Perhaps an 'iPad Killer', proposes Tony Bradley at the PCWorld Business Center.

It's a no-brainer that Palm has it's roots in the PDA business. Long before the iPhone and the 'CrackBerry' even came to the market, Palm ruled the industry with it's PDA devices and this time, all the company needs to do is get back to it's original form only with a new strategy in mind.

Keeping in trend with what Apple did with it's iPad Tablet, Palm needs to create a new class of product for it's customers which would be a Tablet device running on the WebOS. After all, Palm's WebOS is way more superior and powerful platform than iPhone OS in terms of the multitasking capabilities that it provides and that's exactly what the customers require in a Tablet device.

From what can be seen from the images is that the new operating system will bring support for widgets and a multi-touch display. The authenticity about the leaked images is not sure but BBleaks said, “These spy shot images come highly regarded as real from one our best connects.”

Right now, there are no news related to the release date of the Blackberry 6.0 OS or which devices will feature this new operating system. Looks like the upcoming Blackberry smartphones, Blackberry 9900/ Blackberry 9930 Slider, will come with the new operating system. Rumors suggest that RIM might announce their new smartphone along with the new OS 6.0 at RIM’s own WES show.

This is all we know about the new OS. We have to wait to see whether these leaked images are legit or not.

[via BBleaks]

Androlib, a third party developer, claimed that there are almost 35k applications right now in Android Apps Market. Google has confirmed the apps count in the Android Market to be almost 30k applications, says a report.

The biggest Android competitor is iPhone at the moment and if we compare the number of applications available for iPhone with the Google Android Market, the ratio of applications available is 5:1. There are almost 140k applications in the iTunes Apps store compared to 30k android apps. But the number of free applications available for android are much more than those available for the iPhone OS. Androlib reports that almost 61% of the applications available in the Android Market are free while the remaining are the paid ones..

Even another good thing about the Android market is that if you buy an application and don’t like it, you have 24 hours from the time of purchase to return the application and get a full refund. This service is not offered in iTunes Apps Store. No wonder why the Android Market is growing at this rate and it is expected to grow much more than that in next few months.

Looking at the estimated sales of iPhone and Droid, they managed to sell 1 and 1.05 million handsets respectively. On the other hand, the much hyped Android-based, Nexus One sold only 135k units which is not a good sign for Google. However, people had much expectations from Nexus One and believed that it can be the next iPhone competitor but looks like its not.

Unlike Droid and iPhone, Google Nexus One can only be purchased online and is not available in retail stores. If you want to buy Nexus One, you have to get it through T-Mobile.

Flurry reports:

It used the first 74 days of sales as a benchmark, since that was the timeframe that Apple initially announced it took to sell the first million iPhones in 2007. Since March 19 will mark the first 74 days of Nexus One sales, Flurry said it forecasted results for the last few days of the period.

Other reports suggest that market share of Android based smartphones is increasing and have gone up by 4.3% in just 4 months. It was 2.8 percent in October 2009 and it grew to 7.1% by January 2010. But if thats the case, why are the sales of Google Nexus One dropping? [via Business Insider]

According to Digitimes,

Acer is expected to adopt Corning's reinforced glass substrate and simply print color on its back to allow the substrate to function like a notebook cover for a frameless design. The design will help reduce the thickness of the ultra-thin notebook and can also reduce material costs.

Asus and Fujitsu have already introduced this concept a few months back. But the idea of an ultra think glass notebook with multi-touch keyboard still sounds very promising. Digitimes' inside sources said that this new device could be launched in the second half of 2010.

But the question remains that is the rumors are correct, would you go for this device?

Although there is no word about the pricing as Google is trying to target a bigger mobile phone Market in India which is dominated by Nokia and Blackberry.  However, according to some sources, the price will be much lower than the original one.

The original Nexus One features 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash, 3.7 inch AMOLED touch screen, 512MB Flash along with a 4GB microSD slot, video recording at 20 frames per second and numerous Google services such as Gmail, Google Search etc.

For all that's in the air for now, a report suggests that the new Nexus One for India will have a 3.7 inch AMOLED touch screen and Snapdragon processor but with a downgraded memory and Camera. Now, let's wait and watch if Google really makes a hit on this one.

It is to be noted that current touchscreen devices in the marktet such as the Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic run on Symbian^1 (Corresponds to S60 5th edition) and Nokia is more likely to skip the release of Symbian^2 in order to favor the launch Symbian^3 at MWC next month.

Apart from showing-off the mockups, Nokia has also issued technical details of the UI and has asked developers and users for their feedback on the Symbian forums.

At a glance, one can easily point that Nokia has tried to add elements from Android, the iPhone OS and even Maemo in it's new UI for the Symbian OS. The widgets and the clock on the homescreen remind us of Android while the photos application looks more like the Photos app in iPhone OS. But all in all, there seems to be more consistency in the UI.

However, these are only UI concept images and the final Symbian^4 experience will definitely be something quite different to this. Interestingly to date, Symbian is the world's most popular mobile operating system, accounting for 50% of smartphone sales.

On the latest what we have today for those looking forward to the Nexus One is the full hardware-level specifications of the device and the possible launch date, as unveiled at Engadget. The device does bear some interesting components but what makes it even more special is the Google-branding.

Look below for some of the detailed specifications:

• Processor:  Qualcomm Snapdragon at 1Ghz
• Display: 3.7 inch OLED widescreen display
• RAM: 512MB with same ROM capacity
• Storage: 4GB SD Card included (upto 32GB)
• Camera: 5-Megapixel autofocus with LED Flash
• Battery: Removable 1400 mAH battery

Those are some important of the many specs revealed. Apart from the Snapdragon processor and the 3.7 inch, the specs aren't that impressive but perhaps the appeal to the Nexus One lies more in it's lighter-and-thinner-than-iPhone form factor and the OS it runs on.

As some rumors claim, the device will only be available through 'invitation' only as soon as it is released and retail sales will begin on January 5th. The invitation criteria has not been revealed in detail as of yet.

Intel Corporation announced new Intel Atom processors today that feature integrated graphics built directly into the CPU, enabling improved performance and smaller, more energy-efficient designs in a new generation of netbooks and Atom-based entry level desktop PCs.

One of the most significant features of the new platform is the integration of memory controller and graphics into the CPU, which brings a significant performance boost for Netbooks not only in terms of Graphics but also power and battery-life. The new Intel Atom powered devices would even be able to run HD movies without the use of an external GPU such as the Nvidia Ion.

The family of Pine Trail consists of three processor chips, namely the N450, D410, D510 The N450 is aimed at netbooks, while the D510 and D410 are aimed at entry-level desktops, often called as "Net-tops". All of these processors run at 1.66 Ghz.

Intel claims that the Pine Trail platform scores a 20 percent average power reduction and a 60 percent package size reduction for Netbooks allowing the Netbooks to run for as long as 12-14 hours on a single charge. Though whether the chip is powerful enough to run HD or not is still a mystery. Pricing and availability will be announced in January as systems become available from OEMs.

As much as you would love the design and specifications of this little guy, the pricing is something that would make you pretend that you change your plans (in case you even thought of buying one in the first place).

First the specifications in detail:

• CPU and OS: Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz, Windows 7.
• Display size: 10.1 inch, 1280×720 pixels, Glass window.
• Battery Life: 16 cell battery with 12 hours of full-charged life.
• Memory and Storage: 1GB DDR2 RAM with 120GB HDD.
• Design and Color: Comes in three colors namely Black, White and Azure.
• Connectivity: In-built WLan, also supports 3G data connections.
• Nokia Services: Ovi Suite 2.0, Nokia Music for PC, Ovi Maps and Social Hub.
• Other: GPS, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera with microphone and Accelerometer.

As for the pricing, the Nokia Booklet 3G will cost around at 575 Euros which makes it equal to $820 USD approximately. Perhaps the price is the actual reason why Nokia doesn't want to label it as a Netbook.

Interestingly! Nokia itself is hesitating to brand this machine as a Netbook and goes on by calling it as a mini-laptop. Though we definitely would like to support Nokia on this as this device is more powerful and efficient than a regular netbook, even though it bears the guts of an Intel Atom processor which is now a standard for Netbook devices.

Below are some of the detailed features of the Nokia Booklet 3G.

• Intel Atom Processor on the back-end.
• A Windows-based machine running Windows 7.
• Glass display of 10.1 inches with HD display.
• Battery life up to 12-hours.
• Integrated 3G wireless and WiFi.
• A-GPS, webcam, Bluetooth and SD card reader.

So basically you can think of it as something between a smartphone and a laptop, but still its impressive.

No word yet on the price and availability of the device but I guess we will be seeing more of it at Nokia World 09 on September 2nd, along with the detailed specifications and probably even a preview.

Looking at the preview of this beauty, I was much appealed by what it had to offer and also because I got quite bored of using my iPhone, so I went ahead and purchased the HTC Hero. So here comes a detailed review:

The body of the phone is what makes it feel like it has come from heaven. It has a fully teflon-coated back which takes it to the next level of smoothness and gives the bearer a great pleasure in holding this little beauty.

Other noticeable features of the phone include, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a trackball, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, a 5-megapixel camera, an SD slot and a 1350mAh Lithium-ion battery.

Now there might have been some debate over whether the 528Mhz processor on the back-end makes the Hero an underpowered phone but in my say, it does not. The processor is as good, and even better than many other smartphones out in the market so it all comes down to how many apps you plan to run simultaneously. As in case of the iPhone, its only one app at a time so comparing Hero to the iPhone does not do full justice.

The OS on the phone is an up-lifted version of the Android cupcake with new icons, better navigation and the HTC Sense UI which provides up to 7 workspace screens with custom widgets and addons.

Battery-timing of the phone was what impressed me the most. It managed to survive through a complete day with EDGE turned on 24/7 on the backend and trust me on this one, no one uses EDGE like I do.

Notes to Follow

For those planning to buy this phone, here are some notes to follow:

1. Its Android, so make sure you get a preview of it before going out to purchase an Android phone for the first time.
2. Don't compare it to the iPhone since both have different classes, one has full multitasking features while the other doesn't.
3. Speed is not an issue on this phone as the rumors say, its all about how many apps you want to run in the background.

Good news is that HTC will soon be rolling out an update for the Hero that will make its UI even more fast and snappy. I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone who is tired of the iPhone and wants a change, and also to those who want to experience Android for the first time.

According to a report on an Australian news website, K2 will run on the Android platform. The gadget will have a 3.5 inch touch screen, a built-in browser, wifi, bluetooth, accelerometer and a possible digital TV tuner. K2 is still in its initial phase therefore it is not yet clear that whether the touch screen would fully compat with the human touch or a stylus would be used. The memory capacity of the PMP has also not been revealed.

Though the Portable media player will surely not have the luxury of Apple's app store or the iTunes sync feature but still it would be a great challenge to Apple's iPod touch. Being an android based gadget, K2 will most probably have the access to the android based open source third party software.

The gadget is still a rumor and it is not yet confirmed whether it gets the approval by the company or not. If green-signaled the gadget would bring some sort of competition with Apple which would eventually result in further improvement in the newer version of Apple's iPod Touch.

The Austrailian site also reported that iRiver is also working on an ebook reader and an internet tablet.

So what features will the Crunchpad boast of?

For one, its a Tablet PC with a 12-inch screen and will mainly be used for browsing the web and doing web-related tasks. All apps on the Crunchpad will be web-based and we are still unsure if it possesses any media capabilities such as watching movies or listening to music.

It will feature a custom web-kit browser which shall be running over a custom Linux OS. There will be Wi-Fi and 3G access and also one USB port to handle/transfer data to a thumb drive.

Apart from this, there is nothing that the Crunchpad can do so we hardly believe that it will be any match for the supposed Apple Tablet that is to come in September this year. The Crunchpad will be probably priced around $400.

Michael Arrington from TechCrunch will be officially introducing the device at an event somewhere in August.

And today! a leaked photo of the supposed Nokia N97 mini is what adds more to our speculation about the existence of such a device.

From what we see, it has a smaller touchscreen, a Qwerty keyboard but with a missing D-pad as seen on the original N97. Also the N97 mini is said to have only 8GB of storage memory, whereas the original N97 has 32GB of storage memory.

Though we personally believe that its nothing but an early prototype of the Nokia N97 which could have changed during the design-phase to give out the actual and final device.

Another possibility is that perhaps Nokia wants to repeat its trend by releasing a budget-phone as a supplementary to the original one, like it did with earlier with the Nokia E71. Though we doubt it, as N97 already failed to meet most of the users expectations.

So here we have the HTC Click, a supposedly low-end Android device and the second one after HTC Hero to have no Google branding on it.

Less is known about this new Android beauty but from the looks of it, it won't feature a trackball rather a D-pad for navigation and also we see rocker-key arrangement which is also found on the HTC Hero. It will probably also feature the HTC Sense UI found in the HTC Hero and will be released somewhere between September to October this year.

Looking at the device we can assume that HTC plans to sell it as a budget phone as the device does not feature anything unique or extraordinary (or maybe it does, who knows?) but it really pleases us that HTC is making use of Android more on its handsets than Windows Mobile.

But as Mojo, the Software Development Kit for WebOS, has been released to the public, much of the developers are claiming that WebOS is not meant for Gaming.

Craig A. Hunter seems to one of these developers who claims that Palm Pre does not provide the required environment for developers to build sophisticated apps for the device that are now a days required by smartphone users and can be commonly seen on the iPhone OS. To his concerns, lack of OpenGL access is what's keeping developers to explore more of WebOS in the Gaming area.

This makes us to believe that all future devices from Palm will also not be as sporty in terms of Games as they will also run on the WebOS. Perhaps the limitation to Graphics hardware is what's causing all the issue and Palm may remove this limitation in the future.

As for the iPhone, Gaming has already become one of the its key selling points and if Palm really wants to compete with it, it will have to open doors to allows developers to fully explore the WebOS environment and make Games with rich-graphics.

It is therefore that we have been keeping a close-eye on anything Pre and even though it is not possible for us to write a hands-on review of this device, we are still managing to share everything that we know about the Pre and how it will or will not succeed in the mobile market as compared to the the Highness of phones, the iPhone.

From much of what we have read and seen, the WebOS will be something really to look forward too. Its quite responsive and user-friendly as the iPhoneOS and yes, it does support multi-tasking.

Everything from multimedia, web browsing, photo viewing to contact synchronization seems pretty mature considering that its the first generation of the WebOS and we are sure, it will give a tough competition to the iPhone though the Pre might lag behind in popularity when it comes to availability of more apps but perhaps that gap will eventually be bridged as well.

The Pre is pretty small and also light-weight. Of course it is not possible for us to give out a thought on the feel-of-hand for this phone without actually testing it but from what we assume about it, it will definitely fit in your pockets and still leave room for the other stuff.

As compared to the iPhone, we give the Pre an edge over being light, easy to handle and also being the most suitable candidate for pocket-resting.

Now comes the hardware part, which makes us drown into oceans of disappointment considering the Pre runs on such a brilliant OS.

Palm might believe that it has done a fine job at incorporating a physical keyboard in the device but the fact is that now a days users are more inclined towards using a keyboard that comes with corresponding functions to the apps they use and that can only be done with a virtual keyboard like the iPhone has. Also, the slide-out fashion is kind of getting old and annoying in phones where you have to pop-out a keyboard whenever you need to type something.

Thats all from here. Our verdict believes that the Palm Pre might turn out to be a consumer-friendly device but it will still be hard enough for Pre to surpass the iPhone in terms of features, form and functionality.

Perhaps we will get to see more about the Pre on June 6th. Don't forget to check back for more launch reviews.

The idea was to build a Full-touchscreen Tablet computer that would be affordable enough for any average tech enthusiast and would also compete with the industry-leading Tablet devices not only in terms of its affordability, but also its design and usability.

The project is labeled as the CrunchPad and after months of prototype-testing, the device is actually coming to reality and let me tell you honestly, its sleek, its sexy and its brilliant.

From what we assume looking at the launch-prototype of the CrunchPad, it has definitely evolved from a mere touchscreen piece-of-nothing into a full-featured Tablet computer that will be the ultimate requirement for a 24-hour web surfer.

The device basically runs on a light-weight Linux distribution which directly boots into a web-kit based browser which integrates all web services and allows you to surf websites, watch videos and do anything on the Internet.

From where I see it, the launch of the CrunchPad might kick Kindle in the balls as CrunchPad seems to provide more than just e-reading capabilities and probably at a much cheaper price.

The price for the device, along with the complete technical specifcations, will be officially annoucned next month. Go watch a demo of an earlier prototype and decide whether this device will really make a buzz on its launch or not?

A press-release made by a company named BSquare reveals that it is working on a system to use certain Adobe software on the yet unannounced 'Dell Netbooks running the Google OS'.

Although the press-release was later termed as 'erraneous' by both Dell and BSquare, however the fact that no party denied the content of the press-release gives us a hint that Dell might actually be planning to launch Netbooks running the Android OS soon.

The reason why Android remains an attractive piece of OS for most Netbook makers is because of its ability to run in an environment which is independant of Microsoft and Intel and also because it is absolutely open-source and free.

Exploring the Android OS on Netbooks may help vendors in getting indepence from the Windows-monoply by Microsoft.