The History of Tablets

Apple did not create the tablet. Just saying.

      Picture above shows Steve Ballmer now CEO of Microsoft holding up an old resistive screen tablet that ran on Windows XP which get this: came out before the iPad. Okay so I am not saying this looks like the iPad in any way or am I saying this tablet was successful because it wasn't, but I am saying the iPad only revolutionized the market not made it. At the time tablets were used strictly for business not play. But the iPad made a consumer friendly tablet albeit at low specs and high price so you could play Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, or whatever else you do on your iPad. Then came along Google with Android which at first barely slowed down the iPad advance. Now iOS, Android, and Windows 8/RT tablets are all in a mud slinging fight for market share with no clear winner, but today I will take you on a trip down the proverbial memory lane from the days where the tablets of today would be pure science fiction.

The First Slow tablets

   Today modern tablets even cheap ones could easily outrun laptops of 2004. In the beginning, the first original tablet was developed by Acorn Computers called the Newspad in 1994. The pilot/trials for the tablet ended in Barcelona, 1997 killing the tablet and a dream, but that dream was relived by Microsoft as a bulky tablet PC made primarily for work places like hospitals. The tablet PC's running full Windows XP tablet edition were expensive, ugly, and had terrible sales. The cycle went on with Vista even debuting mini tablet PC's that no one ever remembered. Then along came Android with Android 1.4 debuting on the Archos 5. Obviously the device really was a lagfest compared to the quad core Androids of today. The OS was unheard of and untested before Google bought it. Now it did have a big hard drive for storing a lot of stuff and was powered by a 800 Mhz processor that let you play 720p at 24fps which today wouldn't be acceptable on a high end device.

A slew of other tablets came but in 2010 the Apple iPad featuring iOS catapulting tablets into mainstream popularity. The iPad made the tablet cool essentially even if it was critically received. The app store grew changing the way software was bought permanently from in stores to online breathing life into companies like: Zygna, Betaworks, and other app makers. iOS completely dominated the market despite pushback from Google with Honeycomb in 2011 which was like a fly on the wall compared to the Apple monopoly. Recently Google has made the "halo" brand of Nexus products that have helped lead the charge in taking back marketshare from the iOS juggernaut which has slowed it down to a point but the iPad still has the mindshare advantage. 

  

Surface Pro

Then along came Windows 8. Microsoft launched Windows 8/Windows RT on October 26th, 2012 officially jumping into the death ring known as the tablet market with the new touch friendly OS. Windows 8 did offer many improvements over Windows 7 but the Metro/Modern start screen was received with mixed reviews. The Surface RT/Pro was Microsoft's attempt at their own "halo" device as an example to other OEM's to make high quality hardware. The saga continues as Windows 8.1 a much better and more polished version of Windows 8 has been released to test and is supposed to hit RTM by August. 

The Future?

 That is a hard one to envision. Most likely can see tablets being thin, fast, replacing laptops, and possibly docakble to TV's. 

The History of the Ultrabook.

          Overview

     Did you ever think that the day would come when a laptop weighed under 4lbs and would have enough power to run Photoshop? Did you think that this class of laptop could measure under an inch and in some cases 15 millimeters? Welcome to the age of the ultra book "made by Intel." But was it actually made by Intel? Or was it made by Apple? Keep on reading for more on this topic. 

     Early Concepts

     Since the term was not used until 2011 by Intel we are forced to look hard and low for netbook like systems. I did find 1 by Sony called the VAIO X505. It was 2.2 lbs and had a Centrino 1GHZ processor. For today that is not industry leading, but at the time it was revolutionary. 

This was brought to America in 2003 and got many awards and was highly rated. Still we do not see mass adoption of this brand of computing for a while until Asus essentially created the netbook category with their first Eee machine. I will not accept those as true ultrabooks because they were not powerful and were based on the Intel Atom structure which still today has not proven itself.

     Modern Era - The Fight against Apple

     Truthfully the story stops at the Sony VAIO until 2011 at a fate filled CES Consumer Electronics Show when Intel announced the "ultra book" class. Intel set aside $300 million dollars for OEM's who wanted to release ultrabook to market. You probably have seen the ads by Intel for various skinny laptops and with Windows 8 pending the market is a bit dead right now. But what was the real initiative for the sudden push by Intel? Couldn't OEM's do this by their own? No, truthfully the ultra book race was made as an attempt to fight against the Apple juggernaut that would truthfully take a joint effort to stop.  In an attempt to make an attempt at quality control Intel released a list of specifications for OEM's to follow to get the deemed "ultrabook" status. Acer was the first to make's it own ultrabook the S3 which really was a first generation device in many ways. Asus came next with the Zenbook UX31E which was actually a pretty good device for a first time try. HP came out with the Envy line which has been in my opinion the best of them all, but some lack in certain aspects. Lenovo has jumped in with the Ideapad U300s which so far have had the best keyboard to rule them all. Toshiba had the cheapest first gen ultrabook at $799, but of course it was not the best and lacked in many areas. Dell released one the XPS 13 which had a weird rounded look. Samsung was the last OEM with the Series 5 products which were good in their respect with nice specs. The entire initiave is powered by Intel core i3, i5, and i7 ULV (ultra low voltage) CPU's with most of them featuring Intel HD3000 or HD4000 integrated graphics.

Windows 8 Changes the Game

    

      So CES finished not too long ago with some cool concepts by Intel and a lot of product releases by OEM's. What was most interesting was what Intel had to say. First they made some new regulations like you have to have "all day battery life" and every ultrabook has to have a touch screen for Windows 8. All of this screams good to the consumer and boo ho for the big companies. Also they showed off this thing they called Project North (pictured above) which has 1) A detachable tablet powered by an ULV Haswell processor and 2) A bezel that comes out of nowhere when you are in tablet mode for better touch screen capabilities. A concept like this they said will cost... $799 - $899. Considering that ultrabooks that were smaller, had no touch screens, and no Haswell (Haswell has superior gaming performance without discrete graphics and superior battery life due to lower TDP) this means Apple will get a BIG run for their money. This is what Intel has been wanting as we have seen them moving more into the Wintel partnership and abandoning Apple. It will be noted that this particular product will never make it mainstream but something similar might from a different company. So what does this really mean for the consumer? Windows 8 will be "forced upon you" in the point that laptops will have Windows 8 on them and you will be forced to learn the OS. Personally I love the OS but then a lot of people like Windows 7. Heck, I know people still loving XP! So this means you will have shiny new fast thin ultrabooks that will leave the first and second generation ultrabooks in the dust. For Apple who really look like they are having their worst year ever. I mean their stock price dropped over $200 and iPhone5 sales have been low. It looks like the people may have spoken and possibly for the Penguin fans it could be the year of the Linux desktop!

Is the Nokia Lumia 920 looking more and more attractive?

     Well if you have not heard already the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Iphone 5 have been announced and we have seen some completely different opinions. So far the Iphone 5 has been received with a slightly more negative then positive approach especially in social media. Even CNET had to re ask the question because they said, "Since we have heard so many people hating the Iphone 5 is there anybody who wants it?" Others like Windows8update.com founder Onoura Amobi have said, "The launch was one of their worst." On the other hand the Nokia Lumia 920 has had a mildly favorable launch except for the faked video and stills of the OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) feature. Still Nokia managed to do some pretty convincing damage control and has not had a truly polarizing affect on the bulk of the tech media or consumers. With the new "slimmer, taller, and faster" Iphone 5 comes three major problems. 

• new "Retina" screen. with the new taller 4 inch retina screen they have to letterbox apps. so unless app developers make new apps to take advantage of the larger screen real estate we will have apps looking stretched on your new shiny Iphone. Still it will not be a big problem to all consumers except if the news media says so as usual. 
• It is slimmer because they have forgone the old 30 pin docking connector for a smaller 8 pin connector that will be another cable that looks virtually identical. If you would like to use the old one now you have to pay up $29 for an adapter. With the Lumia 920's wireless charging I think that problem would be irrelevant. Via an article that I saw thanks to a fan people are raising a fuss over it and it will be a legitimate problem Apple will have to face. I can't wait to see how this will go down.
• The faster has posed a different problem that will be only relevant on Verizon and Sprint's new LTE networks. The Iphone 5 unlike other competitors will not offer support for simultaneous voice and data. Thanks to this article by The Verge we now know that you can only call and use data via Wi-Fi with the Iphone 5 even though every other Verizon 4G LTE phone can. 

Now the Lumia 920 even with a half an inch more screen real estate it has a better screen that can be used with gloves and will have no letterbox problems because WP8 apps are made to work and look good on all devices, it may not be slimmer but we will not have to worry about the 8 pin connector, and we do not know about simultaneous voice and data but we will learn later on. What do you think? Say so in the comment section!!!

Samsung keeps on Innovating

Samsung has a long list of innovations such as the Smart tv, smart appliances (you can listen to music with your refrigerator) biggest smart phone aka phablet, dual screen camera, smart camera, and now the do it all Samsung Galaxy One with a built in projector. This is the first tablet to feature a built in projector but not the first Windows prototype device to feature one. The LG EXPO was a Windows Mobile 6.5 (not Windows Phone 7 same platform different UI and market) and was to be featured on AT&T. It did come out and was not a very big hit even though I only remember it because of the funny commercial they made for it. The Galaxy brand is very classic of Samsung to brand their devices flagship or second generation design (Samsung Nexus became Samsung Galaxy Nexus). The importance of Samsung entering the tablet market for Windows 8 (also featuring the flagship Samsung Series 7) is that even though Microsoft has a lot of money they can not only take the burden of advertising alone. Samsung to date is the largest cell phone maker followed by Nokia and Apple with LG and HTC gaining traction. Samsung has already dabbled in the Android tablet market and has had some moderate success especially with the Verizon 4G market. Also we already know they have an excellent legal team so when Apple goes for round 100 Samsung will back up their devices and win. This prototype device is actually a really beautiful designed tablet. As shown is the many functions that can be made with this device. It looks to have two cameras and has a dual featured pop out stand to use for the projector, for watching a movie, preforming normal Office functions, and what ever rocks your boat. The screen looks like it is 11.6 or 12.1 inches and with the projector included it is pretty thin. 

The stand concept is not new to the mobile market and HTC the Taiwanese smartphone giant has quite a few smartphones with kickstands which were not really good at their jobs. This stand looks firm and solid and should be able to stand up to pressing your finger against it in any spot and what ever other torture you do to your tablet. 

This shot to me is very controversial since it depicts Windows 8 with a Start button which the recent Consumer Preview does not have. The start button was what Metro was built on and has been a very big argument since most power users have essentially cried about not having a button that when they swipe from one side of the screen or move their mouse into the bottom right or left corners brings up the charms bar. 

One of the biggest things we use our tablets for is reading. Now what I see is all newspaper no interference which is very uniform for Metro. The good part that Microsoft learned Apple hasn't is a uniform design that is hardly seen. Also the amount of Apps is not as good as quality apps. Apple may have over 500,000 apps the most hardcore Apple fanboy will tell you there is a lot of junk apps. I believe Microsoft will be able to get all of the good quality apps into the Windows 8 Marketplace without the more junkier apps. 

Now the lucky couple who hopefully gets to keep their Samsung Galaxy One is watching a 1080p movie with their tablet no tv screen required. Of course a clean white wall would be the best to fully enjoy your movie. Also the tablet can efficiently project images up to 8 feet which is great for sitting your device down on a coffe table like this couple did. Also the projector  is more than a novel concept, but a valuable money saver in the working/student environment. 

Like I was saying perfect for meeting were you do not have an overhead and are trying to deliver a cutting edge power point. The coolest point about this picture is the tablet is projecting itself showing off the goods of a Metro interface. The current Samsung Windows tablet the Windows 8 flagship device did not have a stylus holder and this looks like it has that hole covered no pun intended. 

Here we have two Galaxy Ones using the Remote Desktop app. Of course an Ipad could never pull this off by itself unless helped by a great immortal device with Splashtop Streamer and a projector like the Galaxy One. What this just did is have the one Galaxy One turn the other into a desktop, keyboard, and multi gesture touch pad. I wish I could do that!!

Another innovation is that the projector can rotate which can be very helpful depending on your environment.

Now this is what I call multi-tasking. Instead of having a large monitor showing you your Skype conversation just use the projector  while you chat with whom ever you choose. 

Angry Birds Space is a very popular game and can be a large factor if an OS has any success. Since Angry Birds Space is not yet available for Windows 8 Marketplace it must have been used using Bluestacks the Android emulator that can run any Android app on your home computer. 

I know some friends who love to draw and the pen would be a great advance over buying an additional stylus with an Ipad and not being able to accurately draw since it does not have an active digitizer layer. 

The presence of the Galaxy One if it ever gets out of the drawing room (and the hands of a select few testers) will be a great help to Windows 8 and my words to Samsung is keep on innovating and I want one of these really bad!!

 

Best Iphone 4S Competitiors

I have been hearing many complaints from my base on my partially biased review on the Iphone 4S (biased toward Apple not Android) and have decided to do another review except showing the 3 main phone OS other than IOS which are Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7. I personally am a Windows Phone fanboy but today I am going to give an unbiased review of the top dogs of these respective phones.

#1 Android - Samsung Galaxy Note

     Android is the most popular phone/tablet operating system and the Galaxy Note is a wonderful combination of phone and tablet a.k.a phablet. One of the biggest detractors of the Iphone 4S is the small 4 inch screen. The Galaxy Note has a 5.3 inch screen which may be a bit big for your hands but ultimately comes with alot of perks including a S stylus, faster and more productive 1.4GHZ dual core processor, 8mp rear camera with LED flash and full 1080p video recording, Super AMOLED screen (Active matrix organic light emitting diode) which is far superior in quality and performance, and a suite of apps dedicated to the big screen and perfect for your stylus such as a solid note taking app and the Samsung touch whiz skin layer similar to the HTC sense UI. Also Android is growing quickly with approximately 500,000 more or less apps and games, and with the new Google Play store it features 14 million songs and 100 free songs with a new Google Music account, all the latest and greatest movies available for 24 and 48 hour rental for low prices, and google books has over 3 million books for all subjects and gets 5 stars for research papers especially on Azerbaijan! This is a solid choice even though the 2 year contract price starts at $249 depending on your carrier. If you need a ton of apps and a really large screen this is your best buy.

#2 Windows Phone 7 - HTC Titan II

     This was a very hard choice for me since all of the Windows Phones are the same. Microsoft has done a great job with their propiertary OS especially since it has surpassed Blackberry in 2010 in app count. Market share and carrier availability is low since almost all phones are on AT&T and all the other carriers except T-Mobile have only one. (T-Mobile has two). The big factors for the HTC Titan II is the biggest camera sensor to date a whopping 16mp camera with 1080p video recording, a large screen is also great at 4.8 inches, and all Windows Phones come with Office Mobile apps preinstalled (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and One Note), and it has 4GLTE functionality which the Iphone can only do 3G. The reason I chose this as number two is because Windows Phone has 70,000 apps to date and even though it got a late start among the 500,000 app count giants it still made 10,000 apps faster than anyone in the market even if they were not the first. Also it passed Blackberry in app count in May 2011 and is expected to pick up market share and app reliability when the launch of Windows 8 and WP8. The idea behind this is that you can synchronize your documents, apps, and files all on one account. With this idea developers will come and so will consumers. This is a great phone for $199 on a two year contract with AT&T only unless you buy one unlocked off of Amazon. Also Windows Phones are extremely cheap unlocked some going for $139 refurbished with excellent specs. 

#3 Blackberry - Torch

     This is the only touch screen powered phone by Blackberry and is the only phone on our list which is smaller than the Iphone at 3.7 inches. This is underspecced compared to our other competitors on the list bearing a 5mp rear camera with 720p hd recording, Blackberry 7 also BB10 upgrade able which features an Android emulator so you can run any Android app on your Torch, this is the first Blackberry that is all touch and is aimed at consumers and BYOD (bring your own device) establishments, and features the lowest price on our list at $179 on Verizon Wireless. The Torch is a big step in the right direction for the dying RIM even though they still have more market share than WP7 and has one of the most money making app stores around people do not will not buy it because it is a Blackberry. RIM has to learn how to stop scaring consumers and bring them into the "Bold Fold."

   Wrap-UP

All of these OS are very respective in all that they do and all have similar features that rival the boring IOS. Android features Google Voice Search which is much like Siri which you can ask questions and it will direct you to the right answer and can text by voice. Also live wallpaper brought in by Android 2.3 update is a beautiful touch to the boring row of apps in IOS. Windows Phone 7 has the most dynamic look of all the OS there is. Live tiles show you how many e-mails, messages, missed calls, and facebook notifications you have and are big and bold in color. Also Bing search acts alot like Siri and does the same as Google Voice but can also earn you Bing rewards with each search gathering prizes like $5 Amazon gift cards. Lastly Blackberry has a voice search client and a mostly boring but functional UI. I prefer WP7 since it has Office built in for free and all WP7 phones have 25GB free of cloud storage on Skydrive which syncs with your Windows or Mac pc. 

Competition for Ipad 3??

Well we now have all seen the Ipad HD or Ipad 3 and we all hope to see some budget competition. Well in April 2012 the Skypad Protos will be coming out with a 3.2 mp rear and 1.3 front camera 1.2 ghz core full 1GB of ram, 10 hour battery life, and android 4.0. You can see all of the other features here.