Kindle Wireless readers cuts price, ads…adds

It’s no surprise for anyone that the Kindle e-book reader is the most successful device from to roam the reading devices niche. After all, it’s kind of cheap and uses a fantastic technology for the screen, meaning you won’t have any problems looking at the screen for hours (well, unless you hate what you’re reading).

More, the e-reader benefits from a massive library with approximately 700.000 titles from all genres. And now Amazon has another surprise in store for those thinking about buying their e-reader, but are put off by the price tag. According toalltouchtablet.com, you can buy an add supported version of the Kindle e-book reader for just $114, which is approximately 25 bucks less than the normal price. Basically, you get a bunch of adds on the bottom of the screen, like banners on an website and which you can click if you want to know more. The cool part is that you can choose the adds you can see, as you can install an app that only shows the adds of your liking on the screen and screen saver.

The reading experience on the Kindle will not be affected by the adds

Of course, the banners will not pop up while you read books or magazines, as that would really annoy people- after all, it’s an e-book reader and while you’re doing the essential thing the device exists for, adds for cosmetics or cell phones is the last thing you want to see. The price cut is not the only deal Amazon throws in for this spring, as you can buy audio books, music albums, books, get coupons for Amazon stores and other stuff at knock off prices. For example, you can choose a $1 music album from a selection of about a million titles, get 6 audio books for just 6 bucks (for which you would normally have to pay almost 70 dollars), get gift cards for Amazon mega stores and much more.

If we think about it, Amazon might have come up with even a lower price tag for the add supported version, considering they can capitalize on each tablet virtually forever, as the adds are there to stay. But maybe the over $100 price tag is dictated by the relatively small number of companies that are currently advertised on the e-book reader and probably when the group will become a little more populated, Amazon will offer the e-book reader for less than 100 bucks.

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Acer Education AOE100 review – cool netbook for kids and students

I’ve been playing with the Acer Education Aspire One E100 this last week, amongst others and it’s finally the time to put down a review for this unit.

On a first look basis, there’s nothing special on this one, at least when compared to the other 10 inch netbook Acer has on the market right now. We’ve seen it before, at MWC 2011 and that unit showcased at the show came with dual-booth options, including Android and Windows 7 Starter. The one we got to test no longer has this option but does come withsome interesting educational software and a solid rough case that should protect it from damage and shocks.

Do have to add that the device we tested here is a sample version. Very close to what you’ll see in stores but still a sample, thus performance and benchmark scores can be actually better on the final release than we got on this one.

Acer Aspire One E100 - 10 inch netbooks for students

Continue reading the post below for the full Acer Education Aspire One E100 review.

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AMD plans to release pumped up C-60 Fusion chip

The Fusion line of “processor meets graphics card” chips, dubbed APU (accelerated processing unit) were quite the catwalk star of the mobile CPU market these last couple of months. The chips have dual core processors, as well as integrated HD graphics, which are compatible with DirectX 11 and can easily decode HD content. This is something most netbooks and notebook processors can’t do, as they usually choke at 720p without the help of a video card.

Plus, Fusion chips are pretty smart when it comes to power consumption, beating even Atom chips, which used to have an excuse for being slow the fact that they need very little energy to keep going. Until now, there are four APUs out there, namely the C-50, the C-30, the E-240 and E-350. Excepting the C-30, all the APUs have dual core processors, while the C-30 has to settle for just one core. Most of the time, we get the Zacate E-350 on high performance netbooks and notebooks, while the C-50 is more of a mainstream solution for mini laptops.

But now it seems like the C-50 will get a face lift and will be called the C-60, and the new APU will have better graphics and core speed thanks to the TurboCore technology. The C-50 is a dual core processor, with a speed of of 1 GHZ, and also has ATI Radeon HD 6250 graphics. It’s the minimum setup you get from a AMD chip, but it’s still good enough for a good experience, especially on Windows 7 Starter.

The C-60, however, will have slightly better graphics, namely the 6290, which assure smoother HD decoding and has increased speed, from 276 MHZ to 400 MHZ. The dual core processor was also enhanced, as the speed can reach up to 1.33 GHZ, meaning 33% better than the one on the C-50. When you’re running applications that need only one core to run, the active core can be temporarily overclocked. Overall, the system takes in the same amount of power, as the idle core can be left to starve for a little while.

The C-60 will have better graphics and speed than the C-50, but will have the same size and power requierments

This technology is useful if you want to enjoy a game or movie without any problems. It would be great if AMD would do this with other processors as well, especially the E-350, which has a speed of 1.5 GHZ and overclocking that would get some very decent performance for a netbook or notebook processor.

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Lenovo ThinkPad e220s hands-on and quick look

Got the chance to play with an amazing 12 incher today, the Lenovo Thinkpad Edge e220s as it was officially unveiled in my country. You’re going to find some of my impressions below and there’s also a hands-on clip included.

First, this is a device Lenovo points towards SMBs (small and medium businesses) owners, thus it’s meant to combine style, quality and power with a decent price (but still a hefty one nonetheless).

The e220s is very much similar to the popularLenovo U260, as it boosts s similar 12.5 inch display, a thin and light body (not as sleek as on the U260 though) and a very solid case. In fact, Lenovo replaced the glossy finish used on the previous generation with a matte rubbery one, and it feels very nice, allowing good grip and getting rid of most fingerprints and scratches problems. Same finish is offered for the bottom as well and the palm rest, which is actually quite spacious for a device this small.

Opening the lid, you’ll also notice the standard trackpad, trackpoint and island keyboard Lenovo uses on their Edges lately, some of the best ever to be installed on a laptop. And there are some extra nice features that can make the difference, like a luminosity sensor for automatically adjusting screen brightness based on external conditions, night lamp just on top of the screen, fingerprint reader and a charge-while-sleeping USB port (colored in yellow).

Clip below should tell you more about the Lenovo e220s. Just don’t expect too many details, it’s not a review, it’s just a quick hands-on with the product at the conference.

Hardware wise, Lenovo included new Intel Sandy bridge hardware on the E220s and all of their other Edge+ laptops, with options for Core i5 and Core i7 second generation processors, proper graphics and enough memory and storage space for all of your apps. There’s also this technology called Enhanced Experience 2.0 which will allow these Lenovo’s to boot and shut down 30% faster than their competitors. And that might not seem much, but when on the run, every second counts.

Lenovo ThinkPad Ege e220s - so close to perfection, but...

There is however one major problem with the e220s, and that’s the battery: there’s only a thin 4 Cell 44 wH battery one installed, and while Lenovo claims it can go for up to 6.5 hours, i doubt you’ll manage to get more than 4 on daily use. And that’s just not enough for an ultra-portable of this caliber.

The Lenovo ThinkPad should hit the stores in the next couple of days and prices will start at $899. However, expect versions with Core i7 processors to easily pass the 1000 bucks mark. If that’s worth it or not that’s up to you to device. Personally, I was surprised by how solid and well looking the e220s feels, but the poor battery life is a killer; especially if I have to shove one grand for a portable computer, I expect to have it around me for at least 6 hours, if not more.

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Reviewed the Asus EEE Pad Transformer today and played some games on it

After playing with the Asus EEE Pad Transformer during these last days i finally managed to publish the review for it on my tablet dedicated site,tabletbite.com .

So please go ahead and read the review of the Asus EEE Pad Transformer over there.

I’m not going to get into details in here, but I will tell you a couple of words about the device.

First, the tablet is very solid built, with a nice metallic and soft textured plastic casing and a sheet of Gorilla Glass on the front face. It’s wider than other tablets, but that makes it actually more comfortable to use for a longer time. You get a 10.1 inch IPS display with 1280 x 800 px resolution, so probably the best screen you can find on a 10 inch tablet right now. And inside there’s capable hardware, with a Nvidia Tegra 2 platform, 1 GB of memory, 16/32 GB storage and proper connectivity options.

Asus EEE Pad Transformer - best 10 inch Android tablet right now

All these powered by Android 3.0 HoneyComb might sound like a dream come true but the end product is not as good as you might think and that’s mainly because of the software glitches and hiccups that come along with HoneyComb right now, an OS still new and unstable. There’s also the known problem with applications, as you have few HoneyComb native apps in the Market right now and we’re not sure when this will change.

Anyway, see the clips below for more details about this particular tablet. First, one speaking about the exterior:

And another one with details on hardware and performances:

There’s also the docking station I should mention which takes battery life of the tablet to around 10-12 hours during everyday use, plus offers some extra features and a regular keyboard. In fact, when combining the tablet and the dock you get a device pretty similar to a 10 inch netbook both in terms of size, weight and capabilities. Still, this won’t run Windows like a regular 10 inch mini laptop does.

Here's what you get when conecting the slate and the dock

Also had the chance to play a couple of games on the Asus EEE Pad Transformer, and while i couldn’t actually try any of the titles in the Tegra Zone (which contains games specially designed for Tegra devices), I did find some nice titles on the Market, most of them available for free. See the clip below for details:

So that’s pretty much it with the Transformer, a tablet with a bunch of strong points and one major aspect dragging it down: overall user experience. Since the OS can be sluggish and can even freeze from time to time, this would greatly damage you everyday experience with this tablet to the point you can get exasperated by it. And this is why I can’t really recommend the Transformer right now, despite the fact that the hardware is almost impeccable and the price is very very good. And despite the fact that this is the best 10 inch Android tablet right now, cheaper and with a better display than its main competitor, the Motorola Xoom.

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