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Showing posts with label Tablets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tablets. Show all posts
9/11/2011
Rival Tablets Could Trim iPad Sales in European Market
Apple's iPad absolutely dominates the tablet scene in the U.S., and few analysts expect that to change anytime soon. But that may not be the case in Europe.
According to a new report from Forrester Research, Apple's rivals may fare better in Europe -- with some caveats. So says Sarah Rotman Epps, author of a Forrester report released Tuesday on the European tablet market.
"With the recent launch (and huge marketing push) of the Acer Iconia Tab and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in multiple European countries, one might think that things were looking up for Android tablets in Europe -- but that's not the case," Epps wrote in a blog post.
Small Window of Opportunity
The good news is that Europe is and will remain a huge market for tablets. Forrester predicts that EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) will account for 14.5 million, or 30 percent, of worldwide consumer tablet sales in 2011. Three times the number of Europeans who have tablets today say they are interested in buying one in the future.
Apple also has a stronghold in the United Kingdom, but beyond the shores of the U.S. ally Forrester said tablet makers could find opportunities to compete against the iPad maker. It offered some stats to help paint the picture of Apple and its tablet competition in Europe. Apple has 52 Stores in Europe, but 30 of them are in the U.K. That compares to 238 Apple stores in the U.S.
"Apple's brand and channel presence is not uniformly strong in Europe. Mac ownership, for example, is lower in every EU-7 country than it is in the U.S.," Rotman said. "But no competitor has met Apple's challenge. Despite Apple's potential vulnerability, we estimate that Apple still has 70 percent market share for tablet sell-through to consumers in Europe."
Focus on Price
She was quick to point out that sell-through is different from shipments. Forrester interviews with European retailers confirmed that non-iPad tablets are sitting in the retail channel. In other words, manufacturers are shipping more tablets than consumers are buying. As she sees it, iPad competitors' prices are too high, and no competitor has matched Apple on content or channel strategy. What does this mean?
"Low-cost tablets from ODMs like Huawei and ZTE will put downward pricing pressure on the market, but consumers need more than a lower price tag to buy. Sony, which has a strong brand and channel presence in Europe but tends to price on the high end, may have some success with its upcoming Sony S1 tablet," Rotman said. "But truly radical disruption requires (creating a new experience), as we expect Amazon to do in the U.S. Without a radical Amazon-like disruptor, Europeans are likely to buy an iPad -- or wait for something truly different to come along."
Apple's Tablet World
Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner, said competing with Apple's iPad anywhere in the world boils down to this fundamental question: Why should consumers should buy a competing tablet as opposed to an iPad, which is rapidly becoming the standard for tablets in terms of price, features and applications?
"Apple is still dominating by a very large margin," Gartenberg said. "Certainly a lot of these competitive products are great products in and of themselves in a world where Apple doesn't exist. But unfortunately for them, Apple is around."
8/28/2011
Four Tablets Half the iPad 2's Size
While the iPad 2's 9.7-inch screen is like the handheld equivalent of a big-screen TV, it gets uncomfortable to hold up after awhile. But a 7-inch tablet, roughly half the iPad 2's size, is much easier on the hands.
Budget 7-inch tablets are easy to pick up at big box stores, for $150 or less. But these cheap tablets are slow, and have Nintendo DS-style resistive touch screens that use your fingernail or a stylus, instead of an iPad-style multitouch display. Here are the latest (and most recently announced) 7-inch tablets that are actually worth the cost:
Barnes and Noble Nook Color ($249)
It's the iPad's biggest competitor, and why not? "The Reader's Tablet" is the most convenient way to read color ebooks and browse the web, with its Kindle-size screen, rubberized backplate and lanyard loop. It's also extremely classy, and has a range of accessories made just for it.
The Nook Color lacks certain features found in most other tablets, like built-in cameras and dual-core processors. But it's also extremely lightweight, and while it lacks Android Market access it has its own app market, and can run apps like Pandora and Angry Birds.
HTC Flyer ($499 plus $80 for optional stylus accessory)
The HTC Flyer uses a stylus, but it doesn't need one the way the Nintendo DS and budget Android tablets do. Instead, it has an iPad-style multitouch screen, and the pressure-sensitive Scribe stylus lets you take notes, or draw and retouch pictures. Your notes are synced with the Evernote service, and you can annotate ebooks as well.
Another optional accessory, a game controller, lets you play PC and console video games on the Flyer, through the OnLive streaming video game service. Meanwhile, the HTC Watch app serves as a movie store. The Flyer's entertainment offerings aren't as developed as the iPad's, and there are very few apps that take advantage of the stylus right now, but this is definitely one to watch.
Last year's 7-inch Galaxy Tab is a hard sell, because it was basically a big Android phone. Not only did it run an older version of Android ("Froyo") designed for smartphones instead of tablets, the first Galaxy Tabs could actually be used as a telephone.
The $349 price tag for a Wi-Fi only Tab is rock-bottom if you want an Android tablet, though, or a 7-inch tablet that's a little more full-featured than the Nook Color. And an updated version of the 7-inch tab is coming this fall, sporting a dual-core processor. It's keeping the telephone feature, though, along with the smartphone version of Android.
This one's just been announced, and won't make its way to US shores until later this year. It's supposed to support full 1080p video playback, though, plus it will have a dual-core processor and the tablet version of Android.
No word yet on what the price tag will be, or if there's any particular reason you'd want one of these over an iPad besides its size. A Wi-Fi only model isn't expected to be made available, either.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
8/01/2011
iPad's Web Browsing Share 53 Times Greater Than Top Android Tablets
The iPad now accounts for nearly 1% of all Web browsing, which may not sound like a lot until you look at the numbers for Apple's closest competitors.
The iPad conducts 0.92% of Web browsing, but the Android-based Samsung Galaxy Tab clocks in at a meager 0.018%, the Motorola Xoom at 0.012%, and the BlackBerry Playbook at 0.003%.
COMPETITION: Samsung latest Galaxy Tab sleeker than the Xoom, still no iPad
"In other words, the iPad has 53 times the usage share of its nearest competitor," says Net Applications, which estimates browser and operating system usage by tracking a global network of more than 40,000 websites.
Overall, Apple's iOS - which is used on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch - accounts for 2.38% of all Web-connected devices, in third place behind Windows' 88.69% and Mac's 5.32%.
All Android devices combined, including tablets and phones, total 0.76%, which is less than Linux desktops and the Java ME platform for mobile devices and embedded systems.
No one set of numbers can be seen as definitive, of course. Recent sales show Android phones matching or surpassing the iPhone. And StatCounter, another tracking organization, shows a relatively small gap between iOS and Android usage. In May, iOS accounted for 22.09% of mobile operating system usage, compared to Android's 17.63%, according to Statcounter. Both were behind Symbian's 31.36%.
Net Applications' latest market share report also shows desktop browser trends. Microsoft's Internet Explorer continued its slide, dropping from 55.11% usage in April to 54.27% in May. Firefox improved slightly from 21.63% to 21.71%, and Google's Chrome jumped from 11.94% to 12.52%. Safari and Opera account for less than 10% of Web browsing usage combined.
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Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.
For more information about enterprise networking, go to NetworkWorld. Story copyright 2011 Network World Inc. All rights reserved.7/22/2011
Nvidia CEO: Android tablets could outsell iPad in 3 years
Android tablets could outsell Apple's iPad in less than three years, says Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, according to Reuters.
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang(Credit: Nvidia)
Speaking at the Reuters Technology Summit in New York on Monday, the outspoken CEO noted that it took Android smartphones less than three years to outpace the iPhone.
"The Android phone took only two and a half years to achieve the momentum that we're talking about," Huang said at the summit. "I would expect the same thing on Honeycomb tablets."
With Nvidia supplying the Tegra 2 processor that powers many Android tablets, Huang has been both a cheerleader and sometime critic of Google's mobile OS and the devices that it powers.
To outpace Apple's popular iPad--the company said in March that it had sold 15 million iPads to that point, and accounted for 90 percent of the tablet market--the Android ecosystem will need to see improved tablet models and more mobile apps. Huang believes that will happen as the Honeycomb version of Android catches on and developers create more games and other apps to take advantage of the latest version of Android.
There also need to be improvements in Android tablets' retail presence, Huang told CNET blogger Brooke Crothers last week. "It's a point of sales problem. It's an expertise at retail problem. It's a marketing problem to consumers. It is a price point problem," Huang said.
Related links
‧ IDC: 46 million media tablets by 2014
‧ Android.next: Honeycomb 3.1 now, Ice Cream Sandwich later
‧ Yes, tablets are hurting PC sales...kind of
‧ Chromebook, Netbook, iPad: Which would you rather spend $500 on?
Huang admits that the first round of Android tablets were hampered by technical issues and a lack of marketing, prompting consumers to complain about prices and performance. He's especially pointed out the limitations of the Android versions prior to Honeycomb as they were designed for phones rather than tablets.
"You can't just do another product," Huang told CNET in an interview last November. "Look at the Samsung Galaxy Tab. It's a tablet that uses a phone operating system on a large display. A tablet is not a large phone."
However, his opinion of the second wave of tablets has been much more upbeat--he sees the newer devices as more affordable, more available, and more diverse. He's also more optimistic about Android with the release of Honeycomb, the first version optimized specifically for tablets.
Huang's upbeat expectation for Android tablets overtaking iPads has been echoed by Michael Dell. The CEO and founder of PC maker Dell, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month, used the same smartphone reference point. "If you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, 'What is that?' And now there are more Android phones than iPhones," Dell said.
As with any new product, initial kinks always need to be worked out and "the first versions tend to be a bit clumsy to roll out," Huang said, according to Reuters. That statement holds true even for Honeycomb 3.0, which he admits has certain shortcomings that everyone was aware of. But he seems happy so far with the follow-up version of Honeycomb 3.1, which he dubbed "delightful."
Nvidia is also ready to push the envelope of Android tablets with the upcoming release of its Kal-El mobile processor. Christened with Superman's birth name, the new chip will offer a quad-core processor and higher-resolution graphics, promising five times the performance of Nvidia's current Tegra 2 chip.
6/04/2011
Will new tablets e-race the iPad 2?
After almost a year in which the Apple iPad has been virtually the only game in town, a new generation of tablets has arrived to take it on.
In Consumer Reports? latest tests of the 10 most-promising tablet computers, the Apple iPad2 with Wi-Fi and 3G topped the ratings. But the Motorola Xoom revealed itself as the iPad 2?s chief rival primarily due to its feature set, including a 10-inch display, and its operating system, designed for tablets.
CR tested various models from Apple, Archos, Dell, Motorola, Samsung and ViewSonic. Each tablet was evaluated on 17 criteria, including touch responsiveness, versatility, portability, glare and ease of use. Testers found several models that outperformed the rest. The Apple iPad2 with Wi-Fi plus 3G (32G), $730, topped the ratings, scoring excellent in nearly every category. The first generation iPad, $580, also outscored many of the other models tested, but tied with the Motorola Xoom, $800.
The largest gap in performance among the 10-tested models was evident in CR?s battery life test. Each model?s battery life was measured by playing the same video clip continually on each tablet and timing how long it played until the battery ran down. The top-scoring iPad2 lasted 12.2 hours, but the lowest-rated, the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, $270, lasted just 3.8.
Before choosing a tablet, CR recommends considering the following:
?Many features are almost universal. Easy-to-use touch screens based on capacitive technology are now widely available. All the models tested feature Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, a front-facing webcam and GPS capability. Android-based models can be expanded using built-in USB ports or slots for SD flash-memory cards, but the iPad 2 lacks both.
?You get what you pay for. Competition still hasn?t lowered prices. Still, Apple, long known in the computer market for charging more than competitors, has managed to offer more than the other tablet brands for a lower price. Buying a model with a data plan may lower the initial cost of the device, but canceling early may result in a stiff penalty. Otherwise, it might be cheaper to buy a 3G-capable model without a contract.
?Display quality varies. The iPad2?s display should perform as well as the original iPad?s, among the best tablet displays tested. It has excellent color and is viewable from almost any angle without degrading the image. The Motorola Xoom?s display can be viewed from almost any direction, too, but it loses more contrast at off-angles than the iPad.
?Shape matters. A tablet display?s shape is as important as its size. In landscape (horizontal) mode, most have the short, wide shape of a digital TV. The iPad2?s display is squarer, similar to a traditional television?s. A wider display is a better fit for movies and high-definition TV shows. And for a display of a given width, such a tablet can be shorter than a squarer tablet and easier to slip into a purse or briefcase.
?It?s good to be square. Apple?s approach has its advantages, too. In landscape mode, for example, the display?s greater height lets the e-mail app display more messages in the inbox, assuming you use the same size text as on other tablets. When you?re typing in landscape mode, an iPad can accommodate a taller onscreen keyboard or more content on the screen above the keyboard. In portrait mode, its display is less cramped when you?re Web browsing or reading a magazine or an e-book.
?Future-proofing will pay off. Hardware specifications don?t tell the whole story. Portability, storage capacity and weight are important. But less obvious differences in software, connectivity and upgradeability are also critical. And with faster 4G data networks becoming more widely available, 4G capability, or at least the ability to upgrade to it, is also a plus.
Visit the Consumer Reports website at www.consumerreports.org.
6/03/2011
Dell Readies 10-Inch Tablets to Fend off iPad
Dell is betting on Android and Windows 7 tablets to counter the surge in popularity of the Apple iPad.
A leaked roadmap suggests Dell has in store two Windows 7 tablets and a 10-inch Android Honeycomb tablet for release later this year, as the company aims to grab tablet market share. But despite keeping allegiance to Microsoft with Windows 7, Dell CEO Michael Dell says Android tablets will one day dominate the market.
The three Dell tablets, detailed courtesy of a presumed roadmap leak to the AndroidCentral blog, are reportedly set to arrive later this year, with the Android tablet, dubbed "Streak Pro," as early as June. The Streak Pro specs list a 10-inch display (1280 by 800 resolution), an Nvidia 1.2Ghz dual-core processor, with two microphones and two cameras for video recording and chatting, running on Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS for tablets. Dell won't go for a stock Android UI, but use instead its Stage 1.5 user interface.
The two Dell Windows 7 tablets are set to follow the Streak Pro: the 13-inch Latitude XT-3 in July, and the Latitude ST in October. The Latitude XT-3 will be a convertible tablet (like most pre-iPad tablet offerings), with Intel CPUs, 2GB of RAM, and a stylus, powered by Windows 7. The Latitude ST will feature an iPad-like design, an Intel Oak Trail 1.5Ghz processor, 2GB of RAM, up to 128GB SSD storage, dual cameras (1.3 megapixels front and 3 megapixels rear), claiming eight hours of battery life. Note that the leaked Dell roadmap is on par with an earlier leak, from the same blog in February.
It's unclear though why Dell insists on making Windows 7 tablets, especially as the company's CEO believes Android tablets will dominate the tablet market in a few years, like Android smartphones do now. Dell said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday about Android tablets outpacing iPads: "Not tomorrow. Not the next day. But again, if you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, "What is that?"And now there are more Android phones than iPhones. I don't see any reason why the same won't occur with Android tablets."
Dell also said that in the four years he has been back at the helm of the company, the sudden rise of the iPad took him by surprise: "I didn't completely see that coming. Tablets aren't really new, in the sense that the tablet PC idea's been around for a while. Obviously, more recent products have been much more successful."
Dell has already tried its hand at Android tablets last year, with little success, with the 5-inch Streak, a clunky hybrid tablet/smartphone. Marred with old software, high pricing and negative reviews, the original Streak was widely seen as a flop. The company also unveiled a 7-inch Streak tablet in January, running Android 2.2. Dell also experimented with a 10-inch tablet/netbook hybrid last year, called Inspiron Duo, running on Windows 7.
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5/28/2011
Dell: Android tablets will outshine iPad, eventually
Michael Dell
(Credit: Dell)
(Credit: Dell)
Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell believes Android tablets will eventually overtake Apple's iPad as the dominant force in the slate market, according to an interview published today in The Wall Street Journal.
"Not tomorrow. Not the next day. But again, if you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, 'What is that?' And now there are more Android phones than iPhones," Dell said in response to a question on the possibility of Android tablets beating iPad sales. "I don't see any reason why the same won't occur with Android tablets."
Admittedly, Dell has a vested interest in seeing that happen. His company currently offers both 5- and 7-inch Android tablets, known as the Streak. He also pointed out in the interview that Dell will continue to double down on Android.
Of course, Dell didn't say exactly when the shift might occur in tablet market dominance. Right now, Apple's iPad is easily overshadowing the competition. According to research firm IDC, Apple owned 83 percent of the tablet market last year, and IDC expects the company to control between 70 and 80 percent of the tablet market this year.
That further evidences the trouble Android is having establishing a beachhead in the tablet market. The Motorola Xoom, which launched in late February, has been gathering dust on store shelves. Deutsche Bank said recently that only 100,000 units of the device have been sold so far.
It's a similar story for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which launched last year. Samsung said earlier this year that it shipped 2 million units of its tablet worldwide, but it acknowledged in an earnings call with investors in January that the "sell-out wasn't as fast as we expected."
Even so, tablets are catching on in a big way. IDC said earlier this year that it expects 50 million tablets to ship in 2011 alone.
For his part, Dell acknowledged that the uptick in demand for tablets over the past year has been somewhat surprising.
"I'd say [the] rapid rise of the tablet," Dell said in response to the Journal's question on what has surprised him most over the past several years. "I didn't completely see that coming."
5/13/2011
iPad, tablets take a bite out of PC shipments
Hurt by demand for the iPad and other electronic gadgets, PC shipments around the world dropped by 1.1 percent in the first quarter, according to preliminary results out today from Gartner.
Global PC shipments fell to 84.25 million during the quarter, compared with 85.18 million a year ago, their first decline in six consecutive quarters. The drop surprised Gartner, which had been looking for a gain of 3 percent. Though PC sales typically slow during the first quarter, the numbers point to this as more than just an expected seasonal dip, in Gartner's opinion.
"Weak demand for consumer PCs was the biggest inhibitor of growth," Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa said in a statement. "Low prices for consumer PCs, which had long stimulated growth, no longer attracted buyers. Instead, consumers turned their attention to media tablets and other consumer electronics. With the launch of the iPad 2 in February, more consumers either switched to buying an alternative device, or simply held back from buying PCs. We're investigating whether this trend is likely to have a long-term effect on the PC market."
(Credit: Gartner)The one bright spot was the demand for PCs in the business world, as companies needed to refresh their existing PCs. Without that contribution, Gartner said, the PC market could have seen one of its worst drops in recent times. Sales of replacement PCs to enterprise customers should continue to the end of the year and on into 2012, according to Gartner.
In terms of specific PC vendors globally, HP kept its top spot with a 17.6 percent slice of the market, shipping a total of 14.8 million computers during the first quarter. But the company's market share and shipments dropped from a year ago owing to the sluggish consumer demand for PCs and issues in the Asia-Pacific region.
Though still in second place, Acer suffered the biggest decline of the top five PC vendors with a 12.2 percent drop in shipments. The company is facing a tough climate as demand for its once-popular Netbooks has been stifled by the wave of consumers rushing to tablets. Acer also has been contending with a management shake-up. Former CEO Gianfranco Lanci resigned two weeks ago after a disagreement with the board over the future of the company.
Dell was another PC vendor hit by the drop in the global PC market, with its shipments down 2.2 percent from a year ago. Despite solid growth in Asia-Pacific, Dell saw its PC business underperform across the rest of the world.
Fourth-place Lenovo was one company spared by the overall decline. Its shipments actually shot up by 16.6 percent, by far the strongest among the top five vendors. Lenovo saw healthy growth around the globe in both the consumer and business markets by pricing its PCs competitively, Gartner said. Beyond Lenovo, Toshiba was the only other PC vendor in the top five to see its shipments grow during the quarter.
Gartner's findings echo an IDC report out yesterday that also pointed to a drop in PC shipments during the first quarter as a result of the demand for tablets. And a recent survey by Google's AdMob network suggested that tablets might be coaxing people away from their PCs (and TVs).
5/07/2011
iPad 2 Screen Protector Could Disguise Lesser Tablets
I have never seen the point of screen protectors on glass screens: they add bubbles, they never go on straight and they are usually more prone to scratching than the glass they are supposed to protect. Still, if I was in the market for an iPad screen protector, then I might take a look at the Moshi iVisor AG.
Unlike the usual plastic film kits, the iVisor actually looks like the front of an iPad, with a black or white bezel to match your model. It has cut-outs for camera and home button, and supposedly goes on bubble-free, every time. In this respect it looks more like a slightly floppy, thickish cover than a sticky film, and this is confirmed by its ability to be reused after a bit of cleaning.
I think Moshi has missed an opportunity here. Instead of making the white version iPad 2-only, it should make it for the iPad 1, too. That way we could upgrade our ugly, fat slow and bloated old iPads to look like the sleek, fast and supermodel-hot new iPad 2. Hell, you could probably even take that Motorola Xoom that your idiot boyfriend/girlfriend bought you as a gift and cover up your shame.
The iVisor will cost you $30, which is $9 less than Apple’s Smart Cover. Both seem to be pretty good options for protecting your iPad’s screen with minimal thickness-encroachment.
iVisor AG for iPad 2 White [Moshi]
See Also:
5/03/2011
Android Tablets Undercutting IPad Prices
In an effort to attract buyers away from Apple's iPad, device makers are setting starting prices of Android tablets to undercut iPad's US$499 entry-level price.
The starting prices for tablets with 10.1-inch screens from ViewSonic, Asustek and Acer range from $279 to $449. The tablets run different versions of Google's Android OS, include 10.1-inch displays, run on dual-core ARM processors and are Flash-capable.
Apple first shipped the iPad in April last year, and set the tone for the market with its aggressive starting price. The first Android tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab that starting shipping later in the year were overpriced, and the low pricing of new tablets could be a market correction, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates.
A ViewSonic GTablet, originally priced at $499, is now available on Amazon.com for $279.99. Acer's Iconia A500 Tab is priced starting at $449 and will ship later this month. The starting price for Asus' upcoming Eee Pad Transformer was listed at $399.99 on Best Buy's website, but the page has now been removed.
According to an IDC survey, 10.1 million media tablets shipped during the fourth quarter of 2010, of which Apple's iPad had a 73 percent market share. In second place was Samsung's Galaxy Tab, with 17 percent market share, while "regional players" captured the rest of the market.
Apple dominates the tablet market because of iPad's aggressive pricing, design and features, Kay said. By comparison, high prices and lack of a cohesive software stack have made Android tablets relatively less attractive to buyers.
"The Android system lacks the total ecosystem and unification that Apple has," Kay said.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab, which comes with a 7-inch screen, originally went on sale late last year through Verizon starting at $600 without a contract and was considered overpriced. Earlier this month, Verizon cut the starting price of Galaxy Tab to $500.
But not all Android tablet vendors have changed their pricing strategy. Motorola continues to offer its Xoom tablet from $599. Buyers can acquire Android tablets from wireless carriers for low prices, but typically have to sign a two-year mobile service agreement.
Buyers typically have a short attention span and could reconsider feature-rich Android tablets at lower prices, Kay said. But it remains to be seen if Android tablets will shake the iPad's market dominance.
Apple in March started shipping the iPad 2. There is currently a two- to three-week waiting period for iPad 2 online orders.
2/06/2011
Tablets, ePad, aPad and Android Operating System
After the reign of desktop computers for many years came the portable version of it in the form of laptops. Convenient, easy and familiar, and as portable as a briefcase, these computers were instantly popular and are here to stay, in spite of the new super lightweight technologies that have come on the market since.
The ancient writing tablets bequeathed their name on a tiny, highly portable version of computer technology, which has taken the world by storm. We are talking about the 'tablet', short for 'tablet computer' or 'tablet PC'. The whole computer is contained in a thin, book-sized screen that can lie on your lap or on a table, like a book, completely inconspicuous, even in public. It has a 'touch screen' with icons and pictures, instead of a mouse or a keyboard. Information is fed in by means of a finger, a digital pen or a stylus. If a keyboard should be necessary, a virtual keyboard can be selected to appear on the screen itself. Some models have a USB port too in order to accommodate a device like flash player, or keyboard, or mouse if required for some reason.
Another huge step forward in progress was made when the iPhone came into being and the internet and telephone communication began to be integrated.
When the Apple iPad was launched it created a sensation. As it always happens, the world's wizkids couldn't get to their drawing boards fast enough to try and compete and improve and get their share of the market. As a result a large variety of tablets and pads have come onto the market, revolutionising portability and convenience of information transfer.
The ePad:
This is an Android tablet, inspired by iPad, and is a Chinese contribution to the market. It has 2GB storage capacity and a 10 inch touch screen.
The aPad:
This is so like the iPad that it is sometimes referred to as a 'clone'
The iRobot is considered by many to be the most successful of the aPad devices. It has a 7 inch touch screen and has resolution of 800x480 pixels and 16:9 aspect ratios. aPads with 10 inch screens are also available. It uses Android OS.
Android is an operating system that is proving popular and innovative with regular updates that are named after well-known menu dessert foods, such as 'cupcake', 'eclair', etc. These updates fix old bugs and provide interesting new features. Android distribution was unveiled at the end of 2007. It was specially designed for cell phones, tablet computers and netbooks. It was developed by Google and is currently the 2nd ranked operating system for handheld computer pads in the US. Android OS is open to sharing plugins, applications and add-ons and whatever else is developed. This feature is making it very popular and competitive. The operating system doesn't restrict the use of extra amenities, such as keyboards, flash drives, etc that need to plug into a USB port. A very popular element is that it is highly customisable to individual needs.
For ePad and aPad Android tablets
Contact http://www.tabletbazaar.com
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