Got a BlackBerry Playbook? If the ales figures are anything to go by, probably not – but hey, maybe you’ve got a friend or a boss who was brought low by a Staples salesman. If that’s the case, be sure and tell him or her that the handful of apps huddling together for warmth in RIM’s app store will soon have some welcome company. The company’s Developer Relations team posted today that the long, long-awaited OS 2.0 update will hit in February, with the BlackBerry Runtime for Android included in the package. It’s almost as welcome as a real email client. The service has been in closed beta for some time now.

The deadline for submitting apps to RIM to be included in the launch database is February 6th, meaning that the update and app repository should be available shortly thereafter. It isn’t as easy as dropping an SDK onto the Playbook’s flash storage; a little work on the developer side of things is required. But compared to building an app from scratch it’s a breeze, thanks to tools provided by RIM itself to ease the porting process. In order to be considered by RIM, developers will need to remove all usage of the word “Android” from the app, refrain from referring to the Market, setting the requirement to “BlackBerry Playbook” (hah!) and signing the package digitally.

All this work to get Android apps on the PlayBook is fascinating, considering how much RIM is trying to distance themselves from everyone’s favorite green robot. Just last week their shiny new CEO (career expectancy: 8 months) said that they had no intention of releasing hardware that runs Android, claiming that “all Android phones are the same”. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.

(via Android Community)

Well folks, this is both good and bad news. It appears ASUS has just announced a brand new beautiful model of the ASUS Transformer Prime only this time around the specs have been improved in a few key areas. The new model, being called the TF700T, will be touting the same IPS display only instead of 1280×800 they’ve boosted the resolution to 1920×1200 and made a few other small changes as well.

According to the official press release from ASUS they’ve not only changed the display, but we also have an upgraded front facing camera. It’s been boosted to a much better 2.0 MP lens for video chat vs the 1.3 in the original Prime. Then here comes some good news — GPS and Wifi! ASUS has redesigned the entire rear casing and have improved the GPS and WiFi signal range and quality. Something that has seen a large amount of criticisms since release.

For the most part the new and improved ASUS Transformer Prime is the same in all other aspects. Same awesome 1.4 GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor under the hood, 1GB of RAM, and awesome rear camera so users shouldn’t be concerned with losing anything. Although if you just picked up the original you are probably thinking of returning it right about now — and I don’t blame you.

ASUS has confirmed that this will NOT replace the original (just released) Transformer Prime, instead it will be an upscale higher model for those wanting the better display — although I’m sure many current owners will want the fixes to WiFi, GPS, and everything else the radial spun aluminum design didn’t seem to help. Availability hasn’t yet been released by ASUS other than Q2 of this year, but pricing will get a small bump and they expect to hit market at $599 for the 32GB, and $699 for the 64 flavor. Keyboard dock is the same and current models will all work together seamlessly. One important note is this will be shipped running on the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Who’s taking their Prime back to wait for the new and improved TF700T?

First off let me start by saying I’m still not really sold on this mobile 3D technology even though I did enjoy reviewing the HTC EVO 3D. What we have for you today is really interesting though because it has some impressive specs on a full HD 8″ 1280 x 800 resolution display all rocking glasses-free 3D. The downside is only Android 2.3 Gingerbread on board but I’m sure a few XDA developers could change that. Check out the full specs, pictures, and video below.

This tablet is being called the GADMEI T863-3D Tablet and it comes complete with an 8″ 1280 x 800 HD display that features full active 3D — glasses free. Being $199 I was worried about specs but this beast actually rocks a 1.0 GHz Cortex A9 processor and the powerful Mali 400 GPU for graphics and 3D rendering. With 8 GB of internal storage, micro-SD, HDMI-out, USB, WiFi and even a front facing camera for video chat. It also claims to offer a 5,000 mAh battery so that should last plenty long. I was expecting a cheaper device but with great internals, plenty of storage and a capacitive touch 3D display I’m actually a little curious and want one for myself.

Here is a video demonstration showing just how quick and easy it is to toggle regular 2D video viewing into full glasses-free 3D — just the touch of a button. They are showing it off using the impressive AVATAR 3D.

We don’t know much about GADMEI but they’ve made plenty of PMP’s and other tablet devices in the past so while this isn’t Samsung, I’ve heard the name enough to be familiar. On the other hand I’ve never heard of the online retailer but they did snap a few decent photos of the 3D tablet to give us a better idea of what to expect. Full details, specs, pricing and more is available at the source link below.

Who would buy this 3D tablet for only $199?

If you have a need for copious amounts of storage on a mobile device the new Archos 80 G9 series Honeycomb tablet would probably be a great choice. They have just released the 250 GB version of this 8″ slate and amazingly it’s still priced much lower than competing 8-10″ Honeycomb tablets with only 16GB of internal storage.

What makes this even better is while paying a bit more for the extra storage you’ll also get the 80 G9 “Turbo” which is their faster 1.2 GHz dual-core version of their latest line of tablets. Basically we get an 8″ 1024 x 768 display rocking Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet with a dual-core 1.2 GHz TI OMAP processor, 1GB of RAM, and 250 gigabytes of storage all for only $369. While most tablets have 16 or 32GB of flash storage this will have the huge hard drive. If you are concerned about speed and read times Archos claims to have a highly intelligent caching system to keep things quick, smooth, and stable — but didn’t comment on weight.

Archos might not have the best build quality when it comes to Android tablets or the thinnest, but they update often and when necessary and have a pretty solid following based on their low price budget-minded lineup of tablets. With a promise to bring Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Archos tablets soon, and already showing it off on video running great this could actually be one awesome all around device.

Having HDMI-out, 250 GB of storage, a kickstand, and soon to be Android 4.0 ICS all for only $369 this could potentially be an awesome deal — especially for multimedia lovers. The newer 250 GB model is available now from Archos.com and you can find plenty of details and the link below.