Excite 10

 Toshiba Excite AT200

 Thin supermodel physique or the thinnest and lightest tablet with a 10.1” LED backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen with 16M colors @1280 x 800 pixels - meet the AT200 tablet from Toshiba which is 7.7mm thin and weighs a mere 558g.

 Hardware wise this “excitement” is powered by a 1.2 Ghz dual core processor, 1GB of ram and a  PowerVR SGX540 Gpu. When it comes to storage it has 16 or 32 GB of internal memory with the possibility to upgraded it up to 32 GB more by using its microSD card slot.

 Wireless connectivity is assured by Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR(enhanced data rate) and GPS. It also features a micro USB port (data transfer and charging) and a micro hdmi out port.

 The main camera takes snapshots at 5MP with autofocus and is recording HD video @720p.

 Android 3.2 Honeycomb runs the show until the planned update to Android 4.0 ICS would be available later on to even better handle the AT200’s “excitement”.  The battery life extends up to 8hrs depending on usage. 

 The best contenders of AT200 are: Asus Transformer Prime, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and iPad(2012).

 If you haven’t made up your mind yet – choose what best suits you cause beauty is in the eye of the beholder :)

 Link: Toshiba Excite
           Where to buy

Tablet hardware - Netbook form factor

 Toshiba AC100

 To begin with, I started this blog writing about "smartbooks" and today I can give you a heads up regarding this category of devices.
 The AC100 is a niche product and in my opinion it has been launched ahead of its time. The "smartbook" defines a product that has the hardware of a smartphone inside a netbook form factor.

 Nowadays the smartphones tend to be an important part of our everyday lives and interesting crossovers have emerged (see the Motorola Atrix and its docking station).
 Nevertheless the Nvidia Tegra 250 SOC (system on a chip) has been designed for every mobile form factor that exists today. Today the users tend to own a notebook, a tablet ('cause of the hype) and a smartphone. Sooner or later you'll think about having a single device that can do it all. The AC100 isn't such a product by any means but it's a step forward. It has great hardware and the Android 2.2 does the job well although the Android Market is not officially supported. "Let's roll" - this time with the specs, not with the Autobots :)

- 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 250 SoC (built around a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor);

- 8GB, 16GB or 32 GB SSD;

- 512MB of DDR2 memory;

- 802.11n WiFi, optional 3G data, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

- 1.3 megapixel webcam;

- HDMI out;

- headphones jack;

- microphone jack;

- 1x USB 2.0;

- SD card reader;

- 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 pixel display;

- integrated stereo speakers;

- "fanless" design - no noise during operation;

 The keyboard is comfortable to use whether you write e-mails, chat with friends or edit a doc. The chassis is quite slim an the weight of the device is "featherweight".
 I'm not aware of future software updates for AC100 but Toshiba released an update by the end of July that solved some battery draining issues. They might be able to update the AC100 with an Android 3 version aka Honeycomb given that the Asus Transformer runs it pretty well.
 So, what the future holds? Quad core tablets and netbooks for mobile fan(s)atics...

 Links: AC100
           Hacking the AC100

Smartbooks - to be ola or not to be ola *(ola - online always)

 So, here we are ladies and gents almost mid 2011. The tablet-hype reached it's peak. Nowadays even grandma wants to read the news online or check the e-mail  - most of which could be spam anyway. You can find touchscreen tablets everywhere, ranging from dirt cheap to the full price of a Core i5 powered Notebook. I won't get into much details cause stirring up an Apple fanboys rebellion it's not my cup of tea, at least not today.
 So let's take a look at the big picture: Smartphones, Netbooks, Touchscreen Tablets - they all fit in the MID (mobile internet devices) bucket. What about smartbooks? First time I heard about 'em I was like wtf? A mobile OS designed for touchscreen usability transferred to a netbook form factor? As I got the chance to experience Android 2.2 on a Asus Eee PC 900 (fresh OS install by me) I had a sudden change of heart. Everything fell on place just like a 3 year old puzzle. Using keyboard and mouse with the Android OS it's not a bad user experience after all.
 Nowadays I'm eager to get my hands on a Toshiba AC100 Smartbook. It's powered by a nVidia SOC (system on a chip) Tegra 250 with dual core cpu, full HD capabilities and it runs Android 2.2 Froyo. Don't know if an update to Android 3.0 Honeycomb would be available but still, hardware wise it's more than a match for most Netbooks out there powered by Intel's Atom cpu's. So I'd like to hear from you, don't be shy and post your own opinions/comments on the matter. To be continued...

Links you might be interested in:

Porting Android OS to x86
Smartbook - Wikipedia
Toshiba AC100 Smartbook