Blog posts tagged with 'tablets'

Many of the largest Smartphone manufacturers choose to unveil their flagship devices at gala events: following the example set by Apple, they opt to have complete autonomy over their release events. Just this past month, we’ve seen the release of the Blackberry Q10 and Z10 from Blackberry (as well as a name-change from Research In Motion), as well as the long-awaited unveiling of the HTC One, courtesy of simultaneous launch events in London and New York. But even so, there’s one event that every mobile phone manufacturer has to keep a presence at, and that is the annual Mobile World Congress. Every year in February, the top people in the industry make their way to Barcelona for several days to unveil new devices and put on a real show for the public. And though you’re unlikely to see any flagship devices released (the Xperia Z was unveiled at the earlier CES, the HTC One and Blackberry Z10 are already in the public eye, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is almost certain to break cover in March at a gala Samsung event and Apple – naturally – follow their own strict release schedule), you’re still going to see a lot of excellent new devices make their international debut at this prestigious event. Today we’re going to be looking at some of the most highly-anticipated and likeliest devices as we count down to February 25^th and the illustrious Mobile World Congress!

 

 

First up is Samsung, the South Korean conglomerate that’s gained international renown for their Galaxy series of Smartphones. It’s very unlikely that the upcoming Galaxy S4 flagship will see its grand unveiling until March (though rumours are spreading that representatives from carrier companies will get a private chance to see the prototype S4 in action), but Samsung are still scheduled to reveal quite a few new devices. Not many of these relate directly to the mobile market: a range of Smart TVs and Samsung’s own proprietary TV service (a rival for Apple TV) would be a fitting centrepiece for their presence at the MWC. But we still anticipate a number of mid and entry-level Smartphones on the way – the entry-level Galaxy Star is rumoured to arrive shortly. Far more exciting is the news that Samsung will be diversifying the software of its devices: disenfranchised by Google’s acquisition of Motorola and the preferential treatment that Motorola may receive down the line as a result, Samsung is looking to focus less on Android this year and gradually shift the OS of its low and mid-range phones to the Tizen system, which was independently developed primarily by Intel and Samsung themselves. Additionally, Samsung would like to make a splash in the enterprise market with their B2B system, highly secure software that builds upon their previous SAFE (Samsung Approved For Enterprise) platform to make Android handsets more safe to use in enterprise environments. This would bring them into direct competition with both Blackberry and Windows Phone, who have a strong reputation for security and a robust presence in the business market. One thing’s for sure – Samsung are patently unhappy with their reputation for knock-off devices, and are looking to innovate as much as possible to impress their consumer base!

 

 

Next up we’re going to be looking at LG. Unlike Samsung, whose flagship phones are generally released at stand-alone events, LG are looking to unveil a huge range of devices at the MWC. They’ve been providing teasers for weeks now, with a subtle and pervasive advertising campaign that focuses on specific phrases: V for ‘View’ probably refers to the Optimus Vu series of series of handsets, while L for ‘StyLe’ (we thought it was a stretch too!) undoubtedly refers to the upcoming refreshed range of Optimus L phones, featuring imaginatively titled devices like the Optimus L3-2 and Optimus L7-2: hopefully, these are just developmental titles and will be changed on release. F for ‘Freedom’ corresponds to a new, upcoming range of Optimus F devices, while the G for ‘Greatness’ is an obvious reference to the flagship range of Optimus G devices – hopefully, we could be seeing a release of the rumoured LG Optimus G Pro, a refreshed and updated version of the original high-end, quad-core Optimus G! A rumoured range of Windows 8 devices is also on the horizon: while LG was an early adopter of the WP system, their comparative inexperience and some pitiful hardware meant that they abandoned the effort. But with the experience and hard work that long integration with the Android system has brought, LG is perfectly positioned to dip their toe back in the pool and attempt to break into the emerging WP8 marketplace! In particular, we’re expecting some tablets running WP8: model numbers of Z160 and H160 have been leaked and LG are hinting that at least one of their tab books will break cover at the MWC on their official blog. We’re certainly going to be keeping an eye on LG during the proceedings!

 

 

Sony are also going to be maintaining a healthy presence at the Mobile World Congress. Though they unveiled their new flagship Xperia Z Smartphone and some other high-end devices several weeks ago at the annual CES, they’re aiming to round out their selection of phones with some more mid-range Smartphones: details are continuing to leak about a phone codenamed the Sony C680X, also known as the C6802. We don’t have very much information about this phone yet – only the resolution (which is high, at 1080 x 1920) and operating system (Android 4.2). However, given that the Xperia Z is designated C660X, it’s possible that that the 680 designation refers to an updated, higher-end version of the Xperia Z, though we consider this unlikely considering how recently that device was released. It’s more likely that the C680X is the Sony Huashan, a rumoured Smartphone that we wrote about many months ago. Rumours are also circulating that Sony are planning on diversifying into the ‘phablet’ marketplace, with a 6.44 inch display and stylus pen suggested as likely additions to their upcoming device – if this is true, Sony are clearly attempting to launch a serious competitor to take the crown from Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2. The specifications that have been ‘leaked’ for this phablet, codenamed “Togari”, are very impressive: a quad-core 2.3 GHz processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and a hefty 3500 mAh battery, as well as a 13 Megapixel camera and some interesting Bluetooth experimentation (including NFC and an ‘IR blaster’ functionality which will allow the phablet to be used as a remote when coupled with one of Sony’s Bravia TVs). If this is true, we’d definitely say Sony are one to watch during the MWC, but it would be a strange move to release such a high-end device as this just a few weeks after their so-called flagship phone made its debut – either Sony are trying to dazzle the marketplace with as many top-end Smartphones as possible, or they’re willing to cannibalize part of their own market, which could be a very big blunder in the long run. Only time will tell!

 

 

We haven’t heard much else about the other big names in the Smartphone world: Apple are conspicuously silent, aside from a steady stream of rumours regarding their upcoming iWatch, which will undoubtedly be released at a stand-alone launch event sometime in the future. HTC have already released their flagship One phone and are attempting to consolidate their shaky position in the market, so we’d expect a modest presence from them, and while Nokia have released an exclusive app to help consumers navigate through the MWC (with features such as viewing venue maps without the need for an Internet connection, a live feed with upcoming events and their times noted down, and the ability to share your contact information via NFC, allowing insiders to network with people in the industry), we still haven’t heard anything substantial about new Nokia phones or tablets. Google are reducing their presence at the MWC, with an official statement that they’ll have staff on hand to aid their Android partners but only a modest, two-man booth: as usual, any significant Google announcements are scheduled for their yearly I/O fest in May. And Blackberry, of course, have already released their Z10 and Q10 flagships and are unlikely to make a splash this year. There are a number of smaller companies that are making ripples in the water this year, though – ST-Ericsson are scheduled to debut their new processor, a quad-core monster named the NovaThor L8580. Clocking in at a massive 3 GHz, the NovaThor is rumoured to be able to reach speeds normally reserved for the PC market, and ST-Ericsson have already made the bold claim that it’s the most powerful Smartphone processor to date. Asus have also released a pretty impressive advertisement featuring a UFO landing on the famous Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, teasing that a ‘metallic miracle’ is on the way. Reading between the lines on their official website, the phrase “when Pad and Phone come together” suggests a possible upgrade or refresh of the Padfone, or even a new phablet altogether.

 

 

There are a huge number of impressive phones and tablets scheduled for release this year, but it looks like 2013 may be the year that the technology that underpins Smartphones and tablets comes to light. With Smartphone and tablet manufacturers opting for stand-alone events for their most impressive devices, the Mobile World Congress is now the primary domain of the telecommunications industry itself – and in our view, the most exciting things scheduled for this year are things such as the NovaThor processor and Samsung’s upcoming enterprise platform. For the first time that we can remember, software is starting to overtake hardware as the most important consideration when purchasing a device, and we couldn’t be more excited!

We’re going to be travelling to Barcelona on Sunday to keep an eye on the event from within, so we’ll keep you updated on how things get on. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our blog - it's the best way of keeping up to date on this year's extravaganza!

Recently, we reviewed Dead Trigger, the latest offering from Smartphone developers extraordinaire Madfinger Games. In our review, we detailed the game’s many selling points, and the flaws that offset them, but our special focus was on Dead Trigger’s graphics. After all, that’s the game’s chief selling point, and the reason many are heralding it as the first example of a truly competitive Smartphone game; one that’s capable of going toe-to-toe with benchmark offerings from the PS3 and Xbox 360 and come out victorious. But what are the graphics like on different devices? Is a Tegra 3 chipset truly necessary to experience all of Dead Trigger’s frills? In our latest exposé, we aim to highlight the differences between disparate versions of Dead Trigger, and how the game is handled on different devices. First up, the HTC One X. This device is the perfect high water-mark for testing the game; not only is it one of the strongest Smartphones currently on the market, it also contains the much-touted Tegra 3 chipset. For those who didn’t peruse our review of the game, Dead Trigger was designed with the Tegra 3 in mind: those fortunate enough to own a Tegra 3 device are privy to a special “ultra-high” graphical option which substantially improves the game’s graphics. Predictably, of the three devices we tested, the HTC One X came out on top. The game ran extremely smoothly, but that was no surprise. What really amazed us was the quality of the effects. The colours were vibrant, the bloom effects were polished and miscellaneous effects such as water droplets, steam coming from pipes, and of course the muzzle flashes from your weapon were incredibly realistic. Loading times between missions were minimal, and movement was predictably smooth. In fact, the only issue we found was unrelated to the game itself: as a by-product of running the game on the coveted “ultra-high” graphical setting, we found that the HTC One X became very warm, and ran out of battery power much more swiftly than otherwise. However, battery power is a notorious issue with the One X, and the warmth of the device appeared to have no adverse effects, and swiftly faded. Next, we tested Dead Trigger on the Samsung Galaxy S3. Despite being arguably the strongest Smartphone currently on the market (at least in terms of raw specs), the S3 is only comparable to the One X in terms of graphical capacity. Samsung do not outsource chip production to Nvidia, as HTC do; they produce their own graphical chips in-house. The Galaxy S3 runs a quad-core ARM chipset dubbed Exynos 4, which is a competitive SOC but doesn’t yet have the same range of support as the Tegra 3. Consequently, there is no option to opt into the “ultra-high” mode for the Galaxy S3. But as we saw with the overheating and battery consumption of the One X, “ultra-high” essentially constitutes overclocking: ramping up the game’s graphics at the expense of much more power. So is that necessarily a bad thing? Well… yes, frankly. The highest normal graphical setting is certainly impressive by the standards of a Smartphone, but it fails to match up to the HD next-gen graphics set by ultra-high. It’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination: the water effects in particular retain their sheen, right down to the droplets which spatter the camera when you walk under a leaking pipe. But when compared side-by-side to the One X version, the lighting is somewhat more muted, movement is slightly more jerky and loading times are noticeably longer. However, this is solely because it lacks the ultra-high setting; Samsung’s chipsets are generally on-par with Nvidia’s in other respects, so it seems obvious that the S3 has the capacity to run as well as its competitor, it just isn’t being allowed to. We’re sure that once Madfinger Games gets around to it, the S3 can expect similar integration to that enjoyed by the One X. Finally, we tested Dead Trigger on a Motorola Xoom tablet. To be honest, we weren’t expecting much from the tablet, as the game was designed with Smartphones in mind, but we were pleasantly surprised. It suffers a definite loss in quality; the colours are significantly grainier, loading times were longer, and – crucially – there’s a time lag between touching the screen and seeing it transfer to an on-screen result, which means you’ll often find yourself missing targets through shooting too late. On the other hand, the larger screen made things a lot easier to see, and the controls were easier to use, courtesy of the broader buttons. And in some respects, the muted colour palette actually added to the attraction – Dead Trigger, after all, has faced a lot of criticism for its overly-colourful design, with many One X users reporting headaches after prolonged use. Overall, though, the tablet experience was significantly different enough from the One X and S3 to almost qualify as a new game entirely! We definitely had a few Resident Evil 4 flashbacks while playing it. In summary, we’d recommend that you stick with a Smartphone, though – the majority of users aren’t going to be impressed by easier controls, if the trade-off is noticeable lag. Both the One X and the S3 versions are fun to play, and if the coveted ultra-high setting makes its debut on the S3 before too much longer, they’d be virtually identical anyway!

Mobile phones have come a long way as a gaming platform. From the humble games of Tetris and Snake we used to play on old Nokia devices, to casual lunchtime games such as Cut the Rope and the omnipresent Angry Birds, and now to high-definition 3D games capable of going toe-to-toe with offerings from the PS3 and the Xbox 360, the years have been kind indeed. Modern Smartphones now stand as a legitimate gaming platform, and we owe a debt of thanks to developers such as Madfinger Games – developer of hit game Shadowgun – for this swift evolution. And now with Madfinger’s latest release, zombie FPS Dead Trigger, the bar has been raised higher than ever before! The plot is typical zombie fare: a dystopian vision of society, where the common man rose up against the ruling classes – and the corrupt politicians release a virus to turn people into bloodthirsty monsters en-masse to make good their own escape. You play a generic grizzly-voiced survivor, who stumbles into a haven of other survivors (imaginatively dubbed ‘Safe Haven’) and becomes their primary protector, roving around the city and using a selection of guns to help out his new friends. But the plot is almost immaterial; the short missions (rarely lasting more than a few minutes) and broad-strokes storyline lend itself to a burst style of play, putting Dead Trigger in the curious position of being a lunchtime game with next-gen graphics. We approve of this pick-up-and-play style of gaming, but it might have made the game more engrossing if there was an ongoing story – unfortunately, most of the ‘plot’ consists of text-only info-dump at the start of story missions, and it’s easily overlooked by casual gamers, who click “skip” to get to the zombie jamboree as swiftly as possible. On the plus side, there are a large variety of missions. Some of them charge you with merely surviving until the timer runs out, and generally place you within an enclosed area to make the task more difficult. Others force you to protect escape routes to let your fellow survivors make good their escape. However, with a fairly small handful of enemies to shoot in the face, and repetitious map design, it can become tiring doing the same thing over and over. Fortunately, the wide range of different guns – everything from pistols to machine guns to a freakin’ mini-gun – and a prompt to change your equipped weapon/s at the beginning to each level (along with a ‘Recommended Gun’) means that you’ll at least have a healthy arsenal of weapons in your war against the undead. The game has faced some flak for only allowing the best weapons to be unlocked by spending real-life cash, but given the price of Dead Trigger itself (currently retailing at £0.75 on the Android app store), it’s difficult to find fault with Madfinger’s strategy. They have to recoup money somewhere, after all. In terms of graphics, it stands head-and-shoulders above its competitors. (It’s certainly a far cry from, say, Temple Run!) In particular, the Tegra 3 version of the game automatically pre-packages an “ultra high” graphics setting, which dramatically boosts the quality of such niceties as water effects and the muzzle-flash on your gun; but if you’re fortunate enough to own a Tegra 3 chipset device (such as the HTC One X), you’re going to notice a sizeable decrease in your amount of battery time when running ultra-high. The lower settings still permit a respectable experience - particularly when compared to competitor games, or even Madfinger’s previous offering, Shadowgun – but if you’ve purchased Dead Trigger, you’ll probably want to set your graphical settings as high as possible. Unfortunately, on older compatible devices, this can cause frame-drop issues which seriously interfere with the experience. Speaking of issues, there are several to be found with the controls. Dead Trigger opts for a similar input to Shadowgun: the left-hand side of the screen permits movement, the right permits aiming, and a small targeting reticle allows you to shoot. (There’s also an option to zoom in, via another button located close to said reticle.) But the touchscreen controls aren’t always the most responsive. Sometimes in the heat of the moment, a careless sideward swipe can cause your character to spin around, allowing a zombie to bite at your back before you have a chance of recovering. More serious is the indistinct overlap between the left and right hand sides of the screen: occasionally you’ll attempt to alter your aim, only to find you’ve began running towards the enemy, instead. And as a veteran FPS player, I found the zoom-in function slightly lacking: often, the targeting did not accurately map to the location I was shooting, and reloading causes you to exit the zoom-in function entirely (unlike many comparable console shooters, which zoom out for the reload animation and instantly zoom back in, permitting seamless fire). We’d recommend anyone playing Dead Trigger on Android to opt for a gamepad, which Madfinger (wisely) support for use in their game, as this makes the experience vastly less frustrating. Overall, Dead Trigger is an excellent game that suffers few problems. These problems are restricted mainly to its polish and presentation; with just a little more pre-testing, the annoying issues with aiming and controls could have easily been averted. The repetitious level design is a little harder to remedy, but given the majestic, baroque environments of Shadowgun, we’re sure Madfinger had more in them than a succession of dreary car parks. Nevertheless, Mobile Madhouse heartily endorses Dead Trigger, and recommends you purchase it – because despite its issues, it’s just fun to play. It might not devour your brains, but it’ll sure eat up your lunchtimes!

Preliminary reports suggest that Amazon is preparing to launch into the Smartphone market. An inside source claims that the e-book reader giant is working closely with Asian suppliers to test the new (and thus far unnamed) device. On the surface, this seems like a clever business decision; the Smartphone market is expanding rapidly, and with increased competition in Amazon’s traditional tablet market (courtesy of Microsoft’s upcoming Surface tablet and Google’s forthcoming Nexus 7), diversifying may be key to long-term survival. But have Amazon really thought this decision through? Look at the statistics: though Amazon’s recent Kindle Fire dominates the smaller, 7” tablet market, its sales are grossly outmatched by Apple’s ubiquitous 10” iPad. Despite being more than twice as expensive - the Kindle Fire retails at $199; iPad prices start at $400, and rise to $800+ for superior models – Apple regularly boast sales which leave Amazon in the dust. While Amazon confidently expects to sell 17 million Kindle Fire’s this year, Apple is equally sanguine about the possibility of selling 70 million iPad’s. Apple dominates over 60% of the tablet market, in fact – and it’s entirely possible that the Kindle Fire only lays claim to its humble piece of the pie because of its comparative cheapness. What are they going to do when Google’s Nexus 7 retails at $199 for the basic model, with superior spec and hardware to the Kindle Fire? It’s a similar story in the Smartphone market. Google’s Android OS currently lays claim to over 51% of the US market, with Apple’s iOS close on its tail with around 30%. The rest of the market is divided up between smaller operating systems, such as Windows Phone, Symbian, Tizen and others. The same applies to the consumer side of things; Samsung and Apple together dominate over 50% of Smartphone sales, and – owing to their high-end devices such as the Galaxy S3 and iPhone 4S – over 90% of Smartphone profits. So in essence, the operating system war is a two-horse race between Google and Apple, and the sales war is a two-horse race between Samsung and Apple. How much of a dent can a new contender possibly make, when long-going mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia and RIM have already been edged out of the running by the current industry leads? There’s a more pressing problem, as well – patents. As anyone with a passion for Smartphones will be aware, litigation is rife amongst Smartphone manufacturers. Apple is leading the fray, with simultaneous lawsuits against companies as diverse as HTC, Samsung, Motorola and Google, courtesy of their enormous legal department and impressive cash reserves. But even Nokia have been getting in on the act recently, launching a patent suit against Google for allegedly infringing upon one of Nokia’s Wi-Fi patents with their new Nexus 7 tablet. Most of these companies have spent years building up solid patent portfolios; Apple is well-known for registering enormous amounts, and Google has a reputation for buying out companies in order to acquire their patents: they recently bought out Motorola for $12.5 billion, obtaining more than 17,000 patents in the process. Amazon, by contrast, recent balked at the possibility of spending $400 million to outbid chipset manufacturer Intel on a number of Smartphone-related patents, despite the obvious impact this would have on their plans to diversify. So how committed are Amazon to their new Smartphone? And how do they expect to gain substantial profits in a market already saturated with Smartphones of every stripe? Only time will tell.

Microsoft’s upcoming Surface seems to have opened the floodgates as far as the tablet market is concerned. Google have entered the 7” tablet fray with the Nexus 7 (expected to ship later this month), and even Apple are rumoured to be working on a miniature version of the iPad (though many think this rumour baseless; Apple have always had very clear ideas on screen size). But perhaps the most surprising update is Samsung’s announcement that they’re prepping a tablet to run on Windows RT. For the uninitiated, Windows RT is a stripped-down version of Windows 8 designed to run on devices using ARM-based processors, such as tablets. The OS is sold only to developers, for the express purpose of preloading onto their devices; it is not intended as a standalone product for consumers. So why have Samsung opted to follow Microsoft’s lead, and release a new tablet to coincide with the release of Windows 8, when they’ve traditionally been associated with Android? Surely it would make more sense for the South Korean chaebol to utilize Google’s upcoming Android 4.1, Jelly Bean – or even wait for their much-anticipated Chrome OS, which is ultimately expected to homogenize the Google user experience and act as a bridge between laptops, tablets and Smartphones. There are a number of explanations. The most obvious is the notion that Samsung have already established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the Android market: they’re exceeded only by Apple as the premier provider of Smartphones (at least in terms of profits). It would make sense to try and diversify their market with a tablet utilizing a new OS, rather than stick to the same, tired iterations of Android. More ominously, this could signal a sea-shift in Samsung’s attitudes towards Google. Many have hypothesized that Samsung are attempting to distance themselves from Google, recently - though Google make a show of support for all adopters of their Android OS, Samsung has recently made the decision to utilize the Tizen operating system on their lower-spec Smartphones, despite the surfeit of older versions of Android (such as Froyo and Gingerbread) that are perfectly suited for this task. Samsung clearly want a little more autonomy in terms of software; or perhaps they’re just uncomfortable with putting all of their eggs in Google’s basket. Whatever the case may be – whether diversifying their market share, or radically shifting dimensions into a new one entirely – Samsung’s tablet is slated for release in October, which will coincide with the release of both Windows 8 and Microsoft’s Surface tablet. They’ll have a lot of work ahead of them; with both a new OS to tinker with, and a hardy market opponent in the form of the Surface, diversifying into the Windows tablet market will be an uphill struggle. But assuming they can overshadow their Microsoft competition, Samsung stand to gain substantial profits from this move!

Steve Jobs, Apple’s famously single-minded founder, had some choice words to say about smaller tablets. One of his rants on the subject is near-legendary on the internet, even today: the one where he claimed smaller sized tablets should come with a swathe of sandpaper, to file down human fingers. His claim was simple, and became an unspoken law amongst Apple – the standard size for a tablet should be 10”. Anything less is simply too small, Jobs claimed; it would compromise on the users ability to use sophisticated methods of manipulation via the touchscreen such as pinching, tapping and sliding, which have always been the iPad’s stock-in-trade. Undoubtedly, Jobs would have derived some amusement from rival Google’s latest offering, the upcoming Nexus 7 tablet, which is due to start shipping in two to three weeks time. But, as is customary when a company steps on Apple’s toes, rumours are flying about Apple’s upcoming “7 inch tablet”, a supposed reaction against both the Nexus 7 and Amazon’s new version of the Kindle Fire, slated for delivery in early August. If the traditional “industry insiders” are to be believed, this hypothetical product is slated for an October release date (around the same time Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5), and will lack the retina display of its larger brethren. The specs are expected to include an underclocked A5 processor and about 512MB of RAM, along with the same 8GB / 16GB storage options currently provided by the Nexus 7 itself. However, the Chinese site “MyDrivers” which ‘leaked’ the specifications also reported a $249 to $299 price-tag for the 8GB model – significantly more than the Nexus 7’s 8GB version, which is currently priced for pre-order at $199. This begs the question of what, if anything, a device with similar specifications to the Nexus 7 would be able to offer to warrant such a bump in price. The answer is comparatively little. The Amazon Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7 are priced so competitively because they stand to gain little, if any, profit through direct sales; the devices are sold for scarcely more than they cost to manufacture. Profit margins are recouped through digital media sales (and in the case of Google, advertising). The larger iPad is priced higher because of its greater range of features: the option for much larger storage, the high-powered processor and – of course – the much larger screen all ensure that customers seeking a luxury purchase will opt for the iPad in lieu of cheaper tablets. The shallow end of the tablet market does not benefit from a ‘luxury’ mini iPad – so (assuming these rumours have any basis in fact) Apple would have to radically alter their traditional marketing strategy if they wanted to make a dent in a market dominated by the Kindle Fire (and set to be shook up significantly by the arrival of the Nexus 7).

Day one of the Input/Output Conference has been and gone, and with typical aplomb, Google has unveiled a plethora of new products for us to pore over! Its announcements proceeded largely as we anticipated (courtesy of several security leaks prior to the I/O), but Google managed to throw a curveball or two our way - we’ll overview all the ups and downs of day one of I/O in this blog post. First up, the tablet we all knew was on the way, the Nexus 7. The specifications were exactly the same as were leaked in a training document earlier this week: a 7” screen, which gives the device its name; a front-facing 1.2MP camera, but no dedicated back-facing one; a 1280x800 IPS display; 1GB of RAM; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth availability; and a Nvidia Tegra 3 chip, enabling the quad-core processor which is, increasingly, becoming standard in top-end tablet and Smartphones. As you might expect from the size, the Nexus 7 is intended to counterpoint Amazon and their Kindle / Kindle Fire devices, which currently dominate the cheaper end of the tablet market – a clever marketing decision by Google, as it doesn’t tread on Apple’s feet by challenging the high-end tablet supremacy of the iPad. Nexus 7 is reportedly going to ship with Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, pre-installed: which brings us neatly to Google’s next announcement! The Jelly Bean OS was officially announced as an incremental improvement to Android’s current OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. The largest new feature introduced is codenamed ‘Project Butter’, and is essentially software intended to improve Android hardware performance. Project Butter produces smoother animations, and improves touchscreen input recognition, as well as cutting down the speed on load times significantly. Google also managed to streamline their proprietary search interface by introducing a new search interface, which they call ‘cards’. Cards are intended to split up information into digestible and attractive snippets; for example, if you entered a number of appointments for July 25^th and then searched for July 25^th on your Smartphone, all of your appointments might be segregated by time. Or if you searched for a weather forecast, the display could be segregated into multiple cards displaying temperature, whether or not it is raining, barometric pressure, etc. Google have introduced this card featured alongside a polished-up version of their voice interface software, Google Assistant. Though it doesn't yet have the sheen of Siri, Google Assistant is fast approaching the time when it will be competitive with Apple software – and the combination of clean card interface/vocal interaction offers an intuitive user interface light-years ahead of anything possible with Ice Cream Sandwich. The remainder of Jelly Bean’s innovations were largely incremental; changes like a polished-up home-screen, a superior camera application, Google Beam software to Bluetooth photographs and other media back and forth, and several other interesting utilities. Finally, the Nexus Q. Though the Nexus Q was unveiled as Project Tungsten at I/O 2011 - and preliminarily linked to Android@Home, Google’s controversial plan to interconnect home appliances like cars, TVs and lights and have your Android Smartphone act as a ‘universal remote’ controlling them all – it was largely forgotten in the wake of other Google successes, or overshadowed completely by rumours of the Nexus 7. It was a real surprise for the Mobile Madhouse team when this spherical device was pulled out on stage. Essentially, the Nexus Q is a home media device: a black sphere with a built-in amplifier, which can wirelessly access music and play both music and video when hooked up to different devices. It’s intended to act as a gateway to Google Play, their online content distribution service, and streams music direct from the Cloud. When we predicted Cloud storage potential in Google’s future, we didn't quite have this in mind! Streaming hubs have existed before, however. The main innovation of the Nexus Q lies in its manufacture – it is officially the first piece of hardware to be manufactured in-house by Google’s own design team. Though Google have always excelled at creating software (their open-source Android is adopted by companies as disparate as Motorola, Samsung and HTC), their true test has always been matching competitors like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple in the hardware stakes. But if the sleek and stylish sheik of the Nexus Q sphere is anything to go by, Google have nothing to worry about – they’ve passed the design test with flying colours, creating a product that Apple themselves would be proud to call their own. Though, with a price tag of $300 ($200 more than Apple TV, Apple’s version of a media streaming hub), it remains to be seen how many consumers will adopt the Nexus Q in the long-run. So that’s Google’s I/O Conference in a nutshell – for now, at least. Its unlikely Google will be revealing any new hardware or software over the next two days, but it’s eminently possible that they’ll lay out their plans for the future, or spend their available time convincing developers of the boons of creating applications for the Android OS. We here at Mobile Madhouse can’t wait to see what they come up with next!

Though Microsoft is one of the premier software companies in the world, and also has a proud history in manufacturing (producing high quality mice, keyboards, and – of course – the ultra-popular Xbox and Xbox 360 videogame consoles), its previous stance when it came to computers involved outsourcing the production of the hardware to different companies. But yesterday they announced that they will be both producing and programming their latest product: the Microsoft Surface Tablet, a device intended to uncompromisingly bridge the gap between the power of a P.C and the versatility and portability of a tablet computer. It’s a bold move: with Apple accounting for fully two thirds of the tablet market, it’s difficult to conceive of a company with no prior experience with computer manufacturing breaking successfully into the tablet market. But despite their comparative lack of experience, Microsoft have made a clever decision in deciding to take full control of their tablet computer; one similar to Apple’s recent decision to launch their own mapping system, rather than rely on Google Maps, or Samsung’s recent decision to utilize Bada instead of the Android OS on their entry level Smartphones – essentially, it’s not a great idea to rely on companies you’re in competition with in other areas. Both Apple and Samsung have a healthy mistrust of Google (proprietor of both Google Maps and the open source Android OS) because it has an impetus to harvest their customer’s data for advertising purposes: ergo, they are trying to become more self-sufficient, and cut Google off at the source (or at least stymie their efforts). Similarly, Microsoft could have outsourced hardware production to a company like Intel or Samsung, but by doing so they are essentially ‘sleeping with the enemy’. Additionally, by overseeing all aspects of both design and programming, Microsoft ensure that the Surface Tablet really is their device, custom made from the ground up and thus guaranteed to contain all of the features they desire. And what are those features, you may be wondering? Well, sadly, Microsoft hasn’t released all of the specifications for their device yet, but the ones they have are fairly promising. They pledge to create two versions of the Surface Tablet: a smaller and weaker variant (weighing 676g at 9.3mm thick, designed with Windows RT and low-power processors in mind), and the Pro version (weighing 903g at 13.5mm thick, running the standard Windows 8 OS and designed for standard Intel chipsets). Both, however, possess 10.6” HD screens, a case incorporating a thin (and optional) keyboard peripheral, and a kickstand so users can watch the screen without straining their hands. While the Pro tablet has a maximum of 128GB memory, the RT version has a peak of only half that (and its standard version is a mere quarter, at 32GB). The Microsoft press release that accompanied the unveiling states that the Surface Tablet has a full sized USB port, a 16:9 aspect ratio and 22 degrees angled edges, meaning that even the weaker RT version should have no issue with running full 1080p HD video.  So far, reaction to the device has been mixed. Most pundits are impressed by the design of the Surface Tablet: one stalwart Apple blogger even grudgingly conceded that Microsoft could make substantial money by simply revamping the Surface Tablet case for the iPad, since it is so innovative and attractive. But the prevailing opinion is that there are not enough details about the specifications to make an informed judgement about the Surface Tablet yet. And almost everybody feels that Microsoft may be jeopardizing its relationships with other companies (such as Samsung, manufacturer of a previous Microsoft tablet computer) – analyst Michael Gartenberg speculated that “Microsoft felt they could not rely on others to deliver on their vision for Windows 8 in mobile computing”. Will Microsoft’s former partners resent their decision to stand on their own two feet, and withdraw support? And if they did, would Microsoft be capable of producing their own hardware in the long term? And – most seriously of all – is the fledgling Surface capable of going head-to-head with the ubiquitous iPad and coming out on top? Only time can tell if Microsoft’s decision to diversify will be a good one.