I highly doubt the battery life has been reduced. The stellar battery life is one of the few things that has me spying over jealously from the Thinkpaddier side of things...
Hell, the new Thinkpads that were just announced will supposedly go for 30 hours straight with a 9-cell + 9-cell slice (basically you strap a battery brick to the bottom), but I doubt we'll see anything more than 10 hours of real usage... just like they keep quoting 9-10 hours for the 9-cell alone, which ends up between 4 and 6 hours.
Although: Do MacBookPros get the same awesome battery life when running Windows natively? Or is it largely OS optimization that gives them such an edge?
That's why I don't use function-specific hardware - pretty much any smartphone or tablet is capable of reflowing PDFs without problems. No need to be stuck with an extremely limited, non-extensible featureset...
In addition, as a heavy Google user (Android and about a dozen non-Android Google services), I've got to say that they're still innovating at a pace that's dizzying at times. Hell, 2-step-verification nearly gave me a nerdgasm... the latest Android version of Google Maps... Honeycomb...
Interesting. That puts the Playstation Phone at an advantage - getting emulators on Android is as easy as downloading them from the market, no root or custom firmware necessary:)
I may be wrong about this, but I don't think the PSP runs NES, SNES, Genesis or Gameboy games, does it? If you're into older stuff, an Android phone with a gamepad is a fantastic proposition...
That's because it's also MUCH more useful. There are tons of things you can do on an X201T that you can't do on an iPad... the other way around? Not so much;)
Black text on a white background with the backlight turned up high in a dark room? Yes, obviously that's going to be quite painful very quickly... turn down the backlight and switch to white, green, grey or light blue text on a black background, et voila: No eyestrain whatsoever, and no need to ambient lighting either, so you can read while the SO is asleep;)
That's just it though - when I read, I'm usually somewhere where I don't always have a tablet. When I'm between classes, on the bus, sitting on the park bench taking a break in the middle of my morning jog... I always have my smartphone in my pocket, but no tablet.
If you'd be schlepping around an e-reader instead, a tablet is pretty much a no-brainer:)
This. I currently own a 3.7" smartphone, and it does everything I could ever want from a pocketable device. As soon as I need a separate bag, I'm taking a machine that does everything I need in all other respects... when an ARM tablet can do everything my Win7/XP/Ubuntu laptops do, I might consider buying one.
Until then, they don't have any place in my day-to-day gear, because the only advantage they offer over my smartphone (ZOMG, bigger screen!) is also a huge disadvantage, because they're too big to take everywhere.
I'll stick with the Android smartphone + Thinkpad X Tablet Series combo, thanks very much.
"As of now, Lookout Security is only aware of the HongTouTou Trojan affecting users on Chinese forums. It does not affect any apps in their original versions available on the Google Android Market."
For example I have Firefox open right now and it's using 500Meg, versus Non-google Chromium which hovers around 40Meg (but also does not have built-in video support - it launches external apps or plugins).
I find it hard to believe that Chromium is so much more RAM-efficient than Chrome - because the latter uses about 20-40MB per tab on my machines...
Also, since(unlike Android or WP7), HP is currently the only distributor of WebOS devices, they have comparatively little to lose if homebrew ROMs circulate around. The only issue that might induce them to take a harder stance would be if commercial publishers start crying about piracy. We'll see if that happens...
Uh... wha? Don't HP have just as much incentive as any other company for planned obsolescence? Wanting to sell new devices instead of having users upgrade their existing devices is a concept completely independent of the number of distributors...:(
I'm having more or less the same dilemna - Android seems to be becoming hackier and hackier, and I feel like we're back in the days of Windows Mobile. As long as HTC mainstream devices continue to be cracked wide open, we shouldn't have any problems, but there's got to be a better way... what I want to see is more devices designed for pure AOSP software, like the Nexus One/S - but multiple devices from all sorts of manufacturers. Big screens, small screens, hardware keyboards, touch-screen-only... let hardware manufacturers compete and differentiate with hardware, and merge their drivers and tweaks directly back into AOSP for continued use.
Hell, even the Nexus phones aren't being handled this way - the Nexus One Gingerbread builds, for instance, are still waiting on proprietary libs from the official OTA update. Why the fuck are there proprietary libs in THE open source Google phone aside from the G-Apps?:(
That's not a very positive example, what with the last Windows release being one of the buggiest pieces of crap I've ever had the displeasure of using... the only thing that comes close to the same level of annoyance is the Skype Android app.
Overtake Android? I highly doubt it. I would, however, like to see Nokia and WP7 become a viable competitor, because Android is about to get very lonely on its throne... some competition to keep our beloved Android devs on their toes is definitely in our best interests.
Actually, HTC tried to lock down the boot image but that was cracked after a few months. Coincidentally or perhaps not, Samsung became the market leader. Maybe HTC and MOTO will perceive a message there. Stranger things have happened.
True, but that turned out to be nowhere near as awful as a signed bootloader... I'm starting to get the feeling that HTC have already seen what you're suggesting next: Open devices => more sales. Mind you, when I wasn't yet sure that the Vision and Ace would be cracked open for CyanogenMod and the like, I was a bit peeved (my comments here definitely reflected that), but it's starting to seem like HTC aren't all too serious about locking down their devices. It's not like they couldn't just have done the same thing as Motorola if they'd wanted to...
Hopefully the protective measures won't become stricter.
Slashdot Mirror
My Mac hard-on just went flaccid... the battery life does sound awesome, but I'm much too set in my ways to switch to OS X :(
Not to mention I'd miss Thinkpad keyboards and trackpoints too much... :'(
I highly doubt the battery life has been reduced. The stellar battery life is one of the few things that has me spying over jealously from the Thinkpaddier side of things...
Hell, the new Thinkpads that were just announced will supposedly go for 30 hours straight with a 9-cell + 9-cell slice (basically you strap a battery brick to the bottom), but I doubt we'll see anything more than 10 hours of real usage... just like they keep quoting 9-10 hours for the 9-cell alone, which ends up between 4 and 6 hours.
Although: Do MacBookPros get the same awesome battery life when running Windows natively? Or is it largely OS optimization that gives them such an edge?
Agreed. My Win7 Pro X64 update to SP1 just bombed too ("Update failed"), but that's not going to stop me from using Windows... :p
There are a lot (!) of reasons not to use Windows phone, but this isn't one of them.
Firmware update?
That's why I don't use function-specific hardware - pretty much any smartphone or tablet is capable of reflowing PDFs without problems. No need to be stuck with an extremely limited, non-extensible featureset...
Hopefully Google Talk VoIP support (with extremely low bandwidth codecs please!) will be along for the ride...
I could hardly agree more.
In addition, as a heavy Google user (Android and about a dozen non-Android Google services), I've got to say that they're still innovating at a pace that's dizzying at times. Hell, 2-step-verification nearly gave me a nerdgasm... the latest Android version of Google Maps... Honeycomb...
I can't wait for more...
Obsolescence.
And agreed - current Android builds work just fine on tablets...
Interesting. That puts the Playstation Phone at an advantage - getting emulators on Android is as easy as downloading them from the market, no root or custom firmware necessary :)
I may be wrong about this, but I don't think the PSP runs NES, SNES, Genesis or Gameboy games, does it? If you're into older stuff, an Android phone with a gamepad is a fantastic proposition...
That's because it's also MUCH more useful. There are tons of things you can do on an X201T that you can't do on an iPad... the other way around? Not so much ;)
Black text on a white background with the backlight turned up high in a dark room? Yes, obviously that's going to be quite painful very quickly... turn down the backlight and switch to white, green, grey or light blue text on a black background, et voila: No eyestrain whatsoever, and no need to ambient lighting either, so you can read while the SO is asleep ;)
That's just it though - when I read, I'm usually somewhere where I don't always have a tablet. When I'm between classes, on the bus, sitting on the park bench taking a break in the middle of my morning jog... I always have my smartphone in my pocket, but no tablet.
If you'd be schlepping around an e-reader instead, a tablet is pretty much a no-brainer :)
This. I currently own a 3.7" smartphone, and it does everything I could ever want from a pocketable device. As soon as I need a separate bag, I'm taking a machine that does everything I need in all other respects... when an ARM tablet can do everything my Win7/XP/Ubuntu laptops do, I might consider buying one.
Until then, they don't have any place in my day-to-day gear, because the only advantage they offer over my smartphone (ZOMG, bigger screen!) is also a huge disadvantage, because they're too big to take everywhere.
I'll stick with the Android smartphone + Thinkpad X Tablet Series combo, thanks very much.
From the article:
"As of now, Lookout Security is only aware of the HongTouTou Trojan affecting users on Chinese forums. It does not affect any apps in their original versions available on the Google Android Market."
In other words, only app pirates were affected.
For example I have Firefox open right now and it's using 500Meg, versus Non-google Chromium which hovers around 40Meg (but also does not have built-in video support - it launches external apps or plugins).
I find it hard to believe that Chromium is so much more RAM-efficient than Chrome - because the latter uses about 20-40MB per tab on my machines...
Also, since(unlike Android or WP7), HP is currently the only distributor of WebOS devices, they have comparatively little to lose if homebrew ROMs circulate around. The only issue that might induce them to take a harder stance would be if commercial publishers start crying about piracy. We'll see if that happens...
Uh... wha? Don't HP have just as much incentive as any other company for planned obsolescence? Wanting to sell new devices instead of having users upgrade their existing devices is a concept completely independent of the number of distributors... :(
I'm having more or less the same dilemna - Android seems to be becoming hackier and hackier, and I feel like we're back in the days of Windows Mobile. As long as HTC mainstream devices continue to be cracked wide open, we shouldn't have any problems, but there's got to be a better way... what I want to see is more devices designed for pure AOSP software, like the Nexus One/S - but multiple devices from all sorts of manufacturers. Big screens, small screens, hardware keyboards, touch-screen-only... let hardware manufacturers compete and differentiate with hardware, and merge their drivers and tweaks directly back into AOSP for continued use.
Hell, even the Nexus phones aren't being handled this way - the Nexus One Gingerbread builds, for instance, are still waiting on proprietary libs from the official OTA update. Why the fuck are there proprietary libs in THE open source Google phone aside from the G-Apps? :(
In that case, consider my opinion revised :)
That's not a very positive example, what with the last Windows release being one of the buggiest pieces of crap I've ever had the displeasure of using... the only thing that comes close to the same level of annoyance is the Skype Android app.
You're on the right track. The Motorola Milestone was my first and last Motorola device... never ever again. :)
Overtake Android? I highly doubt it. I would, however, like to see Nokia and WP7 become a viable competitor, because Android is about to get very lonely on its throne... some competition to keep our beloved Android devs on their toes is definitely in our best interests.
Sounds like you really need to get the word out ;)
Can I request an SMS (once) even if I've been using the Android app?
A quick Googling has left me reeling. I thought that this (locking down the bootloader with an update) was a Galaxy Tab only thing... :O
Actually, HTC tried to lock down the boot image but that was cracked after a few months. Coincidentally or perhaps not, Samsung became the market leader. Maybe HTC and MOTO will perceive a message there. Stranger things have happened.
True, but that turned out to be nowhere near as awful as a signed bootloader... I'm starting to get the feeling that HTC have already seen what you're suggesting next: Open devices => more sales. Mind you, when I wasn't yet sure that the Vision and Ace would be cracked open for CyanogenMod and the like, I was a bit peeved (my comments here definitely reflected that), but it's starting to seem like HTC aren't all too serious about locking down their devices. It's not like they couldn't just have done the same thing as Motorola if they'd wanted to...
Hopefully the protective measures won't become stricter.