Following the huge success of the first generation iPad, Apple recently released their successor the iPad 2.

South Africans had to wait almost a year before the iPad was released locally, in fact the first generation iPad was released in South Africa a mere 2 months before the release of the iPad 2 internationally. Good news is that this time around we will not have to wait that long.

Apple has announced in a press release that they will be launching the Apple iPad 2 in 12 other countries during this week and that includes South Africa.

Core, the local distributor for Apple products has also made recommended retail pricing available on their website from as low as R4399 for the 16GB iPad 2 Wi-Fi version.

The iPad 2 will be available in South Africa from 29 April 2011 at the following retail touch points:
Apple Premium Resellers
Digicape Cape Town
iStore Canal Walk
iStore Clearwater
iStore Gateway
iStore Melrose Arch
iStore Menlyn
iStore 1 Sandton Drive
iStore Sandton City
iStore Vodaworld
iStore Waterfront
Project 3

Incredible Connection
Incredible Connection Bloemfontein
Incredible Connection Canal Walk
Incredible Connection Cavendish
Incredible Connection Centurion
Incredible Connection Cresta
Incredible Connection East Rand Retail Park
Incredible Connection Eastgate
Incredible Connection Fourways
Incredible Connection Gateway
Incredible Connection Menlyn
Incredible Connection Nelspruit
Incredible Connection Pavillion
Incredible Connection Sandton
Incredible Connection Somerset West
Incredible Connection The Glen
Incredible Connection Woodmead

Dion Wired
Dion Wired Bedford Square
Dion Wired Fourways
Dion Wired Gateway
Dion Wired Hyde Park
Dion Wired Somerset West
Dion Wired Woodlands
Dion Wired Woodmead

MTN today confirmed that they will be offering the HTC Flyer tablet on contract to customers.

The HTC Flyer Android tablet will be available in South Africa on contract from MTN for under R300 per month.

The Flyer which is a 7″, 1.5GHz, HSPA+ tablet will be available for R299 pm on a MTN 100 Anytime contract with 150MB of data per month. This contract will also only be a 1 year contract as appose to the norm of a 2 year contract and will compete head on with the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

MTN customers can get their hands on the HTC Flyer from 9 May 2011.

Leaf, the HTC distributor in South Africa has just announced that the HTC Sensation is headed for South Africa.

The HTC Sensation which features an aluminium unibody design, 4.3″ Super LCD and 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, along with all HTC phones in the 2011 lineup, will be available in South Africa.

Although HTC South Africa did not give exact release dates, we can expect the HTC phones which includes the HTC ChaCha, Salsa, Wildfire S, Desire S, Incredible S and Android tablet, Flyer,  from the second quarter of 2011.

The phone I am looking forward to the most has to be the HTC Sensation, the first dual-core Android phone by HTC which runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread and features a massive 768MB of RAM.

Rumors have been floating around the Internet for a while regarding the specs of the HTC Sensation AKA HTC Pyramid, but it is now official and boy is this a beast.

The HTC Sensation will run Android 2.3 Gingerbread powered by a beastly 1.2GHz dual-core snapdragon CPU. HTC has also added a massive 4.3″ screen, but what makes the screen so spectacular is that its a super LCD running at 540 x 960 pixels.

HTC Sensation Specs:

• Android 2.3 (with new Sense UI v3.0)
• 4.3″ qHD Super LCD Capacitive Display
• 126.1mm x 65.4mm x 11.3mm – 148 grams
• 768MB RAM / 1GB ROM
• VGA front-facing Camera
• 1.2GHz Dual-Core MSM8660 Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU
• 8MP Camera (1080p @ 30/fps) and Stereo sound recording
• HSPA+ 14.4Mbit / 5.76Mbit 900/1700/2100 MHz
• 1520mAh Battery
• Wi-Fi b/g/n, DLNA, Bluetooth 3.0

The HTC Sensation will launch in the Europe market starting from mid-May 2011 and perhaps South Africans will also see it here from then seeing as we normally get our releases with that of Europe.

For me the XBox Kinect is one of the hotest gadgets available in the gaming market today and it seems that others tend to agree with me.

Microsoft has announced that their XBox Kinect system has officially hit the 10 million units sold mark and that is in only a few months making it the fastest selling gadget on earth. Rightfully so, the Kinect has earned its place in the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition as the fastest selling consumer electronics device.

“The sales figures here speak for themselves,” said Gaz Deaves, Gaming Editor for Guinness World Records. “According to independent research, no other consumer electronics device sold faster within a 60-day time span, which is an incredible achievement considering the strength of the sector.”

The Kinect has sold on average 133 333 units daily in its first 2 months of launch totaling more than 8 million units over the period.

Do you own a Kinect? Tell us what games you enjoy.

Apple has just announced the release of the Apple iPad 2 with its new dual core A5 processor, front and rear facing cameras, 9 times faster graphics and new smart cover technology.

Check out this video showcasing everything the iPad 2 has to offer.

Apple has finally unveiled the much speculated iPad 2, and Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, even made a surprise appearance despite him being on sick leave. Lets be honest, an Apple announcement would not be an Apple announcement without Jobs being on stage introducing the latest Apple gadget.

So lets get to the point, the all new Apple iPad 2 packs a brand new processor called the ARM Cortex-A5 which is a dual core processor that uses the same power as the older A4 CPU and achieving double the speed. The CPU also enables the iPad 2 to deliver graphics performance that are 9 times faster then the previous iPad while maintaining the 10 hour battery life like in the previous model.

One of the most requested features for the iPad 2 must been cameras, and Apple did not fail in that department adding a front and rear facing cameras to the iPad 2.

When it comes to size the iPad 2 comes in at 33% thiner then its predecessor, only 8.8mm thick and weighing a mere 560 grams.

The new iPad 2 will also be able to output video at 1080p full HD through a new HDMI adapter that can be bought separately, allowing you to mirror your content from your iPad 2 onto your HD Television.

The iPad 2 will also feature new built in magnets enabling for a new kind of cover, smart cover, that simply clips on magnetically to the device, the covers will also automatically put the iPad 2 in and out of sleep mode depending on whether you open of close the lid.

The best thing about the iPad 2 has to be the price, priced exactly the same as the iPad from $499 for the 16GB WiFi version. The iPad 2 will ship on March 11th 2011 in the US and then March 25th 2011 to an additional 26 countries.

Unfortunately South Africa is not included in the listed countries to get the iPad 2 first, but if the pricing is anything to go by hopefully the iPad 2 will be priced exactly the same as the iPad. The question still remains is when we will see the iPad 2 in South Africa, seeing as we only saw the launch of the iPad here a mere month ago.

Apple has unveiled its new line of MacBook Pros with updated processors, graphics, new Tunderbolt I/O port and HD Facetime cameras.

The biggest change to the new line of MacBook Pros has to be the new Thunderbolt technology that Intel developed in conjunction with Apple, that lets you connect peripherals and high resolution displays to a single port capable of connection speeds of 10Gbps.

Apart from the new Thunderbolt I/O port, Apple has also included new HD capable Facetime cameras that offers triple the resolution of previous MacBook Pro cameras.

Apple also made a switch from Nvidia to ATI Radeon graphics for its 15″ and 17″ MacBook Pro models, along with a bump up in the CPU department adding quadcore capabilities through the new i7 CPU’s.

Samsung has spotted a gap in the market most other manufactures have missed and it is one the iPod Touch has been dominating, but for how long the question remains.

Most smartphone manufacturers have been rushing to bring out their own tablets, but one manufacturer has gone the extra mile and added a smaller touch screen device to their line up of products for this year.

In addition to the new Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1, successor to the popular Samsung GALAXY Tab, Samsung has also announced the Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0, a iPod Touch like device running Android.

“The Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 is the perfect product for multimedia enthusiasts who pursue the new trend of smart experience.” said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business. “There is a huge demand for access to applications and rich multimedia on the go. With the Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 we have created a device that delivers a Samsung GALAXY S Smartphone-like app experience and stunning entertainment features at a reasonable price.”

The Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 is essentially a GALAXY S smartphone with the telephony guts ripped out, delivering users with a full multimedia experience and access to Android Apps without the need of being tied into a cellphone contract.

The GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 comes with Android 2.2 Froyo, a large 4″ touch WVGA Super Clear LCD, a 3.2 Mega Pixel rear-facing, a front facing VGA camera, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, and a GPS receiver, all powered by a 1GHz processor.

Users of the GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 will have access to more than 230 000 applications through the Android Market, and have full turn-by-turn navigation through Google’s Navigation App and the onboard GPS receiver.

This has to be the first true iPod Touch competitor that I know of that runs Android, and must say I can’t understand why we have never seen Android devices like these before. I for one would sure not mind owing a Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0.

The Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.0 is expected to be available in South Africa from April this year.

Samsung South Africa has announced that their popular Android tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, will soon see a price cut. This news comes only days after Core Croup, official Apple distributor in South Africa, launched the Apple iPad in South Africa at ridiculously low prices.

Samsung jumped Apple one when they launched the Galaxy Tab in South Africa in late 2010, making it the first officially available tablet in South Africa, but it came at a hefty price of R 7,999.00 just a bit cheaper than what it would cost to import an Apple iPad at the time.

The tables have however now turned with the iPad officially available in South Africa starting at R 4,399.00 for the 16GB WiFi version, almost halve the price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

When Samsung was asked by MyBroadband whether they will be responding to the launch of the iPad, Samsung responded that they have lowered the pricing and will review other channels and price drops as required.

Samsung was however unwilling to reveal with how much they have lowered the price of the Galaxy Tab and also stated that the Galaxy Tab is also a video and voice device that have other competitive differentiators.

Should the Galaxy Tab’s pricing come in line with that of the Apple iPad what tablet would be your first choice?