Apple iPad mini stops by our office, poses for a hands-on video

With the announcement of the iPad mini, Apple will give the already handsomely growing 7-inch tablet market an extra boost. Now that the 7.85-inch slate in our hands, it’s time to take it for a quick spin and see what its deal is.

Some might say out that due to the price there isn’t any deal to be had here. Yet the really beautiful aluminum body of the iPad mini quickly makes you forget about that. The 7.85-inch LCD IPS display at the front packs a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels resulting in a pixel density of 162ppi. It’s a rather modest achievement and will have the Nexus 7 grin, but the vast catalog of tablet-optimized apps that the App Store offers might make you forgive that too.

You won’t be wrong if you view the iPad mini as an enlarged iPhone 5 (or iPod Touch if you will), mainly because of the design of the slate. The big Apple logo at the back is surrounded of aluminum, with the usual array of buttons at their usual places for an iPad.

At the back, the iPad mini sports a 5MP camera, which shoots video at full HD resolution. There’s also a 1.2MP unit at the front for video chatting.

The internals of the iPad mini are well familiar as this is the same chipset powering the iPad 2. Just like its bigger brother, the mini packs Apple’s A5 chip, featuring two Cortex-A9 processor cores. Graphics processing is taken care of the PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU.

Naturally, the iPad mini is running iOS 6 out of the box and comes with Siri to help you with your daily endeavors. As usual, we’ve prepared a quick unboxing and user interface video of the new iPad mini. Check it out below.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Photos of purported Samsung Nexus 10 quick start guide reveal the slate’s design

Alleged photos of the Samsung Nexus 10 quick start guide have popped up giving us a glimpse of the slate’s design and hardware controls layout.

This is by far the most solid evidence of the slate’s existence after a purported photo taken with it appeared on Picasa.

Nexus 10 will be manufactured by Samsung and just like the company’s recent tablets (the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 2 10.1) features two speakers at the front. At the back, there’s a prominent Nexus logo and above the display resides a front-facing camera and an ambient light sensor.

The main camera is at the back coupled with LED flash. The rest is really not that surprising — there the usual array of power/lock and volume rocket buttons at the top and Samsung’s proprietary charging port at the bottom.

And here comes the surprising part that got us skeptical. According to the booklet, the Nexus 10 sports a microUSB and microHDMI ports in addition to Samsung’s proprietary charging port at the bottom. This doesn’t seem right, but who knows.

Anyway, the Nexus 10 is expected to be announced at Google’s special event in New York on Monday, October 29. We’ll be there and will bring you all the news as the event progresses.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Watch the Apple iPad mini official promo video

As per tradition Apple has released a promotion video for its newly announced iPad mini.

The smaller 7.9-inch slate shares its chipset and screen resolution of the iPad 2, but adds a 5MP rear camera and the new Lightning port. The video tells more about those as well as the other cool bits of the compact tablet.

Check it out.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

HP announces Envy X2 Windows 8 tablet with keyboard dock, we take it for a spin

HP’s most interesting announcement at IFA this year is the Envy X2 – a Windows 8-based tablet with a keyboard dock.

The Envy X2 slate features an 11.6-inch IPS touchscreen with 400-nit brightness and 1366x768px resolution. It’s powered by Intel’s Clover Trail processor and comes with 8MP camera and 64GB internal memory. There is support for Beats Audio as well.

The Envy X2 body and dock are made entirely of aluminum giving everything a premium look. The keyboard dock weighs about 725 grams and packs an additional battery, 2xUSB ports, an HDMI TV-out and an SD slot.

HP Envy X2

The slate itself weighs a bit less – about 680 grams which is even more impressive given the solid aluminum shell and the size of the whole thing.

HP Envy X2

HP Envy X2 has “an innovative hinge with magnets that smoothly guide the tablet into place” and we can confirm indeed that the slate fits easily into the dock and you’ll have no problem using it as a laptop.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Hands-on with the Archos 101 XS tablet, live pictures inside

The Archos booth was one of the stops during our tour around the IFA expo grounds and we got to see the newly announced Archos 101 XS slate in person and take a few live shots of the device.

The ICS-powered Archos 101 XS has a 10.1″ 1280 x 800 display and is powered by the TI OMAP 4470 chipest, featuring dual core CPU and the PowerVR SGX544 GPU. According to the company it should get its Jelly Bean serving by the end of the year.

Inside there will be 16 GB of on-board storage with microSD card support up to 64 GBs.

The Archos 101 XS has a mini HDMI on the left side along with a microUSB and 3.5 mm headphones jack.

The keyboard dock, dubbed Coverboard, attaches to the Archos 101 XS magnetically and features a full QWERTY and home, back and task switcher buttons.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Sony Xperia Tablet S promo video brings Fruit Ninja to life

Sony is known for its creative, unusual and sometimes downright odd commercials and its ad for the new Sony Xperia Tablet S doesn’t disappoint. If the slate’s 9.4″ screen was a theater stage, this is how things would have looked like.

The company also released another promo video, which is less fun but more informative. Check out both clips right here.

And here’s the second video, from Sony’s Developer World.

Make sure to check out our own hands-on impressions from the Sony Xperia Tablet S.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Google advertises the Nexus 7 tablet on its homepage

With the slate’s availability expanding even further, Google has featured an ad for the Nexus 7 on its homepage. The ASUS made tablet joins the likes of the T-Mobile G1, Nexus 1, Nexus S, Motorola Droid, as well as the Google Chrome browser as part of the elite club of products, which have been advertised on Google.com.

The ad for the Google Nexus 7 is quite catchy. For about a second after you open Google’s main page, nothing happens. Then the tablet pops up from the page’s bottom, revealing its top end.

With the Nexus 7 already selling like hot cakes, we can reasonably expect that having one of the prime advertising spots on the world wide web will bode even better for the tablet’s commercial success. What do you think?

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com