The Thrive's got a haptic display and a button to lock the screen orientation.
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This is useful for quickly returning the screen orientation to the desired state when the user is lying down.
Even if the user unintentionally tilts the phone, the screen orientation can be returned to its original state by simply shaking the handset two or more times.
The left side sports the power button, a lever for locking screen orientation and a volume rocker, while the top has the 2-megapixel front camera and 5-megapixel rear-facing shooter.
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On the software side, meanwhile, HP's pre-installing a few board games like EA Monopoly, and there's a physical key you can use to flip the screen orientation when it's another player's turn.
As soon as we turned the tablet into portrait mode the accelerometer adjusted the screen orientation, and when we put the Wacom stylus to the screen, our chicken scratch was immediately turned into accurate editable text.
The chromed plastic volume rocker, power button and screen orientation lock switch nestled in the plastic radio reception strip at the top of the device are decidedly less luxurious, however -- the travel of each was shallow, and the finish on the plastic appeared a bit cheap to our eyes.
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Sure, it's hard to imagine a reason for most people to pick up a DMP-B15 over a cheapish Blu-ray playing laptop -- the thing is monstrously thick, and can't even handle a traditional laptop-style screen orientation, only everything but -- but the hardware is reliable enough for kids to handle on the road, and the single-use makes it a good home Blu-ray player for plugging into that second HD-starved TV.
Accelerometers are used heavily in the design, and this allows the screen to change orientation simply by turning the phone.
The Wii U controller contains the same motion tracking hardware as a Nintendo Wiimote, which means the system can track its relative position at all times, and update the controller screen depending on its orientation.
Once you get past the unusual color choice, the first thing you'll notice is that the 1.25-inch LCD screen has a horizontal orientation rather than the vertical one you'll find on the iPod mini and most other MP3 players.
Overall the face design is the same, with four multifunction buttons around the screen adjusting to software and orientation changes.
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