Top tablet PCs to look forward to
This year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) was all about Android and tablet PCs. We look at some of the best tablet PCs to be announced at MWC.
HTC Flyer
It’s taken HTC a while to get into the tablet PC market, despite being an Android leader, but the company finally unveiled its Flyer at MWC. The 7 inch screen makes the Flyer the same size as Blackberry’s Playbook and Samsung’s original Galaxy tab, which many have criticised for being too small, although not everyone agrees.
Size aside the Flyer uses HTC’s Sense interface on top of Android 2.4 and is powered by a 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor, though only a single-core one.
The aluminium-bodied tablet has 1GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage as well as a microSD slot. Support for HSPA as well as both a 5 megapixel primary camera and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera add to the package.
Notably the Flyer also includes a stylus input device, something very few other tablet PCs include. Based on the success of HTC’s previous Android-based mobile phones the HTC Flyer looks very promising.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
The original Galaxy Tab from Samsung was generally well-received although its 7-inch touchscreen was widely criticised for being too small. The update to the original Tab addresses the size issue and the Galaxy Tab 10 ships with a larger 10.1-inch screen.
Under the big screen the new Tab is powered by an Nvidia Tegra dual-core processor which runs Android 3.0, the latest, tablet-focused OS from Google.
Not content with the big screen and powerful processor, the Tab 10 also has a serious 8 megapixel camera as well as a 2 megapixel front-facing camera for video calling. All told the Galaxy Tab 10 is a big improvement on the original Tab and should be on most people’s shortlist of tablet PCs.
LG Optimus Pad
One of the tablet PCs that got a lot of attention at this year’s MWC was LG’s Optimus Pad. Like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10 the Optimus has an Nvidia Tegra dual processor under the hood as well as Android 3.0.
Unlike most other tablet PCs on the market, the Optimus has an 8.9-inch touchscreen, fitting somewhere in between the original 7 inch Galaxy Tab and Apple’s iPad with its 10 inch screen.
Equipped with dual cameras – a 5 megapixel rear primary as well as a front-facing one for video calling – LG has also included 3D video recording to its feature set. Unfortunately the Optimus doesn’t have a 3D display so can’t actually view the 3D media it captures.
BlackBerry Playbook
One of the most anticipated tablet PC releases of the year has to be BlackBerry’s Playbook. BlackBerry maker RIM had a tough year in 2010, battling dropping market share as users switched to Android phones, the iPhone and the new flood of tablet PCs.
RIM has responded to this with the Playbook, a 7-inch tablet PC with a dual-core 1GHz processor. Size-wise the Playbook is in the Samsung Galaxy Tab and HTC flyer category.
The original Playbook, announced last year, was a WiFi-only model but at MWC RIM announced an HSPA and an LTE version of the tablet.
Unlike most of the tablet PCs being released now the Playbook uses the QNX realtime-based operating system rather than Android. The Playbook also sports dual cameras, a 5 megapixel primary on the rear and a front-facing 3 megapixel.
Though RIM is struggling in most markets in the world, the South African market remains strong and the Playbook could be a hit here.
HP Touchpad
Another company that has been very quiet over the past few months is HP. Following its purchase of Palm Computing last year, it was inevitable that the company would release a some WebOS-powered devices.
The first of HP’s tablets came during the Mobile World Congress with the unveiling of the 9.7-inch TouchPad. The TouchPad includes a 1.2 dual-core Snapdragon processor which is pretty powerful by current tablet standards. On the camera front however, the TouchPad is not equal to the competition. Its 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera is the only one it has on board.
On the “desktop” the TouchPad runs WebOS 3.0, which is Palm Computing’s Linux-based OS for mobile devices.
HP is a quiet threat in the market. The company is the world’s largest hardware maker and could be a significant player if it gets its WebOS strategy right.
Motorola Xoom
Motorola is making something of a comeback thanks to Android. Now the company has the Xoom. Although announced prior to the Mobile World Congress, the Xoom is impressive enough to have attracted a lot of attention at the show.
The 10.1-inch Xoom is the first tablet to run Android 3.0, otherwise known as Honeycomb. Honeycomb runs on a dual-core Nvidia Tegra processor running at 1.2GHz and supports 3G, LTE and WiFi.
Naturally the Xoom has dual cameras, a 5 megapixel primary on the rear and a 2 megapixel front-facing one for video calling. Of all the tablets on show at Mobile World Congress the Xoom stands out for its great hardware and its cutting edge software.
Will you be picking up one of the new wave of Tablet PCs? << Share your thoughts on the MyBroadband forum.
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