The big tablet launches (one down, two to go)

My week started out with having dinner with a VP from HP, who told me that I should show up at an event on February 9th so I could see their Tablet.

This is a category that Apple rejuvenated with the iPad and, of course, we’re all waiting for the iPad 2 launch. There are rumors on the CES floor that Apple will delay the iPad a bit due to shortage of memory, but I don’t believe it. If Apple delays too long it’ll hand a major gift to the folks who are ready to pounce.

And ready to pounce they are. Motorola, two days ago here at CES, announced the Xoom tablet. I got a look at it with my friend Sascha Pallenberg (who knows EVERYTHING happening in the mobile and netbook spaces and writes about such on NetbookNews.com), and while the hardware is ready to go they weren’t able to show it with Google’s “Honeycomb” Android OS, although they said it is the first tablet designed for it.

In addition to Motorola, there were a ton of similar tablets announced this week at CES. Lenovo, LG, Asus, and many others. But the journalists I talked to last night at a private dinner said the Motorola is the best of the series that they’ve seen. So, let’s count that as the first of the big tablet launches that are coming between now and February 9th.

Apple is the other one. Of course that’s probably the one I’m going to buy. Rumors are that it’ll be a lot like the Motorola one, with a higher resolution screen, two cameras, better speed, and all that. We’ll see, but the real question is the price and what Apple is going to do to provide some more software magic.

Palm/HP? Folks who’ve seen it say it’s very good. The WebOS is definitely interesting and they could have some real tricks up their sleeves to disrupt Apple (much of the Palm/HP team came from Apple and they love smacking Steve Jobs upside the head with some new ideas). Look at the superior Facebook integration with the WebOS, for instance, for some hints as to what could come.

Notice that I didn’t talk about RIM or Microsoft. I just don’t see them as being big players in the tablet space. I’m having dinner with RIM folks tonight, though, and it’ll be interesting to see how much more bullish I get after they buy me a couple of glasses of wine. Microsoft? Everyone yawned at their tablet plans last year and this year Ballmer didn’t do any better and, instead, stuck to the script of talking about Kinect wins in December (eight million of them sold).

Anyone else out there? Well, Samsung has this convertible tablet that was attracting large crowds on the opening day of CES. The thing is it’s running Windows 7 (which is still clunky for touch) and they weren’t discussing price. It’s convertible because the keyboard slides out to turn it from a tablet to a laptop-style thing. We’ve had Windows tablets like this from Compaq and others in the past and the market ignored them for the most part until the iPad came along.

It just seemed uninspired to me and I don’t see that Samsung’s going to be able to get many buyers excited by this, although Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is the 7-inch leader at the moment (running Android) and I don’t see anyone taking away its lead there.

So, to recap, there are going to be three big tablet launches.

1. Motorola.
2. Apple.
3. HP.

After all these launches are done, let’s see which tablet you and I will buy this year. See you February 9th.

UPDATE: yeah, I should mention the Notion Ink Adam. Engadget loved it, but give me a break, it is a no-name company and won’t be considered alongside a Motorola, Apple, or HP.

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Nook Color rooted, is it better as an eReader or Android tablet now?

November 30 2010 by admin in News |

Unsurprisingly, the Android 2.1 Nook Color has been rooted, less than two weeks after it hit the market.

We’re hardly surprised at this news (the root was accomplished by XDA) – it was inevitable. The root probably isn’t perfect and will get better/easier over time for sure, but that’s the not really the interesting part.  The real question now is about the Nook Color arises: is it an eReader or a tablet?

With the e-ink WiFi-only third generation Kindle being sold by Amazon for $139, and the tablet leader the iPad at $499 for the cheapest model, the $249 price tag of the Nook Color must be making a number of people pause when deciding on what to buy. With the device now rooted, it could become an even harder task to make this decision, as essentially you’re getting a quality-built touch device (according to nearly all reviews) at half the price of the iPad and $350 less than the also-Android Galaxy Tab (no including the data plan of course).

Of course, now that it’s rooted, it’ll only be a matter of time before Android 2.2 builds appear (it should have the hardware to handle it) making it all the more attractive. However, the Nook Color does have some drawbacks if you want to use it as a dedicated Android tablet (i.e. reading won’t be your primary use). The most glaring problem is a lack of a camera, which of course also afflicts the iPad.  Also, battery life is a bit of an issue, as it’s only about half as good as the iPad with WiFi running.

On the other hand, the thing is just $249, is light and is attractively built. So if you don’t yet own a Kindle (or perhaps you do, but don’t want to spend the money on an iPad) this could be a great compromise between the heavier Apple device and the black and white Kindle.

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