Friday, June 3, 2011

Android and Me

Android and Me

Intel’s Oak Trail gets benchmarked on Honeycomb, we’re somewhat disappointed

Posted: 03 Jun 2011 01:27 PM PDT

Intel might be losing the mobile chip war, but they’re certainly not giving up. Today at Computex, the company showed off a Honeycomb tablet prototype powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz Atom Z670 Oak Trail processor. The tablet, which is made by Compal, also has 1GB of RAM and a GPU based on the PowerVR SGX535. Looking at the specs, you’d expect this prototype to smoke every other Android tablet available today. But no, not even close.

According to the gentlemen at Tweakers.net, Intel has a lot of catching up to do. Right after getting their hands on the tablet, they did what every other geek does after getting a device, they put it through a series of benchmarks — and the results are not promising. On popular benchmark suites like CaffeineMark, Linpack, and Quadrant, the Intel-powered tablet lost by a huge margin to other Android tablets like the Acer A500 Iconia Tab, and the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Galaxy Tab. Interestingly, the tablet did very well on the SunSpider benchmark, taking first place away from the Asus Eee Transformer Pad.

While it’s too early to tell whether Intel’s Oak Trail will be able to take on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, the early results are in, and they’re bad news for Intel. What do you guys think? Do you think that Intel stands a chance in the over-competitive mobile chip market? Would you consider buying an Intel-powered Android tablet?

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Video: LG Optimus Black races the competition and beats them on physical specs

Posted: 03 Jun 2011 10:30 AM PDT

It is Friday! There is no better way to start the weekend than grabbing some tasty appetizers and beverages to enjoy along with a nice race! Only this is a different type of race. LG Mobile has put together a video of the LG Optimus Black on a race against the current best devices on the market.

The video does not mention the exact names of the other racers, probably due to legal reasons. One can speculate which devices they are talking about due to the similarity of the names though, and of course, by the way they look.

Though we wish LG would have included other specs, this video focuses on the physical qualities of the devices, but it is very entertaining nonetheless. If you do want to see more details about the Optimus Black, check out our hands-on with the device, along with the unboxing and benchmarks.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the race! Just for kicks, lets see how well you guys know the devices out there (“I want to play a game”)! Tell us which phones are the contestants! Personally, I am having doubts with one, the “HighTech Dwayne” (HTC Dream? It really doesn’t look like it on the video).


Official Gingerbread update for the HTC EVO 4G is now available

Posted: 03 Jun 2011 09:04 AM PDT

HTC EVO 4G users can now manually download the Android 2.3.3 update.  Sprint will start pushing out update notifications to EVO 4G owners on June 6th, but they are allowing users to trigger the update manually by pressing Menu > Settings > System Updates > HTC Software Update > Check Now > OK > Yes. The update file for the EVO is 110 MB in size, indicating that it does not include any of the new HTC Sense  features found on the HTC Thunderbolt or HTC Inspire 4G.

The Gingerbread update will include a new Downlaods app for easy access to all your downloaded content and should also fix a few random SMS and Gmail issues which has popped up since the EVO's last update.  Be sure to let us know how the update process goes and how you like the latest build.

Update: Several users are reporting various bugs/hiccups with the update. We’ve heard the gamut here, from individuals stuck on the triangle with exclamation point screen to the update breaking LED notifications, Netflix, and the phone constantly reporting having a voicemail message when one doesn’t exist. Experiencing any of these problems? Let us know in the comments. [via Android Police]

Android gets console-quality games thanks to OnLive (Video)

Posted: 03 Jun 2011 08:24 AM PDT

That day when you’ll be able to play Call of Duty while sitting on a plane or or at the park is almost here. At Qualcomm’s Uplinq yesterday, OnLive announced the Universal Wireless Controller. The controller will allow you to play video games on any device that supports OnLive, including OnLive’s own MicroConsole, PC, Mac, Vizio TVs with VIA Plus, and most importantly Android tablets and smartphones. In OnLive CEO, Steve Perlman’s own words:

We set out to make OnLive available everywhere. Now that this is a reality, consumers need a way to enjoy the full OnLive experience on any device. The new OnLive Universal Wireless Controller places high-quality gameplay in your hands whether on a TV, computer, tablet/smartphone device or on future OnLive-compatible devices yet to be introduced.Steve PerlmanCEO and Founder of OnLive

The Universal Wireless Controller will able to talk to these devices either via some voodoo magic wireless technology that the company didn’t want to talk about or a USB dongle. The HTC Flyer on the video below is using this unknown wireless technology, and it seems to be performing rather flawlessly. According to Engadget, “gaming was as good on the Flyer as it is on a PC, with little lag and the same quality graphics”. That’s music to our ears.

OnLive is not resting either, the company plans “to have 50 million Blu-ray players and 25 million Internet TVs shipped with the service on board by the end of the year”. Hopefully, this means that Google TV will get OnLive over the coming months. This would catapult the platform into the middle of the video-game console war, where Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo own most of the market.

However, Google TV has one big advantage over the Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PS3, it comes pre-installed on your TV. If playing games through OnLive is just like playing them on a Xbox 360 or a PS3, why buy either of those consoles when you already have a Google TV-powered device at home.

Looking at the video below, you get the sense that this is the future of gaming. Pretty soon, there’ll be no more dedicated devices for just playing games. Instead, as long as you have your OnLive controller on you, you’ll be able to play on anything that has a screen — from Google TV and Chromebooks to Android tablets and phones.


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