Android

B&N just made its Nook tablets much more compelling

Dave Farquhar Android , , ,

This past week, Barnes and Noble put the Google Play store on its Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets. So while they’re still running a forked Android, they’ll run most Android apps without you having to do anything special. That, plus the high-resolution screen, the low price, plus the ability to plug microSD cards into it, plus the ready availability at major retailers makes for a much more compelling tablet.

Sales have been abysmal lately, but I expect this to change that pretty quickly. Now the Nook tablets have three things the Kindle Fires lack: a better screen, greater openness, and expandability. Now they look like a very good general purpose tablet, to my eye.

The ACLU has a point about smartphone security

Dave Farquhar Android, security , , , , , , , , , ,

The ACLU complained to the FTC that carriers aren’t patching vulnerable Android phones. They have a point.

Phones are profitable, and the carriers are trying to have it both ways. Read more

The low-cost tablet invasion

Dave Farquhar Android , ,
Over at PCMag, Tim Bajarin took notice of the low-cost tablet invasion.

Don’t get too excited about the $89 tablet he just heard about; it’s a single-core, 1.2 GHz tablet with a 4:3-ratio 800×600 screen. For $89, it’s fine, but I wouldn’t call it unexpected, and certainly not revolutionary. It’s a couple hundred megahertz faster than the $79 tablets at Big Lots, and has 120 more pixels in one direction.
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ARM exec says: $100 tablets are the key to mass adoption

Dave Farquhar Android , , ,

This week, ARM said what several people seem to have figured out: The key to mass adoption for smartphones and tablets is the $100 price point.

It may happen this year. It’s not hard to find a decently fast $80 Android tablet, but you’ll have to put up with a sub-optimal screen to get it–800×480.
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My phone’s micro SD card made Windows Disk Manager hang, but I fixed it

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , , ,

The micro SD card in my Android phone (a Samsung Galaxy S 4G, if that helps) quit working suddenly, and I finally got around to investigating it on Friday. I ended up having to solve two problems to do it, though.

Let’s start with Windows 7’s Disk Manager hanging at the message that says “Connecting to Virtual Disk Service.”

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Up and coming low-end Android chips

Dave Farquhar Android , , , , , , , ,

I decided to dig into what the low-end Android chipmakers like Mediatek and Rockchip are up to, since they’re the ones who are likely to drive prices down.

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Asus gets into the sub-$200 tablet fray

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , , , , , ,

Now Asus is jumping into the sub-$150 tablet range too, but with a device that’s much more subdued than what Polaroid and Archos are offering.

It appears to me that Asus is trying to remain mid-tier, and hope that name recognition and reliability advantages (whether perceived or real) keep their tablet in the game.
Their $149 Memo Pad has a 7-inch 1024×600 display and a single-core VIA WM8950 CPU, running at 1 GHz. It will be running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and has the precious microSD card slot, which accepts up to a 32 GB card. Read more

Polaroid’s M7 and M10 tablets make me glad I didn’t buy a tablet last month

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , , , , , ,

I didn’t buy a tablet last month. I knew about Acer’s new low-end tablet, the Iconia B1, and that they were at least initially reluctant to release it in the United States, but I hoped that either Acer would change their mind or that someone else would decide that the U.S. market really needs something in between the $80 cheapie no-name 1-ish GHz, single-core, 800×480 tablets sold in every drugstore, closeout store, and vacant gas station lot in the country and the $200 tablets that the likes of Samsung and Acer sell.

I’d be lying if I said I saw the Polaroid M7 and M10 coming. Lying like the evil spawn of a politician and a used car salesman. Read more

Speed up Android with Seeder Entropy Generator

Dave Farquhar Android, Software , , ,

Seeder Entropy Generator, released on XDA Developers, became a sensation the last couple of days. There’s debate whether it works, and debate over why it works, but enough people reported an improvement that I gave it a whirl. The difference was noticeable. There is a downside–more on that in a bit.

I don’t know why it works either, but it made my pokey 800 MHz Nook Color running Cyanogenmod 7.2 more responsive. What I haven’t seen is a nice how-to on installing it. Read more

That other use of Stability Test that I promised

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware ,

I promised earlier this week to write about another use of Stability Test. The other use of Stability Test is for underclocking your CPU for better performance, undervolting it for better battery life, or both.

While a good number of people do both to their Nook Color, I can’t get mine to run for any length of time without crashing when I do either. Oddly enough, my Nook Color will pass Stability Test for 12 hours at 1.1 GHz, but then when I go to use it, it freezes up.

Mine was a refurb unit, so I may not have gotten the best chip in the batch. It’s entirely possible that it’s a refurb because some other enthusiast got it, tried to overclock it and couldn’t, then exchanged it for another, and then B&N tested and resold it as a refurb. But I find using Go Launcher EX makes life at 800 MHz tolerable on the machine anyway, especially when I use the apps for the web sites I visit most frequently, rather than trying to use a web browser.