Tag Archives: reference

E Ink reference phone and flexible display hands-ons (video)

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DNP Eink reference phone and flexible display handsons video

Looking for your dream phone? Chances are, this isn't it -- but it could be the precursor to what could eventually be cradled in your pocket, especially if you are a fan of E Ink. The device seen above and in the first gallery below is one of just five prototypes of the E-ink reference phone in existence. The point? The company wants to have a tangible Android-powered (2.3.5 Gingerbread, to be exact) model to give to potential partners, so they can craft something similar down the road. We're told that it will most likely be used on the back of color phones, much like the YotaPhone, but partners are welcome to get crazy on the front screen as well. No official timeframe for availability or seeding has been set, but it is expected to roll out in limited capacity sometime this year.

Official specs are few and far between, but what we do know is that this nameless phone is driven by a Cortex-A5 CPU of some kind. Given that this is an extremely early prototype, the E Ink device had a lot of bugs when we played with it: force closes, reboots and slow response are among the things we noticed. However, we imagine this will continue to improve with time, so by the time of seeding it may be a completely different story.

The UI reminds us of a simplistic feature phone geared toward the basic user, with six icons on the front screen including an app menu. As we'd expect, the phone is great for reading books, and it comes with the option to install applications (though it's possible most games wouldn't look that great). You can also shake the device to clean the text in case it ends up getting "dirty," or misaligned.

Gallery: E Ink prototype hands-on

Gallery: E Ink flexible display prototype hands-on

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Tegra 4 reference tablets use SanDisk iNAND Extreme, mate a fast CPU with fast storage

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Tegra 4 reference tablets use SanDisk's iNAND Extreme, match fast chips with fast storage

It's well established that NVIDIA's Tegra 4 is at least reasonably quick. It's only quick when the storage isn't a bottleneck, however, which is why SanDisk has negotiated a repeat partnership as the official storage supplier for reference Tegra 4 tablets. Pop open one of the designs and you'll find either 16GB or 32GB of SanDisk's iNAND Extreme keeping pace with the quad-core processor. The reference deal may be more than just a publicity grab: it raises the chance that companies will use the speedier flash memory in their own Tegra 4 slates. Whether or not SanDisk makes it to shipping devices, the deal could lead to balanced tablet hardware that seldom leaves us waiting.

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Source: SanDisk

Geeksphone Keon hands-on: a small Firefox OS phone that has big dreams (video)

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Geeksphone Keon hands-on

Geeksphone may be an online phone seller based in Spain, but the name of its lower-end Firefox OS reference phone, Keon, appears to be Dutch. Regardless of the title's origin, the part of the phone that's most intriguing is the fact that it's one of the first to bear Mozilla's mobile platform. It isn't much in the way of specs, and that's easy enough to tell from just glancing at it, thanks to a 3.5-inch HVGA display. Still, the Keon's set of specs is actually on par with the Firefox protocol. This means that for roughly around 100 euros, we can expect to see a device with a 3MP camera, 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage, a 1,580mAh battery and a 1GHz single-core Snapdragon S17225A CPU. Don't expect an earth-shattering experience on this kind of phone, as it's meant to reside strictly on the low end. The Keon will be making its way onto the official company store in the next few weeks, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we've made a lovely video and photo gallery below, so check them out.

Gallery: Geeksphone Keon hands-on

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NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone hands-on (video)

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NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone handson video

NVIDIA's latest venture in the mobile world, called the 4i, was introduced last week ahead of Mobile World Congress, and fortunately the chipset maker brought the product to Barcelona embedded in a reference phone known as "Phoenix." The 8mm-thick handset, which will find a home in the labs of manufacturers and carriers (as well as the desks of many third-party devs), sports a 5-inch 1080p display, 13MP rear-facing camera, PRISM 2, Chimera, DirectTouch and LTE (we're told that most major bands are included for testing purposes). As it's not geared for general consumer use, so it's not the thinnest, sleekest or best-looking device, and the back doesn't even seem to snap completely shut. Units are being sampled as we speak, and we should expect to see devices hit the market in nine to twelve months. Since it's still pretty early in the process, we weren't able to turn on the phone or benchmark the chipset; the only exception to this rule, as you'll see in the video, was when a rep showed a gaming demo on his particular unit.

While the 4i is the smaller brother of the Tegra 4 family, it's still expected to be quite powerful. The chip, which is designed specifically for smartphones (tablets will take advantage of Tegra 4 instead), features four 28nm Cortex-A9 r4 (beefed-up from the standard A9) cores that can be clocked up to 2.3GHz, 60 GPU cores (compared to 72 on the T4) and an integrated i500 LTE baseband modem. For additional comparison, NVIDIA showed us the two sibling boards side-by-side. Head below to check out our galleries of Phoenix and the two chipsets, as well as a brief video that shows off the graphics prowess of the 4i.

Gallery: NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone hands-on

Gallery: NVIDIA Tegra 4 vs 4i

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AMD shows off a reference device with a quad-core, x86-based Temash chip

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AMD shows off a reference device with a quadcore, x86based Temash chip

Earlier today AMD's director of global business units marketing, John Taylor, joined us on our CES stage to talk chips. Specifically, tablet chips, and laptop chips, and chips for products that have elements of both. While he was up there, Mr. Taylor flashed a reference device -- a laptop hybrid with the keyboard and touchpad built into the carrying case. Obviously, we weren't satisfied with just a quick tease, so we caught up with him afterward to learn a bit more. As it turns out, it runs a quad-core version of AMD's new Temash chip, which is being billed as the first quad-core, x86-based SoC. (There's also a dual-core version.) Built into the chip is an HD Radeon 8000 series GPU with AMD's Graphics Core Next architecture, so in theory you should be able to pull off PC-caliber gaming even on a tablet.

All told, it promises 50 percent more performance than AMD's Hondo processor, which you can find in Vizio's new Windows 8 tablet. Of course, those are just marketing claims, and besides we haven't had a chance to benchmark either a Hondo or a Temash system yet. So, to put that in better context, it might be helpful to hear AMD talk about its competitors. Obviously, Intel is a biggie, but in particular AMD says Temash should be able to compete with Clover Trail tablet chips, going all the way up to Core i3 on laptops. We're told Temash will ship sometime in the first half of this year, and that AMD will be revealing more details about the platform at Mobile World Congress, which kicks off in late February. Until then, we've got hands-on photos of the unit below, along with some performance impressions after the break.

Gallery: AMD Temash hands-on

Continue reading AMD shows off a reference device with a quad-core, x86-based Temash chip

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Meet ‘North Cape,’ Intel’s reference laptop with a detachable 1080p screen, Haswell CPU

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Meet 'North Cape,' Intel's reference laptop with a detachable 1080p screen, Haswell CPU

If you weren't following along with Intel's CES 2013 keynote, here's a partial summary: among other things, the company debuted its fourth-generation Core processors, which until now have gone by the codename "Haswell." In addition to talking speeds and feeds, though, Intel also showed off a reference laptop with a Haswell chip inside, a notebook called "North Cape." It was a hybrid, essentially -- a 13-inch, 1080p tablet with a keyboard dock. (Intel made it sound more exciting than it was, saying the CPU is behind the display and that there are batteries behind the display and under the keyboard.) In any case, we got to see it up close after the press conference wrapped, though Intel isn't actually letting members of the media touch it yet.

So far, we don't know much about the device (Intel won't even disclose battery life estimates) but we can say it looks thin for a 13-inch touchscreen device (the official spec is 10mm thick for just the tablet and 17mm for the tablet and dock). The viewing angles look promising, too, as you can hopefully tell from those odd camera angles. No word yet on which PC maker is going to pick up this design, but an Intel rep staffing the press conference told us it should arrive in time for the back to school shopping season, which usually kicks off in late spring. So when you see something similar to this surface in the May timeframe, just remember: you saw it here first.

Gallery: Intel North Cape Reference Laptop eyes-on

Myriam Joire contributed to this report.

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AMD shows off its first Windows 8 concept tablet, we go hands-on (video)

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AMD shows off its first Windows 8 concept tablet, we go handson video

If Intel and Microsoft have been the royal couple of Computex 2012 (aka the world's biggest Windows 8 Ultrabook tradeshow), AMD has been the third wheel. That doesn't mean it's opted out of the festivities, though. Nope, it's chosen this week to show off its Trinity chips, and it even has its first Windows 8 concept device on display. The reference design, made by Compal, has the same form factor we've seen over and over again this week: an 11.6-inch, 1366 x 768 tablet paired with a keyboard dock. The main differences are that it has a kickstand, and packs one of AMD's Trinity A6 APUs. The chassis is on the chunky side, at a shade under 20mm, and the screen's a fingerprint magnet, but then again, we don't put too much stock in prototype designs; such details are subject to change.

Performance seemed smooth so far as we could tell, but then again, we haven't had the chance to put it through its paces, streaming HD video or attempting anything of productive value. We wish we could tell you a bit about rated battery life, but alas, AMD isn't ready to make any public claims just yet. As for the accompanying dock, the keyboard is far more spacious than what we're used to. Want to see it in action? We've got a quick walk-through of the design, with photos and video below.

Gallery: AMD Windows 8 concept tablet by Compal (hands-on)

Continue reading AMD shows off its first Windows 8 concept tablet, we go hands-on (video)

AMD shows off its first Windows 8 concept tablet, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 01:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Infant version of Android gets a walkthrough on Google’s Sooner development phone

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No, that's not a QWERTY feature phone you're looking at -- it's Google's earliest Android development device, the Sooner. While the HTC-sourced phone itself hasn't been a secret, the build of Android on this particular specimen, obtained by Steven Troughton-Smith, is something few eyes outside of Mountain View have seen. As Mr. Smith notes, this isn't the first public build of Android that was detailed in November 2007 (M3), but rather an earlier version from May of that same year. The non-touch UI is almost totally unlike what eventually shipped with the touch-friendly HTC Dream, aside from obviously housing Android's basic framework and apps including G Talk and the like. We won't spoil it for you, though, so hit up the source link below to see Smith's full walkthrough and analysis of the device that once served as the initial development vehicle for Android.

Infant version of Android gets a walkthrough on Google's Sooner development phone originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 May 2012 17:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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