tablet – Page 2 – Kev's Development Toolbox

November 7, 2011

Android tablets a plenty. New Nook Color, Amazon Fire coming soon, and quad-cores on the way

There’s an amazing variety of Android tablets out there right now. Barnes and Noble are giving their press conference this morning on their new Nook Color, which they’re saying outdoes the coming soon Amazon Fire in terms of a media consumption device.

Things are about to start getting real interesting though with the new nVidia Tegra 3 chipset which is rocking quad cores. Given that the Tegra 2 is the current powerhouse for all the fastest Android devices, this one is going to be a rocket for sure. The latest eee Transformer Prime from Asus is expected to be the first tablet to be released with the new processor, and a benchmarking app has already showed up with records of benchmarked Transformer Prime running the new chip, and surprise surprise it’s multiple times faster than anything currently out there.

August 30, 2011

Could an Amazon tablet make it big time for non-iOS tablets?

Rumor has it that Amazon is planning an Android based tablet, with a price somewhere between $249 and $299. Given the failure of HP’s entry into the tablet space with the WebOS powered TouchPad, Amazon may be gambling in a market currently dominated by Apple and it’s iPad. However, given Amazon already is the leader in eBooks and eReader hardware with it’s wildly successful Kindle, this could be the stepping stone to further success with a more fully featured tablet, rather than the one trick eReader.

To be successful the price could make or break Amazon’s new tablet – HP cancelled their TouchPad because it wasn’t selling, but when the price was lowered to $99 to clear stock it flew off the shelves. This must have been some surprise to HP since more recently an HP exec has said that they may be thinking of resurrecting the dead device for another attempt, presumably starting off at a lower price point.

August 23, 2011

$99 HP TouchPads find the sweetspot

Despite being cancelled by HP and knowing that there won’t be any future upgrades or support, with the price lowered to $99 to clear the remaining unsold stock the TouchPads have been flying off the shelves.

The reason the product wasn’t selling wasn’t the product itself, it’s just that it was priced too high. With a lower price, and even despite the fact that the product has been discontinued with no future support or upgrades, the $99 price point for a tablet has the things flying off the shelves. That has to be a marketing lesson for someone…

July 18, 2011

Will Microsoft fail again with their Windows 8 tablet strategy?

“We view the tablet as a PC” – precisely why their last attempt failed. Given the odd mix of touchscreen UI elements mixed inexplicably with the traditional Windows UI in a recent Windows 8 demo video, it looks like they’ve got it all wrong again.