SlashGear Week In Review - Week 13 2011
Welcome to another SlashGear Week in Review! This week was a big one in the mobile world with CTIA underway and lots more going in. We learned that AT&T had offered to purchase T-Mobile for $39 billion. AT&T hopes to repurpose some of the T-Mobile spectrum for 4G service. The full details of the HTC Evo 3D and Evo View 4G tablet surfaced early in the week. The Evo 3D has a 4.3-inch screen and a 1.2GHz processor and should be an interesting device.
The Asus Eee Slate EP121 got an official release date. The tablet will hit the UK on April 20 and it will sell for the equivalent of $1627 here in the US, which is a lot of green. Microsoft might be eyeing 2015 for a replacement for the Xbox 360 game console. The tip on the date comes from the portfolio of a designer working with Microsoft.
T-Mobile customers will eventually need to replace their mobile phones once the merger with AT&T goes through. AT&T notes that it will be years down the road before that happens and most people will need a new handset by then anyway. The Blackberry PlayBook tablet got an official price and launch date Tuesday. The tablet will hit the US on April 19 starting at $499.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 went official at CTIA. The new offerings are billed as the world's thinnest mobile tablets. We spent a bit of hands on time with both of the tablets at CTIA. The tablets are nice, but Samsung is mum on pricing which is one of the most critical aspects of the tablet.
Sprint held an event at CTIA where the HTC Evo 3D smartphone was unveiled for the first time. The device has a dual core processor 4G connectivity, and 3D with no glasses needed. We got our geeky mitts all over the Evo View 4G Tablet at CTIA as well. We think the Scribe Pen that the tablet can use might be the superstar feature.
In more hands-on action, we felt up the HTC Evo 3D under the bleachers at CTIA. The phone is cool but the test unit had poor viewing angles and the screen looked bad in 3D from anything but straight on. A former curator for the Science Museum in London built a model of an ancient astronomical calculator. The model found that the original was able to precisely predict the yearly motion of the sun, moon, and planets and was a calculator.
Sony claimed late in the week that GeoHot had run away to South America to get away from the legal crusade Sony is on. Sony also claims Hotz sabotaged HDDs that were handed over to third parties for investigation. 2K announced that Duke Nukem Forever has been delayed again. The game was pushed to a June launch making this the shortest delay in the games history.
NVIDIA has unveiled a new video card called the GTX 590. With the card NVIDIA laid claim to the world's fastest and quietest crown. Google has announced that for now it has decided not to release the source code for Android 3.0 to outside devs. This is the tablet specific OS, it seems that with the Tablet focus Google fears it would land on some smartphones and provide a bad user experience.
RIM has announced that the Playbook will officially support Android apps. The announcement came Thursday as RIM promised to expand the app ecosystem for the tablet. GeoHot responded to Sony's suggestion that he fled the country to avoid prosecution on Friday. Hotz says he is on vacation for Spring Break, not running away.
The Nook Color eReader is getting access to apps on Barnes & Noble and Flash support in April. The new features will make the Nook Color into a cheap little Android tablet. Researchers have created some really cool batteries that have very fast recharge times. The tech in a full-scale battery would be able to charge to 90% capacity in two minutes.
Friday we posted up our review of the Nintendo 3DS. We figure 3D is a bit gimmicky and while the 3DS is cool, seeing value in the expensive console and the expensive games is tricky. Thanks for reading this week's edition, see you next time!