Android News
Breakdown of the Notion Ink Adam Demo Video
December 18, 2010 | by Michael Heller
Android News, Tablets
The real world use demo video of the Notion Ink Adam is finally live. The video looks okay, though the Adam screen isn’t quite in focus, and the narration text doesn’t stay on the screen long enough, so be prepared to pause a number of times if you want to read. You can watch it embedded below.
The video shows off the Eden paneling system along with a number of the built-in apps such as: e-mail, calendar, navigation, calculator, canvas app, office suite (with PDF viewed), file browser, e-book reader, and weather. The video looks okay, though the Adam screen isn’t quite in focus, and the narration text doesn’t stay on the screen long enough, so be prepared to pause a number of times if you want to read. Here’s the video, followed by a full breakdown.
The hardware
The hardware looks like the images we’ve seen. The device looks slightly thicker than I expected, but overall it looks slick, and certainly stacked with slots. From what I saw, on the left edge is a USB port and what looks like an SD card slot. On the right edge is what looks to be the screen switch (to either turn off the LCD screen, or swtich between LCD and eInk on the Pixel Qi,) an HDMI port, another USB port, and what could be the volume rocker. Again, all of these things match up with the images and specs we have seen on the Notion Ink website.
Eden UI
The Eden system looks like it took quite a few tricks from Apple’s Cover Flow, and looks like it would be a wonderful solution to the fact that current Android apps aren’t optimized for tablets. Unfortunately, Notion Ink has confirmed that the Android Market will not be shipping on the device. Rohan said that the Adam should get the Market along with the Honeycomb update, but until then, users will have to make do with the apps provided in the proprietary Genesis market. I’ve e-mailed Rohan regarding the exclusion of the Android Market, but have yet to hear back.
The launcher UI looks interesting. It brings up a ribbon across the center of the device with a single line of app icons. This could get a bit annoying if you have a lot of apps, but in the video it looks good. The Maps/Navigation app was actually a bit disappointing. When it first shows up, the video says, “Eden comes with on device vector maps. (Included only from Honeycomb on Android devices.)” This is confusing, first because of the phrase “on device”, which could either mean that the vector data is stored on device, or is processed on device. The new Maps 5 processes vector data on device, but it is available on all Android 2.0+ devices, which makes the “included only from Honeycomb” comment confusing. The disappointing part of the Maps is the checkerboards that show up when zooming out on the map. On WiFi, my Nexus One doesn’t even do that unless I pan across the state, and the Adam is supposedly a Tegra 2 powerhouse. This could be due to unfinished software optimization, but it’s still disconcerting. The video goes on to show the full screen browser, copy-paste functions and even using a USB mouse in the browser.
What’s Missing
Now, let’s talk a bit about what the video doesn’t show. It doesn’t show anything that distinguishes it as an Android device. There is no notification bar, no unlock screen, and obviously no Google Apps. It didn’t show any sort of homescreen. This was the Eden paneling system and that’s it. The video is about 5 minutes of actual demo, and a good half of that is just sliding the panels back and forth, and back and forth. We saw very little from the apps that would make this an appealing experience. In fact, the video only showed 3 full screen apps: maps, browser, and PDF viewer. A tablet experience is fundamentally different from a phone in the size. If each app lives in a panel the size of a phone screen, what’s the point of the tablet?
On top of that, there was no demonstration of the Pixel Qi screen. It is unclear if the version in the demo video is a plain LCD screen or the Pixel Qi. Either way, the touchscreen sensitivity looked good, although there were a couple times when the hard function buttons didn’t work on the first press. There was also no demonstration of the camera, aside from swiveling it once. There was also no demo of the vaunted audio system, of which Rohan has been so proud.
Overall, it was good to finally see the Adam in action, but the video has still left a lot of things to be desired for me. Most notably, I want to see the Pixel Qi screen in action, and I also want to see more full screen apps in action. The Eden paneling system looks slick, but that system doesn’t make a lot of sense without the Android Market. The paneling system is a way to incorporate apps that weren’t designed for a tablet screen. In absence of those apps, why create your apps in a way that doesn’t take advantage of the device you have? I understand that the Eden system also does well for quick access to small tasks, and multitasking, but that should be a support system behind the full screen apps. Perhaps it is just this demo video, but that is not the impression I’ve gotten. I do look forward to seeing more from CES.
What do you guys think of the video?
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If you look at the Notion Ink Blog (notionink.wordpress.com) at the post titled "Fiat Lux", you'll see that he released full-screen renders of many of the included apps. Although there are still a lot of questions (lockscreen, homescreen, etc.) many of the full-screen apps, along with the full-screen keyboard renders, have been shown before.
the video was a complete joke. horribly produced like an amateur 7th grade computer project. as your article mentioned, a ton of key features were completely ignored. after all the hype building up over the last week regarding this video, to say it was a huge disappointment is putting things mildly.
I'm still hopeful they get their affairs in order, but no way would I preorder after their repetitive follies and poor business decisions.
are you 7?
This video was terrible I've been following adam for awhile now and i was expecting something really good today, but all i got was this… Hopefully they will give us a much better video in a couple of hours when they release it on their blog: http://www.notionink.wordpress.com
I hope they don't show anything and show everything on CES.
It was interesting to see how much they could actually do without using the keyboard… What's up with that? I feel that is a major part of the OS and design that will be used. At least that's a make it ore break it point for me!
Keep in mind that Rohan and Notion Ink want to do a full reveal at CES in a few weeks. The purpose of this video was simply to show that the Adam is not vaporware as some have claimed and to wet your appetite in regard to the "Eden user interface…
As per "If each app lives in a panel the size of a phone screen, what’s the point of the tablet?" Well, apps run in three modes and one of them is full screen. Though he did not demo the full screen mode of each app.
I too would have loved to see more, but I guess we'll have to wait just a little bit longer…
thank you Greg, and in regards to showing off the apps, the blog on NI website is updated saying that there will be a new video each day demoing one app at a time. Regards,
Alen
I caught that too. That is awesome!
"The disappointing part of the Maps is the checkerboards that show up when zooming out on the map. On WiFi, my Nexus One doesn’t even do that unless I pan across the state, and the Adam is supposedly a Tegra 2 powerhouse. "
I can't guarantee this is what caused the checkerboarding, but just to let you know broadband speeds in India are pathetic (I go there every 1/2 years). The normal speed of "broadband" internet at home in Delhi is under 256K and I've tried using the net in a large corporate compound where webpages still loaded slowly compared to my the internet in my home country.
I wouldn't be surprised if the checkerboards are explained by poor internet speeds.
As shameful it may be, TRAI does define our broadband to be anything above 256kbps. And on that connection, checkerboards do show up.
The map application used is OsmAnd (also available from Android Market). It's a nice opensource application based on OpenStreetmap data. It can't quite compete with Google Maps but still it has one advantage: you can download a whole country to SD card and use it with no data connection afterwards. They also use crowdfunding for new features and I expect good things to happen in the future
.
Second Video is already out see http://techicloud.blogspot.com/2010/12/first-ever…
My recent post First ever Hands on Video on Adam Tablet
So all you're complaining about that Android Market access will not be available immediately, and that the Maps application checkerboarded for a second. If you read the latest blog post by NI, you will learn that they had a 512kbps connection, probably WiFi, which resulted in a lag in the data being downloaded. Your innuendo about the meaning of Vector on Device is just mindless. I think all they meant was that they will ship with a Map application.
search on you tube for notion ink adam videos
check out the new video
the new video is even better and we will get a video a day.
stop complaining or disappear.
The video was pathetic. It looked like Rohan was in a hurry to go home to bed after a long bad day working & ill exchanges with the investors. But forcefully in the lite of due delivery for the promised video, running out of patience & his ignorance he compiles an unprofessionalized video to slap onto us. And then expects us to like that because he knows we obviously are running out of choices here for the best android tablets around.
In his ignorance does he, as said here before misses tons of features to be shown off, what rather would be the important ones along with those in the Video !..
Notion Ink’s in house market Genesis details leaked out – http://techicloud.blogspot.com/2010/12/notion-ink…
Fourth Video released by Notion Ink – http://techicloud.blogspot.com/2010/12/first-ever…
My recent post Technology Cloud delicious
The author of this article seems to be pro biased with apple and its IPAD, and tried to complain for everything on the ADAM tablet, ADAM is an innovative and well thought technocrat product, it's more than a tablet and it's lot better than the one already existed in the Market, the uniqueness of this product is not about the hardware , it's more about the OS and its supporting applications and content, which defines ADAM. Again it's a start and gets better going forward.