Evidence has been discovered that shows that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be offered by office supply retailer OfficeMax. As we reported, the tablet is expected to launch very soon with June 8th the date being bandied about. A picture of a comparison chart reveals the OfficeMax logo on the bottom right while the chart compares Samsung’s high-end tablet with the competition including the BlackBerry PlayBook and the Motorola XOOM.

Besides OfficeMax, the Android 3.1 powered tablet will also be found at Best Buy and, as we told you, can be pre-ordered now from the web site of New York electronics retailer J&R. The 16GB version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be priced at $499 while the 32GB model will run you $599.
source: AndroidCentral

The Asus PadFone mockup got tired of lurking in the shadows, watching how details about it drip from the information highway faucet, and decided to stand up and get unveiled.

At the Computex 2011 expo Asus announced the PadFone concept, a very interesting smartphone/tablet hybrid, which allows you to dock an Android smartphone into a shell with a larger screen real estate, to make a tablet. Screen sizes haven’t been finalized yet, but for the demonstration Asus used a 4.3″ screen for the phone to a 10.1″ display on the tablet section.

Unlike the Motorola ATRIX 4G and its laptop dock, the handset slides whole into a dedicated compartment, and a lid hides it in, leaving unsuspecting friends with the impression that you are rocking a 10″ tablet only. The tablet shell has its own juice pack, so you will be getting some extra hours of runtime from the PadFone, similar to what Asus did with the Eee Pad Transformer, where a separate battery in the dock gives you 8 more hours of juice…

Read the whole story at PhoneArena.com!

It seems to be Asus day today, with full-on pictures of the PadFone leaked, and the news that the Asus Eee Pad Transformer already has its working Android 3.1 Honeycomb update.

The only thing missing was an official tablet announcement, and here we go. Fresh from the Computex 2011 expo comes the Asus Eee Pad MeMO 3D, the intriguing 7″ tablet that was unveiled at the CES show way back in January, but with the third dimension added for good measure. Nothing was mentioned at the time that there will actually be a 3D-enabled, glasses-free version of the 7-incher, but here we have it just like that.

The display is IPS-LCD with a parallax-barrier 3D overlay that doesn’t require glasses, unlike the 3D technology on the T-Mobile G-Slate. Asus promises that we’ll retain the same wide viewing angles we are used to with IPS-LCD screens, just doesn’t specify if that will be with the 3D mode on or off. Resolution is 600×1024 pixels. which is decent for a 7″ slate, and, if it has the same innards as the Asus MeMO announced at CES, the tablet should sport a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm 8260 chipset.

The Asus Eee Pad MeMO slate had 5 megapixel rear camera with LED flash and 1MP front cam, but what camera or cameras are on the 3D version is unclear. Since it has a dual-core chipset, you can bet the house that the camera records full 1080p HD video. The cute Eee Pad MeMO could also output those full HD videos via HDMI to a bigger screen, and the MeMO 3D can probably do that as well, although the press release doesn’t specify.

The cherry on the cake is that the tablet comes with a capacitive stylus, as suggested by Asus’s press shots, and there were the Media Note and Painter apps to take a good use of it, for note-taking and doodling, respectively, when it was announced at CES in non-3D form.

Back in January, the Asus Eee Pad MeMO was listed to retail for $499-$699 starting in June, so hopefully Asus would make good on that promise for the 3D version too, at least regarding the release month. The MeMIC Bluetooth headset and remote for calls and music comes standard with the Asus Eee Pad MeMO 3D as well.

via SlashGear

Asus Eee Pad MeMO 3D works with a capacitive stylus as well

ViewSonic might not have the wide reach of Apple and its iPad, but it managed to turn some eyes at Computex after announcing the world’s first seven-inch Honeycomb tablet, the ViewSonic ViewPad 7x. But the company, known mostly for its computer displays, didn’t stop on that and introduced the ViewSonic ViewPad 10Pro, a 10 incher running Windows 7 Pro.

The ViewPad 7x, on one hand, comes with a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, which powers Android 3.0.1 Honeycomb displayed on the 7-inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. Throw in “the fastest-ever” HSPA+ radios, HDMI support and DLNA, and you have a nearly full connectivity package. Folks willing to experiment taking pictures with a tablet will be happy to see that the ViewPad 7x comes with both read and front-facing cameras. Looking at the almost standard dual-core processor and features, we’d find it hard to pinpoint a single distinctive feature on the background of the rest of the uniform Honeycomb tablet crew, but it’s the screen size and light weight of only 13.4 ounces (380 grams) that make the seven incher from ViewSonic somewhat different.

The ViewSonic ViewPad 10Pro, on the other hand, follows closely the footsteps of the ViewPad 10, which we reviewed earlier. The ViewPad 10Pro will appeal to corporate folk with its pre-installed Windows 7 Pro OS. And productivity should be optimal with the 1.5GHz Intel Oak Trail Z670 processor under the hood. The 10 incher can also run Android 2.2 Froyo on a virtual machine, but it’s not a fully-baked dual-boot device, so don’t get your hopes too high. The tablet does however support USB, so you can further expand your storage via USB-compatible devices or microSD cards of up to 32 gigs. The 3500 mAh battery promises 4.5 hours of full HD 1080p video playback. Pricing and release dates remain unknown, but we’ll surely hear more about the tablets soon, but in the meantime feel free to share your first impressions about ViewSonic’s announcements in the comments below!

source: ViewSonic

It turns out there is some unorthodox innovation in the Asus PadFone, after all. A smartphone/tablet combo seems like a pretty neat idea already, but to differentiate it from something like the Motorola ATRIX 4G & Laptop Dock, Asus has provided not simply a slot, but a whole compartment where the phone gets tucked in, with a lid closing above it.

It looks like the phone slides in there, and hooks up with the USB and HDMI ports, to become one with a bigger 10″ screen, some stereo speakers, and, we’d wager to guess, a way bigger battery for long hours of happy Android-ing.

Not that Android is mentioned explicitly as the operating system, but knowing how Ice Cream Sandwich aims to bring together the Android smartphone and tablet user interfaces, it’s rather likely that the Asus PadFone has been conceived with the next version of Android in mind. The phone’s 5MP camera seems to be utilized for a picture and video shooter in tablet mode as well, another svelte idea.

source: SlashGear

The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer is one of the most wanted crossover products – half-tablet, half-netbook – the Transformer comes with a juicy price tag of only $399 for the basic model. It’s no surprise that shortly after it went on sale it was quickly sold out, but one thing owners of the affordable Transformer might have wanted in addition to the device is a software update. Android 3.1 Honeycomb was confirmed to be coming soon, but impatient geeks can get it now from the download link below.

The newest version of Honeycomb brings improved overall performance and you’re also treated with a firmware update for the dock of the Transformer with a brand-new power saving mode and a fix for the lag when watching videos on the web. In addition, some bugs have also been fixed and it’s only JavaScript that seems to work slightly slower after the update. The update seems to be in its final version, but some users still had issues when updating, so if you don’t feel secure with your flashing skills you might want to put it off until the official update arrives. For the rest, check out the source below for all the instructions and a download link, and let us know how it all went in the comments!

source: Android Central

With the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and its innovative dock, the company set somewhat of an expectation that it will be working on making our life with Android tablets more interesting. It is evidently trying not to disappoint us spectators, and we are only hours away from Computex 2011 in Taiwan, where Asus will showcase something with the codename PadFone, possibly a phone/tablet hybrid.

What’s so different about it than a Motorola ATRIX 4G with its laptop dock, you would ask? We still don’t know with details, but a few more teaser pics leaked that have the phone on top of the tablet thingy this time. It looks like aluminum or at least chrome-like plastic is part of the design decision, but what silicon is inside the phone or the tablet, as well as the screens’ size and resolution, remain a mystery.

via SlashGear

Even though the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 was originally announced to come with Android 3.0 out of the box, we now know that the tablet will actually ship running the updated 3.1 version of Google’s tablet-optimized platform. Luckily, this isn’t a rumor nor a leak – the source of the news is the manufacturer itself. The product page for the upcoming Galaxy Tabs has been already updated, and a confirmation was posted on Samsung’s official Facebook page.

Some of the new features that Android 3.1 Honeycomb brings along are support for USB peripherals and Adobe Flash 10.2, enhanced widget customization options, and a movie rental service courtesy of Google itself. If you would like to learn more, feel free to check out our Android 3.1 Honeycomb hands-on.

Those of you who are more interested in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1’s release date rather than the OS that it will come with, a Samsung representative mentioned that the tablet is “only a few days away from launch.” This comes as a pleasant surprise to us because the tablet’s launch date was promised to be June 8 – 2 weeks away from today. Could Samsung be possibly getting ready for an early launch? Nevertheless, those of you who are already impatient and want to have one as soon as possible, can head over to J&R’s web site, where the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is already available for pre-order.

source: Samsung & Samsung’s Facebook page via Boy Genius Report

The attraction with Acer’s new tablets is undeniably great taking into consideration the aggressive price point they’re tackling, but there’s still always that problem of having to keep up with the strenuous demand. Acer is undoubtedly a big time player in the computer business, but now that they’re focusing a lot of attention in the tablet market, they’ll need to keep pace in order to blossom into a sizable opponent in this competitive new market.

Interestingly enough, Acer’s part suppliers have hinted that they’re seeing stronger than expected sales with Acer’s ICONIA TAB line, albeit, production at this point might  limit potential shipments. In fact, it’s more than “likely” for Acer to ship 1 million units of its Android-based tablets in the spring, but the issues boil down to Acer’s former CEO Gianfranco Lanci refusing to hire non-Taiwanese engineers to step up ICONIA TAB deliveries.

Looking into the numbers alone, Acer saw 300,000 tablets shipped in April, which 70 percent consisted of its ICONIA A500 and Windows powered W500 models. As for the rest, shipments seem to mainly come from its ICONIA SMART phone and tablet hybrid. And of course, we all know at this point that they’ve delayed the release of their 7-inch model – the ICONIA TAB A100.

via Electronista

The HTC Flyer price has shocked us as the tablet flew over to Europe for its debut, but the $700 Europeans have to pay for the Wi-Fi-only version of the 7-inch tablet have shrunk to a much more acceptable $499 stateside in Best Buy. The Wi-Fi-only version of the tablet is already listed for pre-order on the retailer’s website, but final availability is to ensue this Sunday, May 22nd.

The catch is that the capacitive stylus for the tablet dubbed “Magic Pen” is notably absent from the Best Buy package and getting it separately would set you back $80, if we are to believe previous listing of the Magic Pen on the retailer’s website. This would bring the tally to $580, which is still better than the hard-to-swallow price tag of nearly $700 for the same model with the stylus included. Best Buy is currently the exclusive retailer for the 7-incher.

The HTC Flyer doesn’t stand out with a skinny profile as the trend is nowadays, but rather with functionality – along with the novel Magic Pen, the tablet comes with the HTC Sense UI ported to tablets and running atop Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Under the hood, a 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor powers the experience on a 7-inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels.

source: Best Buy via BGR