Tablet Hands-On Roundup
by Vivek Gowri on January 27, 2011 10:25 AM EST
2011 is the Year of the Tablet. With all due respect to the rabbit, who would have otherwise been assigned to this year, I think the tablet has earned the right of representing 2011. If you followed CES at all this year, you’d know why.
I decided pretty early on that I would make a huge post with all the tablets we looked at instead of posting each one individually, simply because the sheer number of tablets on the show floor meant that I would have taken over AnandTech’s front page with tablet-related posts. It would have been impossible to cover all the new tablets, but I think we managed to get our hands on most of the high profile tablets in addition to some of the more promising new tablets out there.
Everyone, it seemed, was debuting a new tablet. The usual suspects were out in full force, with Motorola showing off the first Honeycomb tablet to hit the market, ASUS releasing a quartet of highly specced tablets, Dell’s 7”, Tegra 2-based follow-up to their first Streak tablet, Acer coming up with new 7” and 10” Honeycomb tablets, Samsung releasing a convertible slider PC tablet to go with the newly LTE-infused Galaxy Tab, and RIM showing off the PlayBook prior to its imminent launch this quarter.
But they weren’t the only ones. Notion Ink had the production Adam on hand, with the first US shipments going out this week. Panasonic’s Viera range of tablets was unexpected to me, since it’s been ages since Panasonic had a consumer-level computing device in the US. Razer debuted a pretty sweet looking dual screen gaming tablet running Oak Trail and Windows, though we didn’t get a chance to go hands on with it. And then there were new companies like Enspert coming out of the woodwork with new devices amongst all the big launches. So let’s get this party started.
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kenyee - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
I'm curious how well it does at displaying photos. From the specs, it looks like it only has 256K colors when the backlight is on and I think this will be a significantly worse display compared to an IPS display like the iPad's and even the Color Nook which also uses an IPS screen...ibex333 - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
All these tablets are irrelevant. They have already lost to the iPad before they even started selling. Why? SEVEN INCH SCREEN. Which means - sucks for reading PDFs.So people will keep buying iPads specifically because of the large screen, and Apple WILL NOT lower prices, because technically they are still king of the tablet market.
Is it really so damned hard to start making 10" tablets and NOT 7" tablets?
JMC2000 - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
That's what I wonder also, does Apple own the iPad's screen manufacturer? The is almost like the iPhone vs. the World issue, everyone claims to have an iPad killer, but they lose mainly on one aspect, screen size.Seriously, it is like everyone is handing Apple the market... FFS!
Penti - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
I'm pretty sure that like nobody else wants to pay 200-300 dollars for LG's "iPad" screen. Many stick to simple TN-panels. There are some other good panels out there though, but 7" is totally fine. A tablet is also not a e-reader. There's separate devices for that.Ylurien - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
I stopped reading this article after I looked up the specs on the Adam because that tablet only has 1024x600 resolution and I assume all the rest have pretty much the same or worse since Adam is the biggest tablet.In the day of HD video, why are manufacturers making tablets that can't even play 720p video at its native size? And where's the 64 ~ 128GB of disk space to allow all that video to fit on there?
Why build something that's obsolete before it even goes on the market?
Malih - Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - link
i suppose you should wait for Windows 7 tablet from Acer, utilizing AMD C-50 which presumably will have acceleration for H.264 playbackVinny DePaul - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
I planned to buy an Android tablet and was going to buy Notion Ink. However, after reading countless complaints, I have changed my mind and going to buy Xoom instead. Notion Ink is good if it is hand delivered to you. The ordering process is tedious, the returning process is a horrendous, and too many defective units. I may consider Notion Ink if the quality control, ordering and return processes are improved. For a new company, they are not bad. However, I want a good tablet, not just a "not bad" tablet.Since I live in US, I prefer to purchase in US and be able to return products easily. The protection for international purchase is almost zero for most people.
alexkinsella - Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - link
Hi Vivek,It’s Alex from RIM’s Social Media team, here. I’m glad you were impressed with the BlackBerry PlayBook at CES. The crowd reaction was amazing. At just under a pound, it’s easy to take anywhere. I can confirm that you’re correct: the PlayBook has a combination of the QNX based BlackBerry Tablet OS, and a TI OMAP 4430 dual-core 1GHz Cortex A9. One point of clarification: There will be a 4G/WiMax version of PlayBook available on the Sprint network this summer (this was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January). Please stay tuned to the Inside BlackBerry blog for the latest updates on BlackBerry PlayBook!
Thanks!
tina2010 - Sunday, July 17, 2011 - link
The touchsquid universal tv remote control tablet has a built in IR transmitter which opens up a whole world of remote control possiblities. It is a tidier solution compared to using dongles. See http://www.touchsquid.com