Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Helpful Hints For iPad Users

There seems to be no stopping the success of the iPad, with the iPad 2 selling out in major markets like Europe, America and Australia almost as soon as it hit the shops. Indeed the success of this particular mobile device from Apple seems to be virtually recession-proof, presumably thanks to the useful combination of computer and smartphone functions that it provides its users with. However, whether you are adjusting to the new iPad 2 or are a first time user of the device, it can be handy to have some hints for helping you get the most out of the device, so here are some things to bear in mind.
 iPad
The first thing to remember is that the closed Apple system that all iPads operate on makes it much less vulnerable to viruses and hackers than PCs or other mobile devices, because you can only download apps that have been vetted by Apple. This restriction is not much of a hassle, as the apps that are available should cover all needs, and is a blessing when it comes to risky software such as that for a download-based online casino. The software needed for this can carry a risk of malware, which is significantly reduced by the closed system. It is recommended to use reputable sites for ipad casino games and registered for your country such as an Australian online casino.
When it comes to using the functions of the iPad there are a number of hints that will help you get used to it. For example, if you are trying to access a website that has an address ending in something different than .com, you can locate alternative URL endings like .net and .org by pressing down and holding the .com button on the iPad keyboard. Alternatively if you want to take a screen shot, you should press down on the ‘home’ button, while simultaneously clicking the on/off button, which will take the photograph and save it in your photos file.

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Friday, August 3, 2012

Archos G10 tablet with slimmer design to be unveiled in three weeks

Archos been manufacturing MIDs/tablets even before Apple announced the iPad. But they’ve always been more about low-end to mid-end devices, than about making gadgets that actually look and feel premium. It looks like that’s about to change with Archos’ Gen 10 tablets, which look like they were made to compete in the high-end market, hopefully for a lower price.
A few months back we got a glimpse of the Archos G10 XS, which is meant to be a competitor to the Transformer series from Asus. That seems like a good move, as I think there’s a lot of room on the market for hybrid devices that are not too expensive, and run much better than Windows 7 netbooks.
As an added benefit, tablets fitted with keyboard docks usually have a much longer battery life than netbooks. Asus Transformer devices can typically claim over 15-18 hours of use, a performance that is buoyed by the extra battery found in the dock. We don’t know if Archos plans to put a battery in the dock as well, but judging from its thickness , I’d say it includes a battery.
The Archos G10 tablet that you can see in the first image (teased on Facebook) of this post is supposed to be unveiled in 3 weeks, and it might not be the same G10 XS device. I expect the device to arrive with ICS, not Jelly Bean, and probably a Tegra 3 chip.

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Samsung starts sending invites for Berlin Unpacked event, hints at Galaxy Note 2 unveiling

CES, MWC, and IFA are the events that usually host the unveilings of some of the most important new Android devices. Almost all of the big names in mobile tech have made a habit of using major trade shows to show off their latest “thinnest phone ever” or “world’s snappiest tablet”.
Samsung, on the other hand, seems to have started its own tradition, which consists of holding special “Unpacked” events, outside the established trade shows, to unveil new products. That has been the case with the Galaxy S3, presented at a huge London event back in May, and it seems that the company’s upcoming devices will get the same treatment.
We’ve known for a while that Sammy is preparing a new “Unpacked” event for August 29 or 30, and now the first invites have started to go out, confirming the date, but also hinting at the device to be unveiled.
One of the first invitation was received by the guys over at Dutch website MobileCowboys, who have been kind enough to publish it online. The Berlin event will take place on August 29, at 19:00 (we’re guessing Germany time, so GMT+2), and it will most likely have the Galaxy Note 2 as the star.
Unpacked-IFA-2012 2 
Why are we saying that? Well, because there’s a stylus nicely placed on the Unpacked logo, hinting at the presentation of a gadget with support for such an accessory. Interestingly enough, Samsung is yet to send invitations for another event, which should take place on August 15. There’s a good chance that we will see the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet at that event, but we can’t exclude the possibility of Samsung showing both the Note 10.1 and the Galaxy Note 2 at the Unpacked event on August 29.
The invite for the pre-IFA event also includes a marketing slogan (“when magical moments come alive”), but that’s much too vague to reveal anything about the product(s) to debut in Berlin.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is one of the most anticipated gadgets to be released in the near future, with rumors and leaks flowing for the past couple of months. If you aren’t up to date with all these, you can check out our rumor roundup here, but also this “slipped” benchmark from a couple of weeks ago. Now tell us you’re not excited about it!

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Galaxy Note 10.1 specs and features apparently confirmed, release date not so much

GALAXY Note 10.1
Announced back in February at MWC 2012 in Barcelona, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is yet to be available in stores, and at this point we’re wondering when the device will finally ship to consumers.
We know that Samsung is tweaking the tablet to offer an even better performance and we now have a new list of specs and features for the device, if Sam Mobile’s latest post is to be believed.
According to the publication, which received the manual for the device from an anonymous source, the device will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich on board, and Samsung will upgrade it to Jelly Bean at a later date. The Galaxy Note 10.1 is also expected to sport a 1.4 quad-core processor similar to the one found on the Galaxy S3 handset.
Here’s what you can expect from the device, according to the above image:
  • 10.1 WXGA TFT touchscreen display
  • 1.4GHz quad-core processor (replacing the initial 1.4GHz dual-core processor)
  • 5-megapixel camera with auto focus, LED flash and 720p video recording (replacing the initial 3.15-megapixel camera with auto focus, LED flash and 1080p video recording)
  • Bluetooth 4.0 (replacing the initial Bluetooth 3.0 on board)
  • USB 2.0
  • 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
  • A-GPS
  • Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Gyroscope, Light sensor
  • Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
 
At the same time, the image above could be a fake one – and we do notice the misspelling of “acceleration,” which seems to suggest that – so take everything with a grain of salt.
We’ll also remind you that Samsung has scheduled two special media events for August, one on August 15, and one on August 29, with the latter now hinted to feature a stylus-based device.
Since we expect the Galaxy Note 2 to be unveiled in less than two weeks, should we assume that the Galaxy Note 10.1 will be re-announced at IFA in Germany?
Anyone excited?

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Lenovo to launch IdeaTab A2105, A2107 and A2109 in September, pricing and spec sheets unknown

Usually, when we first hear about an unreleased smartphone or tablet that is “set to come soon”, it happens through leaks that unveil at least part of the gadget’s spec sheet, while leaving its official branding and ETA to mystery.
Lenovo has decided to break this “tradition”, however, and has made three of its future gadgets official, way ahead of their public release, without letting much slip about their spec sheets. The IdeaTab A2105, A2107 and A2109 form an intriguing tablet trio that will hit the market sometime in September. Let’s see what we know about each of these gadgets and why you should be interested in them.

Lenovo IdeaTab A2105

“Tablet, smartphone, all in.” That’s how the A2105 is advertised on Lenovo’s official website, and we have to say it’s not a bad way to get our attention. However, it’s unlikely that this will be another Padfone that you can easily turn from a phone to a tablet and the other way around.
 
Instead, we think that Lenovo has just found a clever way of marketing what we have come to call a “phablet”. The A2105 is set to sport a 5-inch touchscreen, and will come with a “stainless steel internal roll cage”, offline GPS navigation, “long battery life”, and dual SIM configuration. By the looks of it, the 5-incher might just be one of the first high-end dual SIM phones around, but the question is whether high-tech fans are interested in that particular function.
We don’t know how the A2105 will be technically equipped, but we do know that it will come with “up to Android 4.0”. Hopefully, the “up” is either a spelling error or a precautionary method, because we can’t even conceive seeing mid-range or high-end phones released in September 2012 with Gingerbread on board.

Lenovo IdeaTab A2107

The “affordable palm size entertainment” device will sport a 7-inch touchscreen, will have 3G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as Android 4.0 ICS, and offline GPS navigation. Based on the tablet’s name, but also on the official pic published on Lenovo’s website, there’s a good chance this will be the global version of the recently released China-bound LePad A2107.
 
The LePad came with a single-core 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, a 3,550 mAh battery, dual 3 MP/2 MP cameras, and a microSD card slot. In addition to all that, the Chinese 7-incher had dual-SIM support, but there’s a good shot the global IdeaTab A2107 will lack that particular feature.

Lenovo IdeaTab A2109

 
The last device of Lenovo’s trio is not the high-end flagship you would expect, but rather advertises to bring “full size fun on a small budget”. The A2109 will be a rather bizarre 9-incher with an HD 1280 x 800 pixels resolution display. Other known features include the running of Android 4.0 ICS, dual 3MP/1.3 MP cameras, and an aluminum shell that could make this quite the elegant gadget.
It’s hard to make any predictions without knowing the tab’s other tech specs, but there’s a chance this might actually prove to be an attractive device (provided it comes at the right price).
So, what do you think? Will you be looking for any one of these three tablets when they are up for sale?

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Thursday, August 2, 2012

New Blackberry PlayBook OS 2.0 Now Available For Download

No more waiting fellas! BlackBerry PlayBook OS has been updated to the version 2.0 and is now available For Download. This new update has come up with lots of new features.
These new features include an integrated e-mail client with unified inbox which put all your messages from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and from your personal e-mail accounts in one place. This provides more convenience to the user. In this update more applications have been added. The new built-in calender stores up the events from the social-media. The virtual keyboard can now automatically correct the spell mistakes and predict the next word.
Blackberry PlayBook OS 2.0
While announicing the update Mr. David J. Smith said:
Building on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet’s proven web browsing, multimedia and multitasking strengths, the new BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 introduces a range of new communications and productivity enhancements as well as expanded app and content support.
A new application BlackBerry Bridge has been added in this update with the help of which the users can view content of their mobile and tablets on the larger displays. It acts as a bridge between the BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook. You can pick up the photos, web pages, documents and almost everything from your BlackBerry smartphone and can view it on PlayBook. Browsing will be more smoother and fast with BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0.

Summarizing all new BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 features

  • Integrated email client
  • Unified inbox
  • Autocorrection and prediction of words
  • Viewing content on other device using Bridge app
  • Fast web browsing
This update is now available and you can download it from here.

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RIM Announced BlackBerry Curve 9320 & 9220 Specs

It was last week that we told you about that leaked BlackBerry Roadmap for the year 2012. The roadmap showcased of some of RIM’s upcoming devices. Two of which will be part of Research in Motion’s ever-growing line of BlackBerry Curve handsets. Guess what? It seems that the leaked details shown in the roadmap were correct.
From what we have recently heard, the two BlackBerry Curve handsets will be made available sometime within this year. There’s no particular date of availability but there have been reports stating that both handsets will be equipped with entry-level specs.
BlackBerry Curve 9320 & 9220
Dubbed as the BlackBerry Curve 9320, the mobile device will be flaunting its 2.44 inch qVGA display that will go alongside with its 3.2 mega pixel rear facing camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM Radio, GPS, Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Proximity Sensor, up to 32GB of micro SD card storage, 512MB of RAM, physical QWERTY keyboard and optical trackpad. The phone will have a built-in support for HSDPA 7.2 and HSUPA 5.76. It will be offered as a quad band device that can connect via GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900. The price of the handset wasn’t revealed but it seems that it will only be made available at selected countries in Asia and East Africa.
The BlackBerry Curve 9220, on the other hand, will be offered as a 2.44 inch handset with qVGA display and a full screen resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. In addition, the phone will also be equipped with 2MP rear camera with Fixed Focus and 5x Digital Zoom, physical QWERTY keypad, optical trackpad, 512MB of RAM, up to 32GB of uSD card, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, Digital Compass, Accelerometer, Proximity Sensors and FM Radio. Just like the Curve 9320, the phone’s price remains to be told.
Do keep in mind that these leaked specs are yet to confirmed. And despite of the fact that there are lots of budget-friendly Android phones in today’s market, those who are loyal to RIM will still opt for the newer versions of BlackBerry Curve.

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