Samsung has finally and officially unveiled the Galaxy Tab, their Android-powered multimedia slate that’s also set to be an official iPad rival. As seen on various leaks, the Galaxy Tab is a little more compact than the iPad, with a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 touchscreen, but comes with a number of built-in features that isn’t available on the Apple tablet: a 3-megapixel main cam, a 1.3MP cam at the front for doing video calls, and a microSDHC card slot for adding more storage.
ViewSonic already confirmed that they were getting ready to unveil a 7-inch and 10-inch Tablet at the IFA show set for next week, but a recent leak gives us a good look into what it’s all about. The 7-inch model, the ViewPad 7, will run on an Android OS and an ARM processor, while the larger ViewPad 10 will pack an Intel Atom and boot both Android and Windows.
It’s just been two days after the launch, and the Libretto W100, Toshiba’s dual-screened Windows 7 tablet, has already sold out. Amazon now lists the $1,100 tablet as “Currently unavailable,” with a note that it’s unknown if or when the item goes back in stock. Unless Toshiba just stocked a dozen units, a $1,100 Windows 7 tablet that sells out after two days has got to be a good sign for the dual-screen tablet form factor. Toshiba did say that the W100 was going to be a limited offer, but with the current demand, maybe they’ll put out another run. If they won’t, it’s safe to assume that someone else will because really, the design looked like a winner.
Asus CEO Jerry Shen confirmed in an interview that they’re readying an Android-based version of the Eee Pad for a March 2011 release. It’s a long ways from getting to market, but the price is just about right at “less than $399.” That’s a cool $100 less than the iPad—never mind that we could be hearing about a new iPad by that time, but unless Apple comes out with a sub-$400 slate, it’s all good for Asus.
In a market that literally being flooded with touchscreen tablets and smartphones with ever-increasing screen sizes, the 10-inch Axon Haptic is pretty unique. Not because of the spec that’s not any than your average netbook or the $800 price that would allow you to pick up a base iPad and a cheap netbook, but because of its OS compatibility. Yep, this baby is designed to be compatible with Windows, Linux and any Darwin OS, which is a not-so-direct way of saying that it’ll load Mac OS X.
