Hands-On With Acer's New 10-Inch Android Tablet

adeelarshad82 writes "Earlier this week Acer unveiled three new tablets, two for Android and one for Windows. Unfortunately details on the devices were slim, including their names. According to a hands-on with the 10-inch Android tablet, the device is about half-inch thick and weighs slightly more than an iPad. It's currently running an unknown Android version but according to the Acer executives the tablets will be running Google's tablet version of Android, Honeycomb. The tablet has no front-facing buttons. The side includes a power button, lock button, an SD slot and a docking port for full-sized keyboard dock. The device also includes two cameras, front and back, resolutions details of which are still unknown. There's also a mini HDMI port for playing content on HDTVs. The tablets are powered by Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU which gives it the edge when it comes to graphics."

Comments

I don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it have 3G and the wifis?

It's the apps, stupid

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Back when Bill Clinton was running for President, his campaign advisor James Carville stated in the plainest terms possible the best reason for voting for Bill over Bush, "It's the economy, stupid"

Now we have a choice between the iPad and this Android device. Both have fine featuresets, but what it all comes down to is what you can run on them. It's the apps, stupid. Which one has a richer appstore? Which one has the apps you're looking for? Which one has a large, dedicated application developer community?

I think we all know the answer to those questions. As much as it pains us to say, Apple has done those things very well while the Android market has floundered helplessly. So count my vote for Apple, because at the end of the day I want to get my work done, not just play around with a shiny toy.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[$1uck]

The apps will come. I have an iPad, I'll most likely pick up the 7" acer tablet when it's out. I'm not super impressed with any of the apps on the iPad. Given time I believe the number apps available for android will surpass the number available for the iPad. I'm not sure how you decided the "android market has floundered", and when you asked your trio of questions I really didn't know the answer to your questions. So maybe you need to go ahead and rethink your position.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[Daetrin]

"As much as it pains us to say, Apple has done those things very well while the Android market has floundered helplessly. So count my vote for Apple, because at the end of the day I want to get my work done, not just play around with a shiny toy."

I think you just made an, um, bad analogy. The Android market has tons of productivity apps. It has tons of shopping apps. It has tons of fitness apps. The only kinds of apps it's seriously lacking in right now are games. And it actually does have a lot of games, it's just missing a lot of the high profile games that have become popular on iPhone. If you want to be playing "Game Dev Story" or "Cut the Rope" or "Super Mega Worm" or the latest Squenix game then you need to have an iPhone (for now at least.) If you're okay with fun but not as popular games then you can have just as good a time with Android.

So the iPhone is what you want if you just want to play around with a shiny toy. If you just want to get your work done then either will do.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[pushing-robot]

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/12/tuaw-faceoff-streaming-video-on-the-ipad-with-air-video-and-str/

The iPad has had video streaming apps since the damn thing was released. Maybe you should actually try one (or spend five seconds googling) before you proclaim its shortcomings?

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[GreatDrok]

"Correct, but this toy does something very entertaining that the iPad can't, which is to stream and display video from the home network."

Funny, one of the main uses I have for my iPad is to stream video from my iTunes box. Sure, it's an app I bought called Air Video but it can do it and Apple is rumoured to be developing the AppleTV interface for the iPad too. It's a bit strong to say it can't do it when it clearly can although I'll concede that Apple should provide a solution themselves that works with iTunes directly. Mind you, Air Video also allows me to stream Flash video files directly to the iPad since the server side can convert them into h.264 so that works pretty well and I'll likely keep it around even if Apple provides a more direct video streaming solution for iTunes.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[gstoddart]

They are both toys, I highly doubt you're "working" on either.

Have many people replaced their main work machine entirely with an iPad or similar tablet? Not likely.

Can you actually do work with them? Absolutely. I've used mine to read huge (~ 1000 page) PDF documents away from my desk, and I've also responded to work emails from an airport using wifi. I've also used some mind-mapping type apps to collect my notes for some projects, and documents I put into my dropbox folder are available to me. I've got a reader for wikipedia which keeps everything it reads offline, so I have a bunch of tech references (and a bunch of other stuff) cached for offline access. Heck, I've got a webex client, remote desktop, telnet, some javadocs ...

I'll even give you "toy", but I prefer "portable entertainment system and light internet appliance" ... on two business trips now I've brought my iPad. Which, in addition to allowing me to read my email in airports and hotel lobbies, also gives me games, movies, books, and loads of other things when when I'm stuck in airplanes or in my hotel room. Heck, I can sit in the hotel bar after work with a martini and read google news, check in with the wife via email, and check my calendar *and* checkout nearby restaurants with UrbanSpoon. Sure, I could do that with my laptop, but it's far less convenient (and, my work laptop has wifi disabled as a security measure, so I'd actually need to be plugged into both wire and power to do it).

For the most part, I'm not hearing people claim to have chucked their laptop/desktop in favor of a tablet. That doesn't mean that the things people do with it don't have value to them. Trust me, on a one week business trip ... my iPad is as important to me as my laptop is -- it actually gets more use than the laptop. It lets me cover about 85% of the things I'd use my laptop for, and a bunch of things that I wouldn't want to use my laptop for. (I've tried watching movies on a laptop in a hotel room, and it sucked. Something I can hold like a book and sit in a comfy chair or lay in the bed is awfully nice.)

Trust me, the utility of an iPad is far more than my ability to "work". I'm not going to use it to compile code, run a web server, or generate SQL queries with it. But, I place a high value on the things it does allow me to do, and the way in which I can do them. That fact that it's small and lightweight, has a huge battery life, and will connect to anywhere with free wifi makes it far more convenient than a laptop. Given the size and weight, there are just certain contexts where I'd just as soon have both my iPad and my laptop -- I will use the iPad more, but if I *really* need to dig out the big gun, it's there.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[grub]

There's a great app called AirVideo which streams everything I've thrown at it. It's a measly $2.99 IIRC.

Server runs on your Windows/Mac/Linux box and you connect to it with the iDevice.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[NitroWolf]

Which one has a richer appstore? Which one has the apps you're looking for?

Umm, both have the same apps? Seriously, besides a handful of high profile games, what does Apple have that Android doesn't?

Which one has a large, dedicated application developer community?

Again... the answer is both.

I think we all know the answer to those questions.

Well, if I understand what you were trying to imply correctly, it appears you do not actually know the answer to those questions, so you are thinking incorrectly that we all know the answer, since you don't...

As much as it pains us to say, Apple has done those things very well while the Android market has floundered helplessly. So count my vote for Apple, because at the end of the day I want to get my work done, not just play around with a shiny toy.

Wow... so can you tell me what work you can get done on an iPad (or maybe you're talking about an iPod Touch or an iPhone), because I have an iPod Touch and an iPad and I can't get any real work done on either of them. Not because they are crappy devices, or lack applications, or what have you... but because they aren't built for getting work done. They are built to be shiny entertainment devices, not workhorses. You might *think* you are getting work done on your little iPhone or iPad, but you're not - because it's nigh impossible to be truly productive on the incredibly restrictive iPad (the keyboard on iOS alone would prevent you from doing anything more than hobbling around like an injured bird), not to mention the smaller iPhone or iPod. Then there's the whole problem of the iPad lacking any sort of useful input mechanisms.

But I digress... your entire statement is ridiculous in the extreme. If the Android market is floundering (which I'm not agreeing nor disagreeing with you) the Apple Market is in the same boat. There is absolutely NOTHING in the Apple market that is compelling over the Android Market. I use both extensively, you sound like you are an Apple Fanboi, so I doubt you've actually used an Android based device for any length of time. I think the key take away here is that Android is more flexible and modern than iOS is currently (and likely will ever be) and that is going to be it's advantage, now and in the future. The Android market may be fragmented and may continue to fragment further, and while that has some drawbacks, the gains far outweigh the drawbacks... which is are already seeing in the form of how fast Android devices are taking off compared to Apple. Unless Apple does something drastic with iOS in the not to distant future, they are going to go back to and remain a niche market. I think this is actually fine with Apple, so I don't expect them to be in any race to improve iOS and bring it up to the standards of a modern day OS. Apple is and always has been fine with having a tiny slice of the pie and then charging through the nose for their curated slice.

If that's what floats your boat, fine. But there's nothing there at present and nothing in the future that makes Apple a superior choice any longer. iOS is, has always been and will likely always continue to be a shiny toy (although it's kind of a dull toy now), it's not meant to be productive. Will Android become a productive workhorse? Heck, I don't know, but trying to claim that iOS is one is a total joke. I can get far more done in an Android environment than I can in an iOS one and I don't consider the Android a productive environment, either.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[mikelieman]

Can you take this iPad, plug it into a USB jack on any PC, and copy over whatever files you want?

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[aztracker1]

I can't speak for anyone else, but will address the points with the following prefixes... I refuse to spend another dime on AT&T service, ever. I'll start buying Sony products again long before I use AT&T. After owning several devices with bugs, only to discover they are no longer supported, or locked down in such a way that I can't use them in a way that's convenient to me as a user (like use an mp3 file as a ring tone, or download the opera mobile browser, not speaking specifically to apple here), I prefer devices with the potential for end-user support.

1) I don't care if I'll never compile it... as long as there's support for it, I'm happier in 2-3 years when the vendor isn't supporting the device, I can get updates. (Froyo on my G1, though sluggish, works).

2) I don't care... specifically Linux isn't *THE* end all/be all for embedded devices, and there are other similar OSes available that are equally/more open source.

3) Not just ROMs, but anything the company/vendor feels like making unavailable to artificially protect their other channels, or after they drop support for said device. Dropped support tends to happen very quickly on portable devices.

4) Really don't care too much on this... flash on mobile, especially smaller devices is a waste imho... though not being able to play videos is annoying at best.

5) Google has earned a reputation for delivering quality options with far fewer quirks than other companies. This comes at two costs: a. less feature rich, though what they do offer is solid. and b. google tends to do a lot of data mining, which raises some privacy concerns. As long as you are aware of A, and B I don't see the problem.

6) I don't bash apple for their design decisions (often), I happen to like aspects of Windows 7 *AND* OSX... though I think the applications for those platforms is where the differences come into play a bit more... To me, what keeps me from iOS devices is the artificial lock down regarding being able to side-load applications (I am the great and powerful JOBS, and all apps must go through me, giving me my cut). I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I won't spend my money there... I do own a Macbook.

7) kind of, yes... I can tinker, and my cool toy can do things your cool toy can't... I can do wifi tethering with my phone... For the most part, that was the single biggest selling point for my device is that there was 3rd party dev support, active 3rd party firmware, and the ability to utilize the hardware how *I* see fit.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[dAzED1]

err...if you have 50,000 music streaming apps for ipad, and 500 music streaming apps for android, but the top 10 work about the same...
...then guess what. They're equal. The "music streaming" role has been satisfied. You're not going to be using 50,000 of them at once, anyway.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[Daetrin]

The way you described games is pretty much applicable to the other types of apps you listed. I would be amazed if even half of the non-game apps on my iPad or iPhone are available for Android. The only category that I'm aware of where Android is pretty close to iOS in this regard is music streaming apps, and even there it lags, but it at least has most of the main ones that come to mind.

I'd certainly be interested to see a list of what you consider to be key non-game apps, but i guess there was kind of an underlying assumption that i didn't bother to clarify in my post. Unless you are migrating from one system to another, no one really cares which particular productivity app they use, they only care if it does its job well. I don't care how awesome the Mac proprietary office suite is, OpenOffice works fine for me on my PC. I know my old fitness app had both iPhone and Android versions. When they started requiring access to contact info because they wanted to integrate with Facebook i switched to a different app, and i don't care if this new app is on the iPhone or not, it does what i want it to do.

But stereotypes aside, gaming is a much more social activity. I'm sure there was an "Angry Birds" clone on Android long before the real thing came over. It could even have been just as good as the original game in its own way. But everyone was still eager to pick up the real Angry Birds game when it was available because they wanted to play the same game everyone else was talking about. They wanted to talk to their friends about it, or beat their friends' scores, or were just curious to see what the buzz was about, or whatever. No one (okay, almost no one =) runs up to their friends shouting "i just found this amazing new spreadsheet program on my phone! You have to try it out!"

For any kind of productivity app all that's needed is functional parity. For games or social apps however everyone is going to want whatever the cool new thing is. And for the moment at least the iPhone has the lion's share of the cool new things. Particularly with games, since games are so much harder to port/simultaneously develop than the social apps are.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[sootman]

>> Which one has a richer appstore? Which one has the apps you're looking for?

> Umm, both have the same apps? Seriously, besides a handful of high profile games, what does Apple have that Android doesn't?

For the answer, see here and here.

Let's sort all Android apps into the following categories:

1. Apps from Google.
2. Third-party apps that also exist on iOS.
3. Third-party apps that are exclusive to Android.

From my time spent with the Nexus One early this year, I know that Google's Android apps are pretty good. These include both the core system apps, and the closed-source "Google Experience" apps like the dedicated Gmail client and Google Maps.

There are definitely a fair number of apps in the second category -- those ported to both iOS and Android. Examples: Amazon's Kindle client, Pandora, and a few popular games, such as Angry Birds and Doodle Jump.

But what I find striking is that the apps in the third category -- those exclusive to Android -- are almost entirely unappealing or irrelevant to iOS users.

That's not to say there's nothing in Android, as a system, that appeals to iPhone owners. Built-in turn-by-turn navigation on certain models. A system-wide notification system. Widgets on the homescreen. Over-the-air system updates. Unrestricted background processing for third-party apps, battery-life be damned. But those are things that are built into the system itself, or which otherwise come from Google. What I'm questioning is the strength and depth of Android's third-party developer support.

Which are the apps, from developers other than Google, that I should feel like I'm missing out on because I don't have an Android device? Where are the killer apps for Android?

Turn the table and we could be here all day running down the list of high-quality, interesting apps which are exclusive to iOS.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[hey!]

I have to say that other than games, you've just named the things I like *least* about the iTunes store. I don't give a fig what apps the staff likes, and I *really* hate the way iTunes wants to steer your purchases to what they think is (or want to be) hot.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[peragrin]

There is a major shortage of developers for android. that is why HTC doesn't support any phone for more than 6 months old and 3/4 of their product line recieves nothing but basic updates to the OS.

Seriously name more than 1 android phone that recieves regular updates from the vendor for the software. You can't do it. after 6-9 months they all stop allowing updates.

Apple gives you 2-3 years everyone else gives you the middle finger.

I want an android phone, but i really don't want to have to root, and then install my own updates because some vendor is cheap.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[Sleepy]

As a web developer, the iPad kicks ass for getting work done.. actually *replacing* my laptop for many things: reviewing online (or offline) documentation, checking email, and oh.. testing my work via Safari Mobile. If your work IS the web, the iPad rocks. In a pinch, I could code on it using a bluetooth keyboard, but that's not really what it is best at obviously.

At the very least, it makes a hell of second or third monitor (and has a much better display than the standard 75DPI used on most desktop and laptop displays).

I do have some serious gripes, primarily that of depending on iTunes to sync everything (but I get around that well enough with an old Linksys NAS200 stuffed with 2Tb in drives, a TZO.COM dynamic dns account, and port forwarding on my home router).

I actually held off on an iPad until the Samsung Galaxy reviews came out... I only use Linux at home and work, and a droid for my phone... I -really- wanted my platform to be a droid. My last "Internet tablet" was a Nokia N800 running Maemo... a pity that Nokia smothered their tablet line and moved the OS goalposts so many times (even now, the n800 is impressive... but lacks newer software).

Maybe in a couple of hardware revisions, android tablets will get there. I'm sure of it. But right now Android is not designed for tablets, and people are trying to force it into that hardware...

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[lordmetroid]

I want to have a tablet which I can freely do as I wish with like any ordinary computer without any trouble of first rooting the machine.

Re:It's the apps, stupid

[R3d M3rcury]

Trust me, as a long time Mac user (my first Mac was a Macintosh), I know the argument well.

Way back when, Macs couldn't do accounting. Why? Because there was no QuickBooks for Mac. No QuickBooks, no accounting. It was that simple for most people. Sure there was AccountEdge and other products, but would you want to trust your company's accounting information to them? All your friends had QuickBooks and they had no problems.

So it becomes a branding issue. QuickBooks = Accounting. AutoCAD = CAD. Microsoft Word = Word Processing. If those programs aren't available, then the fact that you have AccountEdge, ArchiCAD, or Mariner Write that are "just as good, if not better" doesn't mean diddly.

It becomes even more difficult with games, where branding is key. Angry Birds, for example, is a fun game. I'm sure there are plenty of Angry Bird clones out there. But everybody has heard of Angry Birds and they've heard it's a fun game. Which means that's the game you're looking for on your respective platform. If there's no Angry Birds on Windows Phone, for example, then it doesn't have any good games. The fact that "Annoyed Armadillo" is basically the same game is beside the point--no "Angry Birds", no fun games.

Cost?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

How much is it going to cost?

Also, 16:9? Shit! Should be 16:10

Re:Cost?

[Misagon]

I disagree. The ideal would be 3:4 (0.75) to be close to the aspect ratios of A4 (0.71) and US Letter (0.77) paper sizes.
Some of us would like to use pads to get some work done. If I want to watch movies when travelling, I would get a portable DVD player.

Re:Whoa...

[fishexe]

It's the headline. If it were "Acer's New 10" Andriod Tablet Proves to be a better alternative to the overpriced Apple iPad" then, you'd see a lot more comments.

Also, if they had found a way to work in the word "tits".

Re:That last line

[$1uck]

I don't see "rich 3d" games being that big of a deal on a tablet. The interface just isn't conductive to playing a game in 3 dimensions at least it doesn't seem that way to me. The most successful games that I'm aware of seem to be more along the lines of Plants vs Zombies, Angry birds, and various tower defense games.

Why android?

[Keruo]

Where are Maemo/Meego tablets?
Why is everyone pushing android for tablets when even the original author says it's not designed for that purpose.
Maemo & Meego are opensource and free, and they are designed to be used on tablets.

Re:Why android?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Where's the application infrastructure? Third parties, distribution, OS drivers, etc?

With MeeGo, it's not there. Not for MeeGo specific apps.

Re:Why android?

[drinkypoo]

What does it mean for an operating system to be designed for tablets? Who cares who puts input events onto the queue and who services them so long as it happens?

Re:Why android?

[farble1670]

Why is everyone pushing android for tablets when even the original author [engadget.com] says it's not designed for that purpose.

that article refers to android 2.2. android 3.0 is specifically designed with tablets in mind and is targeted for early next year. most vendors are waiting for 3.0 before joining the tablet race.

Maemo & Meego are opensource and free, and they are designed to be used on tablets.

maybe because nobody knows what the heck maemo / meego / moblin are therefore wouldn't buy a tablet based on something they've never heard of. i'm just saying ...

Re:Why android?

[Microlith]

Where's the application infrastructure? Third parties, distribution, OS drivers, etc?

With MeeGo, it's not there. Not for MeeGo specific apps.

Well, if Acer is going to supply their own store then they're supplying the infrastructure. MeeGo is a middleware platform that resembles a standard Linux distro that pulls heavily from upstream, instead of a massive NIH effort designed around pushing Google's services out to the world.

Most of the anti-MeeGo comments I see stem mostly from not understanding what, exactly, MeeGo is supposed to be.

Re:Why android?

[Sleepy]

Nokia *alienated* their user base, sadly.

As an n800 owner, I expected the hardware would become obsolete... eventually. I could see making the n800 with built in GPS... but then the n900 as a PHONE and then signaling to the developer base that Maemo5 will abandon the 800 + 810 user base... that hurt. Then the n900 was obsoleted before it even shipped.

Nokia gets praise for making a system that was largely open, but they weren't open enough. When a product is truly open, it can not be killed by the manufacturer.

I suspect developing for MeGoo is inly slightly more relevant than developing for the nostalgia/emulator crowd.

I'd like to see a tablet that's truly open... something that encourages hacking, as in a tablet equivalent of the Arduino platform (a popular micro processor based on open sourced hardware).

Re:Why android?

[Microlith]

When a product is truly open, it can not be killed by the manufacturer.

The N900 is plenty open. And my device hasn't gone tits up on me because Nokia threw some switch. And their handling of the Internet Tablets/N900 has nothing to do with MeeGo, which exists under the Linux Foundation.

I suspect developing for MeGoo is inly slightly more relevant than developing for the nostalgia/emulator crowd.

I'm confused. How is developing for a Linux distro that uses Qt as its primary toolkit like "developing for the nostalgia/emulator crowd"?

making up for some bad karma

[callmebill]

With an Informative! These details were on a photo in TFA of a presentation:
General Information:
Launch time: APR 2011
Positioning: Provide a complete Android tabel with full HD media and web anywhere

Features:
Dual coe 1.0 Ghz processor with Flash 10.1 support for the fasted HD web experience and multimedia playback anywhere
The latest and the highly intuitive good android tablet os and acer UI 4.5 to reach a whole new level of interactivity
SMP rear-facing camera + HD front-facing camera for vide, video chat, quickly snapping a picture and uploading it to Facebook, YoTube, Picasa, and also for barcode scanning.
HDMI output to playback HD content on DFTV or Hi_Def montor for HD extensibility.

Industrial Design:
36[?] design ensure optimal on-screen experience for every angle.
Aluminum...provide a ... tactile sensation..anodized....decorated with engraved textures...sophis

Android without Market

[tepples]

The Android market has tons of productivity apps. It has tons of shopping apps. It has tons of fitness apps.

Are these only on the Market, or are they also available as .apk files for devices without official access to the Market? As of right now, Android media players (e.g. Archos) and Android tablets without 3G tend to come without Market access.

The real story?

[earlymon]

I don't know that Acer rules any roost, so I think the point of this story is that tablets are getting bigger, more powerful and hopefully, as implied by the Acer name - cheaper.

So far as I can tell, the big winner here is the 10" screen - using tired old LCD tech.

Personally, I think where tablets lose is the display (not e-ink) and for those that may be interested, there's an Android tablet on the horizon with Pixel Qi tech and Qualcomm's Mirasol is also something to know about:

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2010/11/05/pixel-qi-powered-notion-ink-adam-android-tablet-in-time-for-the-holidays/

For some other tablet alternatives - http://www.anythingbutipad.com/

(I got nothing against the iPad, that's just a halfway decent site for a tablet alternative.)

My 2 cents on tablet ownership would be - match your OS to your cell phone if you can because it makes your transition from one device to another smoother and tablets should be all about ease of use. In that sense, Acer's move to offer these things in Androids and Windows shows real insight on their part (and no sad surprise - no Linux out of the box, again).

I'm OS agnostic and believe in the right OS for the job, fwiw.

If the damn thing was just a computer...

[maillemaker]

If the damn thing was just a computer, who would care about a fucking "app store"???

I don't go buy my PC based on writes software for it. Is this like 1975 when the hardware was thrown in for free to get you locked into their software?

Read the memo again

[paiute]

Please in the future stick to the style manual: any headline about a tablet has to include the words "iPad killer". See the previous memo about mp3 players.

If you want to be an early adopter

[Fnkmaster]

Buy the Viewsonic G Tablet now. The software sucks, but there are already several custom ROMs available - a port of CyanogenMod 6.1 (beta), ZPad, and TnT Lite - just check out the XDA Developers forums for all your ROM needs. It has a Tegra 2, 10" capacitive touch screen and has home/search/back/menu buttons like a proper Android device.

It runs Market and gets almost every app after applying the Market fix, all the Android games I've tried run great, YouTube is great for dumb video content in a pinch, my K-9mail push IMAP mail is there, contact sync and calendar sync with Google works, and it plays downloaded video content just fine (I haven't experimented with HD content yet - I don't really see the point on a tablet device). I like the Aldiko and Kindle e-readers and I read PDF ebooks with RepliGo Reader (better than the free Adobe Reader, IMO).

If, on the other hand, you want a tablet that works great out-of-the-box, without installing custom ROMs and recovery images, get an iPad. That's what my wife has. There aren't any Android tablets that are there yet, and most likely won't be until Android officially supports them and will let the official Market ship with the device.

But for the Slashdot early adopter set, the G Tablet is a pretty cool option that you can pick up right now for under $400 at Sears or Staples.

Re:That last line

[samkass]

Sure, it might have "The Edge" - but that doesn't mean its always a good thing.

"The Edge" over what, anyway? These devices aren't going to ship for 3-5 months, by which time they'll be competing against iPad2 and who-knows-what. The fact that the specs are even comparable to this past year's machine kind of indicates it won't have "the edge" in performance over anything.

Misread the title

[MarkGriz]

Thought this was another TSA patdown story.