Acer, Europe’s favorite budget computer maker, has jumped into the tablet game. Introduced yesterday, and available in April, the 7 and 10-inch tablets will both run the Android OS, and both have the slim body and foolishly long widescreen display we have come to expect since the Galaxy Tab arrived.
The ten-incher has a capacitive multi-touch 1080p screen, Wi-Fi and 3G, HDMI-out, a 5MP rear-facing camera plus a front-facing webcam. This all runs on a dual-core 1GHz processor, and is tucked inside a thin, 13.3mm shell (just over a half-inch). There’s also a gyroscope for gaming.
The 7-inch tablet has a 1280×800 screen but is otherwise the same.
Acer hasn’t said which version of Android the tablets will use, but the assumption is that it will be the made-for-cellphones v2.2 Froyo rather than a purpose-designed tablet Android OS. The most important factor in this race is price, and while nothing is yet confirmed, Acer’s senior vice president Jim Wong said that the tablets will be between $300 and $700. That’s a big “between”: $300 spells success, $700 disaster.
It’s funny that the brand-new tablet market has already turned into a commodity race to the bottom. It’s netbooks 2.0, only with Android instead of Windows XP, and with touch-screens instead of keyboards. If we have learned anything from the iPad it’s that the operating system is the most important part, something that seems to have slipped by Acer and Samsung. When the proper, vertical hardware/software devices from HP (WebOS) and RIM (PlayBook) show up, then the tablet market will heat up.
Live and interact in total mobility [Acer Press Release]
See Also:
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- Samsung Shifts 600000 Galaxy Tabs in One Month
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