I sometimes wonder if this fad of having a massive gloss mark right across screens will pass. It's like they're trying to say "You can be absolutely sure this will reflect everything so that you can't see anything on the actual screen".
When displayed on websites they just seem to take it to extremes. Half the device is black and half is white? :/
If you're in the right lighting conditions, blacks are far blacker, contrast is better IMHO than a matt display. But it's a very contentious issue as far as I know.
having had both matte and glossy macbook pros, my own observations seem to confirm this: colors are richer and display is brighter (across the same model) but glossy screens get smudged a LOT, and reflect just about everything
That's it. If you (the common person TM) are on a shop and look at two laptops side by side, one with a matte screen and the other with a glossy screen, I'm pretty sure that person will be more pleased with the colors on the glossy one.
I love the glossy screen on my iMac at work for one reason: I can see when someone is walking up to my desk behind me. The great expanses of darkness in the empty spaces of my text editor make the screen a gigantic mirror.
I really don't understand a lot of these product comparisons. They read like every other iPod killer out there. All the iPod killers have more storage, FM receivers, smaller, more battery life, etc -- but they all had one thing in common: they never killed the iPod.
1. The air vent. Does this thing get hot? How necessary is the air vent? My iPad is always cool as a cucumber, regardless of what I do on it.
2. The size seems a bit big. Not only is the screen a tad on the large size (or the German pillow girl a tad on the small size), but it also looks pretty thick. The iPad is right on the edge of being to heavy, I wonder what the weight on this thing is.
3. How polished is this thing going to be? They have more features, ports, etc, but that also introduces complexity. Apple had three iphones with which to work out ui bugs, hardware problems, and other issues.
I'm excited to see how it's received, and also excited to see the upcoming android based tablets. But I'm not holding my breath.
What so hard about building these kind of devices nowadays? It seems to me that all the components are readily available (there is no technological breakthrough in any of them, excepted maybe the screen), and the size of it should make it easier to pack more features or cheaper ones.
Unless it's all about the software.
I'd really like a full-size laptop with these exact specs (and a full-size battery.) What really detracts from these things' portability is that they basically have to be plugged in every day. It's even the same with my Droid.
Runs Android: Excellent.
Runs Flash: Too Bad.
A year behind the market leader: trouble
Will cost more than iPad: marketplace death
You just can't get away with charging more than Apple's offering unless you're providing some kind of genuine innovation. This is unlikely to offer anything iPad doesn't and even if it did, nobody would be inclined to believe it. That means it has to be cheaper, which shouldn't be so hard with Apple's typical margins.
They were developing before the iPad came out, of course. I saw news about them in March, anyway.
They've been marketing to newspapers in Germany, but with the advent of the iPad it would appear they've seen a larger market. I wish they'd get more specific, though. If they're already on the market this summer in Europe, I'm probably going to pick one up.
I know this is an early version, but why would you show people a competitor to the iPad that doesn't include a touch interface? Maybe to show off the USB?
It has touch. He shows it a little later in the video. One question though is that it appears that he's doing a lot of the touch with his fingernail, which makes me think that the sensitivity is poor.
Agh, shamed. The description said touch was upcoming, so I didn't bother watching the entire video.
I guess they say that because they only seem to have a rough prototype with touch right now — the one they were using looked a lot bulkier and more unpolished than the demo model.
I was actually wondering why he was padding around with a mouse to start with too.
I wonder though if it supports multi-touch? I really think that's important for tablet computers these days. The control over the device really is so much better.
Anybody notice the picture of the woman standing up and holding the device? I think it's the last picture in the roll. Not only does she appear somewhat uncomfortable holding it but she is using a pillow in her right hand while standing to kind of prop up the device. Very strange choice for a product shot.
I'd pay for a ChromeOS pad - probably a fair amount. With some UI tweaks and a decent context-sensitive onscreen keyboard a ChromeOS pad would be stellar!
(though I am an oddity and only wanting a pad for internet use and nothing else :))
this is great news for me. I have already a couple of android apps that i am starting to port with the ipad with the iphone sdk, but my learn curve with objective-c has not been the best.
When displayed on websites they just seem to take it to extremes. Half the device is black and half is white? :/
Hardware looks quite sexy.