Samsung electronics announced that they now sold more than 600 000 units of their Android based tablet. Launched less than a month ago this is quite an impressive feat, in Korea alone the galaxy tab has sold more than 30 000 units. In comparision to the Ipad which has sold 7.5 million units worldwide, it still has some catching up to do. However, with the upcoming launch of the Ipad on the Galaxy’s home turf the future looks rather bleak. According to local distributors there have been more than 40 000 pre-orders.
Source: Korean Herald via Engadget
Apple’s strong performance with gaming on their iOS devices has caused Sony to react, with an Android-based PlayStation phone in development. In a recent sit-down with the Wall Street Journal, Bert Nordberg, CEO of Sony Ericsson said that “there’s a lot of smoke, and I tell you there must be a fire somewhere” when asked about the PlayStation Phone rumors and leaks. When questioned why we’ve not yet seen a PlayStation-branded Sony Ericsson gaming phone, Bert said “the future might be brighter”. Nordberg also said Sony Ericsson plans to make a lot of “noise” at Mobile World Congress next February, which can be interpreted as him hinting that Sony Ericsson will be announcing this PlayStation Phone early next year.
Today’s news come straight from Twitter-town. It seems that Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has gone against the stream of world leaders using iPads and gotten himself a Samsung Galaxy Tab instead. Medvedev was recently in South Korea with his trade delegation to ramp up business between South Korea and Russia, so it’s not super surprising that he picked up a Galaxy Tab while he was there. However, he doesn’t seem to enjoy the Galaxy Tab’s GT-P1000 camera. According to a recent tweet made from his official Twitter account, the Samsung Galaxy Tab’s camera’s “quality isn’t great.” Hats off to Medvedev however, it’s great to see presidents becoming early adopters of tech. One step closer to world domination by geeks.
BYD, the Chinese automaker where uber-investor Warren Buffet has a stake, is now announcing an upcoming tablet computer; the BYD Alice. The BYD Alice is said to run on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 (Tegra 250 CPU) chipset with a 8.9-inch WSVGA capacitive touchscreen. BYD Alice will support up to 1GB of RAM and a microSD card slot (32GB max), WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 and a mini-HDMI port. This Android 2.2 Froyo tablet will also include support for microUSB, a headphone socket, a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls, an accelerometer, a digital compass, and finally a light sensor that adjusts display brightness. According to BYD, the Alice’s 2,200mAh battery will manage around 8 hours from a single charge, and there appears to be a kickstand on the back for comfortable movie watching. Unfortunately, BYD has no intention of releasing Alice to the market directly. Instead, they are looking for a partner to rebrand the device and sell it under their own name.
The Meizu M9 is an anticipated Chinese Android phone that is being released at the end of this year. Previously, it was thought that the phone would only be released in China. However, today, when a Meizu fan over at fansite Meizu Me emailed Meizu asking if they’d release the Meizu M9, he got a surprising response; Meizu does indeed have a plan for the international release of the Meizu M9. However, he was also told that it “will take some time.”
ViewSonic ViewPad 7 is not available for pre-ordering from Amazon for $599 USD, but the pricing seems way off. This 7,7-inch tablet seeks to challenge more established tablets, but comes with only 512 MB of disk space and a slow 600 MHz processor, yet it costs a benjamin more than the 16 GB iPad. How was ViewSonic thinking Still wondering where to buy the ViewSonic ViewPad 7? Hit the Amazon pre-order link below.
A new study on the Q3 2010 mobile phone industry from Gartner just came out today, and the results are interesting to say the least. Worldwide, the overall sales growth for mobile phones has been 35 percent in Q3 compared to 2009, with the fastest segment being smartphones, where sales shot up by 96 percent. But the most shocking news must have been Android’s growth, consisting of 20,500,000 units sold in Q3 2010. Compared to 2009 Q3′s 1,424,500 units, this is a growth of 1,440%. Unbelievable! This means that Android now takes the crown from RIM to become the world’s second largest platform for mobile phones.
