Smartbook AG, the company that wants to prevent the rest of the world from calling cheap ARM-based netbooks with 3G capabilities smartbooks, has launched a device that doesn’t look anything like a smartbook… or a netbook, or laptop. The new Smartbook Surfer is a 7 inch Android tablet that actually looks an awful lot like the Augen GenTouch78 which recently went on sale in the US.

The Smartbook Surfer has a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel display, a Telechips TTC8902 720MHz processor, and runs Google Android 2.1.

The tablet has 256MB of DDR2 memory and 2GB of internetl flash storage. it has 802.11b/g WiFi, a miniSD card slot, GPS module, and a webcam.

The webcam and GPS definitely set this tablet apart from the Augen GenTouch78 which lacks both of those features. The Smartbook tablet also has 2 USB ports instead of 1, and a HDMI port for 1080p video output. On the other hand, it has a lower capacity 1400mAh battery (the Augen tablet has a 2100mAh battery).

Smartbook says the device supports Flash, but I find that hard to believe since you need Android 2.2 to run Adobe Flash, and the Smartbook Surfer ships with Android 2.1.

Touch Me Mobile has a hands-on video with the hardware, which was shot earlier this year on a similar device running Windows CE instead of Android.

The Smartbook Surfer is on sale in Germany for €179, or about $234 US.

via nDevil

The Augen GenTouch78 Google Android tablet has only been available in the US for a few days, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that at least half of the units sold have gone to hardcore early adopters and hardware hackers looking for a cheap Android tablet to play with. Case in point: a group of users have already discovered how to gain root access to the tablet allowing you to do things such as adjust the CPU speed.

There’s no support for overclocking yet, but by tweaking the minimum CPU usage settings you should be able to make the tablet run a little more smoothly or provide better battery life.

Another user took the back cover of the tablet to see what’s on the inside. Basically you only need to remove 7 screws to take the back cover off — which is a good thing, because as I discovered if you slide the microSD card in the wrong way it can get lost in the case. Removing the cover is one of the easiest ways to get it out.

On the inside of the tablet you can find a 2100mAh battery, a Telechips TCC8902 processor, which runs at 600MHz (even though Augen says the tablet has an 800MHz processor).

You can check out the dissection video below for more details.

While there are a lot of smart people looking at this tablet to see what it can do, it might be a little while before we see custom ROMs for the tablet. The recovery mode doesn’t actually let you access any of the functions in the recovery menu — which will make it difficult to load new firmware.

After using the tablet for the past day, I also have a few more observations to share:

Pros:

• Web browsing is relatively pleasant, although some pages scroll more smoothly than others.
• Video playback is pretty good. While some users are having problems with the YouTube app, it works well on my unit and the tablet supports a number of local audio and video codecs including WMA, OGGVorbis, and Xvid.
• While I’d prefer to have the home, search, menu, and back buttons on the side or front of the tablet, it doesn’t take that long to get used to hitting them with your fingers while you hold the tablet.

Cons:

• While some apps (such as the Aldiko eBook reader) will rotate the display, there’s no auto-rotate feature.
• Occasionally the audio stops working and you’ll hear loud static noises from the speakers. The only fix is to power down the tablet and start it up again.
• The “Factory data reset” option in the Privacy settings menu doesn’t do anything. So if you want to remove your Google ID from the computer before returning it or selling it you’ll want to go to the Accounts & sync menu.
• Typing on the resistive touchscreen display is still hit or miss. I might try installing Graffiti to see if handwriting recognition works better.
• There’s no way to adjust the screen brightness. It’s either all the way up or all the way off.
• There’s no volume control.

You can keep up on the progress of the GenTouch78 hackers at the SlateDroid and xda-developers forums.

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When you make a claim like “Small Enough to Fit in Your Hand Yet Outperforms Most Desktop and Mobile Computers Available Today” in your press release, your hardware better not disappoint. Fortunately for Stealth.com, this little machine has the specs to back up that claim.

The company’s new LPC-100 packs some serious muscle beneath its tiny aluminum shell. The base model includes a dual-core Celeron T3100 at 1.9Ghz, though you can upgrade to a Core 2 Duo T8400 (2.26Ghz) or T9100 (2.53Ghz). There are two DDR3 SODIMM slots supporting a maximum of 4GB memory and a SATA hookup for 160-500GB hard drives. Solid state drives are available as well.

For a device which is smaller than some 3.5″ external hard drive cases I’ve seen, the LPC-100 certainly isn’t lacking for port options. Here’s what it’s got:

• 2PS/2 ports
• 2 serial ports
• 3 USB 2.0 ports
• VGA or DVI output
• Gigabit ethernet
• Microphone and headphone connections

The LPC-100 even runs on 12 volts DC, making it a pretty ideal device for car PCs. This kind of performance and flexibility is such a small package usually comes at a premium, however, and the LPC-100 is priced accordingly. The base model will set you back nearly $1300 US.

Sure, contrary to their hyperbolic PR claim you can easily blow this thing out of the water performance-wise with a custom built desktop rig, but good luck fitting it into a case that size.

Here’s a roundup of some of the week’s top stories about smartphone apps and news from Mobiputing:

Google Android

• PSX4Droid brings Playstation emulation to Google Android
• Ringdroid lets you create Android ringtones… using your Android phone
• Google Maps 4.4 for Android includes a major Places upgrade

iPhone and iPod touch

• Amazon Kindle app adds dictionary, Wikipedia, Google support
• LiveJournal luanches a new iPhone app for spilling your guts
• Mobiola turns your iPhone into a PC handset for VoIP calls

Other

• BlackBerry App World 2.0 beta goes live
• WiMoRun: Keyboard app launcher for Windows Mobile
• DataViz launches Documents To Go office suite for Maemo 5

You can find more smartphone news and app reviews at Mobiputing.

We had so much fun giving away laptop skins a few weeks ago that we’ve decided to do it again. The folks at Skinizi make decorative vinyl skins for devices including netbooks, full sized laptops, iPhones, iPods, and Nintendo handheld gaming systems.

The company’s netbook skins are designed to cover the lids of most 7, 9, and 10 inch mini-laptops, and come with a wide array of designs, ranging from geometric patterns to cityscapes to artistic portraits. Most sell for a bit over $13, but the folks at Skinizi have offered to give away skins to two more lucky Liliputing readers.

Here’s how it works. Just leave a commnt on this post between now and 12:01AM  on Monday, August 2nd. I’ll randomly select two winners and put those people in touch with Skinizi.

The winners can select any one device skin for a laptop, netbook, or other device.

The contest is open to Liliputing readers across the globe. Please only submit one entry per person.

I’ve had a little more time to play with the Augen GenTouch78 Android tablet, and here’s the deal: It’s a mixed bag. You can check out my hands-on video after the break, but here’s the short version:

On the one hand the build quality is pretty decent and the tablet feels good in the hand. It has a decent looking display and runs Android 2.1.

On the other hand, entering text or even tapping on icons with the resistive touchscreen display is a bit of a chore. The memory card slot reads “TF card,” which should mean TransFlash and which should support microSD cards. But when I tried inserting a microSD card, it fell into the slot and almost got lost before I grabbed a pair of tweezers to free it. I’ll try again later in case I was putting the card in the wrong way, but I’m going to hold off until I have a spare microSD card that I’m willing to lose.

The tablet does support Google Apps and comes preloaded with Google Maps, Google Calendar, Gmail, and the Android Market. But you can’t actually install any apps using the Android Market. Augen says a software fix for this should be available soon.

Overall, I haven’t decided whether I can in good conscience recommend this tablet yet. It can run Android apps — but text input is painfully slow and inaccurate compared with the experience on most Android powered phones. Once you set up the web browser with bookmarks for your favorite sites, that might matter too much since you might not need to enter text too often. But I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time composing email messages on this device.

Some apps also take a ridiculously long time to run. For instance, toward the end of the video below you can see what happens when I try to launch the YouTube app. Once it’s up and running, videos look great on the 7 inch display. But it felt like an eternity passed between the time I pressed the YouTube button and the time the video browser opened.

The display is also stuck in landscape mode — which would be fine if there weren’t some apps that were clearly designed for use in portrait mode. I’m guessing there’s a third party utility somewhere that will let you rotate the display. But out of the box there’s no way to rotate the screen by tilting the display or pressing a button.

Oh, and I was very surprised to see a Skype icon on the home screen. Once I signed in with my Skype credentials, I tried to place a VoIP call to a friend — only to receive a message saying my carrier doesn’t support voice calls. Of course, this tablet is WiFi only and there is no carrier. My guess is that Augen just snagged the Skype app that’s already available for Verizon-based Android phones and threw it on here without bothering to make sure it was fully functional. On the bright side, you can send instant messages to your SKype contacts…

Now for some video.

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BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is expecting to launch its first BlackBerry tablet in November. And unfortunately Bloomberg reports that it really will be called the BlackPad, despite our best efforts to get the company to reconsider.

According to Bloomberg, the tablet will have a 9.7 inch display, WiFi and Bluetooth, allowing you to connect to the internet by connecting the BlackBad to a BlackBerry smartphone over Bluetooth. The tablet will also have two cameras, one on the front and another on the back, which would let you snap photos and/or participate in video conferencing sessions with the mobile device.

The BlackPad will reportedly run about the same as an Apple iPad, which starts at $499. Of course, there are 250,000 third party apps which run on the iPad, while there are only about 6,000 apps available for BlackBerry devices. So the value proposition might be a bit different. But from what we’ve been hearing, RIM plans to position the BlackPad not just as a standalone tablet but as a device that works with BlackBerry phones which allows you to access BlackBerry content on a larger display.

So if you’re already invested in the BlackBerry platform for one reason or another, the BlackPad might be an attractive alternative to Apple’s tablet. Maybe?

The Acer Aspire One 721 is an 11.6 inch thin and light notebook with a 1366 x 768 pixel display. Like the Acer Aspire One 521, which I reviewed recently, this model ships with a 1.7GHz AMD Athlon II Neo K125 processor and ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics. The main difference is that the Aspire One 721 is larger — which provides room for a full sized keyboard and a higher resolution screen. I also suspect it will get less battery lfie, since the larger screen will use more power.

Acer sent me an Aspire One 721 to review, and you can check out my unboxing and first look video after the break.

All in all, I really like the design of this laptop. The matte lid looks like it should be pretty good and fighting off fingerprints, and the large access panel on the bottom should make upgrades easy. And while I haven’t started testing the performance of this computer yet, I was overall quite impressed with the CPU and graphics performance of the similarly-specced Aspire One 521.

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