The Notion Ink Adam is the first attempt and a bold one at that by an Indian gadget designer to release a device in the international markets. I was actually surprised that there were so many people with skill sets ranging from hardware design, integration, Linux Kernel optimization, UI design and last but not least experience working with Android in India to actually produce a world class tablet.
They had the guts and foresight to conceptualize and propose a tablet design targeted at US and European markets even before the iPad rumors started. May be that is the reason why the design of Adam is fresh, ergonomic and no where like the candybar design of the iPad. Its actually sad to see that all the tablet designs unveiled at the CES 2011 are wannabe iPads and if you have seen one you have seen them all. They all have an iPadish look with a 10" screen with a black bezel, capacitive touch and super glossy screens. They all would come out with Android Honeycomb and a Tegra 2 processor. Most importantly they would only be available to the public some where in Q2 or Q3 of 2011 and my hunch is that most of them would be priced around $600 - $1000 while the Adam has already had a round of very successful pre-order and getting ready for a second one with the lower end version of the device starting at $375.
The positives for Adam which are numerous are its optional Pixel Qi screen which enables the device to switch to a e-reader mode and increase battery life, full GPS, full HDMI out, multitasking, 3.2MP swivel camera, WiFi+3G options, 2 USB and 1 mini USB ports with support for keyboard, mouse and external hard drives, expandable memory, Bluetooth, FM and so on.
Additionally the design of the device has a cylindrical edge on one side housing the battery and two speakers allowing stereo sound. This thick edge comes with a rubber grip allowing you to hold the device comfortably just like you hold a book. The swivel camera allows you to either automatically or manually change direction to capture videos and pictures. This saves cost by making redundant the extra front facing camera that all the other devices have and increase ergonomics by allowing you to point at any place by holding the device steadily. The official promo of the device even indicates a Kinect type of motion detection to play games but the feature has not yet been officially demoed.
Now coming to the negatives, I'm going to be detailed and critical so the team can understand what I'm trying to say and may be incorporate some suggestions if possible. Firstly since the device does not ship with Honeycomb initially (even though its CEO has promised an upgrade as soon as Google releases the code which could be anywhere from 2 or 3 months down the line), as a work around the team has built its own UI called Eden and I have my concerns with this interface. I think the Eden is productive but not necessarily attractive to the eye nor simplistic to use. The UI accepts single taps, double taps, press and holds, swipes, pinch to zooms to navigate through the UI as shown in the videos of Notion Ink which might confuse the user initially. The team should ensure that there is consistency in tapping behavior across applications. A bad example is the browser where the tabs are shown only after a tap at one edge of the screen instead of showing the tabbed interface like a normal browser would. In effect they require user to do additional gestures just to save some screen space and also limit the number of tabs opened in the process. Overall the UI looks unfinished and unpolished but for the first release it could be accepted given the cost factor.
Secondly, since the device is loaded with Android Froyo and its not a phone, it does not have access to the Google Market. But again this would not be an issue given an update to Honeycomb would be released. The team has gone ahead and launched its own App store called the Genesis. It has partnered with a lot of application developers to write apps for gaming, document management, GPS navigation, eReaders etc. and it also comes out of the box with a lot of apps.I hope all those apps are fully functional and well tested. It remains to be seen how successful this new app store would be given there are already a number of stores on the internet for Android.
Thirdly, regarding the multitasking environment called "leafs" or panels where one can view 3 application running side by side at a time, though there are uses for a side-by-side app view, no strong use cases have been demoed. The requirement of three panels per screen leads to snapping and stretching actions during the scrolling and it doesn't look good. Click on any panel and it gives an option to go full screen. So there is an additional requirement of the app having a panel view and a full view thought this might tie in smoothly with the Honeycomb interface and could become a feature in all Android tablets. Another problem is that apps developed for phones or smaller screens will not run in "leaf/panel" mode as intended because they do not support it. Eden should have by default designed to run applications in leaf mode. Though I like the concept of launcher bar which is more like the windows task bar with "hide" option selected. I expect the launcher bar to be enabled in full screen app mode also to enable quick switching between apps instead of coming back to leaf mode.
Fourthly, the confusion about the support for T-Mobile 3G frequency bands highlights the mistakes in choosing the hardware components. Though not a deal breaker the device does not support an upgrade to 4G which most of the other Android devices are launching with. Given the tablet is a truly mobile device and has the potential to consume data bandwidth like a desktop, supporting 4G will be critical in the future.
Still the positives for this device hugely outweigh the negatives and it further moves in favor of the device simply because the negatives can be corrected with a new software update of course except for the problem with T-mobile 3G bands. The team has accomplished no mean task with just 50 designers and in limited time frame. If it can iron out the UI issues and integrate Honeycomb it is going to be a huge success.
All in all the Notion Ink Adam is a device to beat and can be promoted not just as a content consuming device but also a content creation device.
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