The 10 Best Android Tablets

Tulisan 10 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Android tablets had a rocky start, but since Google released its tablet-specific operating system, Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" last year, we’ve seen a steady flow of high-quality Android tablets. And that's a good thing, since they provide viable alternatives to the Apple iPad, which has dominated the tablet market since its first release in early 2010. One of the major benefits of Android over the iPad and the never-quite-caught-on BlackBerry PlayBook, is that instead of a single hardware choice, you can access the OS on a number of different tablets.

The only hitch there: There isn't a single version of Android. Nine months after the Honeycomb release, Google unveiled Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" (ICS) last November, which takes Gingerbread (the phone OS) and Honeycomb (the tablet OS) and merges them. Six months later and we've only seen Android 4.0 on a handful of tablets. (Only four of the 10 here currently run ICS.) Android has notorious problems with timely OS updates.

With ICS, Google continues to fine tune Android, making the tablet experience a very good one. The biggest issue with the platform, however, continues to be the lack of tablet-specific third-party apps and an easy way to find them through Google Play (formerly the Android Market). Android tablet apps are still in the low hundreds, while apps designed specifically for the iPad continue to climb into the tens of thousands (90,000K+ at the time of this writing).

Given its Google roots, though, Android continues to be the most configurable tablet operating system you’ll find. It's a master multitasker with an excellent notification system, and top-notch integration with Google services like Gmail, Google Chat, and Google Maps.

Turns out that one of the most compelling Android tablet we've seen so far doesn't even run Honeycomb, never mind Ice Cream Sandwich: Amazon's Kindle Fire uses a highly modified version of Gingerbread (Android 2.3), which is meant for phones. It's not perfect, but the smaller 7-inch screen, and Amazon's OS tweaks, along with its own high-quality content ecosystem and on-board Appstore make for one of the best tablet entertainment experiences you can find. And its $200 price, in a market where most tablets can cost more than twice as much, means Amazon has a real chance to steal some market share from Apple.

If the Kindle Fire doesn't do it for you, or you can't wait for an ICS tablet like the forthcoming Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, or others announced at Mobile World Congress, check out the slideshow for a look at top-rated Android tablets you can get now, or compare these tablets side by side.

Sumber :

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/266915/the-10-best-android-tablets

Cool New iPad 3 Cases

Tulisan 9 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Apple's new iPad packs a new processor, better graphics, an ultra-sharp display, and improved cameras. But even with all that extra power packed inside, the new iPad looks just like the old iPad. Visually, there's only one thing setting the two tablets apart: The new iPad is just .03 inch thicker. That's less than a millimeter—.76mm to be exact. Just enough to make you wonder if an iPad 2 case will fit on a new iPad.

The good news is, many of the cases made for the iPad 2 will fit the new iPad. Apple's own Smart Cover, for example, will work with both the iPad 2 and the new iPad. But compatibility isn't guaranteed, especially with, say, a shell that snaps on to the back of the tablet. To make things clear, most case manufacturers are releasing new iPad-specific case lines (or some call them iPad 3 cases). And that's what we've rounded up here: Cases that are guaranteed to work with the third-generation iPad.

Sumber :

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/295481/cool-new-ipad-3-cases

Phones With the Best Battery Life

Tulisan 8 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Have you ever felt your cell phone vibrate and pulled it out of your pocket, expecting to to see a text or e-mail message, only to see a low-battery warning instead? Surely, you've uttered the dreaded words, "My phone is dying, so I have to say this fast!"

It may be time to consider investing in a phone with better battery life.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of carrying an extra battery or charger around, or even strapping a battery case to my phone is not all that appealing. But I’m realistic. Smartphones, with their big touch screens and fast processors, suck up a lot of power, so I’m not expecting to make it through the week on a single charge. Still, there’s no excuse for not being able to make it through the day.

For every phone we review here at PCMag we test continuous talk time, to measure just how much chatting you can do between charges. Although talk time doesn’t account for all the other ways we use our phones throughout the day, it’s still a useful indication of how long you can expect your battery to last. For most smartphones running on a 3G network, the average talk time is a little over five hours, which isn't bad. There are also a good number of phones that fall in the six-hour range, which is even better. For the phones that support it, we also measure audio streaming time over 4G LTE, because 4G has proven to be a major battery suck. Right now, the average streaming time is just under four hours.

For this list, we’re rounding up phones that delivered at least seven hours of talk time—some go well beyond that—which should be more than enough juice to get you from morning to evening without a charge.

Sumber :

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/264094/phones-with-the-best-battery-life