Quanta, the company that produces plenty of the hardware you
know, love and
fantasize about today, is showing off a new tablet prototype at NVIDIA's booth. The reason for its location is the Tegra 2 chip inside (you can see it in the nude
over here), which can comfortably drive 1080p out via a HDMI cable and into your nearest HD display, while offering brain-melting battery life. Listening to music with the screen turned off can be done for 140 hours straight, and HD video playback can go on for up to ten hours -- both figures that make current battery efficiency look kinda silly. With WiFi, 3G, and Android for an OS, this prototype
could be quite a nice little device, but right now there are more things wrong than right about it. The display is shockingly unprotected from the back, and we saw ripples appearing on the screen from our fingers supporting the machine. Furthermore, the touchscreen missed plenty of our taps, leaving us with a sour taste from what looked like a tasty little morsel.
posted January 8th 2010 5:35PM
Why is it that whenever mobile devices like this point Android on it, it looks like total crap. C'mon folks, spend like 1 day on your Android UI's to make them look a little better for the big display ... rather than ganking the defaults from the G1 and putting them on a tablet.
@(Unverified)
I totally agree, it is extremely lazy for them to not even have skinned the damn thing. And vendors automatically lose points with me when their Android implementation is not invisible.
@(Unverified)
Totally PWNED device. Plastic junk for the mere price of ($$$whatever cheap price tag they stick on it).
@(Unverified) They didn't even try to change the default Android background. Just ridiculously lazy.
@Zalgo Don't forget the 4 icon limit and the stretched out widgets!
Although that's probably more of an Android limitation than anything, shouldn't it "buff out" since it's open-source if someone patched it up?
@Dragonfli -- considering that this is not an issue on even cheap, budget cell phones running out of date Android OS, I don't think it should be an issue on a relatively higher end consumer device like a tablet.
Wow, if thats not impressive battery, I'm not sure what is...
But the thing about these big touch screens is large Android gestures that normally involve a swipe of the whole screen are very hard to do on those surfaces because your fingers tend to grab.
But hey, that would be nice for the kitchen.
Nah ... unless this one sells under $200, I'd go with Notion Ink ...
Hopefully Apple's mythical tablet will have 1920x1080 (1080p) out, and a battery that lasts as long. Those are two requirements I have.
I think Tegra was optimed for some sort of DirectX mobile, that's why nVIDIA hasn't been winning much marketshare over PowerVR and why most Tegra devices and concepts use some sort of Windows CE
If they fix the screen issues this would be pretty sick.
The problem here - like with every other Tegra device so far - is they inflate the hell outta that so-called battery life for the functions we all want, and the devices never live up to it. The Zune HD being the predominant Tegra device (not Tegra 2, mind you) simply does *not* offer battery life that is anywhere near the specs Nvidia claimed for such a device.
Now, if they simply mean to say "if you could just use this Tegra chip to do everything related to audio and video, you'd get the posted battery life" I might be able to agree, but since these devices are far more than just a chip - meaning all the supporting circuitry involved that makes such a device possible - they really should stop throwing out such extravagant numbers.
Hell, I had a Sony MiniDisc years ago - an electro-mechanical-optical device with moving parts - and could easily get 100 hours of playback (actual honest provable and repeatable battery life) using the internal gumstick and a single AA battery,
Why can't today's all-solid-state-no-moving-parts devices even come close?
@bbzGhost
The LCD screens and 3G/WiFi radios eat battery life faster than I eat pizza. That might not mean much to you, but I really love me some za
Almost perfect, hopefully they'll iron out the kinks. I'm looking forward to swapping my phone for a tablet.
Looks like an awkward, tiny iMac. Also, something about this just screams "poor build quality." I dunno what it is, but just looking at it I can feel it breaking in half in my hands
What is it with the run on of all these slates. It's rumored Apple is making one so everyone is throwing anything together to beat them to market and they all look like crap. Notion Ink is the exception but thats because of Pixel QI's screen.
I want a slick thin all in one laptop or netbook convertible with multi touch and Pen/inking. I don't want a device for e-reader (kindle) device for flipping webpages or magazines (these useless slates) yet another device to run REAL programs (Laptop/Netbook) not Apps.
Pixel QI's screen would be awesome in a netbook or latop convertible tablet. But I don't need all of these devices, I want one that handles it all.
@Synergi
Me too! Me too! Me Too! Anything Apple can do, we can do better and at a cheaper price without an Apple logo.
These companies should start building $10,000 Lamborghinis or gold-plated Cartier Tank watches.
@Synergi No they have been working on these projects before apple announced any itablet anything. It looks like it will be Apple that will be making a "me too" device.
@Synergi
The HP Slate looks really nice, and I kinda want it, sorta badly
Good thing this is just a prototype. If they iron out the kinks and make a version with a keyboard, I'd probably be interested.
OS aside, could these things maybe run something like photoshop on a limited basis? This would be just the right size for a portable sketch book - provided you could use some kind of stylus with it…
Looks like what Apple might have made as a tablet back in the white iMac days. Or even now, as a MacBook tablet.
Apple is about to seriously own with their tablet.
Jan. 27th will be one of those days that changes technology, yet again.
Just like Apple changed the cell phone game with the iPhone.
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much dead space below the screen-has the footprint of a 15 laptop
Now if only that thing wasn't huge. Android wasn't made to run on large displays, folks. It looks like crap! When will people realize? I bet Google will make a tablet release of Android eventually. They should atleast skin it or something.