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By admin, June 3, 2010 2:15 am

In energy and environmental pressures, new energy vehicles will become the automotive industry to the direction of future development. June 1, China’s four ministries jointly issued a “buy on the launch of new energy vehicles to subsidize” private pilot rating, China promote new energy automotive industry. As a new industry, developing new energy vehicles requires not just innovation and technology as support, but also and above all provide the right incentives and policies that guarantee. laptop battery

German auto major research and development in the areas of new energy vehicles leading the world. Back in 2007, the German government had already put the key technology of electric vehicles, lithium-ion battery is included as a crucial strategy of “high tech” in the file. In 2009, the German industrial giants such as BASF, Bosch, and the public sector equivalent of the scientific community as well as applications in collaboration with 60 others to form a lithium-ion Innovation Alliance. August 19, 2009, the German government published a “national development plans electric vehicle”, which aims by 2020 to Germany has one million electric cars. German government wants to use the program to make Germany the leader Global market electric vehicle. Provided that the total project cost 500 million euros, 170 million euros to support R & D batteries to power electric vehicles. The development of new battery technology, and other hybrid technologies and fuel cell technology will be low-interest loans and grants.

vehicles in Germany R & D and hybrid electric vehicles or fuel for technical research, but also do not forget the infrastructure. Germany is currently being examined through various programs, various agencies to promote creative and effective “because the charging station of the network. Dell Inspiron 6400 battery，Dell Inspiron E1505 battery , According to current thinking, the electric car will be the first operator in the city, and then extended to the interstate town. As the government of the German capital of Berlin in 2009 announced it would provide free land for the establishment in the flourishing urban area of at least 550 car charging stations, and major automakers from 1000 to conduct a complete test of electric vehicles.

Including Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW and Opel in Germany, including a number of auto giants are actively developing electric vehicles. Volkswagen at the IAA 2009, the launch of a new generation of E-Up! “Electric car concept car. This concept car could use a continuous output of 40 kW engine, just five hours to be home in the garage filled with 220 for the civil power, but a charge may be continuously covered over 200 km. battery

Although research and development of electric vehicles there are still technical obstacles to a breakthrough, but according to industry estimates, is expected later in 2012, a series of electric vehicles will be placed on the market .

the automotive industry in Italy is highly developed European countries, VGP-BPS8，VGP-BPS8A , VGP-BPS9，VGP-BPS9/B，VGP-BPS9/S，VGP-BPS9A，VGP-BPS9A/B  , Italy is a new energy technology in the vehicle of countries are more advanced. Firstly, a series of government incentives to adopt and support policies, such as purchasing new cars friendly environment to provide a subsidy to consumers. According to the Italian government introduced last year to support the automotive industry is looking to buy all the electricity, hydrogen, methane, etc. for the new class of passenger cars powered by environmentally friendly consumers will receive € 1,500 of subsidies to purchase with methane, hydrogen, natural gas, new energy supplied to consumers in light commercial vehicles will receive € 4000 grant, these grants will be based on the classic cars from the accumulation of debris.

Meanwhile, the Italian automotive industry as a pillar industry of national economy, the industry itself in new energy technology R & D and enthusiasm has been the industry leader in Europe. For example, the largest Italian car manufacturer Fiat, as soon as ten years in the development of methane engines have started, and now the technology has become the undisputed leader in Europe, and the 2008 Olympic Games Beijing Public Transport Company 4 More than 1,000 units to supply engines green. In 2009, Fiat third consecutive year at the top of the lowest emissions of carbon dioxide in Europe, the leading brand, it also highlights the environmental protection in the field of car Fiat importance. dell GK479， dell FK890

In addition, the Italian full advantage of the EU to encourage the development of new energy vehicles, such as policy lending, the financial crisis and economic recession in the negative context, increased research and development of new products energy of the car and made remarkable achievements. Not only this scale production of Fiat, the number of firms in an average car or the car industry in the Community is also a large number of vehicles involved in the search for new energy and development.

U.S. cars and energy consuming countries in the development and promotion of energy demand new car emergency. In the U.S., subsidies for clean energy vehicles are currently the main link in the car to reach. The United States by 2005 Bill “energy” of the provisions of the purchase of clean energy vehicles get tax relief. Even happened to the coming year when tax returns all or part of the tax on income paid to the federal government. Under the Act, purchase to receive 3400 U.S. dollars based on hybrid tax credits, plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles, tax credits to receive U.S. $ 7,500. The United States after the economic crisis struck in 2008, the government introduced the car to boost consumption, “TM” program to encourage people to exchange the old big engine cars to save energy, new car,dell KD476，dell GD761，dell TD347 ,  it gives also the development of new energy vehicles provide space. In addition to federal tax credits, state and local governments have also introduced some stimulus to encourage consumers to buy new energy vehicles. The grants economy while driving the state government also provides new energy to the owners of certain aspects of driving and parking facilities, such as electric cars free parking fees, toll, etc.. Example, San Francisco, open electric cars can go fast Drive.

In the United States government and the energetic efforts to protect the environment, new energy vehicles in the United States, development is also booming. Earlier this year’s Detroit auto, the three major U.S. automakers Ford, GM and Chrysler have always adopted new energy vehicles, including GM’s Chevrolet brand is launching a pure electric car, which should be the official launch of this fall.

However, despite the general trend of new energy vehicles, but many people in the industry noted that the development of new energy vehicles still face some obstacles, such as the high cost of maintenance is not easy ,Apple A1078 ，Apple A1045 ,  temporary facilities can not follow and so on. So there are many people still waiting for the state to develop new energy vehicles, still further government assistance.

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By admin, February 8, 2010 3:39 am

A freshly uncovered roadmap has confirmed much of T-Mobile’s short-term plan for phones. The previously leaked Motorola Zeppelin should now arrive at the carrier as the Cliq XT and is now believed to be the only phone shipping on March 10th. The HTC HD2 now won’t arrive until March 24th.

A slight surprise is also in store from the PPCGeeks finding as a third smartphone, the Nokia Nuron, is slated for March 17th. This appears to be a renaming of the Nokia 5230 and would make it a low-end touchscreen device with a 2-megapixel camera and no significant internal storage. However, the mention of 3G hints that it will support T-Mobile’s newer 1,700MHz network, and it should still include a 640×360 display as well as GPS.

Prices aren’t mentioned, though the Cliq XT and Nuron are both likely to be inexpensive.

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By admin, February 5, 2010 2:07 am

A new leak reveals that the Motorola Milestone handset will arrive at Canada’s Telus by February 18th, after it missed its previously believed January 16th launch date. The internal employee memo leaked with the date has been pre-empted with a Best Buy catalog image and Telus has also updated their site, indicating the handset is coming soon. Best Buy should begin taking deposits for the device on February 5th.

The handset should be priced at $200 when paired with a three-year voice and data contract, or $550 contract-free, though either price is not official nor confirmed.

The Milestone is nearly identical to the Droid offered in the US, save for its GSM/HSPA network support and multi-touch support for default apps. The same 3.7-inch touchscreen with 480×854 resolution is there, along with a 5-megapixel camera and Android 2.0. Data speeds should reach between 3 and 5 Mbps on Telus’ fairly recent HSPA+ network

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By admin, February 3, 2010 2:55 am

There is nothing more satisfying than claiming to be the first at anything, and so far this week, Samsung must be pretty happy with itself. After announcing its plans to mass produce AMOLED touchscreens, the first to include built-in touch functions, Samsung’s S8500 will be the first consumer handset to feature Bluetooth 3.0. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, or SIG, has approved version 3.0 for the handset and also slipped out a few details on the phone.

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By admin, February 1, 2010 3:32 am

The HP Mini 311 was the first notebook with NVIDIA ION graphics to hit the United States. While this 11.6 inch notebook has a little competition today, it’s still the cheapest NVIDIA ION powered ultraportable, with a starting price of just $399.99. And that could make the HP Mini 311 an attractive computer for anyone looking for a machine with better-than-netbook graphics at a netbook-like price.

But while the NVIDIA graphics certainly give the computer a boost when it comes to HD video playback, 3D graphics performance, and any other activities that can take advantage of GPU acceleration features, the HP Mini 311 has the same 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU that graces nearly every netbook released in the last 18 months.

And that means that for every day activities such as web surfing, the HP Mini 311 is no better than an average netbook, albeit one with a high resolution display. And in some ways, it might actually not even be as good.

NVIDIA sent me a demo unit to review. The model tested for this review features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, NVIDIA ION graphics, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium. It has a 6 cell, 55Whr battery and weighs 3.5 pounds.

The HP Mini 311 is available from HP.com for $399.99 and up. At the time of this review, the unit I’m configuring goes for about $510.

Design

The HP Mini 311 is a nice looking machine. Basically, if you took the HP Mini 110 and stretched it out, this is what you’d end up with. The glossy lid will collect fingerpints, but it features an attractive swirly design as well as the usual HP logo.

The base of the computer features a single access panel that can be opened up by removing two screws. This makes it easy to swap out the RAM or hard drive. There’s also an open PCIe slot that can be used to add a 3G module or another accessory.

Around the sides of the notebook you’ll find 3 USB ports, an Ethernet jack, VGA port, SDHC/MS/XD card slot, and an HDMI output.

The speakers are located underneath the netbook near the front, and they’re reasonably loud and clear. The 6 cell battery sits flush with the bottom of the case, so you don’t have to worry about any ugly bulge near the back of this notebook.

Aside from the NVIDIA ION graphics processor though, the HP Mini 311’s defining feature is probably its 11.6 inch display. This glossy screen has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. That means it can display 720p HD video without any quality reduction. But it also means that you’ll spend a lot less time scrolling to view web sites or applications that don’t fit on a typical 1024 x 600 pixel netbook display.

As I mentioned, the screen is glossy and you can definitely see yourself it in it if the display is dark. But the HP Mini 311 display is hardly the worst offender I’ve seen in this area, and the screen looks great when looking at pictures, movies, or video games.

The notebook measures 11.4″ x 8″ x 1.2″ and weighs 3.5 pounds, which makes it a bit larger and heavier than a typical 10 inch netbook. But it’s not a lot bigger or heavier.

The fan can get a little loud at times, but that’s hardly surprising for a thin and light computer with a decent graphics processor. While a quieter fan would be nice, I can’t imagine building this computer without some kind of fan to help keep the internal components from overheating.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the HP Mini 311 is almost identical to that on the smaller HP Mini 110. The only real difference is that the edges have been rounded to give the keyboard an interesting visual effect.

Thing is, while the HP Mini 110 has a pretty good keyboard for a netbook, it’s only 92% the size of a full sized keyboard. There’s clearly room for a larger keyboard on the HP Mini 311 and it would have been nice if HP had used the extra space. I got a chance to ask an HP representative why the company stuck with the smaller model, and was told it was because HP has received such positive feedback on the keyboard.

That said, I found the keyboard to be reasonably responsive and I didn’t have any problems typing on it. But then, I’ve spent much of the last two years typing on small netbook keyboards.

The touchpad is nice and wide, features two distinct buttons, and a clearly marked section on the right side for scrolling. But there’s one major problem: The touchpad software doesn’t have a setting for disabling tapping while you’re typing. You can either disable tapping altogether, which means you can’t simulate a left-click by tapping the touchpad, or you have to type extraordinarily carefully in order to prevent your palm from swiping the touchpad while you’re using the keyboard. Because if you don’t, the cursor is going to jump all over the place which can wreak havoc when you’re trying to type documents, emails, or pretty much anything else.

Fortunately there is a third-party solution. Liliputing reader Steve Ingraham recommended an open source application called touchfreeze which hangs out in your system tray and temporarily freezes touchpad input when you’re typing. It worked like a charm for me and once I installed touchfreeze I never had another jumping cursor error while typing on the HP Mini 311.

Performance and Graphics

The HP Mini 311 has NVIDIA ION graphics. And that means that unlike a typical Intel Atom powered netbook, the computer can handle 1080P HD video playback quiet easily. I had no problem watching videos downloaded from the Microsoft Windows Media HD showcase using Windows Media Player and other video plays.

The latest version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 beta also supports GPU acceleration from some video cards. And that includes NVIDIA ION, which means you should be able to stream 720p and 1080p HD Flash video either. Right now this feature is a little hit or miss. Some HD YouTube videos played smoothly while others struggled. But I blame the Flash plugin, not the graphics processor. If you have a netbook with an Intel Atom processor and integrated GMA 950 or GMA 500 graphics, you can be pretty certain that no HD Flash video is going to play properly.

The NVIDIA ION chipset also gives the computer a leg up on the competition when it comes to 3D graphics acceleration. I fired up a couple of 3D games including open source first person shooter Blood Frontier, and found that the HP Mini 311 was more than up to the task. I managed to get more than 30 frames per second during the few minutes I played the game before I was put out of my misery by enemy fire. Have I mentioned that I stink at first person shooters?

But it’s not just HD video playback and video games that receive a performance boost from the NVIDIA ION chipset. ION also supports NVIDIA’s CUDA platform, which means that some applications can use GPU acceleration to speed up tasks that would normally bog down the CPU. For instance, video transcoding tool MediaCoder features a CUDA encoder which can make short work of H.264 transcode jobs.

So while it normally takes a very long time to transcode even a short video clip on a machine with a low power Intel Atom processor, the task goes much more quickly when using MediaCoder’s CUDA encoder. To test this out, I transcoded a 4.5 minute clip from uncompressed AVI to H.264 on four different computers:

• HP Mini 311 laptop with Atom N270 CPU and NVIDIA ION graphics
• ASRock ION 330 nettop with dual core Atom 330 CPU and NVIDIA ION graphics
• Asus UL20A notebook with Intel CULV processor and integrated GMA 4500MHD graphics (no CUDA capabilities)
• Asus Eee PC 1000H netbook with Atom N270 CPU and integrated GMA 950 graphics (no CUDA capabilities)

As you can see in the chart above, the computers with NVIDIA ION processors were significantly slower at this task than the Asus UL20A when relying solely on the CPU. But using the CUDA encoder, both the HP Mini 311 and the ASRock 311 were able to complete the transcode job much faster than the Asus laptop. Of course, the ASRock ION 330 with its dual core processor was faster than the single-core HP Mini 311 in both versions of the test.

To see how the HP Mini 311 stacks up against the ASRock ION 330 and Asus UL20A in other GPU-intensive benchmarks including 3DMark06 and Cinebench, check out my earlier article on that topic.

But what about tasks that don’t rely on the graphics processor? The chart above shows that the HP Mini 311 was a bit faster than my Asus Eee PC 1000H on basic transcode test. But that netbook has also been running for almost 18 months. The hard drive and other components have seen much more wear and tear than the HP Mini 311, so I’d expect it to score lower on the test. Unfortunately it’s the only other Intel Atom N270 system I have in the office at the moment.

In terms of real-world performance though, here’s what I can tell you about the HP Mini 311: It feels a bit sluggish.

I don’t expect a computer with an Intel Atom processor to work miracles. But I do expect to be able to surf the web with half a dozen browser tabs open or multitask by playing some music, editing an image, and surfing the web simultaneously. And the HP Mini 311 can certainly do those things. But it feels a bit less responsive when doing them than my aging Asus Eee PC 1000H.

The issue is most pronounced for me when running Javascript-heavy web pages. For instance, one of the first things I do when I wake in the morning is log into Google Reader and sift through a few hundred news stories that came in while I was sleeping. On most netbooks, as soon as I hit the key for the next story, the screen advances. But on the HP Mini 311, after going through the first few stories the browser becomes slower and slower to react. Google Reader isn’t unusable. But it’s just slow enough to be annoying.

My best guess as for why this is happening is that the HP Mini 311 has a higher resolution display than most netbooks. A 1366 x 768 pixel display has roughly 70% more pixels than a 1024 x 600 pixel screen. With GPU-accelerated tasks like watching HD video or playing video games, the HP Mini 311 has more than enough oomph to pump out graphics to every last one of those pixels. But for tasks like web browsing that rely solely on the CPU, the Intel Atom N270 chip has to work harder to fill 70% more pixels. And it’s not quite up to the task.

But that’s just my subjective view. To try to get some hard numbers, I ran the standard set of tests that I’ve been using to test netbooks and notebooks for the last few months. Here are the results:

• Audio transcoding test: 1:23 to transcode a 13:24 WAV file to MP3 using WinLAME
• Video transcoding test:  8:49 transcode a 4:34 video file to Xvid using VirtualDub
• Folder copy test: 49 seconds to copy and paste 2186 files totaling 478MB to a new folder
• Folder zip test: 3:29 to create a 453MB ZIP file containing 2186 files using 7-zip

To see how the HP Mini 311 stacked up against similar netbooks, check out the chart below, which includes my 18 month old Asus Eee PC 1005H running Windows XP, a shiny new Asus Eee PC 1008HA with a 1.66GHz Atom N280 CPU, and an Acer Aspire 1410 laptop with a dual core 1.2GHz Intel Celeron SU2300 CPU. I threw in the Acer Aspire 1410, because at $399, it has the same starting price as the HP Mini 311. And while it doesn’t have the same graphics capabilities as the HP Mini 311, it performs much better in most CPU related tests.

The HP Mini 311 was the slowest notebook in this raft of tests when it came to transcoding video and audio files. It did beat the Asus Eee PC 100H in the folder zip and folder copy tests, but I blame the 18-month old hard drive in the Eee PC for that.

These tests don’t necessarily require the HP Mini 311 to pump out graphics to the HD display, so my hypothesis that the high resolution screen is to blame could be wrong. But the notebook definitely feels slower than a typical netbook when used for some tests… and that appears to be because it is slower.

I also timed how long it takes to start two of the slowest-loading programs I use: OpenOffice.org and open source photo editing application GIMP.

While the HP Mini 311 was able to launch both of these apps faster than the Asus Eee PC 1000H, it was much slower than the other test machines. Unfortunately, this test wasn’t perfect because as I’ve mentioned the Eee PC has an aging hard drive and other components bogging it down, and it’s running Windows XP while the HP Mini 311 is running Windows 7. But as I get more Atom powered review units, I plan to continue running this test.

stuff

Battery

The HP Mini 311 comes with a 6 cell, 55Whr battery. I was able to get about 4.5 hours of run time out of the battery while using the notebook for web browsing and light weight duties such as editing documents. I watched a few short YouTube videos during the test, but didn’t really push the computer to its limits. I suspect if you use the notebook for gaming or watching HD video, you can expect battery life to dip.

It’s worth noting that my review unit is running Windows 7 Home Premium. The folks at Laptop Magazine recently tested the HP Mini 311 with Windows XP and got 5 hours, 43 minutes of run time. When they tested a newer model with Windows 7, they eked out 4 hours, 52 minutes. While Laptop Magazine’s Windows 7 got a more battery life than I did using Windows 7, the more remarkable fact is that they got nearly an hour of extra run time with Windows XP.

If you Windows 7 for some reason or another, then by all means, order the Windows 7 version of this laptop. But bear in mind, the Windows 7 model costs $50 more than the Windows XP version, and it looks like you’ll lose some battery life with the upgrade.

Software

The computer comes with a number of applications from HP and partners.

I didn’t test the software extensively, but here’s a partial list of what you get:

• CyberLink DVD Suite
• HP QuickSync powered by Syncables
• HP Update
• HP Support Assistant
• HP Game Console
• Microsoft Office 60 day trial
• Microsoft Works
• Norton Internet Security
• HP Recovery Manager and Recovery Disc Creator

Conclusion

The HP Mini 311 is an attractive, affordable, and portable computer. If you’re looking for a low cost system that can play modern video games with 3D graphics, this may be your best bet at the moment. But while the HP Mini 311 is strong in the graphics department, it’s weaker than the average netbook in most other areas.

The keyboard is smaller than it should be given the size of the computer. The touchpad is finicky. And the computer feels a bit sluggish when performing everyday tasks. On the other hand, some people may be willing to put up with that sluggishness in return for the higher resolution display which can show most web pages, application windows, and documents without adding left and right scroll bars.

If gaming performance isn’t at the top of your priority list, you might be better off with a similarly priced computer with an Intel CULV processor such as the Acer Aspire 1410, which has a dual core Intel Celeron SU2300 processor and which also has a starting price of $399. While the Acer 1410 can’t handle all the games that the HP Mini 311 can, it has a faster processor and it’s still capable of HD video playback (although your CPU usage will be much higher than on the HP Mini 311).

If you’re looking for the best of both worlds, you may be better off with the Asus Eee PC 1201N, which has NVIDIA ION graphics and a dual core Atom processor. It’s not as speedy at CPU-intensive tasks as the Acer Aspire 1410 or higher priced CULV powered notebooks. But the Eee PC 1201N will be faster than the HP Mini 311 at most tasks, and should offer similar graphics capabilities. On the down side, that dual core CPU uses more energy than the Atom N270 chip in the HP Mini 311, and most reviewers say you’ll be lucky to get 3.5 hours of run time.

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By admin, January 29, 2010 3:26 am

From the realm of sci-fi to Steve Jobs’ stage: The iPad is official. What is it? What can it do? How does it work? Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s newest creation, all in one place.It’s almost impossible to overstate the buzz leading up to this device. Immediately after the death of the Newton, rumors began trickling out about a followup from Apple; in the last five years, speculation and scraps of evidence about an Apple tablet have been a fixture in the tech media; in the last year, the rumors were unavoidable. Today, Apple’s tablet has finally arrived, and we’ve got the full rundown—from specs, features, content and price to what it’s like to actually use one.

The Hardware

• Size and shape: The screen’s aspect ratio makes it seem a bit squat, but this is intended to be a bi-directional tabl—err, Pad. The bezel is a little fat, but otherwise, this thing is basically a clean slab of pure display. It’s just .5 inches thick, which is a hair thicker than the iPhone 3GS, and measures 9.56 x 7.47 inches. Final weigh-in is 1.5 pounds without 3G, and 1.6 with. Says Mark, who’s actually held one:

Imagine, if you will, a super light unibody MacBook Pro that’s smaller, thinner and way, way, way lighter. Or, from a slightly different perspective, think about a bigger iPhone that’s been built with unibody construction.

• The screen: The tablet’s multitouch screen measures in at 9.7 inches, meaning that it’s got a significantly smaller footprint than the smallest MacBook, but a much larger screen than the iPhone. (That’s 9.7 inches diagonal, from screen corner to screen corner.) The screen’s resolution is a dense 1024 x 768.

Here’s what it looks like in photos, and on video:

• The guts: It’s a half-inch thick—just a hair thicker than the iPhone, for reference—and weighs 1.5 pounds. It’s powered by a 1GHz Apple ARM A4 chip, and has 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of flash storage. From the looks of it, Apple finally got some use out of that PA Semi purchase, and built their own mobile processor, but that’s no totally clear yet. It’s also loaded with 802.11 n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, a 30-pin iPod connector, a speaker, a microphone, an accelerometer and a compass. Video output runs through and iPhone-type composite adapter at up to 576p and through a dock-to-VGA adapter at up to 1024 x 768. No HDMI, no DVI—not even a Mini DisplayPort.

3G is optional, and costs more, not less. Along with 3G, the upgraded models include A-GPS. (More on this below)

Oh, and there isn’t a rear-facing camera, nor is there a front-facing camera. This tablet is totally camera-less, which seems a bit odd.

• The battery: Apple’s making some bold claims about battery life: ten hours for constant use, with a one-month standby rating. Ten hours of constant use includes video viewing, so you could conceivable watch about six feature films before this thing dies.

• How you hold it: You can hold it two different ways, and the software will adapt to both. Portrait mode seems like the primay mode, a la the iPhone while landscape mode—better for movies and perhaps magazine content—is a secondary mode. The Apple decal is oriented for portrait mode, so basically, just get ready for a whole bunch of HEY IT’S A GIANT IPHONE!! jokes.

Connectivity

Some models have Wi-Fi exclusively, while some have 3G as well. It’s with AT&T, and costs either $15 a month for 250MB of data, or $30 for unlimited data. With the plan, you get access to AT&T’s Wi-Fi hotspots as well. Best of all, it’s a prepaid service—no contract. You can activate it from the iPad any time, and cancel whenever you want. This sounds like a fantastic deal, until you consider how it’s probably going to brutalize AT&T’s already terrible 3G coverage.

The iPad itself is unlocked, so you can conceivably use it with any Micro SIM card . But what the hell is a Micro SIM card? For one, it’s not the same kind of SIM that’s in your iPhone, so don’t expect to just pop that in and surf for free. It’s a totally different standard, and the iPad’s the only device that uses it right now. Even if, say, T-Mobile released a Micro SIM card, the iPad can’t connect to its 1700MHz 3G network.

The Software

• The OS: The operating system on the tablet is based on iPhone OS, which is in turn loosely based on OS X. In other words, it’s got the same guts as the iPhone, as well as a somewhat similar interface. What this means in practical terms is that the UI is modal; you can only display one app at a time, and there aren’t windows, per se. There’s a new set of standard UI tools as well, including a pull-down menu, situated at the top left of most apps.

• The homescreen: It’s like a mixture between the iPhone and OS X: it uses the iPhone launcher/apps metaphor, but has an OS X-style shiny dock. It feels very spread out compared to the iPhone’s homescreen, though I suspect this is necessary to keep things from getting too overwhelming. For our full walkthrough of the new OS, check here.

• The keyboard: Input comes by way of an onscreen keyboard, almost exactly like the iPhone’s. Typing on it is apparently a “dream,” because it’s “almost lifesize”. Steve wasn’t typing with his thumbs, but with his fingers, as if it were an actual laptop keyboard. Navigation throughout the rest of the OS is optimized for one hand, though.

• The browser: The browser is essential an upscaled version of Safari Mobile, with a familiar, finger-friendly title bar and not much else. It rotates by command of the accelerometer. From the looks of it, it doesn’t have Flash support, but we’ll have to confirm. UPDATE: Yup, none at all. You can get away with that kind of thing on the iPhone, sort of, but on a 10-inch tablet it’s a glaring omission.

• Email: Mail again takes its visual cues from the iPhone, but with a lot more decoration: you can preview your mailbox from any message with a pull-down menu, and preview any message from within the mailbox, with a pop-up window.

• Music: The music player is even more hybridized, styled like a mix between the iPhone’s iPod interface and full-fledged desktop iTunes. Interestingly, Cover Flow seems to have more or less died off.

• Maps: This one may be the most direct conversion from the iPhone, with a very similar interface through and through. It includes Street View, too.

• Photos: The photo library app looks a lot like iPhoto, only adapted for multitouch finger input.

• Video: YouTube is available by way of an app, iPhone-style, which can play videos in 720p HD. iTunes video content plays back in a dedicated app, just like on the iPhone, and can also play back in HD. Movie codec support is otherwise the same as the iPhone, which is to say pretty limited.

• Calendar and contacts: The calendar app is desktop-like, until you open contacts and calendars, which look a lot like actual contact books and organizers. They’re beautiful, and dare I say a bit Courier-like.

Apps

• iPhone apps: This thing runs them! The iPad runs iPhone apps right out of the App Store, with no modification, but they’re either relegated to the center of the screen or in “pixel double” mode, which just blows them up crudely. Any apps you’ve purchased for your iPhone can be synced, for free, to your iPad.

• New apps: The iPhone app SDK has already been expanded for tablet development, including a whole new set of UI elements and expanded resolution support. The raw iPhone app compatibility is just a temporary measure, it seems—any developer who wants their app to run on the tablet will develop for the tablet. Some of the early examples of adapted apps, like Brushes, are spectacular. More on the SDK here.
Apple’s pushing gaming on this thing right out of the box, demoing everything from FPS N.O.V.A to Need for Speed. It’s presumably running these games at HD, so the rendering power in this thing is no joke.

• Ebooks: Apple’s also opened an ebook store to accompany the iPad, in the mold of iTunes. It’s called iBooks.
It offers books in ePub format, and makes reading on a Kindle seem about as stodgy as, you know, paper. To be clear, though, this is just Apple’s solution—unless they’re explicitly banned from the iPad, you should be able to download your Kindle app as well.

This store doesn’t sell magazines or newspapers, which’ll be relegated to regular app status. At this point, whether or not the tablet helps them out is in their hands.

• iWork: Apple’ also designed a whole new iWork suite just for the tablet, which implies that this thing is as much for media creation as it is for consumption. There’s a new version of Keynote designed just for the iPad, as well as new version of Pages, (word processor), and Numbers, which is the spreadsheet app. Here’s what Keynote looks like:
The interfaces are obviously designed strictly for touch input, but from the looks of it can handle every function that the old, mouse-centric version could, plus a few more. And man, they’re so much prettier. Each app costs $10, and you can get them all for $30.

• File storage: Unlike the iPhone, the iPad does seem to have some shared storage aside from the photo roll. The newly released SDK reveals that when you connect an iPad to a PC or Mac, part of it—a partition, maybe?—mounts as a shared documents folder.

Accessories

Right away, Apple’s offering three main official accessories: a book-style case, a regular dock and a keyboard dock. (Ha!)

The book cover doubles as a stand, so you can prop the iPad up in a few different ways. The keyboard dock hooks up with the iPad when it’s in portrait mode, so you can type longer documents, charge, or both. The iPad will also support Apple’s Bluetooth keyboards.

The iPad’s only really got one accessory port, and it takes an iPod dock connector. Apple’s solution for this? Adapters! So many adapters. There’s a Dock Connector to VGA adapter, a USB camera adapter (which gives you one plain USB connection, though it apparently only works for importing photos), a USB to SD adapter, and an included USB power adapter, which lets you charge by AC or USB. It’s essentially just an iPhone charger with a bigger brick.

UPDATE: We have prices:

the Keyboard dock costs $70, the case costs $40, the SD/USB connection kit costs $30 and the VGA display adapter costs $30 (1024×768 only)

What It’s Like to Use

It’s hefty. Substantial. Easy to grip. Fast. Beautiful. Rigid. Starkly designed. The glass is a little rubbery but it could be my sweaty hands. And it’s fasssstttt.

Our detailed impressions in our hands on, right here.

Price and Release Date

The iPad ships worldwide in 60 days, but only in Wi-Fi versions. The 3G version will be another 30 days after that. Here are the prices:Without 3G:

• $499: 16GB
• $599: 32GB
• $699: 64GB

With 3G:

• $629: 16GB
• $729: 32GB
• $829: 64GB

Apple will ship all the iPads in 60 days—the end of March—to America, and just the Wi-Fi models internationally. It’ll be another 30 days beyond that for 3G models to be available outside our shores; Apple says they’re still working on carrier deals.

3G comes by way of AT&T, who’s offering the service without contract, for $15 a month (250MB of data) or $30 a month (unlimited). That’s why, unlike the iPhone, the iPad is actually cheaper off-contract.

All the Rest

• The First Hands On

• The Media Strategy: Book, Magazines and Music

• Eight Things That Suck About the iPad (Already!)

• How the iPad Is a Ploy to Assassinate Laptops

• The First Round of iPad Apps, From NYT to N.O.V.A.

• iPad Accessories

• Apple’s Official Specs Page

• Our liveblog, in case you want to pretend the keynote is happening RIGHT NOW.

• The #appleipad tag, which collects all of our coverage (oh, there’s lots more) in one place.

And here’s Apple’s full press release:

Apple Launches iPad

A Magical & Revolutionary Device at an Unbelievable Price

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today introduced iPad, a revolutionary device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading e-books and much more. iPad’s responsive high-resolution Multi-Touch™ display lets users physically interact with applications and content. iPad is just 0.5 inches thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds- thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook. iPad includes 12 new innovative apps designed especially for the iPad, and will run almost all of the over 140,000 apps in the App Store. iPad will be available in late March starting at the breakthrough price of just $499.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100127/SF44883)

“iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad creates and defines an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

iPad features 12 next-generation Multi-Touch applications. Every app works in both portrait and landscape, automatically animating between views as the user rotates iPad in any direction. The precise Multi-Touch interface makes surfing the web on iPad an entirely new experience, dramatically more interactive and intimate than on a computer. Reading and sending email is fun and easy on iPad’s large screen and almost full-size “soft” keyboard. Import photos from a Mac®, PC or digital camera, see them organized as albums, and enjoy and share them using iPad’s elegant slideshows. Watch movies, TV shows and YouTube, all in HD or flip through pages of an e-book you downloaded from Apple’s new iBookstore while listening to your music collection.

iPad runs almost all of the over 140,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®. The iTunes® Store gives you access to the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store with a catalog of over 11 million songs, over 50,000 TV episodes and over 8,000 films including over 2,000 in stunning high definition video. Apple also announced the new iBooks app for iPad, which includes Apple’s new iBookstore, the best way to browse, buy and read books on a mobile device. The iBookstore will feature books from major and independent publishers.

Apple also introduced a new version of iWork® for iPad, the first desktop-class productivity suite designed specifically for Multi-Touch. With Pages®, Keynote® and Numbers® you can create beautifully formatted documents, stunning presentations with animations and transitions, and spreadsheets with charts, functions and formulas. The three apps will be available separately through the App Store for $9.99 each.

iPad syncs with iTunes just like the iPhone and iPod touch, using the standard Apple 30-pin to USB cable, so you can sync all of your contacts, photos, music, movies, TV shows, applications and more from your Mac or PC. All the apps and content you download on iPad from the App Store, iTunes Store and iBookstore will be automatically synced to your iTunes library the next time you connect with your computer.

iPad’s brilliant 9.7-inch, LED-backlit display features IPS technology to deliver crisp, clear images and consistent color with an ultra-wide 178 degree viewing angle. The highly precise, capacitive Multi-Touch display is amazingly accurate and responsive whether scrolling web pages or playing games. The intelligent soft keyboard pioneered on iPhone takes advantage of iPad’s larger display to offer an almost full-size soft keyboard. iPad also connects to the new iPad Keyboard Dock with a full-size traditional keyboard.

iPad is powered by A4, Apple’s next-generation system-on-a-chip. Designed by Apple, the new A4 chip provides exceptional processor and graphics performance along with long battery life of up to 10 hours.* Apple’s advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging technology deliver up to 1,000 charge cycles without a significant decrease in battery capacity over a typical five year lifespan.**

iPad comes in two versions-one with Wi-Fi and the other with both Wi-Fi and 3G. iPad includes the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi, and the 3G versions support speeds up to 7.2 Mbps on HSDPA networks. Apple and AT&T announced breakthrough 3G pre-paid data plans for iPad with easy, on-device activation and management.

Continuing Apple’s dedication to designing and creating environmentally responsible products, each iPad enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy-efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. iPad contains no brominated flame retardants and is completely PVC-free.

Apple today released a new Software Development Kit (SDK) for iPad, so developers can create amazing new applications designed to take advantage of iPad’s capabilities. The SDK includes a simulator that lets developers test and debug their iPad apps on a Mac, and also lets developers create Universal Applications that run on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

Pricing & Availability

iPad will be available in late March worldwide for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model. The Wi-Fi + 3G models of iPad will be available in April in the US and selected countries for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad will be sold in the US through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. International pricing and worldwide availability will be announced at a later date. iBookstore will be available in the US at launch.

*Apple tested wireless battery life by browsing web pages and receiving email over an AirPort® network, never letting the system go to sleep during the test, and keeping the display at half brightness. This is a typical scenario of use on the go, resulting in a battery performance number that is very relevant to mobile users.

**A properly maintained iPad battery is designed to retain 80 percent or more of its original capacity during a lifespan of up to 1,000 recharge cycles. Battery life and charge cycles vary by use and settings.

Comments (1)

By admin, January 27, 2010 3:09 am

Dell recently issued a BIOS fix for its Studio 17 with Core i7, designed to solve a serious crashing issue. However, after the release of Intel’s new Core i5 processor and a number of vocal user complaints about its Core i7 product, the company has made the lower-powered and priced Core i5 the Studio 17’s default CPU choice. Though, as of this posting, we did not see a Core i7 option on Dell.com, a rep assured us that the Core i7 model, labeled the Dell Studio 1747 has not been discontinued and will return to the site within days.

When we reviewed the Dell Studio 17 with Intel’s Core i7 processor (aka Dell Studio 1747) in November, we gave the notebook a 4-star rating due to its blazing performance and relatively affordable price. However, we noted two major problems we experienced with our review unit. First, the initial system we received stopped booting (and made several beeping noises) just after testing had been completed and, second, we noticed that the exterior of the chassis got hot, with the underside of the system registering a troubling 112-degrees Fahrenheit after just 15 minutes of playing a Hulu video.

We returned the first unit to Dell, which repaired it and sent it back to us a couple of days later, saying that the first issue we encountered was an isolated incident. The repaired unit worked, but we did experience experience a couple of mysterious blue screen crashes the first time we tried to play Hulu videos on it, though these seemed to disappear on subsequent tests. After we informed Dell about the uncomfortably hot temperatures, they sent us a second review unit to test. This second unit  did not break or crash, but was just as hot as the original.

Readers Respond

Without having tested an entire assembly line of Dell Studio 17s with Core i7, it was impossible for us to tell if the one defective review unit we received was a fluke or a harbinger of trouble. However, after the product began shipping, we began receiving negative reports from many users, claiming that their Dell Studio 1747s (with Core i7) had died after a few days or hours of use.

A number of users also posted on forums that their Dell Studio 1747s slowed down after intense use. For example, a French-speaking user posted this experiment, which claims that after running two CPU-intensive programs, Prime 95 and Furmark, the CPU speed dropped from 1.6 to 1.06-GHz. Notebookcheck.com, a professional review site, did not see a clock speed drop but did see their test notebook’s 3DMark06 scores drop significantly after 12 hours of intense use. We did not test our review unit for performance throttling before we had to return it to Dell.

Dell’s BIOS Update

Recently, Dell  issued a BIOS update that fixes what they call the “7 beeps problem,” the same issue that bricked our first review unit. Dell advises that, if you own a Dell Studio 1747 that is working properly, you should install the BIOS update to insure you never get the 7 beeps problem. If your Dell Studio 1747 has already stopped booting, you can call Dell support or try re-seating the CMOS battery to bring the system back to life.

Whether the new BIOS update (termed the A04 BIOS) makes the system cooler or resolves its alleged performance issues remains to be seen. If you have a Dell Studio 1747, please let us know if the BIOS update has improved your system by posting in the comments below.

Own another Dell notebook or netbook? Sound off here on what you think of the brand.