There are a bevy of incredible new electronic products being shown off at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and the thing many of them have in common is Android. Despite the notable absence of a Google booth at the CES and the fact that Chrome looks dead on arrival, Google’s technology is still stealing the show.
The point is, Google doesn’t have to lobby very hard at the CES this year; other companies are doing it for them. For example, the star product of the show is the Motorola’s Xoom, which is currently being dubbed the iPad killer. The tablet has enjoyed a web-wide buzz since its debut at CES because it has taken tech geeks by surprise.
Everyone has had their eyes peeled for the newcomer to the tablet arena who might upset Apple’s stranglehold on the market due of the success of the iPad. Rim’s Blackberry Playbook was to be the much anticipated first move against Apple, but Motorola swept past RIM with the introduction of the Xoom, which was kept tightly under wraps until the show.
The Xoom runs on Android 3.0, (codename Honeycomb), the first OS to be specifically designed and optimized for the tablet format, and it is as smooth as butter. On top of a good selection of Android Apps to compete against Apple’s offerings, the Xoom also has the same battery life as the iPad.
Although the date of release for the Rim’s Playbook has been delayed (many think because of rumors about short battery life), when Rim feels they have perfected it, the device will probably run on Android 3.0 as well. Blackberry is famous for their astounding lack of Apps, and running the Playbook on the Honeycomb will allow its users access to Android Apps.
All phones debuted at the CES this year were smart phones, reinforcing the public trend away from traditional cell phones. Every single one—regardless of the carrier—runs on Google Android 2.2. In an interesting turn of events, AT&T went as far as to boast that they now carry the best phones for every major operating system. The cell phone carrier is scheduled to carry Motorola’s Atrix 4G, probably the next best thing in cell phone technology and a real threat to both the iPhone and whatever new Blackberrys eventually come to market later this year.
The Atrix runs on the Android 2.2 OS and is powerful enough (dual core chip processor) to be docked into a laptop shell for conversion use as a desktop, running on a version of Android. The Atrix finally combines web surfing functions with the only reason still left to own a laptop—word processing capabilities. Strange, but tablets were supposed to foretell the end of laptops, not a smart phone running on a Google OS.
Google is definitely sitting pretty this year. After all that hoopla surrounding Chrome products—which is considered a solution in search of a problem and hasn’t taken off—I guess they’re in a position to wait till people are ready for it. They can sit back and let manufacturers do their marketing for them.
CES Run Down of devices (12) being run on Google’s Android technology:
On Smart Phones:
- LG’s Revolution HTC Thunderbolt
- Motorola’s Bionic
- A yet to be named Samsung
- Motorola’s Atrix 4G,
- HTC’s Inspire 4G,
- Samsung’s Infuse 4G
- HTC’s Evo Shift 4G
On Tablets:
- Blackberry Playbook
- Samsung’s Galaxy Tab
- Motorola’s Xoom
- LG Slate
- Dell Streak 7
January 7, 2011
Google Android Technology Star of CES
The point is, Google doesn’t have to lobby very hard at the CES this year; other companies are doing it for them. For example, the star product of the show is the Motorola’s Xoom, which is currently being dubbed the iPad killer. The tablet has enjoyed a web-wide buzz since its debut at CES because it has taken tech geeks by surprise.
Everyone has had their eyes peeled for the newcomer to the tablet arena who might upset Apple’s stranglehold on the market due of the success of the iPad. Rim’s Blackberry Playbook was to be the much anticipated first move against Apple, but Motorola swept past RIM with the introduction of the Xoom, which was kept tightly under wraps until the show.
The Xoom runs on Android 3.0, (codename Honeycomb), the first OS to be specifically designed and optimized for the tablet format, and it is as smooth as butter. On top of a good selection of Android Apps to compete against Apple’s offerings, the Xoom also has the same battery life as the iPad.
Although the date of release for the Rim’s Playbook has been delayed (many think because of rumors about short battery life), when Rim feels they have perfected it, the device will probably run on Android 3.0 as well. Blackberry is famous for their astounding lack of Apps, and running the Playbook on the Honeycomb will allow its users access to Android Apps.
All phones debuted at the CES this year were smart phones, reinforcing the public trend away from traditional cell phones. Every single one—regardless of the carrier—runs on Google Android 2.2. In an interesting turn of events, AT&T went as far as to boast that they now carry the best phones for every major operating system. The cell phone carrier is scheduled to carry Motorola’s Atrix 4G, probably the next best thing in cell phone technology and a real threat to both the iPhone and whatever new Blackberrys eventually come to market later this year.
The Atrix runs on the Android 2.2 OS and is powerful enough (dual core chip processor) to be docked into a laptop shell for conversion use as a desktop, running on a version of Android. The Atrix finally combines web surfing functions with the only reason still left to own a laptop—word processing capabilities. Strange, but tablets were supposed to foretell the end of laptops, not a smart phone running on a Google OS.
Google is definitely sitting pretty this year. After all that hoopla surrounding Chrome products—which is considered a solution in search of a problem and hasn’t taken off—I guess they’re in a position to wait till people are ready for it. They can sit back and let manufacturers do their marketing for them.
CES Run Down of devices (12) being run on Google’s Android technology:
On Smart Phones:
On Tablets:
January 7, 2011