Google shows off Android 3.0 - the 'Entirely for Tablet' Honeycomb

kona786 · 5 Jan 2011 at 22:22

I am liking what im seeing in the video below - Android 3.0 looks very good.

Watching the video i can see Android has been adapted a lot for it to work on a tablet - a lot more promising than Froyo on the Galaxy Tab which just seems too much like a big phone.

Lookin' foward to getting my hands on a Honeycomb Tablet.

UPDATE: Motorola Xoom running Honeycomb

EDIT (10/03/11): A Decent video review:

V4NT0M · 5 Jan 2011 at 23:47

Looks awesome, was thinking about getting a notion ink adam, but tempted to wait a little longer to see what honeycomb tablets come out.

Annoying thing is that there are a lot of android tablets but they're mostly crap... Same will probably be true for honeycomb. Still amazing to see how far Android has come in such a short time, honeycomb seems to not just be "a massive phone" like ipad and any android tablet to date.

_Jimlad_ · 6 Jan 2011 at 00:20

i said this ages ago, and was poo poo'ed android 3 will be aimed at tablets and we will properly see 2.4 or so on for mobile, they have to break away if they wanna do both phone and tablets

mrk · 6 Jan 2011 at 01:26

Yes I think one of these will be right at home sitting on my desk and laughing at iPads when out and about thanks!

MikeHunt79 · 6 Jan 2011 at 01:57

If they can get some decent audio latency with v3 then I may be tempted to give Android a go, fingers crossed otherwise an iPad may be my next purchase!

EchoFox · 6 Jan 2011 at 02:08

I have a smartphone running Android.

I have a desktop, and a laptop.

Where does this fit in?

NightSt@lk3r · 6 Jan 2011 at 02:21

EchoFox said:
I have a smartphone running Android.

I have a desktop, and a laptop.

Where does this fit in?

same here, for me i dont see the point in tablets.

BlizzardX · 6 Jan 2011 at 03:01

For me, tablets sit in the 'I want a device to watch a film in bed, or browse the net/email whilst watching TV' area. A laptop can be too big and bulky for that purpose whilst a desktop is not portable enough.

I can see me having a few tablets floating around, main desktop PC for games and harder stuff like CAD and then an HTPC for the lounge...

NightSt@lk3r · 6 Jan 2011 at 03:07

But who doesnt have a TV in there bedroom these days for watching a movie in bed?

and browsing the net/email while watching TV is what smartphones are for.

[TW]Fox · 6 Jan 2011 at 08:18

NightSt@lk3r said:
same here, for me i dont see the point in tablets.

Me neither. It seems people are trying to invent reasons for buying one.

Ah yes, those countless times when I want to watch a film in bed whilst holding a tablet, rather than watch said film on a 40" TV.

V4NT0M · 6 Jan 2011 at 08:24

I agree in general with you night, when tablets first came out I was wondering to myself why on earth I would get one over a laptop/phone and I still wouldn't, maybe get one alongside at the right price.

It's really a luxury item, ipad & current android tablets are large phones and generally expensive to boot, there's no way I would pay £400 - £500 for something which has much less functionality than something I can get for £250... But maybe around the £250 mark things start to change.

Generally, and this can be said for a lot of Apple product, people aren't buying these things because they have thought to themselves "i know this is really a better choice than a netbook for my needs and the price is justified" it's more like "ooooh shiny that would be cool" and to some extent I feel that having a tablet would be nice, but I'm not going to pay apple/samsung/whoever £500 for the luxury, thankfully the global market in all it's infinite selling powers will eventually bring the prices down for me (for non apple devices of course) and I'll buy into it.

Oh my listen to me rant.

bam0 · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:05

[TW]Fox;18154021 said:
Me neither. It seems people are trying to invent reasons for buying one.

Ah yes, those countless times when I want to watch a film in bed whilst holding a tablet, rather than watch said film on a 40" TV.

For me it'll be a netbook replacement. Small machine for doing casual things and/or travelling with.

_Jimlad_ · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:13

Motorola Announces The Xoom Honeycomb Tablet

Motorola Xoom is finally official. Announced today at CES, the Xoom will pack a dual-core 1GHz Tegra II processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, and vanilla Android 3.0. The Xoom eschews the recent trend of 7-inch displays on tablets, and instead opts for a 10.1-inch 1280×800 (16:10) (gorilla glass) display, which should complement the 720P video playback capabilities nicely.

this is the one i want!

http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/01/05/motorola-announces-the-xoom-honeycomb-tablet/

BlizzardX · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:40

[TW]Fox;18154021 said:
Me neither. It seems people are trying to invent reasons for buying one.

Ah yes, those countless times when I want to watch a film in bed whilst holding a tablet, rather than watch said film on a 40" TV.

Not really, a netbook to me is fairly pointless for example as all I would do is browse the internet, watch stuff and maybe email and I have an xbox and PC for gaming. A 10 inch tablet can do all this and to me is more portable.

With regards to the film/tv in bed, I do not have nor want a giant TV in my room. I have a 42" plasma in the lounge with Sky NZ etc that serves that need. A small tablet based item that you can watch stuff on, stream the live TV to it but not wake the missus up is quite a good idea.

mrk · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:44

Hmmm

After seeing the CES highlights on the new Android phones, a tablet like this seems pointless for owners of a next gen Android phone because with HDMI mirroring you could sit by a big screen or PC monitor and game/surf without problem.

Oh and a 4"+ screen

BlizzardX · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:47

NightSt@lk3r said:
But who doesnt have a TV in there bedroom these days for watching a movie in bed?

and browsing the net/email while watching TV is what smartphones are for.

I find that although a smart phone is 'acceptable', a bigger screen is much more desirable - thinking along the lines of 10" as that doesn't make the device mahoosive, but its not so small that I would be constantly squinting at the screen... plus android tablets can be rigged up to watch TV from my media server

NightSt@lk3r · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:47

BlizzardX said:
Not really, a netbook to me is fairly pointless for example as all I would do is browse the internet, watch stuff and maybe email and I have an xbox and PC for gaming. A 10 inch tablet can do all this and to me is more portable.

a 10 inch tablet is no more portable than a notebook let alone a netbook.

NightSt@lk3r · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:49

BlizzardX said:
plus android tablets can be rigged up to watch TV from my media server

as pointed out above some current android smartphones can already do this and pretty much all future smartphones will do this.

BlizzardX · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:51

NightSt@lk3r said:
a 10 inch tablet is no more portable than a notebook let alone a netbook.

Perhaps the word portable is the wrong choice... Perhaps I need to describe it as not sitting like a laptop/netbook style with the hinge aspect or the small keyboard. I think I just do not like laptops at all, bulky and annoying.

BlizzardX · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:53

NightSt@lk3r said:
as pointed out above some current android smartphones can already do this and pretty much all future smartphones will do this.

I realise this, it wasn't a look at what this amazing wonderful tablet can do but others cant, it was more of trying to add a little extra to the post. Any device that can play flash or embedded video can play a TV stream from a media server, I just would not want to watch one on anything smaller than a 7" screen.