Android and Me

HTC unveils their 2011 Mobile World Congress handset and tablet lineup
NVIDIA KOs the competition, quad-core CPUs in Android devices by summer
Redbox releases Android application

HTC unveils their 2011 Mobile World Congress handset and tablet lineup

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 05:10 PM PST

Early this morning, HTC finally stepped up and unveiled their lineup at Mobile World Congress. As expected, HTC delivered five new Android powered handsets and their first Android tablet. Devices like the HTC Desire S, HTC Incredible S, and the HTC Wildfire S may look a bit familiar since we've seen leaked images, video, and specs on all three handsets over the past few months, but this was the first time that we've gotten a clear look at the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa, HTC's "social phones" with a dedicated Facebook button.

HTC Flyer – the first Android tablet from HTC

While it's exciting to see HTC refresh their lineup, the real star of HTC press event was the HTC Flyer Android Tablet. The HTC Flyer runs on Android 2.4 and is powered by a 1.5 GHz single-core processor and features a 7-inch display, 5 megapixel camera, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, 1GB of RAM, and 32 GB of internal storage. The HTC Flyer will be launching in Q2 with Android 2.4 (still being called Gingerbread) but will be updated to Honeycomb several months after launch.

The HTC Flyer also features a redesigned HTC Sense UI and the new HTC Scribe Technology which allows the Flyer to be used with a capacitive pen for taking note, drawing, or event writing on a web page or photo.

HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa – the first social phones from HTC

The HTC ChaCha and Salsa are the first two social phones from HTC with a dedicated Facebook button on the front of the devices. The contextually-aware Facebook button can be used to check in, share photos, update your status, share web links, and even the music you are listening to.

The HTC ChaCha is reminiscent of the HTC Snap from a few years back and features a four row QWERTY keyboard on the front, and a 2.6-inch display. The HTC Salsa features a slightly larger 3.4-inch display, and they both are loaded up with a 5 megapixel camera on the back, and a VGA camera on the front, 600 MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, 512 MB ROM, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, and Wi-Fi. Both devices will launch with Android 2.3.3 and will be available in mid Q2.

HTC Desire S, HTC Incredible S, and HTC Wildfire S – just another rehash

The HTC Desire S, HTC Incredible S, and HTC Wildfire S should probably be considered more as product refinements rather than entirely new devices. The three handsets take a lot of cues from the originals which launched last year with a few improvements thrown in here and there.

The HTC Desire S will be running on Android 2.4 and will features a 3.7-inch display, but its been given an upgraded aluminum unibody case, 1GHz 8255 Snapdragon processor, 8 megapixel camera, and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera. The HTC Incredible S is currently running on Android 2.2 and is sticking to its rugged industrial design but does feature a few upgrades with a new 4-inch display, 1GHz 8255 Snapdragon processor, 8 megapixel read camera, and a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front. The HTC Wildfire S the smallest handset ever produced by HTC and rounds out the bottom of the pile with a 3.2-inch display, 600 MHz processor, and 5 megapixel camera.

Overall, HTC's new lineup is a small step ahead of what they unveiled last year, but certainly not what many were expecting. We still don't see the appeal of having a phone with a dedicated Facebook button and the new devices seem to be a rehash or even inferior to the HTC Desire HD or the Desire Z which were unveiled last fall. The HTC Flyer is certainly not in the same class as the Motorola XOOM, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, or the LG Optimus Pad, but we certainly do see that it has some potential to succeed.

Our questions to you: are any of HTC's new devices a must-have for the first half of 2011?

Gallery

Related content:

NVIDIA KOs the competition, quad-core CPUs in Android devices by summer

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 03:59 PM PST

Everyone in the industry was aware that NVIDIA was working on a quad-core processor, but I doubt that any expected them to demo their next-generation Tegra at Mobile World Congress. Tonight in front of a small audience of bloggers, NVIDIA showed off the world´s first mobile quad-core CPU and revealed it would arrive in Android devices this August.

Before we dive into the details of the this chip, I wanted to point out how NVIDIA chose to reveal this information to the world. Instead of paper-launching their next-generation CPU and saying it would arrive in 2012 (like Qualcomm and Texas Instruments did just days ago), NVIDIA skipped the press release entirely and delivered a working tablet along with several jaw-dropping software demos.

The Tegra roadmap revealed

The Tegra roadmap through 2014.

The presentation started with NVIDIA announcing their Tegra roadmap through 2014. Sticking with earlier statements, NVIDIA will maintain their yearly cadence by release a new Tegra every year.

The Tegra 2 has often been referred to as a super-chip, so NVIDIA went with super-hero names for their upcoming mobile chips. Project Kal-El (assumed to become Tegra 3) will arrive in 2011 and deliver 5x the performance of Tegra 2, followed by Wayne in 2012, Logan in 2013, and Stark in 2014.

As ridiculous as this sounds, Project Stark (Tegra 6?) is expected to deliver 100x the performance of Tegra 2 in just three years from now.

Unbelievable performance

CoreMark benchmark comparing Kal-El to the Intel Core2Duo.

To demonstrate the power of their quad-core CPU, NVIDIA started with an Android tablet decoding 1440p video to an extreme HD monitor (2560 × 1600 panel). It looked simply amazing. We were later told the source video was shot with a Red digital camera and then downscaled to 1440p for the demonstration.

Next we saw a series of game demos that compared the current Tegra 2 with the upcoming Project Kal-El. We were asked not to reveal the details of several games, but we did witness about a 3x performance increase in graphics performance. Advanced games that could barely crack 20 frames per second on Tegra 2 were running at a silky smooth 60 fps on Kal-El.

One game demo we can talk about is History Channel Great Battles: Medieval from War Drums Studios. This game was released for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 last year and it was currently being ported to Honeycomb tablets. Thomas Williamson, lead developer and CEO, had less than 24 hours to get the demo running on the quad-core Kal-El, but he was able to pull it off since NVIDIA´s new platform uses a similar GeForce GPU architecture.

Next we saw some benchmarks like CoreMark, which showed Kal-El (score of 11,354) out performing Intel´s 2 GHz Core2Duo T7200 (score of 10,136). NVIDIA said this silicon was only 12 days old, so we can only expect that performance will continue to improve as they optimize the platform.

Highlights of Project Kal-El include:

World´s first mobile quad-core CPU
New 12-core NVIDIA GPU, with support for 3D stereo
Extreme HD – 2560 x 1600
5x Tegra 2

Overall, I was extremely impressed with that NVIDIA showed. I have the whole thing captured on video, but there is no way that will be going up tonight on my hotel´s WiFi connection.

Update: Here is a video of some of the demos courtesy of Will Park from IntoMobile.

Availability

The most shocking part of the event came when NVIDIA shared the availability for Kal-El. The chips are sampling now and we should see them in tablets by August and smartphones will arrive by Christmas (confirming an earlier prediction of mine).

Michael Rayfield, General Manager of Mobile of NVIDIA´s mobile business unit, hinted at this when we previously spoke with him at CES saying, "It will be pretty quick. I believe I will have my next generation Tegra in production probably before my competitors have their dual-core in production. And so that talks a lot about velocity."

NVIDIA´s aggressive release schedule is still shocking because the other semiconductor companies are not expected to have comparable chips until the second half of 2012.

Imagine the possibilities

If you thought the Atrix 4G was an innovative product, just wait till you see what the mobile device manufactures dream up for Kal-El.

I´ll go out on a limb and predict that Google will select Tegra 3 as the lead platform for the next major Android release (Jelly bean?) and slap it in their Nexus 3 this Christmas. Maybe my dream handset with Android, Chrome OS, and Google TV on a single device will actually become a reality.

Reactions

This is such huge breaking news that I am still trying to comprehend how it will change the mobile industry. I´m hitting publish now, but I will continue to update this post throughout the night.

For more coverage of Kal-El check out:

We would love to hear what you think in the mean time.

Related content:

Redbox releases Android application

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 02:30 PM PST

Good news, movie lovers! Popular movie rental company Redbox has released an Android application onto the market today.

Similar to the features found on their website, the Redbox app allows users to browse Redbox’s entire movie catalog and find and reserve that movie at your local Redbox station. You can also browse the currently available selection at a particular Redbox, which comes in handy when you don’t really know which movie you want to see or don’t really want to venture too far away to pick up a quick flick.

If you use Redbox’s movie rental service, you probably should go ahead and download the newly-released Android application from the market. It requires that you have Android 1.6 or higher (sorry Cliq XT users!).

redbox Redbox Automated Retail, LLC MARKET QR

No related content found.