With a dizzying array of 7-inch Android tablets quietly penetrating the market this year, we wondered how well the lower-priced 7-inch tablets performed. Surprisingly, ViewSonic’s ViewPad 7e ran virtually everything we threw at it, and did so surprisingly well.
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In preparation for reviewing ViewSonic’s low-cost 7-inch Android tablet, this post tabulates the key features and specifications of five 7-inch Android tablets. The comparison includes ViewSonic’s ViewPad 7e and 7x, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and Barns & Noble’s Nook Tablet.
Before launching into this review, which pits Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 against Apple’s iPad 2, I took a few days to familiarize myself with the Galaxy Tab’s Android 3.1 (“Honeycomb”) OS. The thing is, I’d already used iOS on an iPod Touch for two years, but was a rank newbie when it came to Android.
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Barnes & Noble has added a new 7-inch color tablet to its Nook line, positioning it head-to-head with Amazon’s recently announced Kindle Fire. For $50 over the Kindle Fire’s $199 price, the Nook Tablet offers double the built-in RAM and flash memory, and adds a microSD slot plus a built-in mic.
A recent survey probed the reasons why consumers buy iPad-style tablets, and where and how the devices are being used. Interestingly, non-iPad users reported 30 minutes more daily tablet use, on average, than iPad users.
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Two startups are about to go “chrono y chrono” with competing Android smartwatch gizmos. The “I’m Watch” exclusively targets smartwatch applications, whereas the “WIMM Platform” is meant to create “a new market of connected wearable devices that deliver timely, relevant information at a glance” — of which smartwatches are but one example.
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Netflix has released a new version of its video-streaming app for Android devices that officially adds support for Android 3.x (Honeycomb) tablets. The October 19 release of Netflix app v1.5.0 build 360 also extends Netflix’s Android support to Canada and Latin America for the first time.
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A quiet walk by the home of Steve and Laurene Powell Jobs this morning presented the opportunity to share in the outpouring of love, respect, and admiration for one of the greatest technology innovators of our time. Below are some photos that provide a sense of the ongoing spontaneous tribute to Steve from the Palo Alto community and beyond.
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Amazon is poised to grab a big chunk of the emerging web-tablet market with a device that’s half the size, half the performance, and half the price of Apple’s iconic iPad. The Android-powered, Wifi-only Kindle Fire sports a 7-inch color display, and enters the market priced at $200.
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According to market analyst Nielsen’s August market data, more than half (56 percent) of the smartphones acquired over the most recent three months ran Android. Perhaps the market analyst’s most interesting observation, though, is that innovators prefer Android to iOS by a margin of 40 to 32 percent.
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