IT News HeadLines (AnandTech) 05/01/2011

LG's Optimus 2X: World's First Tegra 2 Smartphone
Brian and I are currently at LG's press conference where the company announced, as expected, the LG Optimus 2X - the world's first dual-core Cortex A9 smartphone based on NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC. While NVIDIA announced Tegra 2 at last year's CES, it has taken this long to even get to the point where we can talk about products that will soon be shipping.

The 2X uses NVIDIA's Tegra 2 AP20H with both of its two Cortex A9s running at 1GHz. We'll have more details on Tegra 2 later today during NVIDIA's press conference. I'd expect the Optimus 2X to ship sometime in Q1.

LG also announced its thinnest smartphone: the Optimus Black. The phone is 9.2 mm thick (weighs 109 grams) and uses LG's ultra bright 4-inch NOVA display (it's not AMOLED). LG claims a brightness of 750 nits, which if true is at least 23% brighter than the brightest smartphone display we've tested thus far (BlackBerry Torch) and 30% brighter than the iPhone 4.

Lastly, LG announced an LTE USB dongle, the VL600, based on its own L2000 LTE chipset. It's Verizon branded in the photo, so we'll probably see it again soon.

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Parrot Asteroid - An Android Head Unit
We're going to be touring pre-CES and CES show floors looking for interesting things to make note of, and already found something that piqued our attention. While walking around CES Unveiled, one device which caught our eye was the Parrot Asteroid, a single DIN sized head unit for vehicles - that's nothing out of the ordinary, except the Asteroid runs Android.

Read on for more about this interesting new application for Google's open source platform.

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Micron's RealSSD C400 uses 25nm NAND at $1.61/GB, Offers 415MB/s Reads
Here’s a little deja vu for you. At last year’s Storage Visions (a small storage show that precedes CES) Micron announced its first 6Gbps SSD, the RealSSD C300. Although met with its fair share of growing pains in the form of firmware issues, the C300 ended up being a competent performer throughout most of 2010.

This year, once again at Storage Visions, Micron announced its next generation SSD: the RealSSD C400. Based on the same architecture as the C300, the C400 is a combination of IMFT 25nm NAND, a slightly tweaked controller and a significant improvement in firmware.

Read on for more details!

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ASUS Announces Eee Pad and Eee Slate Tablets
With CES 2011 upon us, we must acknowledge that 2011 could well be the “Year of the Tablet”. Everyone—Motorola, Dell, HP, HTC, Acer, you name it—is releasing a tablet or three. If you’re ASUS, you’re announcing four different tablets today. If you are ASUS, I’d like to offer my congratulations and best wishes for this full-on assault of the tablet market. Chances are though, you’re not ASUS, so here’s the rundown on the four new devices.

Three of them are Honeycomb-based tablets, joined by a traditional Windows slate. Looking at the Android-based Eee Pads, we have the MeMO, a 7” Snapdragon slate, the Transformer, a 10” Tegra 2 slate with an optional keyboard docking station, and the Slider, a 10” convertible tablet with a sliding, tilting keyboard. The Windows tablet is called the Eee Slate EP121 and features a 12.1” display with an active Wacom digitizer and Core i5 UM power. It’s a pretty impressive looking bunch, so read on for more details and analysis.

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Google Steps Into NFC Market
Google wants to replace credit cards with NFC mobile devices
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Canon Introduces Four New PowerShot A-Series Cameras
Canon expands its PowerShot A-Series family
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Depletion of Certain Stem Cell May Determine Male Pattern Baldness
Researchers are looking to develop cell-based treatments
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California Allows Warrantless Cell Phone Searches
Ruling allows for cell phones and other devices of arrested to be searched without a warrant
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Micron Rolls Out 415MB/sec RealSSD C400 for CES
RealSSD C400 is the followup to last year's C300
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Lenovo LePad Slate/IdeaPad U1 Hybrid Notebook Runs Android, Windows 7
Lenovo adds a new twist to the netbook/tablet dynamic
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Self-Repairing Solar Cells Mimic Plant Processes in Nature
New self-repairing solar cells could cut maintenance costs and increase overall service life
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AMD Airs Second Gen DirectX 11 Mobile GPUs, With 3D, EyeFinity
Graphics maker hopes to gain more ground over NVIDIA
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Consumer Reports Hates on Ford MyTouch Due to Distractions, Complexity
All your touch screens are belong to us?
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