The Lit-Byte...........Tech News to Use

Keyless Nook Beats Kindle for Easy E-Reading: 
2011-06-08 20:00:00.0 GMT
   June 9 (Bloomberg) -- As impressed as I am with Amazon.com
Inc. for launching the electronic-book market, there’s one thing
about the groundbreaking Kindle that I could do without: its
keyboard.


Those little round buttons and navigation controls are
just too hard to use and take up too much real estate for the
value they provide.
    Rival Barnes & Noble Inc. apparently agrees. It has just
come out with a new version of its Nook e-reader that can best
be described as a Kindle-sans-keys. The Kindle with keys is
already a very good e-reader. The new Nook, with its easier,
more intuitive user interface, is even better.
    Techies love arguing the relative merits of gadgets like
these, basically only good for one thing, versus multi-function
wonders like Apple Inc.’s iPad, or even Barnes & Noble’s own
budget-priced Nook Color.
    For many people, though, it’s the very lack of bells and
whistles that makes the dedicated e-reader attractive (along
with its lower price, feather weight and smaller size). Those
folks will find the new Nook especially appealing.
    As with the previous-generation Nook and Kindle, the
similarities in size, screen and price surpass the differences.
The Kindle is slightly thinner, the Nook at a mere 7.5 ounces an
ounce lighter; both can be comfortably held in one hand for long
periods of time and claim battery life of up two months. You
probably won’t do that well in the real world, but it’s
certainly fair to say you can go weeks between charges.

                       ‘Special Offers’

    Both cost $139 for a Wi-Fi-only version, though Amazon
gives you more choices, including a higher-priced model with
built-in 3G access as well as other versions that knock the
price down in return for subjecting you to “special offers”
(read: “advertising”). Both have extensive online stores for
buying content and allow you to add your own documents.
    Both also feature the latest six-inch-diagonal, gray-scale
display from E Ink Holdings Inc. While the screen isn’t anywhere
near as vivid or book-like as the displays on liquid-crystal-
display-based tablets like the iPad, it is, unlike LCD devices,
easily read in bright sunlight.
    Absent those little keys, the Nook is an inch shorter than
the Kindle. That leads to the most significant difference: In
place of the keyboard, the Nook has a touch screen that can be
used for navigation, and to enter information, for instance, to
annotate a passage you’re reading.

                         Sharper Image

    The Nook isn’t the first single-purpose e-reader to utilize
a touch screen, but the earlier efforts sacrificed sharpness.
Like Sony Corp.’s latest Reader line, the Nook uses an infrared
system that has no appreciable impact on quality.
    Page turns are smooth and crisp, unlike on the original
Nook, which I found agonizingly slow. The new one also gives you
several methods from which to choose. You can tap or swipe the
screen, as on an iPad, or use physical buttons -- they’re more
like ridges, really -- on the bezel framing the screen. There
are four of them, a pair on each side, to accommodate both
righties and lefties. I didn’t much like them: Besides being
redundant, they required too much pressure.
    Barnes & Noble has also figured out a way to reduce by more
than 80 percent the page-turn screen-flashing that for many
users is the most disconcerting aspect of using an E Ink device.
In five page turns out of six, the text simply morphs from the
old content to the new. Only on the sixth turn do you get that
momentary black screen.

                        Hidden Android

    The touch-sensitive keyboard that materializes on the
screen as needed works pretty well for the limited uses to which
it is put. And those uses are indeed few. Although the Nook runs
a version of Google Inc.’s Android mobile-device software, you
wouldn’t know it. Almost all traces of the operating system,
including the ability to surf the Web and handle e-mail, have
been stripped out of the Nook.
    These are things the Kindle does, if begrudgingly. Barnes &
Noble seems to have dispensed with them in the interest of
simplicity. You might feel differently, but for me they were
unmissed and unmourned. Too many other devices around do those
things far better than a gray-scale e-reader ever could, not the
least of them the Nook Color.
    The new Nook isn’t for playing games or music, or for
looking things up on Wikipedia. It’s good for one thing --
reading -- which it does it simply and well.

   (Rich Jaroslovsky is a Bloomberg News columnist. The
opinions expressed are his own.)

For Related News and Information:
For more Jaroslovsky columns: NI JAROSLOVSK <GO>
More Bloomberg commentary: OPED <GO>}
Top technology news: TTOP <GO>

--Editors: Jeremy Gerard, Zinta Lundborg.

To contact the writer of this column:
Rich Jaroslovsky in San Francisco at +1-415-617-7251 or
rjaroslovsky@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Manuela Hoelterhoff at +1-212-617-3486 or
mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.






Samsung Galaxy Tablet 10.1 Thinner and Lighter than iPad 2

June 15, 2001  Wall Street Journal                                                                                                               If you've ever experienced the anxiety of buying an Apple product while worrying that a new model will come out days later, Apple's competitors feel your pain. Three months ago when the iPad 2 was announced, their existing tablets suddenly seemed chunky compared with the super-thin new iPad.

Samsung has released its competitor to Apple's iPad: the Galaxy Tab 10.1. WSJ's Katherine Boehret says the Galaxy Tab is thinner and wider than the iPad but lacks the battery life and apps of its more famous competitor.

But this week I reviewed the first tablet that's actually thinner than the iPad 2: the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Never mind that the difference in thinness between these competing tablets is two-tenths of a millimeter. Thinner is thinner.

The Tab 10.1 is also lighter than the iPad 2, though (again) not by much: 1.25 pounds versus 1.33 pounds. Starting Friday, the 16-gigabyte model with WiFi, which I tested, will be available for $499 and the 32-gigabyte WiFi model for $599—the same prices as Apple's comparable iPad 2s.

So how do the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and iPad 2 really differ?

WSJ's Katherine Boehret reviews the first tablet that's actually thinner than the iPad 2: the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is two-tenths of a millimeter thinner.

There are hundreds of thousands more apps available for the iPad 2's iOS operating system. The Galaxy Tab's front- and rear-facing cameras capture better-quality photos than the iPad 2. The Galaxy Tab's 10.1-inch screen is formatted for widescreen viewing and is slightly longer than the iPad 2's 9.7-inch screen.

Juice Test

But the most notable difference between these two tablets is in battery life: In my test with WiFi on, screen brightness at about 75% and a continuous loop of video playing, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 lasted for just 5 hours and 38 minutes. This is only a bit more than half as long as the iPad 2, which lasted for 10 hours and nine minutes in the same test. (Both the Tab and iPad 2 batteries would last longer in more normal-use scenarios.)

I carried the Galaxy Tab 10.1 with me for everyday use, and it was light enough that I didn't have to think twice about whether or not to bring it with me. It comes in white or black, though this color is only noticeable on the Tab's back panel since its screen bezel is black regardless of which color you choose. (The white iPad has a matching screen bezel.) The plastic material on the back of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 feels a bit cheap compared with the brushed aluminum in Apple's iPad, but its tapered edges give it a sexy look and feel.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1's bright, high-definition touch screen was responsive to gestures and served as a beautiful showcase for HD videos. And Honeycomb, Google's Android 3.1 operating system for tablets, has a cleaner user interface than other Android operating systems.

Looking for Charlie Rose

Nice as it looks, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is lacking some built-in features. Unlike the iPad, this tablet supports Flash, Adobe's popular format for playing videos in the Web browser. But out of the box, it won't play Flash videos unless people first download a free Adobe Flash Player app from the Android Market. I only discovered this by unsuccessfully attempting to play videos on CharlieRose.com. The videos played without a problem after I downloaded the Flash app, but some people may not know to do this.

View Full Image

Samsung

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a svelte 8.6 millimeters thick and 1.25 pounds.

A Samsung spokesman said a future software update will include Adobe Flash Player, but that won't be pushed to devices until later this summer.

Coming Attractions

Likewise, Samsung Media Hub, a digital store where users can buy next-day TV shows and rent or buy movies, isn't yet available on the Tab 10.1. Nor is TouchWiz, Samsung's special layer of software that will add personal touches to the user interface like social-network feeds, saved websites and digital photos. Both Media Hub and TouchWiz will come to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 this summer via software updates.

A Google spokeswoman wouldn't say how many tablet-specific apps are available for the Honeycomb operating system that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 runs, but the overall Android Market offers over 200,000 apps. Apple's iPad runs over 425,000 apps from the Apple App Store, some 90,000 of which are designed especially for the iPad.

I searched the Android Market for apps and downloaded two versions of Angry Birds onto my Galaxy Tab 10.1. I installed several social-networking apps including Pulse, Twitter, TweetDeck and Facebook. I set up my Gmail and three other email accounts. And I installed the Amazon Kindle app, which synched with the current page of the book I'm reading on my iPad. Two speakers on either side of the Galaxy Tab's screen provided quality sound during games and movies.

Picture Quality

The Galaxy Tab 10.1's front- and rear-facing cameras captured good-looking photos. I used the rear-facing camera to snap still shots of friends, and turned on its automatic flash for darker environments. Apple won't disclose the megapixels of the iPad 2's cameras, but Samsung's Tab 10.1 specs say its front- and rear-facing cameras offer 2 and 3 megapixels, respectively. The rear-facing camera also has auto-focus and a flash.

View Full Image

Bloomberg

The new Apple Inc. iPad 2

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be available in models with Verizon Wireless's 4G service next month. The prices for the 16- and 32-gigabyte versions will be $529 and $629, respectively. Three models of the iPad 2 with carrier service are already available from Verizon Wireless and AT&T for $629 (16 gigabytes), $729 (32 gigabytes) and $829 (64 gigabytes).

If you're looking for a viable alternative to Apple's iPad, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is great looking and its software feels responsive and fast. But its selection of fewer apps and weaker battery life put it at a disadvantage to the iPad 2, especially since the two tablets cost the same.

—Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com