Archive for March 10th, 2011

Toshiba Android Tablet out to beat the iPad 2

In a recent announcement made by Toshiba Australia, Rob Wilkinson, the General Manager of Toshiba Australia’s Information Systems Division said that their upcoming Android tablet will be out and about to beat the iPad 2. Those are some pretty bold claims considering that even Samsung, a giant in this industry by now, said that it might have to reconsider components as well as pricing for their upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in order to compete with the iPad 2.

Rob Wilkinson, had this to say regarding their upcoming Android tablet, and I quote, “We are confident that we can match Apple pricing for their new iPad 2 while delivering a device that is richer in features. We are currently showing retailer the device running Google’s new Honeycomb, and when we ship in May, we will have a full version of Honeycomb 3 running”. This was probably the greatest issues the Toshiba Android tablet had to face when compared to the competition, that at the time, the pre-production model showcased at CES in Las Vegas was still running Android 2.2 Froyo. A highly customized version of the operating system, yet one which was “inferior” to the competition’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS.

This latest statement shows that the tablet will be launching shortly, and if my memory serves me well, then there are quite a lot of features which will indeed enrich the experience on the Toshiba Android tablet when compared to the iPad 2. First of all, the display will be featuring the same resolution as the Motorola Xoom (which is doing a rather fine job even when pinned against the iPad 2) that’s 1280 by 800 pixels along with Toshiba’s TV technology brought to tablets. This is there in order to increase the image quality and the first few shots of the technology in action did indeed create higher quality images as well as a richer color scheme.

The General Manager of Toshiba Australia’s ISD continued by saying that, and I quote, “We believe that our device is superior to the Apple device, it may be a little heavier ( 773 grams ) but it does have a lot of features that the iPad 2 does not have”. There aren’t many specs known for this upcoming Toshiba Android tablet but in order to keep it competitive when pinned against the iPad 2 I would hazard to guess that it will be sporting a dual-core processor ( either the NVIDIA Tegra 2 or the Qualcomm dual-core ), 1 GB of RAM and of course 16 or 32 GB of storage. Pricing is yet unknown but it’s supposed to be competitive with the iPad2. We’ll see in May!

Via Smarthouse!1

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March 10th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android Phone

Samsung Galaxy S II gets reviewed!

One of the biggest announcements at Mobile World Congress this year in Barcelona was obviously the successor to the very successful Samsung Galaxy S. This latest device to join the ranks was supposed to be all that the predecessor was and more. The announced Samsung Galaxy S II would feed your kids, drive them to school and dance around your house for entertainment, but Samsung dropped those features as they would have increased the price of the device, instead just going for a bigger screen, more processing power and thinner more stylish look.

The fine folks over at Mobile Review, got their hands on a preview model of the Samsung Galaxy S II and put the device through some testing and the results were quite amazing even in this pre-production model. One of the elements to note is that unlike other companies which have been touting the launch of  their latest additions to their Android smartphone line, Samsung kept rather quiet about this one back at CES in Las Vegas. The reason would be to reduce the time frame between announcing the device and actually putting out on the market and in the hands of users.

Well first of all, Mobile Review cannot really stop with the praises raised in the honor of the oh-so glorious Samsung Galaxy S II mainly to its new and improved Super AMOLED Plus display. Images are very clear ( something visible even in screenshots ), there’s just a better array of colors and according to the reviewer, battery life has also increased with the new Super AMOLED Plus display technology. The Samsung Galaxy S II specs are top of the notch, and the model which was used for the review was powered by Samsung’s very own Exynos dual-core processor, and by God is it fast.

The first Samsung Galaxy S wasn’t really a slow poke thanks to its 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, but the way this thing moves through menus, loads up web pages and starts up applications is something to be reckoned with. The 8 megapixel camera which comes with the Samsung Galaxy S II is another element which received high praise, for its crisp and clear images, for the large amount of settings available.

Probably the only gripe I could find in their review would be regarding the 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus display, and I don’t mean visual quality, battery life, viewing angles, glare protection ( yes, the list is quite long of cool features ), but rather the size of it as it does take a little while to get used to when comparing it to its thickness. Head over to Mobile Review for the full review!1

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March 10th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android Phone

Angry Birds update!

For those of you who are fans of the Rovio title, Angry Birds, this might not exactly come as news to you, but for those of you who did enjoy the game and like to stay updated every now and again, Rovio is releasing another “expansion” to their pig smashing fiesta. This latest installment to the Angry Birds franchise, because by now it is a franchise, is actually the special Saint Patrick’s Day expansion set.

Angry Birds Go Green, Get Lucky will be launched simultaneous both on Apple’s App Store as well as Android’s Market. This shows really how far the developer managed to progress from the very early days in which it released the title for the iPhone, announcing a version for Symbian 3 and Palm WebOS to come out soon after the launch of the Android and Apple versions of the title. This update will be bringing you tons of green hats along with 15 new levels of pig massacre ( figuratively speaking of course, because here at Android Encyclopedia we like our pigs to be alive and well ).

Angry Birds

Rovio’s Angry Birds has become available already on a number of other platforms as well, with different app store models popping up as well to support them, and with console versions of the game coming up soon, we are seeing a giant of the entertainment industry being born really.

The developer released a video of what we’ll be getting in this latest update to the Angry Birds franchise, and by the looks of it, green hats and clovers aren’t the only thing new, but we’ll get a chance to see some pots of gold in action too ( modeled after the real pots of gold at Rovios Head Quarters of course – for the sake of realism you know ). Rovio seems to have caught on to using holidays to release new updates for their Angry Birds title, with the previous launch of the Christmas edition and more recently the Valentine’s Day special.

For anyone out there with an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android make sure to keep your eyes out for this one on the market as it will be available starting with the 11th of March, so that basically means tomorrow. Let’s get some birds and some pigs going up in this level! Check the video out HERE!1

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March 10th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android Apps

Android app review – Videocam Illusion PRO

Some of you might’ve already gotten the first few looks at how Apple’s iPad 2 can get real-time video effects for its cameras, but for all of you out there recording stuff with your Android phones despair not as Videocam Illusion is here to bring those features to you.

Videocam Illusion and Videocam Illusion Pro allow your Android phone to record videos with real-time video effects on top of them. There are a lot of cool effects for you to slap on top of your video as well as a lot of backgrounds and screen resolutions you can choose from. There are a lot of Android apps out there which allow you to later edit your video but this is the main thing which separates Videocam Illusion from the crowd. Here’s a short run-down of the effects you can top your videos of with.

Videocam Illusion

There are 18 filters you can choose from when preparing to set up your recording with some of them being something we’ve already become familiar with in cameras. As such you can shoot videos with the mono, negative, sepia, old photo, pencil, comic, x-ray and many more filters on top of them. Most of these however will require you to get the Pro version of this Android application. Once installed on yor device, you can also choose from 13 effects for your recording such as thin, fat, tall, short, pixelization and so forth.

If those still aren’t enough for you, think about the 6 mask, 5 recording speeds and the ability to store your favorite combinations of effects and filters ( up to 3 of those can be saved ). All of these effects can be changed while recording, so I’m pretty sure we’ll start seeing more and more videos like these pop up on YouTube as the Android app also has the ability to instantly upload them to YouTube, Gmail, Dropbox and so forth.

Videocam Illusion

Your videos will be stored on your SD card, within the folder named Videocamillusion and the developer recommends that in case you recording isn’t going as smoothly as it could, you might want to lower the resolution. This is actually the only real issue I found when playing around with the application, as because of the tons of real-time effects applicable you might get some choppiness for higher resolution, especially if you run it on an older Android phone. But that would be actually my only gripe with the application, as it does its job marvelously and you can get tons of effects going while still recording.

Want it? Make sure to head over to the Android market and buy your own copy! It’s only $2.78! Get it HERE!1

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March 10th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android Apps

Android App review – Read it later PRO

Users of the Apple iPhone had the chance to play around with this application for a while now, but thanks to the fine developers over at Read it later brought it to our humble corner of the world as well. This Android app will allow a user to save an article or even an entire list of articles for later reading, without having to worry about signal or an internet connection.

Read it later PRO allows you to view or add any article you found interesting to your reading list on your Android phone or on your computer. The real feature of the application is that it’s not exactly platform dependant as you can save articles from pretty much everywhere. As such you can save them while reading or scrolling through them on your home PC and then get those updated on your device, as the application will sync those two together. You can save articles even from a list of over 130 applications which support Read it later PRO.

All devices which have the application set up, irrespective of what they are, you home PC, your laptop or your Android phone, will instantly share said articles once you’ve added them to your read list. The Android app even remembers the position to which you’ve scrolled to, so once you change devices, you can instantly pick up reading from where you left it off.

There are some pretty nifty features for your articles as well, as the content is nicely arranged and the app gives you the ability to adjust anything from text size, to the font of your choosing and so forth. Yet the feature which is really selling this Android application in my view is the fact that once you’ve market an article for Read it later you can access it ( once synced up ) anywhere without needing phone reception for your Android smartphone. Are you just stuck in an elevator and the people trying to get you out tell you it’s going to be a while, no internet connectivity available? Fear not, as if you’ve marked articles in Read it later you can start reading away.

Read it later also comes with some pretty cool features for storing, sorting through and tagging your articles. Want to set them up for an easier browse, or are you simply a maniac of organization and structure ( like I am for that fact ) then this Android application will allow you to set up and personalize your list to your very own needs. The application is available on the Android market for the very low launch price of $0.99. Like to read? Get it HERE!1

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March 10th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris

Posted in Android Apps
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