Acer's new Honeycomb driven Iconia Tab A500 tablet

As the table in AnandTech's review demonstrates, the interior of most tablets is dominated by a 1 Ghz ARM Cortex A9 with Tegra 2 doing the heavily graphical lifting.  This puts the onus for standing out among the crowd on the look of the tablet and the compatible peripherals as well as the pice.   Acer's design was not particularly well received at AnandTech, with several seams reducing their enjoyment of the tablet.  On the plus side is the peripheral support, with HDMI and both a microSD card reader and a miniUSB port you will have no problems interfacing with your other gadgets.  With a cost just under $400 AnandTech does like the tablet but they can't help but point out that with quad core ICS/Android 4.0 and Kal-El just around the corner you might want to wait for the next generation.

"Next in our series of Honeycomb tablet reviews is the Acer Iconia Tab A500. The A500 was the second Honeycomb tablet to go on sale, and is one of four on the market at present, all of which are very similar. They share basic specs—10.1” 1280x800 displays, NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 underhood, 1GB LPDDR2 RAM, 16-64GB onboard NAND, front and rear facing cameras with HD video capture, basic wireless connectivity options, and stock versions of Android 3.0/3.1 Honeycomb (albeit with different preloaded software packages). The hardware similarities makes things like design and price that much more important, and the latter is where Acer seemed to have an edge."

PC Perspective

HP reportedly launching 7-inch tablet

Hewlett-Packard will reportedly unveil a 7-inch tablet in August following the July 1 debut of its 9.7-inch TouchPad.

HP has ordered 400,000 to 450,000 TouchPad tablets per month from supplier Inventec, says a story in Friday's Taiwan Economic News. Inventec will supply HP with the upcoming 9.7-inch TouchPad as well as the new 7-inch tablet.

An industry insider cited by Taiwan Economic News says that HP will order around 3 million tablets from Inventec this year.

Beyond the August kickoff date, no details were revealed about the 7-inch tablet. A request to HP for comment on the prospective tablet was not immediately returned.

HP will launch its 9.7-inch TouchPad in the U.S. this coming Friday. Priced at $499.99 for the 16GB and $599.99 for the 32GB model, the tablet will be sold through a variety of retailers, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Staples.

Running HP's WebOS and powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.2GHz dual-CPU, the HP TouchPad will offer a 1024x768 display and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel webcam, along with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Cnet

Sony S2 tablet pops up at FCC with AT&T 3G bands

The unique Sony dual-screen Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablet first unveiled in late April has made a visit to the FCC for wireless certification. The device will carry the model number SGPT211JP/S (for Japan) and will support the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands in North America, indicating a likely launch on AT&T’s network in the US. An additional discovery shows that it is using the Ericsson F5521g cellular chipset that is capable of supporting HSPA+ at speeds up to 21Mbps. The S2 will also support 2.4GHz Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth.

The S2 is an unusual clamshell tablet design that centers on two 5.5-inch displays with a resolution of 1024x480. It is designed to allow users to watch a movie while surfing a website, or play a game on the top screen while using virtual controls on the bottom screen. It also PlayStation certified and is powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 SOC.

The Sony S2 is expected to launch this fall, or sooner in the US.

Electronista

Apple iPad Rivals Curbing Tablet Production: Report

Apple's manufacturing rivals are putting the brakes on tablet production, in the absence of a viable iPad killer, according to a new research report.

Apple’s tablet rivals are apparently slamming on the brakes.

That’s according to JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, who suggested in a recent research note that Samsung, Motorola and other manufacturers are reducing build plans for their respective tablet offerings, following a lukewarm reception by consumers and businesses.

“Non-Apple tablet hopefuls have adjusted to the weak showing so far,” he wrote, according to the International Business Times. “In our view, the technical and form factor improvements of the iPad 2 stand to make it tougher for the first generation of competitive offerings to play catch-up, meaning actual shipments could fall well short of plan.”

Apple sold 4.7 million iPads in its fiscal 2011 second quarter, which saw the release of the iPad 2. Overall, the company’s mobile devices helped buoy its overall revenues to $24.67 billion with a net profit of $5.99 billion.

The iPad’s popularity could be having a noticeable effect on PC sales, which research firm IHS iSuppli pegged as falling 0.3 percent during the first quarter of the year. “The increasing momentum of the media-tablet market, led by the iPad, is creating a difficult environment for the PC industry,” Matthew Wilkins, an analyst with the firm, wrote in a May 24 statement. “IHS believes that the jury is still out on exactly how much tablets are cannibalizing PC sales. However, the rising number of tablet models on the market, along with certain high-profile product launches during the first quarter, caused confusion among consumers as to exactly how to view the tablet platform relative to the PC platform.”

That confusion, he added, “contributed to the PC sales decline in the first quarter.”

Whether or not the iPad is having a negative impact on PCs, manufacturers certainly want a piece of the consumer tablet market that Apple helped create. The past several months have seen the release of everything from the Samsung Galaxy Tab to Resarch In Motion’s BlackBerry-branded Playbook to the Motorola Xoom, the first device to run the tablet-optimized Android 3.0.

As each of these devices readied for its market debut, media and pundits chattered about its potential as an “iPad Killer,” a tablet with the sales potential to challenge Apple’s lock on the nascent market. So far, however, actual sales of each new tablet haven’t come close to those of the iPad—although some, such as the 7-inch Galaxy Tab and RIM PlayBook, have reportedly posted respectable numbers.

Apple could face a substantial new rival in an Android-based tablet from Amazon.com, with Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster theorizing in a recent research note that the online retailer could sell as many as 2.4 million devices in 2012. Munster’s note came in the wake of one by Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin, itself suggesting that Amazon is planning to release at least one Android tablet in time for the holiday 2011 season.

Munster also theorized that an Amazon tablet would barely affect sales of the Kindle e-reader. However, until Amazon actually announces a tablet, analyst conjecture necessarily remains in the land of the theoretical.

eweek

Gigabyte unveils S1080 tablet and M2432 Booktop

Gigabyte has unveiled two new devices at Computex 2011. The first is a new 10.1-inch tablet, the S1080 running Windows 7 on a platform packing a 1.66GHz dual-core Intel Atom N550 processor and 2GB of RAM. The second is the new M2432 Booktop with a bundled docking station that also packs a “desktop-class” GPU matched with 1GB of VRAM.

The Gigabyte S1080 Windows tablet is one of the most powerful Windows 7 tablets to arrive on the market. Its dual-core Atom and 2GB of RAM should give it decent performance for the current-generation of Windows 7 tablet devices. It is also equipped with a 320GB hard-drive, GMA 3150 graphics with a VGA output and WiFi b/g/n, along with Bluetooth 3.0. It also incorporates a front-facing 1.3-megapixel webcam. A high-speed USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, gigabit Ethernet and an audio socket, along with an SD card reader, provide connectivity. It weighs in at around 1.9 pounds.

The Gigabyte M2432 Booktop will ship with a Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost 2.0. Its 14-inch LED backlit display has a resolution of 1366 x 768. Onboard graphics is delivered by an integrated Intel HD 3000 GPU. Other hardware highlights include a USB 3.0 port as well as THX sound. The keyboard is a chiclet design and is matched with a multi-touch trackpad. It weighs in at around 4 pounds.

The Booktop will also ship with a bundled docking station, which integrates a separate NVIDIA GT 440 GPU with 1GB of DDR5 RAM. This allows the Booktop to be connected to up to two external monitors. The docking station includes six additional USB ports, an HDMI out, a D-Sub and DVI port.

Electronista

Asus PadFone Is Both a Tablet and a Phone: Neat Concept, but Still Vapor

At the end of the Asus press conference at Computex 2011, Chairman Jonney Shih waited until the very last minute to unveil the best product of the night: The Asus PadFone, a convergent device that docks a smartphone into the back of a slate so that they can be used together as a single device. Problem is, the entire demonstration was based on a few concept videos and a prototype that was clearly unfinished. Still, it's a usage model that we were really excited about when the Motorola Atrix made its debut and an incredibly neat approach to mobile computing—if and when Asus decides to make it available to the public.

The PadFone is essentially a symbiotic relationship between smartphone and slate, whereas the Atrix's screen and keyboard dock are intended to replace your netbook or laptop. It's a concept that owners of both Apple iPhone and iPad wish were possible: To dock the former into the latter and quit having to use two separate devices.

From the demonstration, the PadFone is inserted into the back of the dock like a cassette tape, hidden by a panel that fits flush with the back of the tablet. With the Atrix, the Smartphone sits several inches behind the screen, which simply isn't as clean-looking.

If the PadFone is anything like the Atrix, the tablet portion won't have a processor, memory, or local storage; it'll be a shell so that the two can share things like data, webcam, and 3G internet access. What makes the PadFone fundamentally different than the Atrix, however, is that it also shares the same operating system (The Atrix, when docked, runs on an alternative Linux OS). According to Asus, it's not doing any kind of upscaling or upconversion; it's using its own technology to adjust the smartphone screen layout. If you ask me, it almost sounds like it's using an internal HDMI connector.

Here's what we know for sure: The Smartphone will have the latest version of Android at the time of launch, which means so will the tablet dock. The screen size of the tablet is 10.1-inches, while the Smartphone has a 4.3-inch one. The tablet dock also has a built-in battery that will extend the life of the one in the Smartphone.

The usage scenarios are evident with such a solution: Say you're surfing the Web on the smartphone and find that the screen is too small for certain websites. You can stop what you're doing, dock the phone, and pick up where you left on the tablet. This also applies to composing email, video conferencing, and playing media. Right now, the details are so limited that it sounds like this game-changing device is still a while away. But if it does come to fruition, it could be the future of tablet computing.

PCmag

Alcatel OneTouch T60 Android tablet shows at FCC

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Alcatel will soon join the tablet market with an Android-powered device of its own, if a Thursday FCC test is to be trusted. What appears to be a seven-inch device, known as the OneTouch T60, will ship with Android 2.2. It will also connect to North American 850MHz and 1,900MHz networks.

Otherwise, the simple tablet will have Wi-Fi, GPS, a rear three-megapixel camera and a VGA front-facing camera. It gets access to Google Maps as well. A microSD memory card slot and 3.5mm headset jack round out the package.

Despite the listing, ship dates or prices for the device aren't known. The latter will likely place the device at the lower end of the Android tablet offerings, and perhaps at the very bottom.

Electronista

Lenovo IdeaPad K1 tablet shows on stores before unveiling

Lenovo's upcoming IdeaPad K1 tablet with Android 3.0 onboard is showing up on retailer sites, including Buy.com. The device hasn't yet officially been dated, and the sites lack a price and a shipping schedule. They also differ on basic specs from earlier reports.

A 1.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon is seemingly replaced by NVIDIA's 1GHz Tegra 2 dual core. Other new details that have no other ones to compare to include a 10.1-inch display with 1280x800 resolution, 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage space. Android 3.0 should be onboard as are a two- and five-megapixel camera, front and rear, respectively. A microSD and a SIM card slot, along with a microHDMI port are accounted for, and a battery life rating of 10 hours.

The only model shown here is black, but China's LePad version is available in white as well. Earlier, pricing was expected to come in at about $520, but this could have been for a 16GB model. An optional keyboard dock is also likely coming at a later date.

Electronista

Toshiba Thrive tablet pops up for pre-order at $450

The Toshiba Thrive tablet, the name of which was trademarked last month, is again showing up online and is available for pre-order at J&R but the listings have been pulled. They did reveal that the 10.1-inch tablet with Android 3.0 will cost $449 for an 8GB model and $579 for a 32GB version. A 16GB model is expected, falling between the two at $499, but wasn't listed.

The listing also didn't show a shipping date, simply opting for a Coming Soon label. Other specs include a dual-core 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU, a 1280x800 resolution, a front-facing two-megapixel camera, and a rear five-megapixel camera with autofocus. There is also Bluetooth 3.0 onboard, Wi-Fi, an SD card reader and full sized HDMI and USB 2.0 ports along with a mini USB and dock port. A rubber rear backing differentiates it from other Android 3.0 tablets.

The model number of AT105-T108 doesn't match the earlier AT300 tablet from the company, though the specs are certainly very similar.

Electronista

Fujitsu teases seven-inch Android 3.1 tablet for summer

Fujitsu’s tablet strategy for 2011 has been further crystalized with news that it plans to release a 7-inch Android 3.1 tablet this summer. It will sit alongside its LifeBook TH40/D Windows 7 hybrid, slider-tablet due to go on sale in Japan this June. While the 10.1-inch TH40/D is targeted at enterprise, the 7-inch Honeycomb tablet will be aimed at the consumer market.

According to Digitimes, Fujitsu has suggested that the 7-inch Honeycomb tablet will priced at the equivalent of between $347 and $694. The company plans to outsource the production of the tablet to unnamed Taiwan-based ODMs in order to keep the price competitive. While the price range is indicative of the tablet coming in a range of capacities, it’s low starting point could also suggest that it might have a carrier subsidized strategy in mind.

In further news, Fujitsu also indicated that its TH40/D will also be getting official stylus support and a 3.5G module when it launches in Taiwan. It did not indicate whether it planned to also bring stylus support to its 7-inch Android tablet.

Electronista

Pantech intros dual-core 1.5GHz Vega Racer, plans tablet

Pantech has unveiled a new flagship smartphone that could give it a rare speed edge in the smartphone world. The Vega Racer should be the first to use Qualcomm's dual-core, 1.5GHz Snapdragon MSM8660 and outpace even 1.2GHz dual-core phones like the HTC Evo 3D. The chip's inherently much faster Adreno 220 graphics could give it an edge in visuals not normally associated with Snapdragon chips.

The Vega Racer should be a high-end phone apart from the processor, centering on a 4.3-inch, 480x800 screen. Pantech is promising 1GB of RAM as well as a rear eight-megapixel camera and a front 1.3-megapixel camera. In spite of being just 0.35 inches thick, it will have a 1,650mAh battery that should give it a long life.

Pantech is giving the phone a customized version of Android with an iPhone-like fixed set of bottom icons.

Shipments start later this month for Korea, where it will appear before the end of May on SK-Telecom's Sky badge. A US launch if it comes hasn't been mentioned so far. The company has teased that it's working on a tablet and progress is in "full swing" for an arrival sometime in the future.

Electronista

Fujitsu’s TH40D tablet packs slim slide-out keyboard

Fujitsu has shown its new TH40D tablet, which packs a slim, slide-out keyboard. It centers on a 10.1-inch 1024x600 display that can quickly be converted from a tablet form factor to a netbook style device. Much like the similar Samsung Slider, the new hybrid tablet device runs Windows 7 and is powered by an Intel Atom Z760 1.5GHz processor.

The system is underpinned by 1GB of RAM, and a 120GB hard drive. Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, 2x USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI output and an SD card slot provide connectivity. Its aluminum chassis helps to bring its weight down to around 2.3 pounds.

The Fujitsu TH40D will be available in Japan at the end of June for the equivalent of $990.

Electronista

ViewSonic set to introduce 7-inch Honeycomb tablet

ViewSonic is reportedly set to introduce a new Android-based tablet, the 7X, featuring a seven-inch display. If leaked details are correct, the device may be the first seven-inch tablet to arrive on the market with Honeycomb. Like many of its larger counterparts, the 7X is said to be powered by NVIDIA's dual-core Tegra 2 platform.

Other expected features include dual cameras, DLNA support for media sharing, and an HDMI output. The device is also said to be equipped with HSPA+ components for 3G connectivity.

A Pocket-lint report suggests the 7X will be formally introduced at Computex later this month, before arriving in stores in June. Pricing and other details have yet to surface.

Electronista

HTC Puccini 4G tablet to take on iPad at AT&T

AT&T is lining up a pair of HTC devices for the near future that could see the carrier get its first major 10-inch tablet alternative to the iPad, a pair of leaks showed. Nicknamed the Puccini, it would be one of the first truly 4G devices on the network and use LTE. It's presumed by PocketNow that the device would use Android 3.0 and support the Scribe pen support from HTC's smaller Flyer.

A phone, the Holiday, has fewer details. It superficially resembles the Aria. Very little has been shown, but it may have a front-facing camera and could have at least 14.4Mbps or 21Mbps data.

The Puccini was hinted as possibly shipping in June. Speculation has put the Holiday in the summer.

AT&T has been offering the Samsung Galaxy Tab as an alternative to the iPad, but its small size and high relative price has largely kept the Android device out of contention. The Puccini would be its first more direct option and would be HTC's first real full-size tablet.

Electronista

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 tablet hits US pre-orders

The Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 first unveiled at CeBIT in March is now up for pre-order on the company’s website. The Windows 7 tablet comes in two models, differentiated spec and price. The entry-level model starts at $729 and comes with 30GB SSD, while the higher-spec 62GB SSD model costs $849.

The two devices are further differentiated by RAM and batteries with the entry-level model is equipped with 2GB and a 2-cell battery and the higher-spec with 4GB and a 4-cell battery. The rest of the specifications remain identical. Core specifications include an Intel Atom Z670 clocked at 1.5GHz matched with 512KB cache and with an 800MHz FSB. The anti-glare 10.1-inch WXGA LED backlit display also features IPS technology for wide viewing angles. It also supports capacitive multi-touch as well as digital pen input.

The Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 is expected to ship in June.

Electronista

BeBook Live Tablet keeps Android 2.2 alive

BeBook Live has in introduced the BeBook Live Tablet. The device is one of the few newly launched tablets to persist with Android 2.2 although the OS is not specifically designed for tablets. Like the original Samsung Galaxy Tab, which also runs Android 2.2, the BeBook Live Tablet even incorporates Samsung’s own 1GHz single-core Hummingbird Cortex A8 processor matched with 512MB of SDRAM. It is also Flash compatible.

While it only incorporates 4GB of internal storage, it can be expanded through its microSD/SDHC card slot. Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0 provide connectivity. It also features a mini-HDMI port for 1080p output over an HD TV, and a mini-USB port. A 2-megapixel front facing camera also enables video calls, though it omits a rear camera.

The BeBook Live Tablet available June 21 for $279, with pre-orders being taken now.

Electronista

Advent Vega tablet gets Android 3.0 hack with GPU boost

The Advent Vega tablet has just received an unofficial Android 3.0 hack along with a GPU boost, thanks to a creative developer over on the XDA-Developers forum. Zebwen ported Android 3.0 while others, including newbe5, Corvus and HomerSp helped out and the four have now achieved hardware acceleration. The Alpha ROM is also now available for download.

The hack will boot, provides the aforementioned hardware acceleration, supports widgets and most Android apps should run, though this hasn't been thoroughly tested. The video below shows the fast response of the OS on the Advent Vega tablet. What doesn't work is more comprehensive, as it's simply described as everything else. Wi-Fi doesn't work either, and neither does the camera or the accelerometer for screen rotation.

There are some caveats for those who wish to try this build, however. For example, ClockworkMOD is bundled with the ROM, and the Vega doesn't have a hard button for boot recovery, and the ROM doesn't have ROM manager installed, so code has to be added to enter recovery mode.