HP/Palm WebOS Tablet Leaked!

Engadget reports that a "trusted tipster" of theirs sent them images of the soon-to-be-announced Palm/HP WebOS tablet. He said that the device will have a 9 inch screen, but a 7-inch variant will also be offered. The device has no buttons and is expected to be gesture-based like all of Palm's WebOS based phones are. If you have ever tried them you will know how awesome they are to use. I feel that this thing would be the #1 IPad competitor, not in sales, but in form factor and OS. WebOS is very polished, arguably as much as IOS, and the form factor of the slate seems to be very similar to the IPad. We'll see if this thing is going to be announced on February 9th, just stay tuned for coverage. Please follow me, like our Facebook page, and share!

Android Tuesday: Atrix 4G Benchmark

Someone was able to get their hands on a Motorola Atrix 4G with Quadrant installed on it, and the results of the test are absolutely stunning. If you look at the video below, it scored somewhere around 2800, which downright destroys any other device out there, but wait it gets better. Since the Atrix will be released with Froyo, only one of those 2-1GHZ cores will be used, so double the score for say and you have the score the Atrix will get when it is running a version of Android that has support for multiple cores in a smartphone. Wow. Be sure to tell me what you think in the comments. In other news, run to your nearest T-Mobile store because they have now dropped the price of the G2 down another $50 dollars to FREE so you don't have to pay to get your new Android phone. Of course you will have to sign on to a new 2-year contract and all that other junk that they make you do when purchasing a new phone. The deal ends this Thursday so hurry to get your new G2. Be sure to share and bookmark, and I'll see you later.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Taking Leave of Absence

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has emailed to all of his employees that he is taking a leave of absence for Medical issues. here is the exact text from the email:

Team,
At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.
I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.
I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.
Steve

We are not sure what is wrong with Apple's CEO now, but I am sure he will get through it. Jobs has survived one of the most fatal forms of cancers, pancreatic cancer which he announced in 2004, and recently had a liver transplant in 2009. This guy surely is a fighter, and we wish him the best. Hopefully we hear more info tomorrow when Apple announces there Q4 earnings. Be sure to share this article, and see you guys soon!

Qualcomm Dual-Core Snapdragon Coming Soon, and Other News

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't had a post in a while. As we already know, the IPhone is coming to Verizon on February 10th. No other perks, just an IPhone 4 on Verizon, with mobile hotspot connectivity. Now onto the big news of the day. Engadget reports that Qualcommhad showed them a device running a dual core Snapdragon processor and an Adreno 220 graphics chip at CES, but this device was just to show what the CPU was capable of. And it was capable of a lot. It had stunning graphics, and output 3D video right to a TV. Wow. Hopefully this is a sign of something to come on HTC's phones, too bad it wasn't ready in time for the Thunderbolt. If HTC unveiled a phone with this processor at MWC, I wouldn't be shocked. Sense UI + HTC build quality = peace and awesomeness. I embedded a Youtube clip below showing Qualcomm talking about the CPU and what it could mean for mobile phones. Be sure to check it out, and please share! I have been under a really tight schedule lately so please bare with be for the blog posts. See you soon!

Verizon IPhone Coming Next Tuesday?

Ok, time to calm it down with the little green robot for awhile. Now is Verizon IPhone time. Verizon is hosting a mysterious event next Tuesday, and since Apple had no presence at CES, I believe Big Red is going to announce the Verizon IPhone at this event. The event is speculated to have Steve Jobs as a special guest, but this isn't yet 100% confirmed. The IPhone has no leaks, and no confirmed specs yet, but will hopefully launch on Verizon's 4G LTE network, considering that 10 devices were announced this week with LTE connectivity (see previous blog post for more info). This image comes from OmniTechNews, where more info and an interview was provided about the event. Be sure to check it out over here: http://j.mp/eM4gxB/. There wasn't much other news about the event, so we'll wait it out until Tuesday, when the mystery is solved. We will have all of the details over here at TechBlogwithJohn, so check us out on Tuesday, or follow my tweets at https://twitter.com/techbloggerjohn. Have a good Friday night guys and see you soon.

CES 2011 Wrap Up: Many Surprises, and One Huge Dissapointment

Practically every notable Android phone maker released a new device this week at CES 2011, and boy did they have a different turnout than I thought. To start, Motorola released a bevy of devices yesterday, most notably their new "Superphone", the Atrix 4G. This boy packs a Dual-Core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, runs Android 2.2, has a 5MP shooter with 720p capable video recording capabilities, a 960 by 540 resolution 4 inch display (called qHD) and 1GB of RAM to top it of. The most-hyped about feature of this device is the fact that it comes with a dead netbook that you dock the Atrix to, and suddenly your phone is your computer. Wow. There are 2 downsides of this behemoth phone: 1. The shooter is only 5MP and 2. It is on AT&T. Quite a Motofail in my opinion. Verizon has stuck with Motorola for 2 years releasing all of their flagship devices with them, and then Motorola just stabs them in the back. Verizon will have to deal with the Droid Bionic, which sports similar though not as impressing specs: a dual-core OMAP or NVIDIA Tegra 2 (getting different answers from every source, and Motorola doesn't have the full spec sheet on their website) processor, Android 2.2, has an 8MP shooter (win) that shoots 720p, a 4.3 inch qHD display, and a hugely dissapointing 512 MB (what went wrong I don't know) of RAM. This must surely be Verizon's flagship device for the next few months, as none of these devices are expected to come in January. Keep in mind, Froyo doesn't fully support both cores, and Gingerbread does, so get ready for a major speed boost come update time. Also, both devices feature 1930 Mah battery, so battery life shouldn't be an issue. I really don't know why they didn't give the Atrix an 8MP shooter, it really would have killed the spec sheet. Last from Moto is the Xoom, that runs Android 3.0. The OS wasn't finished yet so we couldn't actually explore it, but from the videos it looks jaw-dropping. The Tablet has similar specs to the Atrix, but the cameras are a little bit more low-res. LG shot out an Android device featuring a dual-core processor, called the Optimus 2X. This phone just rocks. It has the Atrix specs, but with a smaller battery and an 8MP camera. Now the best goodie is that this Records 1080p. On a phone. 1080p on a phone. Just WOW. Now to the one HUGE dissapointment. This comes from HTC. The Thunderbolt. The specs seem pretty good: 4G LTE, 8MP camera, Android 2.2 with the wonderful new Sense.......and a 1GHZ Snapdragon processor, no dual core. Why? It is single core! No speed, just the average. I was really waiting for HTC to wow me, and they failed, miserably. HTC announced a bunch of other devices on other carriers too, no dual core awesomeness. One thing to note, the Verizon IPhone was not announced at Verizon's keynote today. Is it ever coming? I don't know. Please be sure to share this article!

Custom UIs, Good or Just Memory-Wasting?

Lately in the world of Android we have been hearing all about custom UIs, overlays, skins, or whatever you want to call them. If you aren't familiar, the most popular UIs added to Smartphones running Android are HTC's Sense UI, Motorola's MotoBlur, or Sony Ericsson's Timescape UI. On one-hand, UIs usually make Android better in a way, like polish, widgets, or animations that make the UI look more modern and user-friendly than stock Android. On the other hand, custom UI's tend to lower benchmark scores, make updates take much longer than expected, and slow down the phone. One example is the Droid Incredible to the Nexus One, the Incredible runs Sense UI and the Nexus One runs stock. All of the well-known benchmarks (Neocore, Quadrant Standrard, Linpack) are higher on the Nexus One than on the Droid Incredible. It all really is personal preference: do you want a phone that runs stock Android with less features but immediate updates (Droid, Nexus One, G2), or do you want a phone with more features, better experience, a bevy of widgets, but a slower phone (Droid Incredible, Droid X & 2, Xperia X10)? Now onto the big debate, which UI is the best? In my opinion, Sense UI is the most beautiful UI I have ever seen on Android. It includes around 50 jaw dropping widgets, Scenes, and better-designed menus and adds a huge amount of polish to Android OS. Motoblur is probably the roughest around the edges of the three, but has a bunch of Motorola widgets that you can resize depending on what you want. Motorola also added a bunch of Verizon bloatware on the Droid series phones running this UI. Last but not least, Sony Ericsson's Timescape UI adds a bunch of animations and changed menus, as it is hard to actually tell this is running Android. It is true that custom UIs do slow down Android updates as the X10 and all of its relatives are stuck on Android 1.6, and Samsung's Galaxy S series is still on Android 2.1 (UI called Touchwiz 3.0). So, do you like customs UIs or think they slow down Android too much? Be sure to tell me in the comments! Also, follow and LIKE me by using the buttons on the right. Happy New Year!