New Android Smartphones Serve up 3D--Without the Glasses
By Chris Brandrick, PCWorld Nov 4, 2010 3:44 pm

3D smartphones will soon be a reality--if you live in Japan, that is. Two upcoming Sharp smartphones will offer a 3D-capable display. These two new Android powered phones, known as the Galapagos 003SH and 005SH, won't just house any regular 3D screen. Instead, they'll be based around an autostereoscopic 3D display developed by Sharp itself, which means that you'll be able to view 3D content without the need for pesky 3D glasses. After all, who would want to wear 3D glasses just to use their smartphone?

But what 3D content will these portable devices have? Sharp detailed that a range of 3D movies and games will be made available for the smartphones. The game lineup will include the likes of Resident Evil (BioHazard), Megaman, and Konami Mobile Baseball titles. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, both devices will be capable of taking 3D pictures.

Beyond the devices 3D capabilities, both of the handsets will come with Android 2.2 (Froyo), and they'll include a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 3.8-inch display, as well as the usual Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities.

The Galapagos 003SH (pictured in black and red) comes with a 9.6 megapixel camera, and the ability to record 720p video footage. The Galapagos 005SH (shown in white) comes with a slightly lower-resolution 8.0 megapixel camera, but it has a full QWERTY keyboard. Both devices memory can be expanded up to 32GB of storage via microSD cards.

If you want some mobile 3D action, the handsets will be hitting Japan in a few months, with the 003SH being made available in December and the 005SH going on sale in January of next year.

Galaxy Tab Review Round-Up: The Anti-iPad Has Come
By Ian Paul, PCWorld Nov 11, 2010 9:33 am

The reviews are in and the Samsung Galaxy Tab one-panel slate is a hit, mostly. Reviewers don't appear to be bothered by the Galaxy Tab's diminutive size compared to the iPad, no matter what Apple CEO Steve Jobs says. And most see the Galaxy Tab as a credible competitor to the iPad. Will the Galaxy Tab win over your heart? Will Samsung sell one million Galaxy Tabs before the end of the year, or will the electronics maker be forced to come out with a 10-inch Galaxy Tab in the near future?


Read on, to see what the critics are saying -- including Wired's Christopher Null , Harry McCracken writing for Time , The New York Times' David Pogue, The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan, and, of course, PC World's own Melissa J. Perenson -- about the Samsung Galaxy Tab.


Screen and Size


The critics can't agree on whether the Galaxy Tab's 7-inch screen size is big enough compared to what you get on the 9.6-inch screen. Most, however, say the screen is better than you would expect. Writing for Time magazine, McCracken said the Galaxy Tab's "display is impressive ... with a higher dots-per-inch count than the iPad ... even though the resolution is lower." Null agreed with McCracken, saying the Samsung tablet's "1024 x 600-pixel resolution makes this less of a big deal than you might expect." Several critics also noted that the Galaxy Tab's screen was not as bright as the iPad's.


But two reviewers weren't pleased with the Galaxy Tab's display. Buchanan said the tablet's screen wasn't big enough, while Mossberg echoed an argument made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in October. "The Tab has a 7-inch screen versus the 9.7-inch display on the iPad ... but the numbers are deceptive ... the actual screen real estate on the Tab is less than half of the iPad's."


Multitasking, Camera and Flash, Oh My!


All of the critics were quick to point out that the Galaxy Tab has a few advantages over the current state of the iPad. Namely, the Galaxy Tab has front- and rear-facing cameras, Adobe Flash for viewing online video and multitasking. (The iPad will get multitasking later this month with the iOS 4.2 update.) But these added features aren't all they're cracked up to be, according to the critics.


Camera, meh


The first thing to note is that taking photos with a giant slab of technology is not as subtle as taking a snap with your smartphone. "The big viewfinder (otherwise known as the screen) was a kick, but no way are you going to be subtle when taking a photo with the Galaxy Tab," Perenson said.


The other thing is that the cameras may not be that great. The Galaxy Tab uses a 3.2 megapixel rear-facing camera, but Mossberg said it delivered only "average quality," while Null said it was "fair-enough."


Give Me FaceTime!


Video calling doesn't appear to be that great either, and some experienced problems with Qik, the Galaxy Tab's third-party video calling app. Mossberg said he experienced dropped calls and at one point lost all audio on the call, while Pogue called the whole video calling experience "flaky." Qik is reportedly working on a fix for the app. Perhaps the most telling comment came from McCracken who said Apple's "FaceTime video-calling software [was] sorely missed" on the Galaxy Tab.


Galaxy Tab's Bad Browser: Blame Flash


Another near-universal comment was the Galaxy Tab's considerably slower browser speeds compared to the iPad. Null said Web pages "loaded more slowly than the iPad - sometimes taking twice as long." Mossberg said the browser was a bit "jerky in zooming into text and scrolling through long pages."


Gizmodo's Buchanan, who generally hated the Galaxy Tab, was heavy on the spite, saying the browser was "miserable, at least when Flash is enabled. It goes catatonic, scrolling is laggy, and it can get laughably bad."


McCracken disagreed, however, saying the browser "stacks up well against the iPad's, and can play the Adobe Flash videos that remain banned from Apple devices." Then again, both Pogue and Mossberg said that playing Flash video was a little hit and miss; sometimes the videos worked, sometimes they didn't.


Apps Don't Scale


Aside from a few apps that Samsung redesigned for the Galaxy Tabs screen size such as e-mail, calendar and contacts, most reviewers found that Android apps originally designed for smartphones didn't scale that well. Just like with the iPad, the Galaxy Tab can use almost any Android app, and just blows it up to account for the bigger screen. "Some of my downloaded apps scaled fine to tablet size. Others were surrounded by large black bars," Mossberg said. While Pogue disagreed saying Samsung's tablet either "blows them up, at the expense of clarity, or lets them float in the center of the larger screen with a Texas-size black border."


Pricey, but Pretty Good


One problem the reviewers pointed to was also the Galaxy Tab's price. Unlike the iPad, you have to purchase the Galaxy Tab through the four major cellular carriers including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon -- US Cellular is also selling the Galaxy Tab in some markets. Two carriers -- Sprint and T-Mobile -- offer a contract-free version, but if you want a cheaper upfront cost for the device, you have to make a two-year commitment. The iPad, by comparison, offers a Wi-Fi only version and the 3G models are contract free.


Despite some of the complaints, almost all of the reviewers said the Galaxy Tab was a good device and a workable alternative to the iPad. Just make sure you think about the Galaxy Tab's cost and maybe try it out for yourself before buying.

Update 2: Okay, we got some more info on that screen. The entire front of the phone is one huge four-inch screen, with the Android buttons more or less painted over the lower third -- the screen lights up underneath them in white to illuminate them. Samsung says it's just easier for marketing purposes to say it's two screens, but that they're selectively turning on the bottom portion of the display for the ticker.

HTC Mecha (Incredible HD) on Verizon -- with LTE, the new Sense and Android 2.2
Posted on Thursday, Nov 11, 2010 by Phil Nickinson


This isn't the first picture of the HTC Mecha (aka the Incredible HD and "Evo-like device coming to Verizon") that's out there, but this is the first time we've seen one powered up -- and it's a good thing it is. Because we now see Android 2.2, the new HTC Sense and -- if you squint just right at the top -- LTE data on Verizon. (And that notification light should make a few of you happy.)

We're told it's currently in testing and that it's consistently getting 9Mbps downstream and 5Mbps upstream -- not too shabby, though real-world results likely will vary.

As for when we might see such a device? It's still pretty unlikely before the first of the year. We've got a full shot of the phone after the break. Thanks, Ed!

The Nexus S: a closer look
By Sean Hollister posted Nov 15th 2010 7:29PM

Google CEO Eric Schmidt showed the world the Nexus S from a distance just a little while ago, but we knew you'd want more, and so we managed to convince the man to show us the device in person just a few minutes ago. What should you know about the heir apparent to the Nexus One? Well, it's exceptionally thin -- we weren't able to compare, but we'd say it's at least comparable with an iPhone 4 if not slimmer still -- and it's thinner in the middle than at either end, giving it a mildly concave profile. There's a glossy plastic bezel up front housing an AMOLED screen, a pair of discrete volume buttons on the left side, and a black plastic back (textured similarly to the BlackBerry Bold, though patchier) which seemed too roughly manufactured to be anything but a prototype. We saw the handset for all of three seconds and weren't able to snap a single picture nor touch it for ourselves, but as Schmidt walked away he left us with one last lingering look at Gingerbread -- the screen shutting off. When he pressed the power button, the image winked out like an old CRT TV, an animation which you'll see a carbon copy of right after the break.