Not surprisingly, it was a tablet that took CNET’s CES 2011 Best in Show award this year. The Motorola Xoom—one of the first tablets to offer Android’s Honeycomb OS built especially for slate PCs—grabbed the high honor at CES and was touted by pundits as the chief rival to Apple’s iPad.
The Motorola Xoom is also 4G ready. It will launch in the first quarter as a 3G/WiFi device, but you will be able to upgrade it to 4G LTE or buy it as a 4G device in Q2. Other features include a dual-core processor with each core running at 1GHz, delivering up to 2GHz of processing power and a 10.1-inch widescreen HD display supporting 1080p. It’s got HDMI, a 2MP front facing camera for video chat over 3G/4G and WiFi and 5MP camera that captures video in 720p. It even has a barometer for gauging the weather! See more features here.
Motorola Atrix 4G. It’s not really a tablet but it’s a smartphone that can nest in a laptop-style dock and it practically stole the show at CES. When the Atrix is docked in the laptop, it becomes the CPU, using its 1 GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM to drive the 2.2 pound laptop device.
The Web sites you’ve been browsing on the phone are then shown on the laptop. You are able to get 80 to 90 percent of the functionality from the phone as you would on a desktop, said Motorola.
There’s another dock to link the phone to your desktop or your TV. See the video via Engadget here.
Samsung also has a new 4G tablet called the 4G LTE Tab for Verizon Wireless. It’s similar to the 7-inch Galaxy Tab but has faster wireless capability (about 10 times faster than 3G says Verizon) and you get a better rear camera with 5 MP instead of 3MP capability and the processor moves up to 1.2GHz from 1GHz says CNET.
It runs Android 2.2 (Froyo) and supports Flash and DLNA networking. And the screen displays WSVGA resolution (1024 by 600 pixels).
Then, for retailers, there’s the WiFi verison of the Galaxy Tab that will ship in Q1. It has 16GB of storage plus a microSD slot capable of another 32GB. There was no word on which retailers will receive the product, nor on pricing.
LG G-Slate. To be offered via T-Mobile “in coming months,” the tablet will run Honeycomb and will support 4G wiress on T-Mobile. Little else was announced at CES other than the tablet will offer access to Google Maps with 3D, and more than 3 million eBooks and Google Talk with video and voice chat.
Panasonic’s Viera tablet gives you some very cool integration with its TVs. The Android tablet shows you icons of movies, TV shows, games, etc. When you want to see the movie or show on the TV you just flick it up to the top of the tablet screen and it instantly appears on the TV through the company’s Viera Connect technology. So the tablet acts as a super-remote for the TV but it’s also a full general use tablet PC. Panasonic will also offer an app store with movies, music and other apps.
The Viera tablet was shown in 10-, 7- and 4-inch screen sizes with no word on delivery dates or pricing. The Viera tablets include HDMI and USB ports. The Viera TVs that work with the tablet should ship in February/March, said Panasonic.
Sharp showed off its Galapagos tablets in either a pocket-sized 5.5 inches or larger 10.8 inches. Due in the second half, they will have access to a Sharp online store for music, video, eBooks and other media. They will support an XDMF format that automatically adjusts page content to the size of the screen of the device. This fits in nicely with Sharp’s plans to offer content from its own eStore that can be used across smartphone, TV and tablet devices.
The tablets will offer WiFi, email and Web browsing and an SD card slot. Users will also be able to order eMagazine subscriptions from Sharp’s new eStore.
Toshiba Tablet. That’s the current name of a Toshiba tablet to ship with Honeycomb with a target date in the first half. It will use a Tegra 2 processor and a 10.1 inch screen. You also get front and rear 2- and 5-MP cameras, and compatibility with the Android Market. We were told there were only 5 mockups of the device at CES. It also offers HDMI, USB, miniUSB, and SD card support and it has a removable battery. Pricing should be competitive with the iPad, said a spokesman at CES.
Other tablets were also shown at CES by Dell, NEC, Enspert and additional suppliers.
Source: CEoutook, Engadget, CNET
Photo of Samsung 7 Series via SlashGear
