By Andrew Liszewski

The iPad isn’t loud enough to compete with your average home stereo setup, but I think it’s adequate enough for personal use, or even with a small group. Logitech doesn’t think so though. In fact they feel that all tablets are severely lacking in the sound department, and so have created a clip on speaker to significantly improve their oomph.

Powered by a built-in rechargeable battery that’s good for up to 8 hours of use in optimal conditions, the Tablet Speaker attaches to any tablet with a rubberized clip. So while all the product shots show it in use with an iPad 2, it should also work with its competition. To maximize battery life it forgoes the popular wireless Bluetooth connection option in favor of a simple 3.5mm audio cable that connects to your device’s headphone jack. It looks like it’s going to add a bit of weight to whichever tablet you use, not to mention some unnecessary bulk. And with a price tag of ~$60 (EUR 39.99) it will cost you roughly as much as a pair of low-end, over the ear headphones. Which might be a better investment.

[ Logitech Tablet Speaker ] VIA [ Pocket-lint ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Most hardware manufacturers will happily sell you separate tablet and smartphone hardware, but ASUS has decided to merge the two with their new Padfone which was just unveiled at the Computex 2011 show currently taking place in Taipei, Taiwan. While technically the smartphone and tablet are separate hardware, the Padfone phone has to be placed inside the tablet for it to work. It’s not unlike the ill-fated Palm Foleo, or the Motorola ATRIX 4G. The Padfone runs Android not surprisingly, and on the tablet side it’s got a 10.1-inch 1280×800 resolution display that seamlessly increases and displays whatever it is you were doing on the smartphone before you docked it. So if you were viewing a mobile-friendly version of a website, it would automagically switch to the full version to take advantage of the larger display.

The tablet also has its own built-in rechargeable battery, which will top off the smartphone when it’s docked, and like the phone it sports its own front-facing camera for making video calls. It doesn’t have a camera on the back, but instead relies on the phone’s 5MP snapper which can still be used thanks to a strategic hole on the back for the lens. The wifi and 3G communications hardware on the phone are of course still accessible when using it as a tablet, which is nice since it doesn’t require a separate data plan. And as far as I can tell you’re limited to the storage available on the phone which means that you don’t end up with different media or photos on each device. ASUS says there’s a chance the Padfone could ship sometime this year, but given it’s almost June and its hardware specs aren’t officially finalized yet, I’m not going to hold my breath. (Because I’ll die.)

[ ASUS Padfone ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Well Palm, you had a pretty great run. You showed the world that a PDA didn’t need to have a battery sucking color display in order to be useful, and while the fantastic Pre didn’t end up being the saving grace you wanted/needed it to be, the fruits of your efforts will live on, even if your brand doesn’t. Yesterday HP revealed one of the reasons they bought Palm, in the not surprising form of their first non-Windows based tablet, the TouchPad.

Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU 1.2GHz processor the TouchPad sports a 9.7-inch 1024×768 capacitive, multitouch display and for all intents and purposes isn’t remarkably different than the current generation iPad. It does sport a front-facing 1.3MP camera for making video calls, has Wifi, Bluetooth and cellular connectivity and all those fun, interactive toys like a gyro, compass and accelerometer. It will even ship with a beta version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1.2 for those who still think that’s relevant.

But one of the more unique features that will make the TouchPad stand out in an already crowded market is the next generation of the Touchstone technology. It originally facilitated the use of an induction charging base with the Palm Pre, but with the TouchPad and new Pre3/Veer (also both revealed yesterday) the Touchstone technology will let you simply tap your smartphone on the tablet to share a URL between them. Hopefully it can be used to share other info like contacts and even the contents of your clipboard too, but that remains to be seen.

Pricing and availability for HP’s new toys are all TBA at this point, though with the iPad 2 looming hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

[ HP TouchPad ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’ve been leery about handing over your $500+ iPad to your young’n, the Fable, from the same company responsible for the connected Vizit digital photo frame and wireless sharing service, could be just the thing you need. It’s billed as the world’s first tablet designed specifically for children, because apparently the Etch A Sketch never existed.

The Fable sports a 7-inch, hi-res LCD display and features a touch-friendly carousel navigation UI that will let kids draw, play games and share content over the company’s mobile broadband network. It will also of course serve as an eReader since Isabella has teamed up with children’s and educational content provider Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. And since it’s from the same company responsible for the Vizit, the Fable will also include a built-in camera allowing kids to shoot and contribute photos to their family’s collection.

Now besides the PR linked to below, and the mocked-up product shot you see above, there’s not a lot of info on the new tablet which is slated to arrive sometime in mid-2011. But given the Vizit frame requires a monthly/annual mobile data plan I’m going to assume the same will apply to the Fable in order to really take advantage of all its features.

[ PR - Isabella Products Announces Partnership with Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to launch the World’s First Children’s Tablet ]

By David Ponce

I have a Romanian friend who’ll get a kick out of this. See, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is a great product and everything, but what really sets it apart is a snazzy “Porn” button. While awesome (and incredibly juvenile… lulz), pressing it won’t take you, well… where you might think. In fact, a closer inspection of the above picture might alert you to the fact that this particular Galaxy Tab is not in English. In fact, it is set to Romanian, and in that language the word “Start” translates to “Pornire”. The device shortens it, and young adults everywhere giggle a little.

[ Mobilissimo (Romanian site on Google Translate) ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]