It seems like every other day there’s a Chinese manufacturer releasing yet another Android powered tablet PC, and sadly there’s very little to differentiate one from the other.  Today’s offering from the Far East though, is admittedly a pretty nice looking piece of kit and for the most part, it doesn’t have the low end specs that some of it’s counterparts have been lumbered with.  Chinese tech brand Mastone have unveiled the Lifepad I859.  Mastone demo’ed a prototype of the  device, then called the PROWAVE, at MWC 2010 (see the video below – note the PROWAVE in the video was running Android 1.6, but Maston have stated that the I850 will be running 2.1).

It’s a pretty slick looking device with a 1GHz ARM Freescale CPU, 512MB RAM and 2GB of flash memory under the hood.  It has a 7 inch 800 x 600 resistive (urk!) touchscreen, a 3G SIM slot, GPS, WiFI connectivity, a front facing webcam, microphone and mono (as best as we can tell) speaker.  All of which adds up to a pretty respectable entry to the soon to be saturated Android tablet market.

We can expect to see the device appearing over the Summer, but no pricing has been announced as yet.

{Story via Lifepad, video from ARMdevices.net}

{story and image via PhoneDog}

We mentioned a few days ago that the Archos 7 Home Tablet was starting to appear for pre-order at some US online stores, and before that, in German stores.  Well, now the folks in the UK can join in on the pre-order fun.  Expansys UK have started taking pre-orders on the 8GB flavour of the Archos 7 Home Tablet.  The unit will cost a paltry £142.99, (plus a £5.75 delivery charge), which is a very tempting price for a 7 inch media player.  Granted, the specs aren’t exactly world beating, but let’s be honest, the price is, and as long as you don’t buy this expecting to receive a state of the art iPad-killer, you can’t go wrong.

“Description

The best of web browsing, multimedia, live information, social networking and applications for in-home use.

The ARCHOS 7 home tablet is the first 7’’ Android™ tablet to deliver the Internet and all the applications for your digital lifestyle whether you’re lying on the couch or you’re out and about, for a breakthrough price of just £129. The ARCHOS 7 home tablet sports a 7’’ touch screen and a slim form factor of only 12 mm thick. Weighing approximately 350 g, the ARCHOS 7 home tablet is extremely portable and can be easily carried around the home.

With the ARCHOS 7 home tablet, users will always be in touch with the world around them through easy access to information services such as news, weather and local business directories. The video player software provides a great movie and YouTube™ viewing experience.

With built-in Wi-Fi, the ARCHOS 7 home tablet can easily be connected to a home network, while the built-in USB connection makes transferring files from a PC or a USB stick simple.

This tablet consumes power at a very modest rate thus allowing up to 7 hours of video playback and up to 44 hours of music from a full battery charge.”

UPDATE- Since we posted this article, Expansys have pulled the pre-order pages for the Archos 7 Home Tablet for the UK.  It is, however, available for pre-order in a number of other countries, for the full list see here.

We’ve attempted to get in touch with Expansys to find out if there’s any specific reason for the Archos 7 HT being pulled from their site.  As soon as we know, we’ll let you know.

A few days ago, Google acquired Agnilux, a semi-conductor company which was started up by some of the team behind the iPad’s A4 processor.  Agnilux was founded by ex- PA Semiconductor engineers, Mark Hayter and Amarjit Gil.  PA Semiconductor were acquired by Apple to build chips for the iPad and iPhone a while back and both Gil and Hayter were key figures in that work.  So,they probably have more inside knowledge of the iPad’s workings than most – Apple are notoriously secretive about what’s under the hood of their hardware.  However, I suspect the move was more for their respective talents than, as some are speculating, their knowledge of the dark magic that goes on inside the iPad/iPhone.

Further industry speculation suggests that the Big G were planning on putting Agnilux to work on new chips and the like for upcoming Android devices, but, according to Mobiledia, an insider has intimated that Agnilux will actually be working on methods of porting Android and Chrome to other, less standard, devices such as televisions- “These are systems guys focusing on hardware-software integration.” said their insider, “It’s getting software platforms to work on different kinds of hardware with lots of obscure back-end technologies.”.

So, perhaps this is another step towards the Android television, or perhaps Google have acquired Agnilux with one eye on furthering development of their Google Tablet?

{via Mobiledia}

Chinese tech site Shanzai got to have a first look at the early prototypes of Hott’s upcoming Android MIDs.  The two devices, which will come in 5″ and 7″  flavours, are going to be running Android 1.6 and will use ARM processors.  The 7″ model will provide HDMI output and, apparently, an “anti-sunlight display” for better visibility when outside on sunny days.

Check out the video below for a brief look at the devices in action.  The 5″ device will allegedly be sold to resellers for under $100 and the 7″ should be available for around $150, so these could both be pretty damned cheap tablets when they finally see a release., depending on how much of a mark-up the resellers use.

{via Shanzai}

The folks at MobileFun.co.uk asked us if we’d be interested in reviewing an item they sell called the DeskGenie.  Having checked it out online, we were intrigued enough to accept the offer.  So, for the last few days, I’ve been taking it for a test drive.  The DeskGenie is a universal charging stand which can hold pretty much any phone-sized device you care to put on it.  It connects to a USB port on your PC (or to a separate mains power adapter if you have one) and comes with a number of different power connector heads which can be used to charge your phone or mp3 player, etc…  In addition to the charging functionality, the DeskGenie also comes with 2 USB ports and an 8 in 1 card reader. Here’s it’s official description:-

Desk Genie Non-Slip This holder is designed to hold any device in position. It holds using a special material which grips the device. It is even designed so if your phone is vibrating frantically it will still stay in place. The holder is able to do such a feat thanks to the special surface which is made from a high tech rubber material. Your phone is held so firmly you’ll think it has been glued down – but there is no sticky residue on the phone or on the Genie. The Desk Genie can hold your phone in optimum viewing positions to read emails, watch videos and play games. Features:

• Designed with a non-slip material
• Holds your mobile phone or accessories firmly
• Fully compliant with USB 2.0 specification
• Backwards compatible with USB 1.1
• Plug and play
• Supports Windows 2000/XP/ Vista, Mac OSX and Linux
• Dimensions: 59 x 102 x 106mm (approx)
• Weight: 95g

Connectors:

• iPhone/iPod
• Nokia 2mm (works with 5800, N95, 6700 and more)
• Nokia 3.5mm (works with 3310, 6680, 6230 and more)
• MicroUSB (for Nokia N97/BlackBerry 8900/Samsung Omnia II and more)
• Mini USB (for BlackBerry 8300 /HTC Hero/MP3)
• LG (works with all LG phones)
• Samsung Tip1 (works with D900, U600, D800 and more)
• Samsung Tip2 (works with Omnia, Pixon, Tocco Lite and more)
• Sony Ericsson Fast Port (works with all Sony Ericsson phones)

What’s in the box:

• 1 x Non-slip Holder 2 USB Ports
• 1 x 90cm Mini USB Cable
• 1 x Charger Output Cable
• 9 x Mobile Phone Connectors
• 1 x User Manual

My first impression upon opening up the device’s packaging was that, to my surprise, the DeskGenie looked well made.  Before we received the DeskGenie, I’d had images of a rather cheap and ugly looking device that I’d be embarrassed to leave in plain sight on my desk, but it’s actually quite easy on the eye.  The only complaint I have about it’s look is that the short charging cable that goes from the DeskGenie to your phone has to loop round the unit from the back, where perhaps a cable management feed running underneath the unit would have been tidier, but this really is just nitpicking as the cable running round the back isn’t exactly hideously messy. I was a little sceptical about the “high tech rubber” non-slip pad that the DeskGenie uses to hold the phone in place, but found that it actually really does work well, even when I attached my Hero in landscape mode, it held fast.  I did find that, after a few days’ worth of use (and, no doubt, a number of thorough and grubby fingerings by curious children when Daddy wasn’t looking), the pad wasn’t quite as ‘sticky’ as it had been, but, as the instructions point out, wiping the pad with a damp cloth restores it’s grip as good as new. The performance of the 8-in-1 card reader was comparable to any other reader I’ve ever used; all of the cards I tried were detected quickly and data transfers were completed at a reasonable speed.  The USB slots both seemed to work perfectly well too.  As a charger, the DeskGenie succeeded in charging both my HTC Hero and my mp3 player, but it didn’t seem to want to charge my wife’s Samsung Jet for some reason, although the website does claim it is a compatible device (in fairness, my wife’s Jet has been through the washing at least once, so there’s a distinct chance that something in it is faulty). Overall, I’m quite impressed with the DeskGenie.  So much so that I’m actually considering buying another one so that I have one at the office and one at home.  It doesn’t look out of place on a desk, it charges things well and has the added bonus of the 8 in 1 card reader and USB ports.  I don’t know about you, but free USB ports are like gold-dust in my house, so those additional ports were a welcome addition to my computer desk.  There is, however, one large drawback to the DeskGenie that is worth bearing in mind, as I suspect it will put a lot of people off: the DeskGenie will only charge your device, you can’t use it to sync with, or connect to, your phone from your computer.  If you need to access your phone from the computer, you can connect a USB cable to one of the DeskGenie’s ports and sync or interface with it that way.  All things considered, I’m happy to say I’d recommend that DeskGenie.  It’s nice looking, it does what it claims to and at only £14.99, it’s better value than many gadgets I’ve paid double that for. The DeskGenie is available for £14.99 as part of the HTC desk chargers range from MobileFun.co.uk.

We’ve had a lot of questions from people wanting to know if we’ve heard anything about a possible release date for the HTC Hero’s ROM upgrade, so we figured there was no harm in asking HTC themselves.  We didn’t expect to get any sort of firm confirmation, but we wanted to clear up the rumours that have been flying around about a 16th or 24th April upgrade date that have been flying around.  Here’s what HTC had to say:-

“Thank you for your enquiry about rom upgrade

Some of the phones in our Android line up including your Hero are due to receive an upgrade, and it is scheduled to be released starting at the end of April. Your phone should be upgraded Over-The-Air. You can expect a pop-up message on your phone when connected to the internet once it is ready. When the upgrade is ready, we will notify you via our website and on various social media networks including Twitter and Face book.”

So, it’s not exactly a firm date, but it does suggest that the people that have their fingers crossed for the 16th April will have to keep ‘em crossed for a few days more.

Edit – We should have mentioned that this was a response from HTC UK in relation to the European Hero.

***UPDATE – Turns out this was untrue.  HTC have now admitted the update won’t appear until June.**

Boy Genius Report have managed to get their hands on a leaked spec sheet of the HTC Incredible from a Verizon insider.  The specs are not too shabby: a 1GHz SnapDragon CPU, 512MB RAM/512MB ROM, 3.7″ 480 x 800 WVGA OLED capacitive touchscreen display, 8GB internal memory, 8MP camera with auto-focus, microSD expansion slot and all the usual Android hardware such as accelerometer, Wi-Fi, etc…

It won’t be too long now before we start seeing this phone in the wild.  Go check the full spec sheet at BGR.

{via BGR}

ARM processors power the vast majority of the mobile phones which are used today.  Intel would like to cut in to the market share, and to that end, they have kicked off plans to enable all mobile OSes to run on their ATOM processors.  First up for Intel was Android, and, according to a statement from them yesterday, they’ve managed to successfully port Android to run on ATOM CPUs, and they also have confirmed interest in Android on ATOM from some of their customers.  The general manager of Intel’s software and services group, Renee James, told attendees at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing that “Intel is enabling all OSes for Atom phones”.

It’ll be interesting to see if devices running on ATOM processors are authorised to connect to the official Android Market, or if, like the recent influx of Android tablets, they won’t meet Google’s hardware requirements.

{via PC World}