Amazing Alex game for Samsung Galaxy Tab will be released soon
Rovio Entertainment, creator of immensely successful game, Angry Birds has come up with another new mobile game, Amazing Alex.
This title is re-branding of Casey’s Contraptions bought by Rovio
early this month from developers Noel Llopis and Miguel A.Friginal.
According to Mikael Hed, Rovio CEO who spoke to Yle, Finnish TV station
that this latest game “has an educational element and centers on the
main character Alex, a curious young boy who loves to build things.” The
game is expected to roll out within next two months.
Casey’s Contraptions is similar physics-based game like the Angry
Birds. The game has Rube Goldberg-type contraptions made from things
such as balloons, scissors, soccer balls and buckets. Here players are
required to assemble clever tricks as well as traps and setting up that
will let Casey to retrieve his missing toys. The game Casey’s
Contraptions was released for the Apple’s iPad a year back.
Last week Rovio announced billionth download of Angry Birds game. The
game was released in 2009 has four different versions, where Angry
Birds Space is latest. Added the company is also working on movie, TV
show as well as theme park based on property.
Only time will tell that whether Amazing Alex will taste the same success of Angry Birds or not.
Samsung’s latest 10 inch Android tablet is set to hit stores on May 13th. But you can pre-order one at Office Max today for $399.99 or from TigerDirect for the same price.
The new Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) is a modest upgrade over last
year’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, but there are three significant changes.
First, the new model ships with Android 4.0. Second, it has a microSD
card slot. Third, and most importantly, it has a starting price that’s
$100 lower than that for Samsung’s first 10 inch tablet.
When the Tab 10.1 first launched in 2011 Samsung charged an iPad-like
$499 for the base model. Now the company is charging the same price for
its new tablet as Apple does for its year-old iPad 2.
This isn’t necessarily meant to be a high-end tablet. Samsung has the Galaxy Note 10.1 for folks that want premium features including a faster processor and digital pen.
Instead, you can think of the Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) as a larger version of the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0).
It just has a larger, higher resolution display and a $400 price tag
instead of $250… which might be enough to turn off some potential
customers if they’re uncertain that a larger screen is worth $150.
The new 10 inch tablet has a 1280 x 800 pixel display, a 1 GHz dual
core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. A 32GB model is also on
the way.
The tablet has a 3MP rear camera and a 0.3MP front-facing camera. It
supports 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0, measures 0.4 inches thick and
weighs 1.3 pounds. via CNET
There’s good news and bad news, Samsung tablet fans. The good news is that the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 hardware is good to go, and you can pre-order one at Office Depot right now. The bad news is that rumor of a delay to implement a quad-core processor has fallen by the wayside: the listing shows the same dual-core hardware that we saw at Mobile World Congress. Bummer.
Office Depot did confirm the rumor that the newer Galaxy Tab 10.1
would be getting a lower price: the 16GB model starts at $399, a full
hundred dollars cheaper than the original and well-placed to compete
with the iPad 2. The tablets will start shipping out on May 11th, at
least according to this retailer. The WiFi version is the only one being
offered at the moment, though we fully expect at least one carrier to
sell the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 somewhere down the line.
The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is strikingly similar to the original – which
is why that rumored upgrade was so compelling. The hardware has changed
only slightly, with side-mounted speakers and a MicroSD card slot being
the primary differences. Though it isn’t confirmed, the 10.1-inch model
almost certainly has the same dual-core TI OMAP processor as the Galaxy Tab 2 7-inch version. The new 10-inch tablet comes with Ice Cream Sandwich installed at launch.
I really like reviewing products, but don’t have the time or patience
to measure battery life or benchmark the CPU, etc. I'm more interested
in how a product like Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 fits in the scheme of things. How
it suits real people.
So far, I think this tablet has gotten an unfair shake among major
media. But the reviews at shopping sites tell the real story. This is a
nice little tablet. The price is right, too, and it comes with Android
4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich).
A Real Delight
Inside the standard white, tight-fit Samsung cardboard box there are
no surprises. You get the unit, a charging cable, and an AC adapter. No
headphones. I prefer it that way, as I have a nice set of headphones,
and I’d rather take the cost out of the unit. There’s a manual, but I
imagine it’s a giant cut and paste of everything the lawyers made
Samsung put in the box. Leave it in the box with the receipt from the
store or Amazon.
I’ll get right to the bad news, probably the worst thing I can tell
you about the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. I don’t think other reviews mentioned
this (see list later on). Samsung preloads the tablet with a lot
of software. A LOT. And pre-loaded software, unlike a PC, can’t be
deleted. It can only be disabled, which is simple to do. So when you
open up the Storage section of the Settings you are going to discover
the 8GB on the box translates to 4.5GB of free memory. Yep, 3.5GB is
tied up by Samsung’s stuff, and there’s not really anything you can do
about it.
So you need to understand that if you are going to carry this thing
around and use it where there is no WiFi you’re going to have to pick up
one of these,
too, to expand the storage. So add $25 to the price of the unit to have
a healthy amount of space to work when disconnected. If you are going
to be in WiFi most of the time you’re in luck. You get 50GB of free
Dropbox space for a year with this unit. Google Music allows you to load
20,000 songs that can be downloaded on demand.
Just be sure and turn the machine off and on every other week, and you’ll be fine.
Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 has a front VGA camera and a back 3-megapixel
camera. The software shutter button has almost no lag at all, which is a
big improvement over the Tab 8.9. Photo quality is good enough for web
work but not astounding. Don’t buy this tablet to replace your camera
(why would you anyway?) but it does a fine job at what I use Galaxy Tab
cameras for, mostly for reference shots and copying things I’m too lazy
to write down, or grabbing a business card on the go so I can impress
the person handing me the business card by handing it back.
The camera also is great for catching moments when there’s nothing
else to shoot with. It improves dramatically when the amount of light
increases. The camera also has a lot of the standard Samsung perks, like
the ability to take a panorama picture, which is great for getting the
inside or outside of a business. A Fine Heritage
Before I go on with the rest of the review, let me drag you through a
brief history lesson. It's important context for Galaxy Tab 2 7.0's
size.
The first tablet I can think of is the Newton. At the time it was
awesome, but nobody could afford it, until it failed. That’s when I got
mine. I had it about 3 days, then realized for the time being paper and
pencil were safe. Pinnacle of tech between then and now was the Palm
Pilot, which abandoned recognizing handwriting for teaching you a new
way to write. The small size and the fact that it ran for a month on a
pair of AA batteries made Palm Pilot great. If you were a hardcore user
you eventually lost the ability to read your own handwriting.
But like the Newton, Palm Pilot primarily did one thing -- it was a
day planner. It beeped when you were supposed to do something and put
your Outlook calendar in your pocket.
Sometime in the past the mini-tablet leapt to the phone, and while
Windows versions were excessively complicated and Palms were hopelessly
underpowered that created the vacuum for the iPhone to emerge. It raised
the bar.
Which leads to the iPad. The first words out of my mouth when I saw
the iPad? "It’s too big" A wave of Steve Jobs' Jedi hand and use of the
word "magical" and I bought one anyway. It was too big.
It really still is. Don’t get me wrong, iPad is a great lap tablet.
When you're nestled in something that supports you to support it, it’s
fine. When you have to tote, retrieve and work with it all day long, it
gets unwieldy at times. The Right Fit
Samsung decided to try to capitalize on this shortcoming and released
a 7-inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab. It was the perfect size but had basic
problems. It was too heavy, wasn’t that comfortable to hold and had
iPad-style square edges. It had a version of Android prone to freeze
ups, and when the Gallery app went South you just couldn’t fix it with a
reset or anything. At least that’s how it went for me.
Still Galaxy Tab was the right size. Fortunately Samsung didn’t give
up and today we have the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. Let’s hit the high points.
The curved plastic back solves two problems: The device feels better in
your hand, and it’s lighter.
Some people have problems with the plastic back but let me tell you,
build quality on this unit is nice. The back feels solid and the
switches and buttons, too. This unit is built to last. Given the
volatile nature of technology, this tablet will outlast its relevance
and will be handed down (rather than thrown away) to make way for newer
tech. Ample Resolution
The screen is the same resolution as previous 7-inch GTs, WSVGA (1024
x 600), and that is plenty for much of what you would use a book-sized
tablet for. It’s okay for reading a book. Okay to use as a day planner.
Okay to watch a movie or TV show. Irrelevant when listening to music.
Honestly, no tablet needs to be super high-resolution for one obvious
reason: your fingers can only be so small. At some point if the
resolution is high enough you can’t tap something with any certainty. I
experienced that first hand with the new iPad when I had a heck of time
tapping between specific letters.
The color fidelity of the screen is good and because it’s 7-inches
with WSVGA, it has a good apparent resolution. It’s not pixel invisible
like the “resolutionary” new iPad but it’s very close to the 100DPI
limit the eye can perceive and you are not trying to schlep 3.1
megapixels when you just want to see the next headline on Feedly.
It only took a few seconds with the store demo unit to realize the screen was going to be fine for everyday use.
Now about speed. I never had or used a Galaxy Tab 7 Plus, which is
supposedly faster but I did have a Galaxy Tab 8.9, and this feels much
faster than it. The page flips in the launcher are fast and my true
speed test worked just fine. I load Autodesk Sketch Plus and draw a long
continous swirl as fast as I can. If the screen tracks and there are no
skips in the line - it passes. The Tab 2 handled my speed test just
fine. All of the apps I loaded performed better than on the 8.9 and no
real noticeable lag even with a Bluetooth keyboard. Ice Cream Sandwich
It’s hard to review a device that has an OS without talking a bit about the OS.
This, I believe, is the first Samsung to ship with Ice Cream
Sandwich. Ice Cream Sandwich, which is different than Honeycomb (Android
3.x) but I don’t care what the OS technically is, I care about what it does. It still has soft buttons at the bottom of the screen, instead of hardware buttons and overall seems to run faster.
The first Galaxy Tab I owned ran Froyo (Android 2.20, which was
pre-Gingerbread (Android 2.3). It was only two years ago but seems like
the Stone Age. For the most part the apps back then were mostly
Java-based layouts, and while they would capture the data the UI was
kind of Fisher Price My First Tablet looking. Add that apps crashed a
lot, and it was a labor of love to like the unit, especially with the
ridiculous overly ambitious 3-D wall Gallery app that choked on your
Picasa photos (by the way I do not recommend syncing your
photos to your tablet; use the Dropbox autoupload instead). Most apps
made your Galaxy Tab 1 look like a big freaking phone.
Fast forward to the Tab 2 7.0 and you have a very different
experience. There are lots of newer apps with a much nicer interface and
are more intuitive to use. They look better on the screen (Samsung has
installed a Helv Neue font on this device) and there is no apparent
performance penalty. I don’t know if this is because apps are more HTML 5
and less Java these days or not but regardless you’ll have a much
better experience using this and other ICS device(s).
One minor annoyance, and I don’t know if this is ICS or Samsung’s
Launcher, you can only use a subset of the screen for icons and widgets
in the Launcher, which is a square portion of the screen that is the
same portrait or landscape. In portrait mode there are two fairly large
pieces of unused screen above and below your widgets and icons -- mildly
annoying to me because I like to try to jam everything on the main
screen (yep OCD). Because the Launcher is so fast on the Tab 2, and I
want to preserve as much space as possible on the primary SD, I
initially didn't load Go Launcher EX. When I did, it was slower than TouchWiz -- uninstalled.
Probably the ICS nicest perk: You can download and install Chrome for Android beta
from Google Play store. This gives you the ability to sync your
bookmarks in the background as well as have your open tabs move. Along
with Google Drive, this makes any Android tablet a much better work device.
I need to point out the difference between Android and iOS as well.
You can write an application on your PC or Mac and install it on your
Android device and run it. No developer fees. You can copy over a ton
of material to a MicroSD card and load it into your device and watch,
listen or read it. You don’t have to cloud it anywhere. It just goes
straight from your PC to your Tablet. No trips to Cupertino, Calif. to
get to Collinsville, MS.
That’s a big deal.
I can’t tell you how good a 3-D gamer machine this I don’t play them. I suspect it’s not the Droid you want in that department. The Price is Right
So let’s talk about the most important feature of this unit. It’s the
price. $249 USD. That’s really a deal. Subtract the $99 worth of
Dropbox you are getting for free (which takes the sting out of the 4.5GB
thing I opened with) and it’s actually less than the Kindle Fire ($199 USD). Let’s break that price down a bit.
The Tab 2 costs:
60 Big Macs
35 high-end domestic beer 6 packs
1.5 college textbooks
The new (too big) iPad -- that's the $499 one -- costs:
118 Big Macs
3 college textbooks
So it only takes 2 months of Ramen to pay for your Galaxy Tab 2 7.0.
This price point and the feature set make this, IMHO, the perfect
wired campus companion. It’s also the perfect tablet for the person who
goes home to a WiFi’d house from an open or guest WiFi’d workplace. It’s
a great coffeshop device, too. It’s a good tool to get your life
organized. Those are things that really appeal to me about this unit.
When the Kindle Fire came out at $199 price point, I was ecstatic --
finally a device that was affordable to lot more people. It only took
reading the specs a few minutes to realize this was a shopping cart that
played movies, books, music and selected games. It was a closed
environment that required being in the Amazon App store to market to. It
was the Apple model all over again.
Now with the Galaxy Tab, we have a device at a price point that is a
smidge higher but with a lot more potential. It’s more open. If this is
not the device that kills the textbook, then its next iteration will.
This is what we need for education, and education is what we need to
make the world a better place (steps down from his soapbox). Closing Thoughts
Galaxy Tab 2 7.0's smaller size means littler hands can type on it
easily in portrait mode. It’s light enough and comfortable enough to
hold for a while. The applications available are good enough to manage
your life, and even start an Internet business with (with the occasional
help of a borrowed desktop). With Chrome and Google Drive installed,
your stuff moves with you making anywhere you can get to Chrome --
desktop, laptop, Chromebook; Windows, OS X, Chrome OS.
You could easily create a USB flash drive Linux computer, install
Chrome and carry everything with you in a sandwich bag. As an aspiring
minimalist that has big appeal.
There are apps that allow you to create documents (you can even pair a
Bluetooth keyboard), and you can code on it with an app like Droid
Edit. You can remote into Windows and OSX machines with an app like
PocketCloud if you needed to.
So when you first look at the storage and see you are down 3.5GBs out
of the gate, you quickly get over the heartburn as you use the unit and
see it still has plenty of room for more stuff. The performance of the
unit is solid and it feels good in the hands. With moderate use I get
two days between charges (see the other reviews for actual test).
Spot checking Amazon reviews, it gets 4 stars and many buyers echo my sentiments. The pros don't necessarily agree. Some of their reviews:
PCWorld
PCMag
Cnet UK
The Verge
Engadget
Among these five reviews, you can find your deep geek questions
answered in full. In the interest of full disclosure I read most of them
before buying my Galaxy Tab 2 7.0.
I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with this device and, yes,
someone will announce a new and better tablet 2 weeks after you buy this
one. Don’t let that stop you. Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 will be quite useful for
a very long time. Photo Credits: Clay Hamilton
The next-generation iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III
will be the two biggest and baddest smartphones on the market this
summer. There’s no denying that. Unless you’re HTC and you’ve got the HTC One series
with the HTC One X on AT&T and the HTC One S on T-Mobile, then
you’ve got something to back up your claim that you’ve got anything to
say to either Samsung or Apple. Thusly here is my challenge to you,
Apple and Samsung – I dare you to make a more perfectly tuned smartphone
than HTC has offered up here at the start of 2012. I dare you to take
this game to the next level.
The Samsung Galaxy S line has been the best selling line of Android
phones in the short history of Android itself. The same is true of the
iPhone, except since it’s the only device like it running iOS in the
iPhone style, you can rack up the success against the rest of the
smartphone world – there’s no other smartphone that’s been in
essentially one form factor that’s sold as well as the iPhone has. You
can see the reverberations of the iPhone and the Galaxy S lineup in
every single other smartphone on the market – BlackBerry and Windows
Phones included.
Now what HTC has done is to create a hero phone line called “HTC One”
that contains a selection of elements that clearly shows how they’ve
payed attention to the whole smartphone experience. Samsung has not been
so clear, and the iPhone has always had this sort of situation going
on. Apple’s vertical integration between their iTunes app store, iTunes
for music and movies, software created by developers specifically for
their phone, and the hardware which can be fixed by them in their own
store – all of that makes the iPhone what it is today, super successful.
HTC doesn’t offer that, but they have created a line of phones with a
perfectly well-tuned set of elements that make them more than a
competitor for the iPhone and the Galaxy S line. What they lack is
something that Samsung is getting better at every day: good advertising.
Samsung has a big enough name that they’re able to promote their Galaxy
S lineup with advertisements during the Superbowl. They’ve got enough
cash for that, I should say. They’ve also got brand trust from their
customers wishing to get the best out of their Android experience.
Now what the Galaxy S III launch this week needs to have in it are
several elements. These elements are not the same as what they’ll have
to continue to have for the phone to sell well – these are different
things – keep that in mind.
1. A solid internet connection at the launch event.
2. No live feed for viewers at home.
3. Plenty of hands-on time allotted for all attendees.
4. Good lighting for press photography.
5. Engineers of the phone on-hand to show off the devices – not
temporary hires that don’t know what they’re talking about. I mean
Philip Berne, not some no-name.
Samsung needs to treat this event as a press event primarily and give
the press their fair share of coverage so that they might take it to
the underground before they make their big showing worldwide. To attract
the general audience they need to sell massive amounts of smartphones,
Samsung needs to keep it simple. Bring on some all-black or all-white
screens and fly the Galaxy S III across the center with the words
“Android Perfected.”
Samsung needs to show that they have the only phone anyone could ever
want. They need to stop touting the details as the best bits of
information about the phone and start saying “This is what you want.”
Just like Apple does. Samsung has the ability to make an awesome device,
now they just need to assure the public that they’ve got that ability.
And what about the iPhone 5? It will be amazing, will have more than
just your average bunch of upgrades, and will be Apple’s next
powerhouse. Think of the upgrades the iPhone 4S had over the iPhone 4.
Then think of the upgrades the iPhone 4 had over the iPhone 3GS. These
jumps signify what you’ll see here in 2012 for the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5
will be a revolutionary device not just because it will have a set of
perfectly legitimately awesome features, but because Apple will say it’s
the best. Because of that, it will be.
Samsung is going to unveil its much-anticipated Galaxy S III smartphone
early tomorrow at a press event in London. Set to start at 0030hrs IST
on May 4, this event will finally lift the lid of the Galaxy S II
successor.
Despite the blogs and technology websites going into
overdrive with rumours and leaks in the last few months, we hardly know
any confirmed details about this smartphone. Samsung has only revealed
one detail about Galaxy S III so-far in the form of Exynos 4 Quad
processor, which will be a part of this device.
Even the latest teaser from the Korean manufacturer has done little more than creating hype about the phone.
Samsung Galaxy S III launch: what we know so far
Samsung is going to unveil its much-anticipated Galaxy S III smartphone
early tomorrow at a press event in London. Set to start at 0030hrs IST
on May 4, this event will finally lift the lid of the Galaxy S II
successor.Despite the blogs and technology websites going into
overdrive with rumours and leaks in the last few months, we hardly know
any confirmed details about this smartphone. Samsung has only revealed
one detail about Galaxy S III so-far in the form of Exynos 4 Quad
processor, which will be a part of this device.
Even the latest teaser from the Korean manufacturer has done little more than creating hype about the phone. Rumour roundup
Various
leaks in the recent few weeks have suggested that Galaxy S III will
sport an S II kind of form-factor, just a little bigger. We have seen
several contradicting leaks on the display front, but most of them have talked about a 4.7/4.8-inch HD display.
The presence of Android 4.0
aka Ice Cream Sandwich is also pretty much certain about the smartphone,
and we expect to see a revamped version of company's Touchwiz skin for
the smartphone.
Coming to the camera, the rumours have it that we
might see a 12-megapixels sensor on the Galaxy S III, which wouldn't be
surprising considering the megapixel wars in the recent times.
Connectivity options are expected to be pretty much standard, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, DLNA, NFC, and HSPA+.
There are hardly any believable leaks for the storage, RAM or exact model number of Galaxy S III.
With
the actual event just 14-hours away, we would not go too much in the
rumours and wait for the official announcement to hear more about the
smartphone from the company itself.
Make sure to check back early
tomorrow for all the juicy details about the phone, you can also watch
the webcast of the press event directly on company's Facebook page,
teaser website or the Unpacked app on any Android device.
