Viewsonic Viewpad 7e is a 7 inch Android tablet under $250

Price points continue to slide on Android tablets — including decent ones, not just the slower, resistive display-packing Shanzai models you see up for sale all over eBay. Vizio and Acer have already outed new sub-10-inch models that hover around the $300 mark, and Viewsonic is going to go even lower. As it did with its NVIDIA-powered gTablet, Viewsonic will be putting the Viewpad 7e up for sale at an aggressive price point: about $240.

That’s based on the Viewpad 7e’s UK pricing of £140, so it could actually wind up priced a few dollars less. The 7-inch tablet will feature a 4:3 display and it’s been confirmed to be running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. For connectivity, unspecified flavors of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will be on board and an HDMI port will provide video-out capabilities. It’s not specifically mentioned in Viewsonic’s press materials, but that appears to be a front-facing camera as well — so you should be able to take advantage of video conferencing apps like Skype, Fring, and Google Talk on the Viewpad 7e.

The 4:3 aspect ratio and eReader-like size should make the Viewpad 7e well-suited to digital reading duties. Viewsonic seems to think so, at any rate, and has decided to include the Amazon Kindle app pre-installed.

It’s almost as if Viewsonic is trying to steal a bit of Amazon’s thunder — as you’re no doubt aware, they’ve got at least two Android tablets in the works that are due to arrive some time before the holiday season this year. They were originally rumored to be arriving this month, but that obviously didn’t happen.

via Liliputing

HP TouchPad to run Android thanks to TouchDroid

By now, there’s a massive, yet unconfirmed, number of brand new owners of the HP TouchPad tablet. As you read this, thousands of apps are being installed, the UI played with, and the device as a whole is being re-judged. Compared to other tablets in the market, the TouchPad is still a major competitor when it comes to hardware, and yet it’s only $99 right now… if you can find one. So, they will continue to fly off the shelves until there are none left and the people at HP can move on with their lives.

What happens when that “new gadget smell” wears off, though? The honeymoon effect with your new, heavily-discounted device wears off and you’re left with a tablet that isn’t likely to get any better than it is right now unless you do something yourself. The Preware community already has a nice collection of things you can do to play with any WebOS device, but even that has its limits. So, what are you to do with that shiny new tablet? Well, eventually, you’ll be able to put Android on it.

RootzWiki, the Android-focused rooting, modding, and development forum has put together a small team dedicated towards assembling Android for the TouchPad, as well as performing the hacks necessary to shoehorn the OS on the device. The team has put forth a clear plan of attack and is documenting the process along the way using both the RootzWiki forum as well as a separate “TouchDroid” Wiki. Each of the team members purchased their own TouchPads, but also have a donation link available in case they brick one of their TouchPads, or if one needs to be the victim of a teardown for additional information.

Basically, they will attempt to put (stock) Android 2.3.5 from the Android Open Source Project on the device at first. If that succeeds, they will move in to CyanogenMod, a popular Android rom that has a full suite of tablet enhancements for large screens. When the next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, becomes available, the team plans to port that to the TouchPad as well, provided Google sticks to their plan to release Source once again when that version comes out.

This attempt has garnered a mixed bag of responses from TouchPad users. There are those who would rather keep their stock WebOS experience still, though I refer you to the first paragraph for my opinion on that. There are those who welcome the Android port with open arms, and likely bought the tablet with that in mind from the beginning. While I am an Android user, I must say that I am a huge fan of the WebOS experience and have preferred it over Android for some time now.

I’m not the only one, apparently. James Kendrick recent wrote that what he would rather see happen is closer to what RIM has in store for the Playbook. Some sort of emulator to allow Android apps to run on the TouchPad, while still following the rules and multitasking principles of WebOS. I have to say, that idea excites me. I feel that solution would certainly be more elegant, and would preserve much of what we have come to appreciate from WebOS. I do know, however, that making that work is a great deal more difficult then just shoehorning Android onto the TouchPad. So while I am excited at the possibility, I will refrain from holding my breath.

Another notion that was raised was the possibility of seeing Windows 7 or Windows 8 on the tablet in the future. Essentially, if the TouchPad gets opened up for Android, the sky will be the limit for modders who want to push the limits of this device. So many things will be possible as long as there is an audience and developers interested in making the TouchPad do “all of the things.” If you have a TouchPad, keep your eyes on the RootzWiki guys, as they will most certainly be making noise about their developments regularly.

Xiaomi Phone is a 1.5GHz dual-core Android phone for $310

When Xiaomi first revealed its M1 concept phone, it already looked like a very capable device. Sporting the MIUI Android ROM and a speedy 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, its estimated street price was expected to be somewhere in the range of $250 — a bargain for the outright purchase of a phone with that kind of hardware. Now the official reveal has happened, and the Xiaomi Phone is even better than expected.

Like the HP TouchPad, the production Xiaomi Phone is being bumped from the original 1.2GHz to a 1.5GHz Snapdragon (a first in China). Along with its beefy SOC, the phone also features Adreno 220 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of ROM, 480×854 touchscreen display, 8MP rear-facing camera, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GSM and CDMA support with a dual-antenna design to avoid deathgrip issues. At 5.3 ounces, the phone is slightly heavier than the iPhone 4 — though with a titanic 1930mAh battery, you might be willing to overlook that half an ounce.

The heavily-customized MIUI ROM is front and center, though the Xiaomi phone also features a totally unlocked bootloader so you can flash whatever firmware you like onto it. So far it all sounds pretty darn good, but there has been a little price bump to accommodate the faster chip — it’s now listed at $310, but that’s still a pretty sweet deal.

If you don’t need the extra horsepower, you’ll be able to save a few bucks. There will also be a more entry-level version available at a reduced price, and it’s going to sport the original 1.2GHz Snapdragon. The phones are expected to hit retail shelves in China in about two months, along with accessories like replacement covers in seven colors and matching batteries. Yes, matching batteries.

More at Engadget