By now you’ve heard the rumors, and yes – I have been voted the Most Handsome and Virile Man in the World. But you may have also heard that Apple is already hard at work on the iPhone 5, as the favorite company of art designers and gadget-loving hipsters has already possibly outsourced the manufacturing of the A5 processor chip to a company in Taiwan. But as exciting as that may sound, those of us who are biting our nails over the arrival of the iPad 2 are going to have to settle for the boring, old A4 processors. So why build you up with this chatter of the A5 for no reason at all?
Because the iPad 2 has a big storm coming. And that storm’s name is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
While not a very exciting name for a weather occurrence, the Galaxy created quite the stir at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, as Samsung – and the many reviews already online – claims that its features are going to blow the iPad 2 away. With an 8-inch screen, built-in surround sound speakers, and the highly-anticipated Android Honeycomb operating system, the Galaxy is believed to be the ultimate multimedia treasure. Sadly, that was what I wanted my nickname to be.
But hold the smart phone, consumers! Blackberry and HTC haven’t even made their pitches yet and early reviews of the Playbook and Flyer tablets, respectively, say that we have more contenders to knock the iPad from its throne. Both will be competitive in price with the iPad (see below for more information on the Playbook’s release) and the Blackberry tablet will feature a basic model with 16 GB of storage and 3G speed, while the Flyer’s basic model will start with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, with room to improve. Game on, tablet freaks.
[news-links]
- Apple’s iPhone 5 will feature the new A5 chip, iPad 2 just the A4. (C Net)
- Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 could provide tough competition for the iPad 2. (Technolog)
- HTC’s Flyer and the Blackberry Playbook have also stepped up to the plate. (3 Anime)
[/news-links]
[news-morenews]
- Blackberry’s Playbook is expected to hit stores in April, and it will debut at a very competitive $500. While the price of the Apple iPad 2 is a mystery, Blackberry‘s tablet offering lands on the lower side of the iPad‘s current price, which makes it an immediate favorite to dethrone Apple’s reigning tablet champion. (Techland)
- Motorola‘s Xoom could be released as soon as next week, but the highly sought after tablet will have a huge obstacle in its path – price. The Xoom, with its quad core and 4G features, will no doubt find high demand, but its starting price of $600 already puts it in dangerous territory. (SF Gate)
[/news-morenews]
[news-stats]
- As of 2009, 20.4% of American homes had completely left land line phone services in the dust. In fact, between 1995 and 2008, wireless subscriptions rose nearly 700% across the U.S. In related news, I still wear a pager. (ACA International)
- By 2007, cellular phones had completely replaced land lines as the preferred choice in American households, but specifically among adults ages 25 to 29. 35.4% of people in this age group had undergone residential phone amnesia for the wonders of modern cellular communication. Meanwhile, 100% of grandparents still complain we don’t call enough. (USA Today)
[/news-stats]