Hasta La Gadget!

We can’t begin explain our exasperation at running a Samsung Galaxy Tab on Sprint’s 3G, knowing full well the WiMAX airwaves floating just overhead could make our experience speedy. Thankfully, we won’t have to dwell on our frustration for long, because a Sprint executive told Forbes that a 4G tablet will arrive in 2011. Sprint’s Paget Alves, president of business markets, wouldn’t say where it would be made, but hinted that the company intends to sell tablets running different operating systems — so it’s probably not another Android device. What could it be, then? We can’t say, but paired with the knowledge that Verizon also plans to debut LTE tablets in 2011 — possibly including one Motorola Stingray — it seems like 2011 will be a fine year for goodies on CDMA.

[Thanks, Stephen]

Sprint: 4G tablet coming in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Notion Ink Adam pre-order to begin today, pricing starts at $375 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There wasn’t even so much as a press release announcing this one, but The New York Times has confirmed with Intel that the chip maker recently formed a new business unit dubbed simply the “netbook and tablet group.” That’s apparently been tasked with fending off competition in the netbook and tablet space, and ensuring Intel remains as successful as it has been with its Atom processors — it will be led by the the current head of Intel’s embedded and communications group, Douglas L. Davis. Intel spokesman Bill Kircos further explained that “it makes sense for us to sharpen our focus on these friends of the PC, and Doug’s experience running a similar and very successful embedded division makes him the right guy to lead the group.”

Intel quietly forms netbook and tablet group to fend off competition originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Flash on an iPad? No problem, and neither is QuickTime on a Samsung Galaxy Tab — assuming you’re running both from a virtualized Windows 7 PC using OnLive’s new app. OnLive may have originally pitched itself as a streaming games service, but founder Steve Perlman revised his ambitions at the D: Dive into Mobile conference today, showing off a host of Windows 7 programs (including 3D modeling software Maya, above) running on the pair of ARM-based tablets. Like always, OnLive requires a nearby server and fast internet connection to function adequately, and the apps themselves would need touch controls, but Perlman said it’s actually easier to deliver apps than games since they’re less sensitive to lag. OnLive didn’t provide a date when we can expect full cloud functionality, but you can get a sneak peek at a pared-down version right now — the brand-new OnLive Viewer app, which lets you spectate games in progress (and will eventually let you play them) is now available for iPad.

OnLive demos Windows 7 on an iPad and Galaxy Tab, launches cloud computing tablet app originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our supply checks say that 10 out of 10 analysts are insanely bullish about tablets — despite the fact that there are only 2.5 competitive products on the market, and one of them only came out a month ago. So, naturally, it isn’t difficult to scrounge up sales predictions that show the tablet rocketing into the stratosphere, cutting into PC market share, while also expanding the market outright to accommodate its post-PC ways. Gartner‘s guess is 55 million tablets next year, while IDC has a more conservative estimate of 42 million, but both predict a sharp, exponential rise in the following years, and IDC takes it one step further: 18 months from now, combined smartphone and tablet sales will eclipse the PC, it claims, with both categories hovering in the mid-400 million range.

Now, that number is mostly smartphones, which isn’t an unprecedented shift in and of itself — the PC took a major hit in popularity in Japan once the kids got ahold of these newfangled phone things — but overall it represents a shift from the open-ended, flexible, and powerful PC to the narrow, task-specific, app-driven nature of the iOS and Android kind. Or you could spin it the completely opposite way: people need phones, so they buy a nice phone. No PC death knell in that behavior, and the tablet is still a very niche product with some good PR. Either way, we’ll be much more impressed with this sort of market battle when it’s the tablet (perhaps with a little help from the smartbook or netbook-lite category) going up against the Windows and Mac PC head-on, without smartphones shouldering most of the load.

Combined sales of smartphones and tablets to surpass the humble PC in 18 months, says IDC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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