We Aren't in Hiding. There Isn't Anything New to Report.

     There is a big update coming to the Adam in the coming week or two. Rohan specified the third week of May for the update. My best guess is an announcement dropping tomorrow morning. What do we do until then? We wait. Waiting is hard. Lot's of people out there expect us Notion Ink bloggers to give you an update every day. We can't do that when there is nothing new to report on. I , for one, am not going to make a post just to take up space. A few disgruntle commenters have been trolling Notion Ink Fan for being silent as of late. We are not gone. We just have nothing to report. If there is something to report, we will. Thank You

Notion Ink Adam ROM Review: Honeycomb Alpha (v. 11)

     This is, without a doubt, the best ROM available. I don't need to tell you about Honeycomb. If you must see the details about Honeycomb, here is a guide. How well does it run on the Adam? Pretty darn good. What makes it so good? Find out after the break.

     This is a very stable build for being an alpha version. You still get the small amount of force closes that you would expect from anything running android, but nothing major has happened yet. This is to be expected since this is actually a fully baked build on Honeycomb ripped from the Asus Eeepad Transformer. The devs have done a nice job of pulling out all signs of Asus. What you are left with is completely stock Honeycomb, and all of its goodness.

     On any and all 2.2 based ROMs, the touch screen felt a little unresponsive, which generally ruined the user experience for me. It wasn't terrible, but it was certainly worse than the XOOM or iPad. It may be the beautification of the UI, the tablet specific sizes, or a complete placebo, but the user experience shot through the roof with this ROM. Everything is perfectly snappy. It isn't quite as snappy as the XOOM, with a little snag here and there. You won't be disappointed.

     Eden notifications leave a lot to be desired with that tiny exclamation point up in the corner. The status bar hiding trick that Notion Ink employed worked to make status bar visible in all apps, but it is still out of the way. Notifications are on the right of the always present status/navbar. A click on the clock brings up quick settings and your notifications. On a side note, the dark glow that accompanies the clock pop-up is offset two inches to the left. Aside from the small glitch, it is really handy.

     Two shining features of Honeycomb over the Eden UI are the keyboard and the browser. The browser feels like you are using a small version of Chrome. Zooming and scrolling are both smooth. Bookmarks sync without worry. The only complaint I have (a common complaint across the web) is the rendering of webpages to the mobile versions. I'm not using a smartphone, and I don't wanted to be treated as such. Luckily you can just go into the debug setting to change the user agent string to desktop, or iPad, or whatever the heck you want.

     The Notion Ink keyboard is great isn't? I'm never going back to it after using the 3.0 offering. It's just better.

    This is now the ROM, and it will stay that way until Notion Ink gets their hands on some source code. With Honeycomb, the Adam can actually complete with other tablets. I finally like Adam over the iPad. Honeycomb bridges the gap between glossy, functional, and open. The best of all three, and it's now available for your enjoyment on the Notion Ink Adam.

Honeycomb 3.1 is Coming

     Today is day one at Google I/O, the announcements are in full swing. Of course, some of the pertain to the Adam. What would that be? Honeycomb 3.1 was announced  that brings widget resizing, USB support galore, and much improved multitasking/task management. What is the biggest takeaway from this? It will be open-sourced for Notion Ink to get their hands on. Honey from the garden of eden tastes even better.

Dolphin Browser HD to Come Bundled with Adam

     Notion Ink is getting its fingers into many pies lately. They have announced today that they have made a deal with the makers of Dolphin Browser to include their phenomenal web browser in the upcoming update. Oddly, Dolphin Browser HD is completly incompatible with the Adam right now. It is even blocked on the Market (using Edenx). Better yet, the update has a timeline set for release in the "third week of this month". Around the same time, the Adam will be available for general sale.

Kindle on Adam!

     No, I haven't gone crazy with the exclamation points today. Rohan announced late last night (sometime around noon in India) that Notion Ink is collaborating with Amazon to bring the Kindle Books app on the Adam. This is likely to come in the next update. This is very exciting especially considering their isn't a pre-installed book app to enjoy your Pixel Qi with. The next question is the possible future inclusion of the Amazon Appstore on the Adam.

Breaking: Honeycomb on Adam (Update)

     I have great news for you folks! Mr. Guy, the same guy to bring you the Pixel Qi toggle app, has now booted Honeycomb on the Adam. It is in very early stages, but it is booted, and that we can build upon. Now it's your turn devs. Take this pice of work to make an awesome ROM complete with NI apps. We are waiting.
     As you can see in the video below, it is still pre-alpha, but it is on its way. This particular ROM appears to be from the EeePad Transformer. The original post can be found here. The devs at TabletROMs.com re doing good!
(Update)
Help make the ROM stable to get a piece of the bounty. You will be rewarded for your dev efforts. How can you lose? See: http://tabletroms.com/forums/content.php?4-Stabilize-the-HC-Rom

Completly Updated Eden Coming to Adam

     We have had light shed upon us this morning in the the latest Notion Ink blog post. The major update that was barely mentioned in the last post got a list of details to go with the images today. The details show that this really is a major update instead of a design change.

The biggest bullet of the list is the core OS. The Adam will get Gingerbread after all. The delay on Honeycomb made them change their minds most likely. Eden needed a lot of improvement and Honeycomb isn't available as grounds for such improvement. The kernel is also getting a nice revamp for you developers out there. To give you ROM developers a nod, the link for the kernel source was thrown up on the blog post at the very top.

Another amazing bullet point is the addition of an overclocked Tegra processor. This could be taken many ways as it is listed as "optimally overclocked". That could just mean that it isn't downclocked by Eden anymore.

Many software additions and changes will take place. Many such additions include chords for music, the weather app, books, and flash pre-installed (sorry, no genesis). Rohan makes mentioned of a completly different browser, which would be nice considering the Eden browser that I'm typing this post on is very half-baked. Take a gander at the full post here .

Notion Ink Adam ROM Review: Cyanogen Mod 7 (Beta1)

     Cyanogen Mod is probably the most popular Android ROM of all time, and it is now making its way to the Adam. Also included is the Honeycomb mimicking Tablet Tweaks plugin (also beta). I say making its way because it is still in beta. I had a minimal amount of problems with stability, but I recommend waiting as this won't be your daily donut. Find out how the popular ROM runs on a not-so-standard tablet.

     If you hate everything about Eden, even the apps, then this is definitely the ROM for you. All traces of Notion Ink have been wiped clean. This could be a good thing for some users, but not this guy. Couldn't they at least give us the NI keyboard? The purpose of CM7 is to give a vanilla Gingerbread experience, but oddly the stock Android launcher is MIA, instead giving you ADW and VTL to pick from.

     As with a few other ROMs, you are given toggles for things like switching the SD cards or turning off cell standby. To do so, you are given the horrible  not very intuitive Adam toggles app. All the app is is a screen with four buttons for the four toggles. No visual indication that the toggle worked, no prompting to restart, just four buttons.

     Tablet Tweaks was suppose to give a Honeycomb-like feel to the overall experience. It doesn't. All you really get is a fat status bar with three navigation buttons that hardly ever goes away. Oh, and you can move it to the bottom of the screen if so desired. It's a nice idea, but it doesn't really add anything to the user experience.

     There you have it. A brief review of a very popular ROM that almost doesn't need a review. For a complete list of features that CM will give you, go to their website. Right now, it isn't ready for the Adam. One major problem I had was the lack of a lockscreen which would probably be fixed by a simple data wipe. This ROM gets a 3/10 in its current form. The reason? A complete lack of anything Notion Ink.

Engadget Reviews Notion Ink Adam

     All I can say is finally! We (or I at least) have been waiting for a professional review of the Adam since it came out. Since all orders were shipped a while back, it's hard to tell what took them so long. They had some interesting things to say about the tablet. Most of them were bad, but they were also true. They main target of the negativity was, of course, the software and the screen. What else did they say? Read on.

     The Adam only did good enough to deserve a lousy 3 out of 10 rating from the big shots. The software was called upon repeatedly for being slow and buggy. They even went as far as calling it "beta at best". Not a goos sign. They seemed particularly proud of their discovery of a way to make the browser crash on command (multiple taps on the tab wheel). The panels got a nice little overview as to how they worked and such. A small item they touched on was the lack of responsiveness from the capacitive digitizer. It was blamed on the screen protector, but as I found out the screen protector has nothing to do with the lack of touch sensitivity, it is just another one of the tablet's quirks. Oddly, no mention was made about the low wifi signal.

     Engadget did have a couple of good thing to say about Notion Ink's baby. The ports... lots and lots of ports to fill your nerdy heart with joy. It use a "unique" design and an awesome sun-readable display. That was about it on the good side.

     Like everyone that has an Adam knows, the viewing angles are awful, the camera is funky at best, and the software is just bad out of the box. Engadget just reaffirmed what we already knew, but it's nice to hear from the pros. You know Notion Ink didn't do terribly great with their first product when Engadget calls it a prototype running beta software. Get the full review here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/27/notion-ink-adam-review/

Silence is Golden - Gold Holds No Value in the Notion Ink Community

    It's been a long time since we last spoke. Does that sound familiar? It should. That is how Rohan started a few of his blog posts back when the official Notion Ink blog started to show signs of dying. Now he needs to start off every post with that little phrase. What has happened to the "family"? Where has the constant knowledge gone?

     The journey started way back in April (last year) when the blog was officially opened. The promise of the ultimate Android tablet kept people flocking. The teasing and constant flow of information kept the people coming back for more. The Adam would have been a beast if it were released last summer. No competition could match it on the specs. And then came the delays.

   Delay one with some investor issues. It was suppose to arrive sometime around Thanksgiving. In the weeks counting up to Thanksgiving we got post after post describing one bit of information at a time about the Adam. Weekend Specials he called them. It gave would be buyers a particular date to look forward to for more information. We knew everything about the Adam aside from a few crucial details.

     Would the Adam come with the Android Market? Nobody knew. It took an interview with Android Police to find out, and that was after the pre-order had started. Another piece of the puzzle that was completely missing was a demonstration of the actual device. We had screenshots, renders, photos, prototype photos, but no videos or photos of the actual production Adam. We were expected to buy out of trust, and many of us did.

     After the backlash of concern about a pre-order for an unknown product Rohan took charge of the situation by giving the videos we wanted. We didn't just get a video of the Adam doing its thing, we got a video demonstration every day. Now we knew everything about the Adam and how to use it once it arrived. This device still hadn't shipped to anyone.

     In January, the videos stopped because it was the time of year for CES 2011. That was a disappointment. Notion Ink didn't have a booth for whatever reason, and nobody knew they were their. Slashgear and Engadget seemed to be the only media folks that gave them any type of coverage. Maybe because they were looking for Rohan? From Engadget and Slashgear the Adam got excellent "reviews". Strangely, we have yet to receive an actual review on the Adam from either blog even though they said it was coming.

    CES marked the beginning of the end for Notion Ink's blogging record. Shipping delays and bricked Adam's destroyed the company's reputation overnight. Many people were angry; many people cancelled their order. Some people didn't even get an Adam until March. The customers that had their orders pushed backed several months didn't like silence on the blog very much either. Emails to support didn't bring back anything either.

     We know Rohan has something to blog about. The last post gave a hint of the next major software update for the Adam. Can't he give us a little teaser every weekend about the update like he's done before? Is he afraid of making promises he can't keep? Just put a little disclaimer at the bottom saying details may vary. We don't like being kept in the dark.