After a huge success in the field of mobile phones, now android is all set to launch in tablets and other handheld devices. A new version of Android V3.0 named as "Honeycomb" has specially been designed for use with larger screens such as tablets. So what makes the Honeycomb different from other versions of Android such as Gingerbread(V2.3), Froyo(V2.2) and Eclair(V2.1). Lets take a look.
Honeycomb is optimized for use with larger display screens and supports a larger resolution display. It also supports dual core processors and most importantly, hardware accelerated graphics. Coming to the UI, a new Action bar has been implemented on the homescreen which replaces the hardware buttons for menu, home, back and search as were present in the earlier versions.This is a very nice addition as it improves the looks of the tablet device. Also, the contents in the Action bar change according to the app being used.Now thats a clever feature which makes handling of apps easier. The App switcher is improved and now shows the preview of the apps running in the background making it a truly multitasking OS.
The browser is also excellent and page rendering is very smooth. It makes the browsing experience enjoyable. Switching between windows is easy and fun.Only drawback is that out of the box flash support is not yet available but Adobe has confirmed that work is in progress and it will be available soon so that is not going to be a major problem. Private or Incognito browsing is also supported which doesn't save your browsing history or cookies ;). Another useful feature is Quick Control which can be activated by swiping from left to right of the screen on the browser which displays an array of important shortcuts instantaneously.
On the multimedia side, the Honeycomb doesn't live up to its expectations as in the previous versions of android. The camera interface is not as cool as in other OS such as the iOS and is dated.The Multimedia experience is better than previous versions and the UI has been completely revamped.A 3D view of the albums and songs is displayed which looks pretty cool.As far as video playback is concerned, popular codecs like H.263, H.264 and MPEG-4 are supported.Third party codecs can be also downloaded from the app store.The Maps works pretty well and the GPS locks in very fast displaying near accurate positions.The apps run in honeycomb in native resolution unlike that of the iPad which runs a lot of apps optimised for the smaller screen iPod touch in strech and fit format.
At the end, we can conclude that it is not just a smartphone OS that has been tweaked to be fit in a tablet but it is a dedicated OS built and optimised for the tablets and I hope that in the coming days,the minor flaws and bugs in the OS will fixed.An article about upcoming Honeycomb tablets will be updated soon. Keep reading !
