. You can only video chat with users that are on PlayBook and there are much odds that you can’t find chat buddy.

Yogesh Patel is a writer of technology gadgets, digital products like mobile phones, tablets PC, laptops & notebooks & on anything that is related to the gadgets which makes the daily lifestyle easier.

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