Verizon Droid 4 has been out in the market for just over a day and we already have the root instructions available thanks to Dan Rosenberg. Gaining root access on your brand new Motorola Droid 4 is just a few steps away.

All you have to do:

• Download the required files from here
• Extract them to a folder
• Install latest Motorola drivers (Download)
• Enable USB debugging mode
• Connect your Droid 4 to PC
• Execute “RUN.BAT” from the extracted files
• You are good to go.

Samsung announced another tablet addition to its portfolio today in the form of samsung’s first Ice Cream Sandwich tablet Galaxy Tab 2. There is no news on the availability time-frame for the device right now, we expect it to reach market next month.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 features 1GHz dual core processor (make unknown), Android 4.0, 1GB RAM, 7-inch PLS display with 1024×600p resolution, 3MP rear camera, front camera, and HSPA+ support.  Other specifications include Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth 3.0, a-GPS, 16/32GB internal memory, microSD card slot, 4,000mAh battery and Touchwiz UX for tablets. Company will pre-loaded the usual set of apps and hubs on the device.

“Two years ago, Samsung GALAXY Tab began to offer customers more possibilities on the go. Since then, Samsung has actively enhanced our tablet line-up with several tablets in different sizes. The new GALAXY Tab 2 (7.0) will provide people with delighted multimedia experience and allow efficient communication.”

- JK Shin, President of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics

In the computing world, Acer is known for its good value-for-money products. The Acer Iconia Tab A500 is the latest Android 3.0 tablets, and with a price that distinguishes itself in a race. This tablet has many strengths, such as its inclusion of both a USB port and a microSD Card slot, its support for Dolby Mobile audio, and its custom home screen widgets that help organize applications. The Iconia Tab A500 is the largest of the three tablet already introduced. The Acer Iconia Tab A500 runs with tablet optimzed OS, packed in 13.3mm slender slice of aluminum coating and it is Wi-Fi only variant.

SPECIFICATIONS

• Operating System: Android 3.0 Honeycomb upgradable to v3.1
• Processor: 1GHz Dual-core Nvidia’s Tegra 2
• RAM: 1GB DDR2 RAM
• Camera: 5.0 Mega Pixels
• Sensors: Proximity sensor, Accelerometer, 3-axis gyro sensor
• Multi touch input Support
• Stereo speakers
• 3.5mm jack
• Web browser with HTML, RSS feeds and Adobe Flash Support
• TV Out via micro-HDMI
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) and EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
• USB 2.0 support
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
• GPS navigation using Google Maps
• Memory: Two Models with 16GB and 32GB
• Battery Model: Li-Po 3260 mAh battery
• Dimensions: 260 x 177 x 13.3 mm
• Weight: 730 g

DESIGN

The tablet looks solid, elegant and one of the bulkier tablets available today. The 10.1-inch multitouch display has a black bezel, rounded silver edges and back made of brushed aluminum. It’s slightly longer and wider than the Motorola Xoom, measuring 10.2 by 7.0 by 0.5 inches, to the Xoom’s 9.8 by 6.6 by 0.5 inches. The rounded edges make single-handed reading possible.

It’s got an aluminum back, plastic panels on the left and right, and a removable panel on top for the SIM and the SDcard. Moving onto the left side, we have the translucent power button, which doubles as the charging light, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a mini-HDMI port. On the bottom, there’s just a docking connector for the optional charging dock and on the right side you’ll find the dedicated power jack and a pair of USB slots: one micro-USB to transfer data to the tablet, and one full-size USB port which connects with both your storage drives and keyboards right out of the box. The Tab’s back has five megapixel camera with a single LED flash in the upper-right-hand corner and a pair of silvery stereo speakers along the bottom edge.

DISPLAY

The 1280 x 800 TFT display on the Acer Iconia Tab A500 measures 10.1 inches, like the Motorola Xoom, and is bright and clear. It doesn’t has an IPS screen, as a result incredible amount of glare and raw fingerprint grease get attracted to its mirror-like finish. A grid is quite visible on the display. Acer says that the grid should be visible only at specific angles, and that it’s there because of the touchscreen technology. It seems to cheapen the high-res screen and makes it harder to enjoy photos and read text .

In a side-by-side comparison to the Apple iPad 2, with the brightness for both devices turned all the way up, the iPad 2 looked brighter and easier to view from a side angle. Compared to the Xoom, the Iconia Tab A500′s screen looked similar.

CONNECTIVITY

The specs also include an accelerometer, a gyroscope, GPS, and a compass. It has Bluetooth 2.1 and 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity. The Iconia Tab uses Acer’s Clear.fi branding for its DLNA media server support, and a Clear.fi app helps facilitate connecting the tablet to other DLNA sources.

CAMERA

The Iconia Tab has a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with with LED flash and auto-focus , and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat. The rear-facing camera on the Acer Iconia Tab A500 is serviceable enough. It’s easy to use and snaps clear photos. Color reproduction ,from the rear camera seems good and it can actually take fairly pretty macro shots in bright light.

Colors are off, and it is slow to focus- the focus only works when you release the shutter. For video quality, you can select up to 720p as the highest level. In 720p, videos looked clear but lacked a colour depth for HD videos. The Iconia Tab A500′s front-facing camera, at 2MP, is less usable on this tablet, since there’s no built-in video conferencing app like the iPad 2.

BATTERY

Acer includes a pair of 3260mAh batteries. Battery life on the Acer Iconia Tab A500 is just average for an Android device – about seven hours in our typical everyday-usage test. Some reports indicate a battery life that’s longer – up to nine hours – and much shorter – only six hours.

Battery life marely depends upon how you use the device.Here,the battery life is at least 24 hours for medium use. When you play movies and listen to music, you can expect a six hour usage time. If you turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, connecting only as needed, use mostly light apps for note-taking and business work, then you can expect a nine hour battery life or even more.But when compared to other Android devices the Iconia Tab A500 doesn’t last as long as the Motorola Xoom or the Apple iPad 2 in everyday usage, requiring re-charge at midday.

OUR VERDICT

All in all, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 is a solid piece of hardware. This device has a Dolby speaker system, it’s light, has a casing that’s nearly wholly aluminum, and it’s silver.The Acer Iconia Tab A500 gets some extra credit for its more rugged design. The aluminium back is bit more appreciable than the plastic used on other tablets. There’s more heft to the device and it has a wider footprint so you can get a good grip on the tablet. The Iconia Tab A500 has a bulky design which is not appropriate to everyone. When Motorola Xoom and the Acer Iconia Tab A500 were placed side by side, Xoom tends to be more portable, even though both tablets weigh the same.

The Iconia Tab A500 had a few minor bugs with some apps, including Google Maps and Gmail.

Other issues like: the short charger cable, the faint pixel grid on the screen, the shorter than expected battery add up to a less than perfect experience compared to another tablet, the Motorola Xoom,, that has about the same specs.

Overall, the Iconia Tab A500 is a very good tablet compared to the Apple iPad 2 with its boatload of apps, video chatting, games and superior media handling.

Pros

1.  Commendable Dolby sound quality
2.  More rugged than most
3.  Bright screen
4.  Docking station
5. USB port

Cons

1. Shorter than average battery life
2. Short Cable

INTRODUCTION

Acer has released their newest device in the Android tablet market and that is the Acer Iconia A100.  This is not only the first 7″ Honeycomb tablet, but the A100 is also the first device with Android 3.2 Honeycomb .It’s a  high performance, low priced device which features a 7″ 1024×600 resolution display , NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core CPU, 512MB of RAM with 8GB of internal storage.

SPECIFICATIONS

• Software : Android 3.2 Honeycomb
• Processor : 1GHz Memory slot
• Display : 7in 1024×600 pixels multitouch
• Connectivity : GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth,A-GPS Ports
• Camera : 5 megapixel, LED flash
• Video playback : .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9),.avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3)
• Audio playback : M aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma(Windows Media Audio 9)
• Radio : No
• Battery : Li-ion 1530mAh Size
• Weight : 410g

DESIGN

Acer Iconia Tab A100 has sharp angles, and it is bit wider and deeper than Galaxy Tab.Weighing 0.9 pound, the Iconia Tab A100 is also slightly heavier than the Galaxy Tab’s 0.85 pounds. As far as 7-inch tablets go, though, the Iconia Tab A100′s weight is right in the middle of the pack.The better build quality, compact form factor and being not as wide as some other similar sized tablets  it allows to grasp easily with one hand.

The A100 seems to take some design cues from laptops . The back cover has a navy finish with a pattern of thin, golden ribbons stretching from edge to edge. The back side is also stamped with Acer’s logo.There’s also the five megapixel main camera on the back, along with an LED flash next to it. On the top of the device we have the power and wake/standby button with a nice LED light to show when powered on, as well as the 3.5mm headphone jack.The top has the volume rocker and portrait/landscape screen orientation lock.

The bottom of the device has charging port, stereo speakers, a micro HDMI port, micro USB, and a 30 pin dock connector for accessories and docks. It has all-plastic casing which gives some classy looking styling to the device. Internally, the tablet packs two unremovable 1,530 mAh Li-Ion batteries that power the entire thing.

• Dimensions          195 x 117 x 13.1 mm
• Weight                      450 g

DISPLAY

Acer uses the7-inch capacitive touchscreen which offers a resolution of 1024×600 pixels . It’s nicely sensitive though, responding well to brushes and presses. The touchscreen can reproduce 16.7 million colors at a pixel density of 166 dpi. The screen’s surface is glossy, for this device category. Reflections  are seen on the screen in almost every position and almost all lighting conditions. The reflections only cease in dimmed rooms or at night.At the same time, our eyes dig its deep color tones when looking at the display straight on. On the other hand, its poor viewing angles and low brightness output make it nearly impossible to view outdoors. On top of that, it’s usceptible to getting dirty very quick – and it doesn’t help when it’s difficult to clean.

• Display Type - LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
• Size - 600 x 1024 pixels, 7.0 inches (~170 ppi pixel density)
• Multitouch – Yes

CONNECTIVITY

The Iconia A100 has a microUSB port for connecting the tablet to the PC and transferring data. Moreover, the A100 has a mini HDMI port for connecting external flat screens or compatible monitors with a resolution of 720p.

The web browsing experience is more than agreeable since it has all the qualities that make it a fine experience. Not only is it able to render site quickly and properly, but it doesn’t flinch in the presence of Flash content – plus, its navigational controls are smooth and responsive. It also packs other connectivity items like a GPS and Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR.

• GPRS – No
• EDGE – No
• Speed – No
• WLAN – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth – Yes, v2.1 with A2DP, EDR
• USB – Yes, microUSB v2.0

CAMERA

The Acer Icona A100 comes with 5MP camera that takes pretty great photos as well as 720p HD video recording. It’s able to capture some accurate looking colors with its images, under sunny conditions but photos taken in low lighting  are dull because they’re grainy looking and filled with plenty of noise. LED flash allows to brighten things up a little,but still cast a dull tone with its color production. While shooting still shots the videos were not pretty even at, 720p video recording except for its smooth 30 frames per second capture rate. Luckily, audio recording is clear for the most part without the hint of it sounding irritating to the ear.

Primary – 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Video – Yes, 720p@30fps, VGA@60fps
Secondary – Yes, 2 MP
Features – Geo-tagging, image stabilization

BATTERY

A100 houses a small 1,530mAh battery that promises up to five hours of juice if doing things over WiFi, and up to four and a half hours of 720p video playback. Even though the battery is small it perform fairly decent Charging it completely to its fullest and using it lightly, one can get at least one day of usage with the tablet.

It seems to last about 8-10 hours thanks to the highly optimized and efficient Android 3.2. In a standard battery test, which involves playing the same movie on repeat with WiFi on and the brightness set to 50 percent, it lasted four hours and 54 minutes.There is a socket over which the A100 can be connected to the power adapter for charging the battery.

CONCLUSION

Being the latest and greatest OS, a small and portable 7″ form factor, a great price and a super powerful dual-core processor the device is worth to buy.If you aren’t looking for a larger 10″ tablet and don’t want last-gen hardware in the Galaxy Tab 7″ this is the ideal purchase. It’s definitely a decent Honeycomb tablet.
Pros

• Fast platform performance
• Affordable
• Decent build quality
• First 7-inch tablet running Android 3.2

Cons

• Poor viewing angles with its display
• Shorter battery life than others

Google recently has filed a new unlock-mechanism patent, which might become Android’s default in the upcoming versions.

As “Input to Locked Computing Device”, this patent claims a method for device unlocking process using one or more user inputs while simultaneously executing a command (calling, opening an app etc).

Patent Filing Abstract:

The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes receiving at a computing device that is in a locked state, one or more user inputs to unlock the device and to execute at least one command that is different from a command for unlocking the device. The method further includes executing in response to the user inputs to unlock the device an unlocking operation by the device to convert the device from a locked state to an unlocked state. The method further includes executing the at least one command in response to receiving the user inputs to execute the at least one command. The at least one command executes so that results of executing the at least one command are first displayed on the device to a user automatically after the device changes from the locked state to the unlocked state.

We still have to wait for it to become a part of our Android devices, but still it is a step in right direction.

Via

Acer America has now officially announced Android 4.0 update plans for all of its tablets. According to a press release issued today, Acer is already rolling out Ice Cream Sandwich update for A200 tablets and it will be completed over the next week.

Acer Iconia Tab A100 and A500 will be getting the ICS update in April. There is no official word about updates in other countries, but we believe the time-frame would be same for the other regions too.

Android 4.0 Update Features for Acer Tablets:

The faster browser, enhanced app and folder management options, more intuitive navigation, and a completely reimaged design that is more polished with enhanced holographic effects. Plus, customers can more easily customize their Acer tablet and will enjoy improved multitasking and switching between tasks. They will also appreciate improved integration with Gmail’s email and calendar functions.

Features and Enhancements Unique to Acer Tablets:

The updated tablets will now feature the highly-customizable Acer Ring, making it incredibly natural and easy to get instant access to favorite apps and features. The Acer Ring can be launched with a singletouch and lets customers have quick and easy access to apps, surf the web, capture screen images, post photos and status updates to their social networks, and more.

Customers will also enjoy an improved weather widget and will be able to access their favorite apps even when the screen is locked.   Acer Iconia Tab customers will be able to do more with their photos and video thanks to the Android 4.0 update, including improved zoom and the ability to take snapshots while recording video. Customers will also be able to capture better still images and do more with them due to greater image stabilization and improved integration with third party apps. Both video clips and photos can be enhanced on the fly, stored and searched for based on various tags, and conveniently stored on Google+.

Samsung’s dual-SIM Android smartphones Galaxy Y Duos and Galaxy Y Pro Duos are now available for pre-order from online retail stores Letsbuy in India. Both the smartphones were announced along with Ace Duos a few days back in the country.

Retailer is promising a last week of February availability for Galaxy Y Pro Duos stocks and second week of March availability for Galaxy Y Duos.

Pricing:

Samsung Galaxy Y Duos: INR 10,490

Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos: INR 11,090

Specifications:

Samsung Galaxy Y Duos: Android 2.3, 832MHz processsor, 3.14 inch capacitive display, 3.15MP camera, GSM+GSM dual standby, and 1300 mAh battery

Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos: Android 2.3, 832MHz processsor, 2.6 inch capacitive display, 3.15MP camera, GSM+GSM dual standby, and 1350 mAh battery

LG officially announced Optimus Vu Android smartphone just ahead of Mobile World Congress today. It will reach Korean market this March. Featuring a 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, LGOptimus Vu will come with 5 inch IPS display with 4:3 aspect ratio and 1024x768p resolution. It will be running on Android 2.3 at the time of launch, Android 4.0 update is already in works.

“The Optimus Vu: was designed to maximize what customers could do with a smart-phone. By offering an optimal 4:3 ratio viewing experience, 5-inch display combined with superfast LTE technology, Optimus Vu: is just one example of what we can achieve when we combine our best technology with customer needs.”

- Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Mobile Communications Company

More LG Optimus Vu Specifications:

• 32GB eMMC and 1GB DDR2 RAM
• 8MP rear camera with AF LED Flash and 1.3MP (front)
• Battery: 2,080mAh
• Dimension (L x W x D): 139.6 x 90.4 x 8.5mm
• HDMI out, DLNA
• LTE Connectivity

Motorola Defy Plus now costs 2k less in India and and is available now for INR 15990. Launched in the country in November 2011 at INR 18K.  To remind you, Motorola Defy Plus features a 1GHz processor, 3.7 inch display, Gingerbread, 5MP rear camera with LED Flash, and 512MB RAM. It is also dust/water proof and scratch resistant. It is a great buy.