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ViewSonic ViewPad 4 MWC 2011 hands-on (video)
We've come across the ViewSonic ViewPad 4 once before, specifically at CES, but today at MWC, we took the "tablet device with a smartphone personality" for another spin and came away rather impressed. The hardware was noticeably more refined this time around and closer to final production, with significantly better fit and finish. While our demo unit was running Android 2.2, ViewSonic is planning to ship the light, thin, and angular, 4.1-inch glass and aluminum monolith with the "latest version" of Gingerbread on board. Might that be the ever-elusive Android 2.4? There's no word yet on pricing, but availability is slated for May. Check out the gallery below and our hands-on video after the break. %Gallery-116602%
Android 2.4 reportedly coming in April, headed to ViewSonic ViewPad 4?
Last we heard at CES, Viewsonic's ViewPad 4 handset was on track to launch with Android 2.2 in mid-June, but it now looks like there might be a pretty significant change of plans. Pocket-lint is reporting that it's heard from a source at Viewsonic who says the ViewPad 4 is now set to launch in April... with Android 2.4. According to the source, however, that update will not be dubbed "Ice Cream" as some had suspected, but will instead simply still be called Gingerbread. So what does the update bring if not a name change? Compatibility with dual-core apps designed for Honeycomb, primarily, which Pocket-lint speculates is one of the main reasons we've yet to see many Android 2.3-based devices hit the market (Nexus S, aside).
ViewSonic ViewPad 4 hands-on (video)
ViewSonic's taking tablets to great new lows here at CES, calling its new 4.1-inch ViewPad 4 a "tablet device with smartphone functionality." Whatever the description, though, this is a pretty handsome, angular Froyo handset with an 800 x 480 resolution, 5 megapixel camera that can record 1080p 720p video, a front-facing imager, 2GB of ROM, and either 512MB or 1GB of RAM. The spec sheet we found online says the former, but the chap at ViewSonic's stand today told us the latter. Either way, we're really liking the smoothness of the Android UI on this tabletphone, it was very pleasantly responsive. The most shocking thing about the ViewPad 4, however, might be its launch date, which we were told will be somewhere around mid-June. Froyo in mid-June ... really? Get your video hands-on fix after the break. Update: A second pass through the ViewSonic stand informed us that actually the ViewPad 4 is only capable of 720p video recording. Bogus, man. %Gallery-113301%
