15 May Hold On To Your Tablets, The Next 6 Months Will Be Crazy
The Rise of Budget Tablets
If you’ve had your eye on a tablet for a while, but the price has always been the deterring factor, you’re in luck. With both Google and Apple trying to combat the low cost Kindle, it seems that you may be able to get more value for your money in the near future.
We’ve already seen signs of a changing tablet market, with Asus unveiling a 7 inch tablet at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2012 earlier this year with a quad-core Tegra 3 processor and the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS; at the almost unbelievable price of $249. A steel for that level of performance. Nick Stam, Nvidia’s director of technical marketing, puts the lower costs down to the increasing saturation of tablets in the market:
Google certainly believes that they can succeed in the lower end of the tablet market, with CEO Larry Page recognising the importance of competing in this increasingly popular market.
So, what can we expect from tablet makers in the next 6 months?
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Mini iPad
Rumours of a mini iPad have been floating around the web since the beginning of the year. However, these rumours seem to be turning into more and more of a possibility following reports from Digitimes and other sources that 6 million units will be ready for launch by August this year. The smaller iPad will be either 7-inches or 7.85-inches (current iPad is 9.7-inches) with a smaller price to match. The price of the iPad mini is something no one can agree on, but it seems the consensus places it between $199 to $250, with only 8GB of memory.
Kindle
It is expected that Amazon will launch a larger alternative to its 7-inch Kindle Fire in either May or June, but just how much larger the new tablet will be is still merely speculation. At the moment, the rumoured sizes are either 9.7-inch or 8.9-inch or maybe even a 10 inch. via: Engadget, Arn
Google Tablet
There are quite a few reports flying around that Google will be announcing a $199 Android tablet called Google Play developed by Asus to combat the Kindle (and therefore the iPad) on the cost front. As early as last December, CEO Eric Schmidt teased the release of a Google tablet, which seems to becoming more and more of a reality with The Verge reporting from sources that the tablet will be 7-inches with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
This isn’t the only part of the rumour. The Wall Street Journal reported back in April that Google is setting its sights on selling the tablet directly to consumers through an online store, which would also sell Android tablets from other companies.
The announcement will most likely occur at Google I/O (June 27-29).
Via: Arn
Windows 8 Tablets
Microsoft is expected to launch its new operating system later this year, which will, of course, be followed by a range of tablets running Windows 8.
What can we expect from Windows 8 tablets?
It has been confirmed that Windows 8 will run chips from several different companies, including ARM, AMD and Intel. It is believed that Intel will be launching Windows 8 tablets in November this year according to Cnet, which will be among the first to showcase the Windows 8 platform on tablets. The tablet will use Intel’s upcoming Atom chip codenamed “Clover Trail” (dual-core design) that will be in all of the Intel-based tablets for the initial release. The Clover Trail will have a “burst mode”, providing an extra boost of power when required Intel said in April. Clover Trail will also be able to act like a quad-core chip at times due to its hyperthreading technology. Intel have stated that they have more than 20 Windows 8 tablets based on the Clover Trail in the pipeline, which they claim will deliver over nine hours of battery, 4G connectivity, NFC technology, weigh less than 680g (1.5 pounds) and sport a slender, sub-9mm body.
ARM based tablets will be running a different version of Windows 8 (named Windows RT), which will not be backward-compatible with Windows 7 apps. The capabilities of third party browsers on Windows RT are also still in question.
All Windows 8 tablets will have the new Metro interface, which has been optimised for touch devices but can also be used with a mouse and keyboard. In addition to the Metro interface, ARM based Windows 8 tablets will have access to the traditional desktop but it will only allow third party metro apps to be installed.
Other companies who are reported to be interested in developing tablets using Windows 8 include HP, Nokia, Samsung (who showed off a Windows 8 tablet to developers in September last year), Dell, ASUS and Acer.
According to Microsoft, Windows 8 will support 10 inch displays with 291 pixels per resolution (the current iPad has a resolution of 265 ppi), which points towards HD resolution being the standard in all Windows 8 tablets.
There are no indications of price at this time.
Via: Techradar
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