V3 got its hands on the forthcoming HTC Jetstream Android Honeycomb tablet that aims to take on the iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy 10.1.

The Jetstream has already been released in the US and looks to be the fastest Android tablet on the market in terms of raw processing power. The 10in device is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor making it twice as fast as the 7in HTC Flyer, which was the Taiwanese firm's first tablet.

We found the Jetstream very responsive and we don't envisage the radical decline in performance over time that happened with the Flyer.

The Jetstream looks and feels remarkably similar to the Motorola Xoom in terms of design. The HTC tablet is not as svelte as the Apple and Samsung devices, but this isn't a bad thing. Build-quality also seems to have been improved, HTC going for the metallic look and solid back cover.

Hardware highlights on the Jetstream include an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and support for the superfast 4G LTE network. Sadly, the latter will be cut out from the UK device, as the infrastructure is not yet in place.

The Jetstream will be the first HTC tablet to ship with Android Honeycomb in the UK. We are glad to see that HTC customised its Sense interface for Honeycomb, something that has taken some time.

The Sense overlay is generally deemed one of the best features of HTC devices. The Jetstream comes with familiar customisations, including an interactive lockscreen, carousel and widgets, and is unlikely to break the trend.

A potential stumbling block could be the battery life. HTC devices can struggle to last a full day as they need to power the resource-hungry Sense overlay. It will be interesting to see whether the manufacturer has managed to fix this problem, considering the 10in display.

Pricing could be another barrier to purchase. The 7in Flyer was initially set at around £600 and, although this has been reduced, ii's still one of the most expensive on the market despite not having the best performance.

Windows 8 is not expected to ship until sometime in 2012, but we managed to briefly try out the Developer Preview version of the software at Microsoft's Build conference.

The platform is quite clearly a major change over what has gone before, and people familiar with the Windows desktop could be forgiven for feeling somewhat lost at first, as the Metro interface works in a totally different way.

However, we think consumers will find a lot to like in Windows 8, particularly the way it provides easy access to data, and makes it simple to perform tasks such as updating social meda sites.

Metro obviously has a lot in common with Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's smartphone platform, the main Start screen consisting of tiles to represent applications, rather than the start menu of Windows 7 and earlier.

As with Windows Phone, the tiles are typically 'active', showing if you have new messages or emails, for example. Also like Windows Phone 7, touching the tile launches the application, and the tiles can be rearranged as desired and even bunched together into named groups.

The Metro-style apps are also a big change over the way Windows applications look now. Typically, these fill the screen and lack any of the borders and controls we are used to seeing, in a deliberate attempt to emphasise the content of the application.

As a result, apps tend to look very spartan, and the use of bold colour lends a kindergarten feel to the whole experience.

User interaction is also different, and designed to accommodate touch input, stylus control and keyboard and mouse input. Controls and other tools are typically found by swiping an edge of the screen.

A swipe to the right brings up what Microsoft calls 'charms' - common functions such as search and share, devices and settings - while a swipe to the left flicks through open Windows in the same way as alt+tab on Windows 7.

In fact, if you have a keyboard, using alt+tab performs exactly the same function, showing how Microsoft has blended existing Windows functionality with the new-style user interface.

However, the old Windows desktop has not entirely gone away. The Desktop app tile on the Start screen brings up a desktop very similar to that of Windows 7, and it is here that existing Windows applications run.

Switching between the two interfaces can be a jarring experience, though, especially on a tablet where the standard Windows controls are just too small to reliably hit using a touch screen, showing that the mouse is not redundant just yet.

The browser in this release of Windows 8 is a preview version of IE10. In Metro mode, this uses the whole screen to display a web page, and touching the top or bottom of the screen provides access to the back button or address bar. It is also available in the Desktop app, where it behaves more like IE9 on Windows 7.

One major feature of Windows 8 is the integration with cloud services, particularly Windows Live SkyDrive, which is used to synchronise data across multiple devices so that all contacts, photos, emails and other information is available on whatever unit the user happens to have with them.

The new-style apps in Windows 8 can also share data much more easily than in current versions of Windows, allowing you to email a picture to a friend directly from a Flickr or Facebook application with a single gesture, for example.

Overall, we felt that the Windows 8 Developer Preview provides a much better experience on tablets than existing versions of Windows, although getting used to the new interface could prove a steep learning curve for some.

Finally, this new platform seems heavily consumer-focused, to the extent that business users may be reluctant to adopt it, at least for the foreseeable future.

ANAHEIM: Microsoft has handed out a Samsung tablet running Windows 8 to all developers at the Build conference in Anaheim to help kick-start work on new applications.

The Samsung tablet is unmarked, and the box proclaims it as developer prototype hardware. It features an impressive 11.6in 1,366x768 touch-screen display, and weighs about 900g with a slimline design at just 12.9mm thick.

The tablet is based on a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M dual-core processor, with 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 64GB SSD, and support for 3G mobile broadband and Wi-Fi.

The unit has a microSD slot, a single USB port and micro HDMI connector. Microsoft is also providing developers with a Bluetooth keyboard, stylus and mini docking cradle that adds an extra USB and HDMI video output, plus Ethernet for a LAN connection.

The tablet feels very responsive, and is easily a match for rival devices such as Apple's iPad or the various Android-based tablets. However, battery life could be a shortcoming, as the indicator went down noticeably during our brief hands-on test.

Microsoft wasn't giving any details on when this tablet might go on sale, but it is obviously a taste of what to expect with Windows 8 hardware.

Among the intriguing snippets that Microsoft divulged about Windows 8 at its Build developer conference is that the platform will be able to run from a USB memory stick.

The Windows To Go feature is being pushed as a useful tool for companies that might otherwise deploy a virtual desktop to some workers, as it is expected to cost about $50 per seat, said Iain McDonald, director of programme management for Microsoft's Windows Core Group.

Other new features are more interesting, especially to roaming users with a laptop or other mobile device.

Microsoft said that Windows 8 is more network-aware than older versions, and can determine which network connection offers the most bandwidth, choosing Ethernet when docked, for example.

The software can also make more intelligent use of mobile wireless connections, pausing Windows Updates when the user roams onto a costly metered 3G broadband connection, and downloading only thumbnails of images rather than the full size.

Fusion Garage will start shipping its Grid-10 tablet in October starting at £259, as the firm aims to provide a viable alternative to Android and iOS devices.

Chandra Rathakrishnan, chief executive of Fusion Garage, makers of the fabled Joo-Joo tablet, dropped by the V3 office to give us a sneak peek at the 10.1in device along with the Grid-4 smartphones due to ship later in the year.

With specifications including a 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, 512MB RAM and 16GB of internal storage there's little to separate the Grid-10 from other high-end devices. It does come with a 1,366x768 resolution screen, which Fusion Garage claims to be the best on the market, but we didn't find it as bright as the iPad 2.

In terms of look and feel, the Grid-10 has a wedge shape but is of similar size to the iPad 2. It weighs 689g, however, so it is noticeably heavier than the Apple tablet.

The 10.1in tablet ships with the GridOS operating system, which has been built using the Android kernel. However, the interface bears little resemblance to Google's operating system.

As the name suggests, the interface consists of a grid where apps can be clustered together, and users can move between clusters to access applications. This unique design makes home pages redundant as it's possible to jump to any part of the grid using a little map in the corner.

The Grid-10 is virtually button-less, and navigation is performed with a swiping system very similar to the one on RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook.

Swiping from the top brings back the home screen, whereas a swipe from the right moves the screen back. A flick from the left brings up the notification centre, known as the 'heartbeat'.

We didn't find the gesture-based system as smooth as on the PlayBook, and we sometimes had to swipe a couple of times to trigger changes. However, transitions between applications are made interesting by the use of animations.

Web browsing also had some features not seen on Android and iOS devices. Words can be highlighted and clicked on to bring up a context-sensitive menu. The word 'inception' brought up reviews from Rotten Tomatoes and linked to Twitter, for example.

Pinch-to-zoom was also impressive, the text resizing almost instantly. Fusion Garage has also improved the stock Android keyboard to include secondary functions.

The tablet can also synchronise with other Fusion devices. We started and paused a movie on the device and were able to continue playing it on the Grid-4 smartphone from the same point.

However, Rathakrishnan explained that the Grid-10 will have access not to the Android Market but to the Amazon App Store for Android. There will be no native Google applications such as Gmail available, but Rathakrishnan tried to play this down, noting that the email client can be used.

Interestingly, Google search will also be absent as Fusion Garage has chosen to incorporate Microsoft's Bing instead.

The tablet is due for release on 24 October at £259 for the Wi-Fi-only model, rising to £359 for the 3G model, so buyers on a budget may be tempted.

Meanwhile, the Grid-4 smartphones will launch in the fourth quarter running GridOS, and it will be interesting to see how the operating system works on the smaller form factor.

Overall, it appears that Fusion Garage has learned from the mistakes of the Joo Joo which Rathakrishnan admitted was rushed to market. GridOS is unique and shows flashes of brilliance, but it remains to be seen whether Fusion has the support of retailers and the brand power to attract consumers.

HP failed to penetrate the market with the well-known webOS interface, and we think it could be very difficult for the Grid-10 to take a substantial slice of the market.

Microsoft's confirmation that client versions of Windows 8 will include its Hyper-V hypervisor could turn out to be one of the most interesting and significant aspects of the upcoming platform.

With a baked-in Type 1 hypervisor, various kinds of use cases that have been mooted for virtualisation will become possible, such as running separate corporate and personal desktop environments side by side simultaneously on the same machine.

This kind of virtualisation is now familiar on servers, where multiple workloads can be consolidated onto one system. However, it is almost unknown on client systems, with the notable exception of Citrix's XenClient platform, which is intended to let enterprises manage laptops in the manner just described.

But whereas XenClient requires the laptop vendor to integrate the hypervisor into the system at build time, Windows 8 with Hyper-V should make it much easier to implement such a configuration.

Hyper-V's Live Storage Move feature, as mentioned in the Building Windows 8 blog, also enables virtual machines to be independent of the underlying storage, even allowing the disk image that makes up the VM to be moved from one drive to another without shutting it down.

While Microsoft said the capability can be used for rapid deployment purposes, it also opens up the possibility of greater flexibility in the way virtual desktops are used. Imagine checking out your virtual desktop from the datacentre onto a laptop so you can use it on a business trip, then checking it back in when you return to the office, for example.

Baked-in virtualisation support also means that Windows 8 might be able to support use cases that have been suggested in the past, such as a dedicated virtual partition for security services, which have largely failed to make it into mainstream adoption.

It also gives developers more flexibility for building test environments, as Microsoft points out on the Building Windows 8 blog.

The snag, of course, is that Hyper-V on Windows 8 will require the latest hardware; it relies on a virtualisation feature called Second Level Address Translation supported in current 64-bit processors from Intel and AMD.

Hyper-V support looks like being a significant addition to Windows 8, and many in the industry will be watching with interest to see what Microsoft is going to do with the technology.

Bitdefender has launched a security tool that allows Twitter users to scan contacts to see whether they pose a security risk.

Bitdefender Safego is described as easy to use and quick to deploy, although the company said that there is still a lot of development work that needs to be done before the app is taken out of its current beta state.

The tool allows Twitter users to sort through existing and potential contacts with a four-colour code based on the severity of the potential threat.

Red signifies a highly suspicious account which may be spreading malware, spam or phishing attacks. Yellow highlights contacts that pose moderate threats, although Bitdefender is unclear what an account has to do to be in this class.

Grey indicates contacts that have not sent any messages from their accounts for 30 days, and green signifies contacts that run safe accounts.

V3 tested the tool on one of its accounts, and was pleased to find that all the followers Bitdefender had scanned were marked as green or grey.

However, while the account in question follows 157 people, the tool scanned only 40 and presented colour codes for just 16.

V3 clicked on the 'See All' tab next to the 16 coloured contacts and, although the software said that it will scan more users, it did not. The alert at the top of the web page still confirmed that only 40 contacts had been scanned, and there were still results for only 16 users.

V3 asked Bitdefender why it was scanning so few accounts, and feeding coloured results back for even fewer.

"In order to optimise speed, Safego is initially scanning only a small amount of users, and after that is using the background scanner to scan the rest of the followers in a silent way," said the technical team at Bitdefender.

However, while there are obvious problems with Bitdefender Safego at the moment, more development and focus could make this app invaluable to Twitter users trying to fight the growing amount of spam on the social network.

One of the app's most useful features is the New User Check-up function, which determines whether prospective contacts' accounts are safe to follow.

The Galaxy Note aims to bridge the gap between Android smartphones and tablets, and reminds us of those personal digital assistants that have long gone out of fashion.

The Note measures 147x83x10mm, and has the look and feel of an oversized Samsung Galaxy S II. It fills the palm of your hand, but is extremely light to hold and will comfortably fit into a trouser pocket.

Despite the large 5.3in screen, the Note weighs just 178g, making it 42g lighter than the smaller 5in Dell Streak. The Note isn't that much heavier than other smartphones on the market, and is only 16g more than the 4.3in HTC HD7, for example.

Samsung continues to outdo itself in terms of display quality. The Note has a Super Amoled HD screen with a resolution of 1,280x800, which is excellent in terms of brightness and colour.

Under the sleek chassis, Samsung has packed in a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, which will make the Note one of the fastest handsets on the market when it arrives.

Features that make the Android 2.3 Gingerbread device unique include the S Pen stylus, which can be used to navigate, jot down notes and even search the handset or internet. We were able to search for sites in Google using the stylus, as the Note recognised our handwriting.

Preloaded productivity apps include S Memo, which can record pictures, voice, text, notes and drawings, and S Planner, which manages items such as a to-do list and schedule, again suggesting that the Note is aimed at business users.

Another useful business feature is that pretty much all on-screen content can be captured and converted to a 'memo' to be edited, annotated and shared.

NFC connectivity is optional, and we were impressed with the 2,500mAH battery. It's not as big as the 4,000mAh battery in the original Galaxy Tab, but is almost twice the size of the 1,650mAh pack in the Galaxy S II.

Devices such as the Dell Streak have not been the most popular, but Samsung has shown that the company has a pedigree in the mobile market and, by combining the functionality of the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy S II, it could be onto a winner with the Note.

Samsung has yet to reveal official pricing for the Note. Clove has it listed as £600, although the online electronics retailer notes this is a speculative price. We'd imagine the actual SIM-free price to be more around the £450 mark.