I have been in the market for a smartphone for a long time. I’m a loyal Verizon customer, and I guess it would have been easy enough to drop Verizon and go with AT&T and the iPhone, but I’ve resisted doing that for over a year.

Why? For starters, I like Verizon. I think their network is better, more reliable. This is circumstantially evidenced by the daily dropped calls I get from my husband on his iPhone. Secondarily, I felt a pull to go against the grain. Most people I know have an iPhone and, since I don’t like being a lemming, I wanted to have something different. I wanted to rebel against the Apple machine, I suppose.

Enter Android.

I had been reading excellent reviews of Android-based smartphones from various handset makers, many of which were available on Verizon. I test drove the first Motorola Droid when it debuted in November, but didn’t like the heft and the terrible physical keyboard. In the spring, the reviews for HTC’s Droid Incredible were off the charts, so I thought I’d take the plunge. Well, the device was officially released in April, but the backlog was immediate. In fact my local Verizon store is still out of stock.

Finally, I got my hands on a Droid X, the day after it was released, no less. Like other Droid phones, it had been getting great reviews. Most said it was the best Android phone yet, and the closest any phone had come to besting the iPhone.

The first thing you notice is the size. It’s big. Not so big as to be uncomfortable but big enough that I feel like I’m holding a small dish to my head while making calls. But I’m sure I’ll get used to that.

I found the Android OS to be relatively easy to use, but lagging behind the iPhone OS in simplicity. Most tasks in Android take a step or two more than on the iPhone. Case in point: snap a picture on the iPhone, tap the screen and you’re prompted with options for e-mailing or deleting the picture, saving it as your wallpaper, etc. With Android, emailing a picture is a four-step process.

Regarding notifications (voicemails, texts, emails, etc.), Android users must pull down a menu from the home screen to see their notifications, whereas with the iPhone you can see from the home screen whether you have new notifications.

Much has been made about Apple’s advantage with its app marketplace. Honestly I used to poo-poo this but I think there’s something to it. Not only are there more and better apps in Apple’s store, they’re much better categorized. For example, on the iPhone you can search within categories like “kids” or “financial” but Android (even with its 75,000 apps) lacks that granularity.

Another Android downer: no easy integration with iTunes. I have a significant investment in the music library I’ve built in iTunes, and there is no simple, seamless way to get my music on the Droid X. Apple’s is a closed ecosystem where synchronization between devices and computers is brainless.

For these reasons, I returned the Droid X to Verizon after seven days, paying the $35 restocking fee.

This is not to say there aren’t things the Droid X does better. True multitasking, a higher resolution camera and an HDMI port for watching videos on your TV are all nifty features. Google has built a feature-rich, smart, lightweight smartphone OS, and the Droid X is an impressive handset. But for me, it’s not enough.

So, after I returned the smartphone to Verizon, I walked two doors down to AT&T and ordered an iPhone 4.

Lisa

Proving that some British companies can get things right, this week ARM has posted its second quarter results and smashed market expectations.

Highlights include record pre-tax profits of £43.5m, up 167 per cent on Q2 2009, and revenue which shot up 54 per cent to £100m. Meanwhile operating margins leaped up from 24.7 per cent to a hugely impressive 42.7 per cent.

“We are pleased to report strong underlying revenue and profit performance in the first half, in improved trading conditions compared with one year ago,” announced ARM CEO Warren East (pictured). “Our strategy remains on track for growth in mobile, non-mobile and new technology outsourcing… ARM continued to gain share in the quarter with shipments of ARM-based chips growing faster than the industry in all target markets.”

It also won’t hurt that ARM has just inked a new licence agreement with Microsoft and completed a long-term manufacturing deal with TSMC. As if ARM’s invigorated business needed any more shots in the (forgive me) arm, East has also spoken out to dismiss any rumours of a takeover.

“It’s one of those things that’s always there as a theoretical possibility,” he told PC Pro. “You know, tornadoes could strike London at some stage. We believe that the business model of ARM is tailored around ARM being independent, and that’s what creates most value for the semiconductor industry and therefore for our shareholders.

“We are a public company and therefore subject to same risks of being taken over as anybody else and we just have to live with that, just as Londoners have to live with the risk of a tornado at some stage.”

As a London dweller myself I’m glad to report tornados are about as likely as a consistently hot and sunny , well… anything so it looks like ARM (currently valued at £4.3 billion) won’t be selling out any time soon.

Gordon

ABI Research this week said that global shipments of netbook computers would total about 60 million this year and will be nearly double that number in 2013. There’s reason to think that even that optimistic assessment is conservative. Here’s a few reasons why:

1. 1. Emerging markets, most notably India and China, with a combined wireless user base of well over one billion, will help drive netbook growth as 3G wireless technology sees more uptake.
2. 2. Google’s Chrome OS is due out by year’s end. As the site Chromeossite.com points out, the vast majority of Chrome OS devices will be netbooks, and given Google’s clout, resources, expanding universe of cloud applications and ability to integrate them all in a way that consumers like, not to mention its ever-closer relationship with OEMs, it’s likely that, as the website notes, “netbook sales that had begun to hit their peak will begin to resurge.”
3. 3. Third party companies are continuing to improve the netbook experience. Recent case in point: this Netbook Optimization Kit is a set of 10 add-ons designed to improve the experience of using the Firefox browser on a netbook.
4. 4. Where the iPad was not designed to accommodate peripherals, netbooks generally have several USB ports for connecting cameras, iPhones and modems, plus a VGA connector to use an external display. I would guess that makes netbooks more practical for lots of users.

Bottom line: iPads are cool, netbooks are value-oriented, practical and utilitarian, PCs are essential, smartphones do it all and fit in your pocket. We live in a multi-device world, and eventually most people will have more than one gadget to suit all their needs.

Netbooks aren’t for everybody but they will be a large and important part of the wireless computing landscape.

Lisa

The problem with being a poster boy is it comes with a great deal of expectation…

The first review has come in for Toshiba’s exciting ‘AC100′ smartbook, and it has been found wanting. Russian site Hi-tech.mail.ru was the seemingly lucky beneficiary of the production ready sample, but was left unimpressed after finding core hardware and software shortcomings.

Most pertinent among these were the absence of Google Marketplace – a common problem with smartbooks running a custom Android build – and the use of a mobile browser, described as “archaic” for a desktop platform. Most surprising, however, was the battery, lasting for just 4.5 hours when playing video. Exceptional battery life has been one of the fundamental marketing aspects for smartbooks so this seems odd. We’d be interested to learn what standard of video and what bitrate were used.

On the plus side, Hi-tech.mail.ru did say Toshiba has nailed the build quality with an excellent keyboard and slim, light 1.9-lb form factor. Other platforms, such as the Atom N450-powered smartbook also successfully handled 1080p video, something only netbooks packing Nvidia’s dedicated ION graphics can currently master.

Ultimately, we have a Catch 22 situation. If the world is to finally enjoy the theoretical benefits of smartbooks, then models are going to have to start appearing on shelves – and fast. The problem is, after such delays, both pressure and expectation is mounting, meaning first-generation smartbooks are unlikely to receive the same leniency as other new product sectors.

Unfortunately, smartbook makers have only themselves to blame…

Via Engadget

Gordon

If touchscreen iPad imitations are bound to steamroller traditional keyboard laptops, India’s human resource development office is ready with its Sakshat to give iPad a run for its money.  The Linux-based Sakshat, introduced July 23, is slated to reach $35 production costs by 2011, and Development Minister Kapil Sibal is confident the Sakshat eventually can be manufactured for $20 – some in the ministry are aiming at $10, though there was some dispute over whether a viable touchscreen tablet can move below a $20 bill of materials.

India has promoted an internal development project to challenge One Laptop Per Child, similar to the Craig Venter/Human Genome Project competition, ever since OLPC’s Nicholas Negroponte demonstrated the first $100 laptop in 2005.  Sibal made little headway asking private companies to develop a cheaper platform, and eventually promoted component development as a contest among India’s technical universities.  The resultant tablet computer carried the added bonus of being a true India-developed product, though it relies on common standards.

Students at the India Institute of Technology and India Institute of Science jointly defined a platform with ARM Cortex A8 or Rockchip processors, 2 Gbytes of memory, a 10.5-in. multitouch color screen, Wi-Fi b and g, Ethernet, a digital camera, and a PDF reader.  Unlike iPad, the system will offer compatibility to Adobe Flash, and will use OpenOffice.org and open document formats.  The Linux kernel has been optimized for cloud storage of applications, hence the Sakshat only offers an SD memory card outside its main memory – there is no disk drive.  This significantly reduces power dissipation to a reported 2W, but the Indian government plans to make it even easier for rural India use by developing a solar-power version of the tablet.

Several Taiwan ODM and component conglomerates are interested in manufacturing the Sakshat.  Until quality control in high-volume manufacturing is ironed out, we won’t know how reliable the computer can be, but at a price range of $20 to $35, we’re sure Sibal will find that “the computer for the rest of us” may have massive global appeal …

Loring

Microsoft Corp. must be worried about all the analyst chatter regarding its possible obsolescence in a handheld-centric world.  The company expanded its pact with ARM Holdings in mid-July, moving from a Windows Embedded port with roots dating back to 1997, to a broad-based R&D effort involving the ARM instruction set and architecture, generating speculation that it would soon offer versions of Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 for ARM binaries.

And where is the surprise there?  The very phrase “Wintel” assumes a commonality of purpose between Intel and Microsoft that has been missing for years.  While Intel’s Atom has fun with MeeGo and other environments, it’s only right and proper that Microsoft  gives a variety of microprocessors a test drive.

The more interesting questions in this licensing involve which Google platforms will prove toughest contenders, and whether any other corporate OS’s, Linux-derived or otherwise, will prove important.  Based on Google’s plans of a year ago, Chrome (as OS, not browser) would have been commonplace as a handheld client platform by now, while Android would have been relegated to the smartphone market as strictly defined at that time.  Since the iPad launch, of course, Android 2.2 has come into its own as a challenger to Apple’s iOS, while little has been heard from Chrome.

In fact, the success of Android 2.2 may make Mary Jo Foley’s speculation at ZDNet of a Windows Phone 7 port to ARM appear more viable than theories of a Windows NT kernel moving to ARM.  Keep in mind, this may represent little more than a Plan B for Microsoft, as Redmond may continue to see its handheld future pegged first and foremost to Atom.  Nevertheless, one can never assume winners and losers too early in the handheld space.

Loring

Have death throes ever been more prolonged than this?

Following a big build up earlier this year the HP Slate was seemingly dropped as the company’s $1.2-bn outlay for Palm saw it continually reiterate its love for all things webOS. So imagine our surprise when it turns out the Windows 7-based Slate is still alive… just.

This week the tablet accidentally turned up on HP’s site (web cache) leading to an HP spokesperson telling Engadget the product is ”in customer evaluations now and will make a determination soon on the next steps.” Now we learn those evaluations have led to a business-only focus.

The Slate will be “more customer-specific than broadly deployed,” confirmed HP personal systems group VP Todd Bradley yesterday, again to Engadget, but now it will be deployed “for the enterprise” in Q3.

Now the most interesting aspect of this story isn’t whether the Slate was or wasn’t being canned, but how – in little more than six months since it was first unveiled – the world’s largest PC maker has decided to marginalize tablets using Windows 7.

Love or hate the iPad, what Apple has changed is convincing rivals that the key to making this tricky form factor work is making it an expansion of the smartphone, not a downsizing of the laptop. With smartbooks also choosing the same route, this leaves Microsoft in an increasingly tricky situation and suggests Windows Phone 7 will be the most important platform in its history.

As for HP, it may not have killed the Slate outright, but with a ‘PALMPAD’ patent filed this month for its previously codenamed “Hurricane” webOS tablet, it has clearly lost faith in Microsoft’s mobile strategy. With the likes of Samsung creating Bada, Motorola’s purchase of Azingo, and the continued rise of Android and Meego, HP definitely isn’t the only one.

Gordon

After disappointing investors for two consecutive quarters, Qualcomm appears to have turned the tide.

Qualcomm shares were trading up nearly eight percent on Thursday morning, a day after the company reported a four percent uptick in third fiscal quarter profit. Revenue declined two percent, a shallower drop than many analysts predicted. Qualcomm also raised the low end of fourth quarter revenue guidance, giving shareholders hope that the company will deliver on expectations that, in the words of Bill Kreher of Edward Jones, it will be “the primary beneficiary of the shift to smartphones.”

At the same time, Qualcomm is looking to rid itself of its FLO TV mobile television business. As recently as April, Qualcomm was seemingly optimistic about FLO TV prospects, introducing features aimed at enhancing the service with new apps that integrate video with Web content and social media. At the time Qualcomm also implemented time-shifted viewing and pay-per-view options.

But it hasn’t been enough to offset the fact that FLO TV is available on limited devices, has spotty coverage and suffers from a dearth of compelling content.

Rather than pour money into the venture, Qualcomm is rightly focusing on its core competency of current and next generation wireless technologies. According to an analyst quoted in a Forbes.com article, Qualcomm’s focus on 3G and 4G is  a “tremendous asset.”

Despite the current number of 3G subscribers, estimated worldwide to be in the hundreds of millions, there is still a “largely unsaturated market waiting to be tapped.”

That’s certainly evidenced by this summer’s backlog of the most sought-after 3G smartphones. The good news: if Qualcomm executes, it will be at the center of that enormous demand.

Lisa

It’s one of the great mysteries of the technology sector that ARM chipsets can be found in everything from microwaves and trainers to smartbooks and smartphones, yet the brand remains largely out of public consciousness. This looks set to change…

Today the 20 year old British company has announced a broad long-term manufacturing agreement with TSMC, the world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry. The deal means ARM will now have the resources to perform far higher levels of testing and optimization upon its designs before it ships them out to licensees such as Apple, Samsung, Sharp, LG, Texas Instruments, Marvell and Qualcomm.

“The signing of this agreement is a significant semiconductor industry milestone because it formalizes a forward looking, long-term relationship between two of the industry’s leading companies,” explained ARM processor division executive vice president and general manager Mike Inglis. “I am pleased that ARM and TSMC will be working together to enable ARM processor based SoCs leveraging both companies’ advanced technologies.”

“The combination of ARM’s industry leading IP and TSMC’s world-class technology and manufacturing provides our mutual customers with compelling benefits for advanced semiconductor applications,” added TSMC Vice President of Design and Technology Platform and Deputy Head of R&D Dr. Fu-Chieh Hsu.

Yes, those are the formalities out of the way, but where things get really interesting is that ARM also will use TSMC’s fabrication know-how to push its designs all the way down to a futuristic 20-nm process. With each die-shrink comes reduced manufacturing costs and lower power requirements as well as greater performance, meaning this is nothing but good news for the consumer, as ever greater battery life and performance are required by today’s smartphones.

Furthermore, with Intel’s 45-nm fabricated Atom Z6xx chips seen as the route for it to finally enter the smartphone sector, ARM’s agreement has the potential to firmly turn the pressure back on x86 architecture. In fact, it could even be the launch pad for more aggressive moves by ARM into the netbook and laptop sectors.

What remains less clear is how the TSMC agreement will affect the similar deal ARM put in place with GlobalFoundries in October last year. At the time, ARM CEO Warren East said: “This announcement reflects our business value and strategy of providing best in class processor implementation by marrying our own processor and physical IP with world class manufacturing semiconductor technology..”

This is almost identical to the role that will be played by TSMC, though the restriction of the GlobalFoundries deal up to 28-nm fabrication suggests TSMC will be its major partner long term. All is fair in love and war, etc, etc.

“Today’s announcement between ARM and TSMC is so important to the future of mobile and other consumer devices,” proclaimed ARM vice president of marketing John Heinlein on his blog, and while rhetoric is an unavoidable part of covering this sector, he may well have hit the nail on the head.

Gordon

ABI Research and iSuppli certainly agree on one factor: Everyone loves the iPad, and OEMs copying the touch-sensitive tablet form factor are following along in its wake. Some of the research results released in mid-July fall into the “well, duh” category, but associated apocryphal tales are occasionally disturbing. The iPad and tablet lookalikes make great readers and Web browsers, but why are some corporate IT departments canceling all laptop orders in favor of universal standardization on the iPad?  The soft keypad has not yet shown itself to be a useful tool for document creation.

But I digress.  First, ABI has increased its estimate for tablet computers shipped within 2010 by almost a factor of three, predicting that 11 million units will be shipped within this calendar year.  That number will be more heavily skewed to iPad than originally anticipated, ABI said, because of the delay of some competitors’ products.  In fact, Principal Analyst Jeff Orr said that the onus was on competitors to get products out by September, in order to have significant numbers ship in the fourth quarter.

Nevertheless, ABI has not revised its long-term growth estimates significantly.  Orr stressed that the tablet market still falls short of a mass market, and may not achieve that status until 2013.  But ABI is betting that the Mobile Internet Device sector, a market definition that usually includes smartbooks, could be negatively affected both by iPad and tablet popularity, and by the growing functionality of smartphones.

This week, iSuppli Corp. hit us with a double-whammy.  On Tuesday, the research firm released a report that was even more bullish on tablets than ABI, predicting that Apple alone would ship 12.4 million iPads by the end of the current calendar year, and that its current 84 percent market share in tablet computing was unlikely to erode very much through 2012.  Rhoda Alexander, director of monitor research at iSuppli, called the iPad the “Tickle Me Elmo” product for the coming holiday season, and that Apple likely would be limited only by production capacity.  In fact, Alexander warned that Apple had to be careful to keep quality-control concerns on top – a factor underscored by the iPhone 4 antenna fiasco.

As if that wasn’t enough to give tablet-clone OEMs pause, iSuppli followed this report up a day later with a forecast that Apple would become the world’s second-biggest OEM semiconductor purchaser in 2011, and could move into first place by 2012.  Min-Sun Moon, senior analyst for semiconductor spending and design at iSuppli, said that Hewlett-Packard would remain in first with $17.1 billion in projected chip spending in 2011.  Apple would leapfrog ahead of Samsung, since iSuppli projected Apple would spend $16.2 billion compared to Samsung’s $13.9 billion.

Moon said that Apple’s increase could be attributed equally to iPad and iPhone 4, two products with such high growth curves that Apple could move to Number One chip purchaser in 2012, unless HP underwent a merger or major acquisition.  The next highest chip purchasers after Samsung, projected for 2011, are Lenovo Group, SanDisk, Research In Motion, Cisco Systems (RIM ahead of Cisco?!), and Acer.  Tablet-clone friends, read the numbers and weep.

Loring