Tablet PC Talks

Samsung released some updates on its sales of hybrids of phones/tablets, more specifically on the Galaxy Note model, which was released at the end of October. Apparently, over 1 million Galaxy Note units were sold so far, in Asia and in Europe. There is also the confirmation of the launch for the Samsung Galaxy Note in the US, though we don’t have the release date so far.

Just to remind you the specs, the Galaxy Note is a hybrid, a tablet and a phone in one, which has a 5.3 inch screen, a Super AMOLED model with 16 million colors. The resolution on it is 800×1280. There are two cameras installed, a 8MP which can film Full HD movies and a secondary 2MP model. The OS is Android 2.3.5 and the processor is a Cortex A9 dual core model at 1.4GHz. [Source]

Asus TF201 Transformer Prime is available for pre-orders on Amazon. There are a total of four versions available, the difference being the two variants of storage with two colors available for each. There are 32GB and 64GB versions available, both in amethyst gray and in champagne colors. The prices are higher than those for its predecessor by $100, so you’re going to pay $499.99 for the 32GB version and $599.99 for the 64GB version. If you also want the keyboard dock that made this tablet famous, you’re going to have to spend another $150 for it.

And just to refresh your memory, the Transformer Prime is a 10.1 inch tablet, the first one to use the Tegra 3 processor from Nvidia. It comes with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, 1GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB of internal storage.[Learn more]

The Nvidia Tegra 3 is a new chip which will be one of the best in the world for mobile applications, when it’s going to be launched. This chip will have advanced graphics and four cores and it will be available on tablets due to be released by the end of the year, plus a number of powerful smartphones. The image below shows us the Tegra 3 chip, as it’s shown in the Asus Transformer Prime board design, which was given to the certification board of the FCC. This chip has 4 main cores, plus a 5th one which will be used for background tasks.

The ASUS Transformer is getting a software update these days, which is designed to fix some of the bugs which exist in this version of the Transformer’s OS, one of them being the battery consumption issue. The software update also installs the App Backup application, which can be used to do just what the title says, which is backup the games and apps which are installed. This backup can be then restored on other tablets from ASUS, which seems to open the way for people to upgrade to the next version of the Transformer tablet, the Transformer Prime.

Here are the changes brought by this update:

Performance Improvement:

• Improve Wi-Fi connectivity
• Fix 8.6.5.13 mobile dock abnormal battery consumption issue

App Updates:

• Latest version of Google Books, Maps and Market
• Asus Sync – Ability to turn on/off Asus Sync
• Email: Supports .Zip download
• MyNet: Improves Device Search
• Browser: Improves Compatibility
• MyCloud: now supports remote desktop within different network
• Update Italian Input method
• Supernote: Improves performance and bug fixed
• Polaris Office: supports large file loading, improve compatibility

While they’re far from being able to outsell laptops, tablets have finally managed to be better sold than netbooks, the category which was influenced the most by the appearance of the tablet. During the second quarter of the year, over 13.6 million tablets were sold, while only 7.3 million netbooks were purchased during the same period. Since tablets come with keyboards more and more, they are seen as more attractive than netbooks. Since netbooks were used as secondary computers, tablets are managing to fulfill the same purpose as them for the most part and people love using them.

The price of netbooks has dropped quite a bit since tablets appeared, so if you’re still interested in one, now would be the time to buy one.

The latest announcement from Samsung is that the Galaxy Tab 7 Plus tablet will be launched starting from November 13 and it will be available at many retailers, like Best Buy or Amazon. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus comes with Android 3.2 as its OS and it will have both 16GB and 32GB versions. You can pre-order it starting from October 23rd.

This tablet has a 7 inch screen with a resolution of 1026×600, two cameras (3MP and 2MP), a processor at 1.2 GHz and 1GB of RAM. Besides these you will also find a digital compass, ambient light sensors, gyro, accelerometer and proximity sensor. The price for the 16GB version will be $399.

Sharp Corporation announced that they are withdrawing from the PC market, stopping production of all PC’s and they will focus on producing tablets instead. Sharp has two Galapagos tablets which will come out in December, and they’re marketed as ebook readers mostly. The content for these Galapagos tablets will also come mostly from Sharp. We’re talking about providing content like videos, music or ebooks for their customers.

The Galapagos tablets come in two size, with screens of 5.5 and 10.8 inches. The small one has a resolution of 1024×600 while the large one has a resolution of 1366×800. The OS of these tablets will probably be Android.

As a user of the Galapagos tablet, you will be able to navigate online, use apps, view documents created on a PC and talk with other Galapagos owners with the help of a social app created just for that.

Apparently, Sharp expects to sell around 1 million Galapagos tablets in 2011.

If you’re looking for a tablet PC other than the iPad, one of your options these days is the eLocity A7 tablet PC, which is released by Stream TV Networks. This tablet PC comes with a 7 inch screen, Android 2.2 as the OS and a Tegra 2 processor. It also has 1080p HDMI output, 4GB of flash memory, a memory card slot and a price tag of $369.99.

You can pre-order it right now from Amazon.com and you will receive it after November 22nd.

Update: the tablet is now available for sale and you can read a eLocity A7 review before deciding if you like it.

The BlackBerry PlayBook will be launched in 2011. This tablet PC comes with a 7 inch multi-touch capacitive display screen with a resolution of 1024×600, a battery of 5,300 mAh, a flash capacity between 32GB and 64GB, 1GB Cortex A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, a multi tasking capable QNX OS, two webcams of 3 and 5MP. It also has a weight of 400g, Full HD video, WiFi and BlueTooth.

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According to Verizon Wireless, the Galaxy Tab tablet from Samsung will start selling on November 11 and it will have a price of $600. This tablet will have as an OS Android 2.2.

The tablet runs on a number of different types of networks, like 3G or 2.5G. The display has 7 inches and a resolution of 1024×600 and the processor is a Cortex A8 1.0GHz. It comes with 2 cameras, in front of 1.3MP and in the back of 3MP. The one in front can be used to do video telephony while the one in the back comes with LED Flash and Auto Focus.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab can do video playback at Full HD quality and it supports Adobe Flash files as well. The internal memory has 16GB / 32GB capacity and you can also add up to 32 GB of external memory. The tablet has 512 MB of RAM and a battery of 4,000 mAh and it measures 190x120x12 mm, with a weight of 380g.

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