Samsung Galaxy Xcover: waterproof touchscreen Android smartphone

The IP67-certified Samsung Galaxy Xcover will be one of the world's few rugged Android touchscreen smartphones

Samsung has announced its plans to update the Galaxy lineup with the Galaxy Xcover, one of the world's few rugged Android touchscreen smartphones. It's an IP67-certified dust- and waterproof 3.65-inch device running Android 2.3. It looks like the Motorola DEFY/DEFY+ and the upcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia Active rugged Android smartphones could be getting some "tough" competition.

The IP67 certificate means that the Galaxy Xcover is completely protected against dust and dirt, and can be immersed in water to a depth of one meter (3.28 feet) for 30 minutes, which should be more than enough to resist accidental splashes. Running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), the new arrival in the Galaxy family comes with a 3.65-inch HVGA (480 × 320) LCD touchscreen which is made of scratch-resistant, tempered glass "four to five times tougher than regular glass," while its 3-megapixel autofocus rear camera is LED flash-equipped, and doubles as a torch.

The phone's specs include:

• HSDPA 7.2Mbps / HSUPA 5.76Mbps support
• 800MHz CPU
• 3.65" HVGA TFT LCD
• Android 2.3 OS (Gingerbread); (Samsung Social Hub app on board)
• 3-megapixel LED flash-equipped camera with 30fps VGA video recording
• 150MB of built-in storage, micro SD card reader (up to 32GB)
• 3.5 mm jack, FM Radio with RDS
• Bluetooth 3.0 +HS, USB 2.0, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Battery: 1500 mAh
• Dimensions: 121.5 x 65.9 x 11.95 mm (4.78 x 2.59 x 0.47 in); weight: 135 grams (4.76 oz)

The rugged Samsung Galaxy Xcover will be available in Germany starting from October and in the UK "later on this year." It is also rumored to be available in Sweden and Finland in November, priced at SEK2,800 (US$437) and EUR299 (US$430) respectively.

Fusion Garage returns with Grid10 tablet, Grid4 smartphone and custom OS

The Grid10 tablet features a 10.1-inch touchscreen running at 1366 x 768 pixels resolution

Fusion Garage's JooJoo tablet may not have set the world ablaze when it launched in 2009, but that hasn't stopped the Singapore-based company from making a fresh foray into the Apple dominated space. Fusion Garage has unveiled Grid10, a new 10.1-inch tablet running an Android kernel-based OS known as GridOS. The company has also announced a 4-inch smartphone - Grid4 - which runs on the same customized OS.

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The JooJoo tablet was initially referred to as the CrunchPad and it was actually an initiative by Techcrunch's Michael Arrington, who eventually did not participate in the 2009 release of a Linux-based 12.1-inch tablet PC. The JooJoo tablet failed to succeed and Fusion Garage's founder Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan announced its "end of life" back in November 2010, while ensuring that the company will return with new products.

After a bit of a cryptic build-up (Fusion Garage is the company behind the "mystery" TabCo teaser marketing campaign that's been grabbing some YouTube attention in recent times), that return now has a name - the Grid10 and Grid4.

Grid10 tablet

The Grid10 tablet features a 10.1-inch touchscreen (with muti-touch) running at 1366 x 768 pixels resolution and it's powered via Nvidia Tegra 2 platform with a 1.2Ghz CPU and 512MB RAM. It also comes with 16GB storage expandable through micro SD card reader, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, HDMI output, GPS, accelerometer, optional HSDPA support, while it's battery comes with 5,800 mAh capacity.

Based on Android kernel, the GridOS comes with a gesture- and wheel-based UI, where a tap on the screen brings a wheel with a selection of options to choose from. It also offers some smooth 3D animations. Fusion Garage has implemented Bing search engine and there's also a Grid Shop service with apps to download, although Android Market apps are also supported. According to the product website, Grid10 tablet sells with a selection of basic apps to provide multimedia playback, maps, calendar, internet browsing, contacts and the like.

Grid10 measures 274.2 x 173.5 x 13.9mm (10.8 x 6.83 x 0.55 in) and it weighs 690 g (1.52lbs). The tablet is available for pre-order via Amazon, priced at US$599 for WiFi and 3G version or US$499 for the WiFi only version. Shipping begins on September 15.

Grid4 smartphone

Along with the Grid10 tablet, Fusion Garage unveiled its 4-inch smartphone also running GridOS. Measuring just 9.9 mm (0.39 in) thick, Grid4 features a 4-inch, 800 x 480 touchscreen and a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and 720p video recording, while its front facing camera is 0.3-megapixel. The smartphone is powered via Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 and 512MB RAM, and comes with 16GB of built-in storage.

Grid4 features the same UI as the tablet and comes pre-loaded with nearly the same lineup of apps. Grid4 is expected to be available in Q4 201 at a price of US$399.

ASUS Eee Pad Slider to arrive in September, full specs available

The ASUS Eee Pad Slider is a unique combination of tablet and notebook, featuring a sliding QWERTY keyboard

Unveiled at CES 2011 along with the Eee Pad Transformer, the ASUS Eee Pad Slider tablet PC features a sliding QWERTY keyboard and a 10.1-inch display. An official product page for the Android 3.1-based Eee Pad Slider has gone live at ASUS' global website, and the tablet is rumored to be released in September.

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The Eee Pad Slider comes with a scratch-resistant (Gorilla Glass-protected) WXGA (1280 x 800) LED backlit IPS LCD screen, allowing for viewing angles of up to 178 degrees and the multi-touch display features technology with up to 10-finger input.

Powered via a NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz CPU platform, the tablet offers 16 or 32GB of SSD storage, expandable via a Micro SD memory card reader, along with cloud-based ASUS Web Storage. Running Android 3.1 (Honeycomb), it will be upgradeable to Android 3.2 and come pre-loaded with the Polaris Office 3.0 app, providing access to office documents. It will also include some of ASUS' apps tailored for sharing and playing multimedia.

The Eee Pad Slider features a 5-megapixel rear camera and 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera, as well as a built-in speaker utilizing SRS Sound technology and a built-in microphone. Other specs include an accelerometer, light sensor, e-compass and GPS, while connectivity comes courtesy one USB 2.0 port, one Mini HDMI, a 3.5mm audio jack, WLAN 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v2.1 +EDR. Its 25Wh Li-Polymer battery delivers up to 8 hours of 720p video playback.

The ASUS Eee Pad Slider's dimensions are 273 x 180.3 x 17.3 mm (10.7 x 7 x 0.7 in) and the device weighs 960 grams (2.1lbs).

According to Notebook Italia, the Eee Pad Slider is expected to be available in Italy (and presumably in other European countries) starting from September, priced at EUR599 for the 32GB version or EUR479 for the 16GB version. The device is rumored to be cheaper in the U.S., priced at US$550 and US$400 respectively.

Droid Bionic images appear, possibly with a 4.5-inch display

It seems that a whole mess of Motolora Droid Bionic images just turned up on the internet. Android blog Droid-Life has posted a number of shots of what looks to be the upcoming Verizon 4G superphone, including one very interesting one. That shot, pictured above, puts the Bionic next to the Samsung Droid Charge, a handset we know to have a 4.3-inch display. The Bionic’s screen is clearly larger, so unless there was some digital imaging trickery then the old information we have heard–which said the Bionic would also have a 4.3-inch screen–is incorrect.

The images are available here and here. We can see some nice shots of the front and back of the Droid Bionic hardware, but no major reveals aside from display size. It’s worth noting that this guy says he got a picture from someone who had their hands on the device and noted that it has a 4.3-inch display. (Of course his own hands weren’t on it, so he might have just been making an assumption.)

With its square body the Bionic looks a whole lot like the Droid 3 and much less like the Bionic of January 2011. People will be buying the phone for what’s inside it–namely that OMAP chip and 4G radio–but a more distinguished design would have been nice. If it does in fact have the larger display that will be an added selling point, putting it in the same league as the monstrous Samsung Infuse… and making the Bionic larger than the Samsung Galaxy S II.

So another day, another Droid Bionic rumor. Based on the comments floating around the web a number of diehard Android fans who have been eagerly looking forward to the Bionic seem to be getting tired of the wait and are ready to move on to another device, generally the Galaxy S II. The waiting game is getting to be a bit much–the phone was first announced back in January for an April release, but has since been completely redesigned. We’ve been told it will come out some time in September (but I’ll believe it when I see it).