{"id":151377,"date":"2010-01-07T17:55:46","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T22:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"Gizmodo-5443114"},"modified":"2010-01-07T17:55:46","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T22:55:46","slug":"freescale-tablet-hands-on-this-is-last-gen-tablet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/151377","title":{"rendered":"Freescale Tablet Hands On: This Is Last-Gen [Tablet]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"lytebox\" href=\"http:\/\/cache.gawker.com\/assets\/images\/4\/2010\/01\/freescale1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cache.gawker.com\/assets\/images\/4\/2010\/01\/500x_freescale1.jpg\" class=\"left image500\" width=\"500\" \/><\/a>The <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5439215\/freescales-199-smartbook-tablet-design-means-tablets-for-everyone-later-this-year\">$199 Freescale Smartbook Tablet reference design<\/a> was supposed to be <i>the<\/i> tablet design that OEMs could easily use to get a product to market fast and cheap. Maybe, but that doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s very usable.<\/p>\n<p>It has all the requisite hardware to be a powerful portable device:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>7-inch touchscreen (resistive, unfortunately, to keep the design under $200-you&#8217;d go up to $250 if any OEM put a capacitive touchscreen on there), 512MB RAM, 4-64GB internal storage, removable microSD slot, an optional 3G modem, 802.11 b\/g\/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, USB, audio ports, SIM card, speaker, microphone, 3-megapixel webcam, 1900 mAh battery, accelerometer and light sensor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> gawkerGallery(5443112,8,''); <\/script><\/p>\n<p>But the UI? No good. Freescale basically took a Linux build and shoved a couple apps&mdash;browser, doc viewer, gallery, media player&mdash;on top. They didn&#8217;t optimize the interface for a tablet, which is evidenced by the fact that you kind of have to use a stylus to navigate. It&#8217;s not like an iPhone or an Android where you can use your finger to swipe around a webpage, you actually have to use the scrollbars like on a normal computer.<\/p>\n<p>This is the main problem with the device. It&#8217;s not customized in any meaningful way to make it a good finger-only experience. Just substituting a capacitive touchscreen for the resistive won&#8217;t solve the problem; you&#8217;ll have to completely redesign the OS in order to make the interface easy to use without having to pull out a stylus. A prime example is the onscreen keyboard: the keys are small and unresponsive, you need to manually activate and dismiss it to use. Even the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmodo.com\/tag\/joojoo\">JooJoo<\/a> managed to get a gesture-based OS on their tablet.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s nothing wrong with the performance of the device: you can run 720p video decently smooth, and web pages render at an acceptable rate. But until Freescale, or one of its OEMs, puts a better OS on there, it&#8217;s basically a keyboardless computer. And the tablets of the early 2000s proved that those don&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p> <br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=840ffa5019fd10e3c06747b1e1c3e16d&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=840ffa5019fd10e3c06747b1e1c3e16d&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"http:\/\/a.rfihub.com\/eus.gif?eui=2226\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/WfoTNXhmJCqZTbg01SFgI2Szntc\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/WfoTNXhmJCqZTbg01SFgI2Szntc\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/WfoTNXhmJCqZTbg01SFgI2Szntc\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/WfoTNXhmJCqZTbg01SFgI2Szntc\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=_YbgysjNvdY:8mDO6m_kAjc:H0mrP-F8Qgo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=_YbgysjNvdY:8mDO6m_kAjc:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=_YbgysjNvdY:8mDO6m_kAjc:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?i=_YbgysjNvdY:8mDO6m_kAjc:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=_YbgysjNvdY:8mDO6m_kAjc:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?i=_YbgysjNvdY:8mDO6m_kAjc:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/gizmodo\/full\/~4\/_YbgysjNvdY\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The $199 Freescale Smartbook Tablet reference design was supposed to be the tablet design that OEMs could easily use to get a product to market fast and cheap. Maybe, but that doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s very usable. It has all the requisite hardware to be a powerful portable device: 7-inch touchscreen (resistive, unfortunately, to keep the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1660,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1660"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}