2012 January | New Tablet News

Monthly Archives: January 2012

Do New 7-Inch Tablets Measure Up?

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7: The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 has a 7.7-inch display and is only 7.9-mm (.31-inch) thick. This new tablet is powered by a 1.4-GHz dual-core processor, has 16 GB of internal storage and runs on Android 3.2 Honeycomb with Samsung's TouchWiz user interface. It also features Wi-Fi, a 3.2-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash, full 720p recording and 1080p playback through an HDMI dock or adapter. According to Information Week, the new tablet is bound for Verizon's LTE 4G network in the coming weeks and Verizon will offer it at a subsidized price in order to gain data customers.
ViewSonic ViewPad E70: The ViewPad E70 from ViewSonic is an ultra-thin, lightweight 7-inch Android 4.0.1-based tablet geared for multi-media mobile entertainment, email and e-books. The new tablet comes with front and back cameras and mini-HDMI and mini-USB ports. The ViewPad E70 is powered by a 1-GHz processor, has 4 GB of storage plus microSD expandable storage for up to 32 GB. This tablet will be available soon at $169.99.
Velocity Micro Cruz T507: Velocity Micro unveiled its new Android 4.0-based Cruz T507 tablet at CES. This new tablet features a 1.2GHz Cortex A8 processor, a 7-inch 800 x 480 TFT LED display and discrete 400MHz 3D graphics acceleration, 512MB of RAM, and 8GB internal storage. The Cruz T507 has front- and rear-facing cameras, Mini USB and Mini HDMI ports, a microSD slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The new tablet will have a suggested retail price under $150.
Huawei MediaPad: The Huawei MediaPad tablet comes pre-loaded with Android 4.0 and is powered by a Qualcomm dual-core 1.2 GHz processor. It features a 7-inch IPS screen with 1280 x 800 resolution. It has a 5-megapixel rear camera and 1.3MP front camera, WiFi, HSPA+, GPS, Bluetooth, and HDMI. The MediaPad is scheduled to launch in selected markets within the next 2-3 months. The fashionable tabs will come in three new colors: shadow black, classic brown, and passion pink. No price details yet for this new tablet.
Toshiba Thrive AT150: The Toshiba Thrive AT150 7-Inch Tablet is essentially a junior version of the original 10-inch Toshiba Thrive. The display is an LED backlit AutoBrite with 1280x800 resolution. The new tablet is run by a 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core chip and uses the Honeycomb 3.2.1 OS. It comes with a 2 megapixel front-facing camera and a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera. It also has a micro Hdmi port, mini Usb port, and a micro SD slot. Price: $380 for 16GB version, $430 for 32GB

The 7-Inch Solution.
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas generated a lot of Tablet News, especially in the New 7-inch Tablets arena. Samsung, Asus, Acer, Toshiba, ViewSonic and a host of others appear to be committing to the 7-inch form factor.

The huge early success of the 7.5-inch Kindle Fire with its lower price point has prompted a bevy of hardware makers to join the 7-inch fray. It wasn’t too long ago that the 7-inch form factor was highly disparaged by many. The original Nook color received early accolades, but that’s about it – and it was considered basically a color reader only. Steve Jobs never liked the 7-inch form factor, stating in 2010 that, “The screen is too small to express the software.” That was in response to the then soon-to-be-introduced Blackberry Playbook. Since its launch, the beleaguered Playbook has received tepid reviews, although last Tuesday RIM announced new PlayBook OS 2.0 software that will provide built-in e-mail and calendar programs and other features that had not been included in the original version.

But before the successful launch of the Kindle Fire, the 7-inch form factor had looked mighty weak. Last December, for example, Dell discontinued its 7-inch Streak Tablet, citing poor sales; HP’s planned 7-inch TouchPad never made it to market.

But this perception is changing. Analysts estimate more than four million of the 7.5-inch Kindle Fire tablets were sold in Q4 2011. And now Google says they’re building their own tablet. DigiTimes rumored earlier this month that Google’s device will come out later this year and will be a 7.5-inch tablet with a $199 price point.

Taking a formal bow at CES 2012, the Eee Pad MeMO ME171 is a hot little number from Asus featuring a 7-inch WXGA (1,280 x 800) IPS capacitive touch screen, a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm 8260 processor, and 1G memory. The new tablet also features 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a 1.2 megapixel front / 5 megapixel rear camera and a micro-USB port. $250.

The Mobility/Affordability Factors
Detractors had long said that the 7-inch form factor does not represent a significant enough improvement over a smartphone to justify its existence, and that its greater mobility over a 10-inch tablet is not worth the loss of usability. But the immense market force that Amazon has brought to its Kindle Fire is demonstrating to many consumers that owning a 7-inch tablet is okay, maybe even cool. And there is the affordability factor, which plays no small role in this tough economy. Shelling out $200 for a new tablet sure hurts a lot less than $500-$800 for a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 or an Ipad2.

Smaller and cheaper, though, usually do not come without trade-offs. The Kindle Fire, for example, is considered an entry-level tablet with no camera, among other things. But many of the new 7-inch tablets introduced at CES address a number of the shortcomings of the Kindle Fire, and many are priced in a similar range as Amazon’s tablet. This includes new tablets such as the ViewSonic ViewPad E70, an ultra-thin 7-inch Android 4.0-based tablet powered by a 1-GHz processor, has 4 GB of storage plus microSD expandable storage for up to 32 GB, front and back cameras, and mini-HDMI and mini-USB ports. Plus, it will have a price tag starting at $169.95 — $30 below the Kindle Fire (see slidedeck).

Betting On Ice Cream Sandwich

With the Viliv-X70, Windows 7 has been squeezed into a new 7-inch tablet boasting a 1024 x 600 display, an Intel Atom 1,33GHz processor, and integrated Wifi Bluetooth.

Although there were many new tablets at the show running on Windows 7 (including the 7-inch Viliv-X70, pictured left), almost every new 7-inch tablet introduced at this year’s CES uses the Android Operating System. Much of the success of these new 7-inch tablets – or any other sized tablet for that matter – rides on the success of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the new Google operating system geared for both smartphones and tablets (Android-based tablets currently make up only 3.3 percent of the entire Android ecosystem). Google says that any application written in the new OS will work equally well on a smartphone with a 3-inch display and a tablet sporting a 10-inch display – but this remains to be seen. Also, a number of new tablets at the show were using older versions of the Android OS.

Size/Price Options Will Prove A Plus
Manufacturers are betting that consumers will like having different size and price options, and may view 7-inch tablets as nicely positioned between full-size tablets and smartphones — a good purse or jacket-pocket device. The 7-inch form factor may also begin playing an even bigger role in the mobile device market as more older consumers begin adopting tablets. Compared to on a smartphone, watching a feature-length movie on a 7-inch tablet should seem like the height of luxury.

With the proliferation of new, smaller tablets, the market should soon confirm that consumer demand for tablets is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. It better – a boatload of manufacturers are betting on it. Some manufacturers at CES announced they are coming out with even smaller tablets, such as the 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note and Lenovo’s 5-inch S2. Toshiba was even displaying a new Android tablet prototype with a 5.1-inch screen size.

Who knows? There might eventually come a time when tablet consumers get to really choose their own personalized form factor, custom-sized in quarter-inch increments. But for now, check out our slide deck above for a rundown on some of the cool new 7-inch tablets that debuted at CES.

Joe Hopkins

The Tribbles… er… New Tablets Population Continues To Multiply

Since the introduction of the IPad in 2010, a virtual armada of new tablets has been launched to take on Apple, and more are getting ready to launch. This, of course, couldn’t happen without a market. Apple sold around 40 million Ipads in 2011. Analysts estimate that more than four million Amazon Kindle Fire tablets were sold in the fourth quarter of 2011. According to a recent study by DigiTimes, the demand for mobile computing is predicted to rise steadily along with the improvements in price-performance ratio of new tablets. The study also forecasts improvements to the software and hardware support for Android-based tablets. All these factors, DigiTimes says, point towards a 60% growth in tablet shipments to 95.10 million units in 2012.

With all the Ipads and other new tablets coming out, doesn’t it feel sometimes like we‘re inside some bizarro “Trouble With Tribbles” episode? At the beginning of 2011 there were just a handful of tablet pcs. By the end of the year, more than 30 different tablets were being actively marketed for Christmas (quick: name them!) We ain’t seen nothing yet. The tribbles, er, new tablets population will continue multiplying.

What does this mean? For one thing, it means many of us love the tablet pc. But love, if unchecked, can often lead to one of two extremes: obsession or anxiety.

Halfway through writing this, I searched “Tribbles” with “Tablets” to make sure this analogy hadn’t already been done to death. No. But one gets plenty of tablets news links comparing the iPad to the Personal Access Display Devices (PADDs) used in Star Trek, The Next Generation (TNG), which were essentially thin, handheld touchscreen tablets. Arstechnica.com has a great piece on How Star Trek: TNG artists imagined the tablet pc almost a quarter century ago.

Star Trek has inspired so many things – the cell phone, the Bluetooth headset, the touchscreen tablet. It also introduced us to Tribbles, which brings us back to the subject of love and its two extremes: obsession and anxiety. The Enterprise crew, who found them quite soothing, initially adored the little tribbles. They couldn’t keep their hands off the tribbles, couldn’t stop staring at the tribbles, couldn’t stop thinking about them. The crew became obsessed with Tribbles.

The “trouble” with tribbles was their explosive reproduction rate, and this eventually brought about high anxiety for the crew. In comparison, with the tablet pc population multiplying like tribbles, how can one make a knowledgeable purchasing decision today without a certain degree of anxiety? Sure, one can go with an Ipad or Kindle Fire, but there are a growing number of choices coming out.

David Gerrold, the writer of that particular Star Trek episode said the Tribble story was originally intended to be a take on the introduction of alien species in predator-free environments. Towards the end of that episode, it showed that tribbles would likely die off once they’ve eaten up the food supply. Just like an eventually maturing tablet market will shake out the weak and only the strongest will remain. Until then, obsession and anxiety may loom for many of us.

Unlike tribbles, though, tablet pcs aren’t pests, unless you have luddite tendencies. And the new tablets out here aren’t carbon copies, either (unless, of course, certain lawyers convince some judges otherwise). Tablet PCs are currently in the toddler stage, or to paraphrase a commenter on another blog: “we’re in just the first few minutes of a long story.”

Eventually, there will be no more anxiety concerning tablets. Although there will be allegiances to different hardware and operating platforms, nobody will really be thinking too much about tablets because everybody will own one.

Last week, on BBC’s Business Daily’s “Silicon Valley comes to Oxford” segment, BBC’s Lesley Curwen interviewed tech author, journalist and investor Mike Malone, about the outlook for the next few years. What he says about the Iphone in that radio interview could easily be about the Ipad or any breakthough mobile device:

Curwen: “That’s the question, isn’t it? The Iphone isn’t almost free, though. Actually for a lot of people on the planet it’s a huge amount of money.”

Malone: “Everybody points to the latest technology and says ‘This isn’t universal. This isn’t democratic because it costs five hundred bucks.’ You’re right – and they’re only going to use it in Stanford, California and Oxford, England. But wait five years and you’re going to see school kids walking by the Oxford Union using the same product. And, if you wait three more years after that, you’re going to see people running businesses in Lusaka, Zambia using the same product, because now it’s 20 bucks.”

We can also get a clue of what happens next from Stark Trek (TNG).

In the Arstechnica article, Michael Okuda, one of the principal scenic artists of the now 24-year-old Star Trek (TNG) series, and the designer of the PADD interface, said he finally understood that, with physical hardware interfaces, each function has to be pre-designed into the interface.

“But by imagining that software could re-configure the interface as needed, the writers were able to imagine any function that needed to advance the plot…”