I’m looking at this and wondering if Microsoft and HP simply jumping on the wave of tablet hype and trying to break through with some viral marketing. There’s no real information available being given on this tablet so I can only assume it was a marketing move.

It looks like a 10 inch tablet with multitouch capacitive screen running Windows 7 and not dissimilar to a device I had hands-on with tonight.  It’s not a bad thing at all and I’m happy to see it but I wish this crazy tablet marketing race would end now.

Don’t expect too many details to surface on this one very soon but we’ll do our best to try and find out what’s going on here. Maybe it will appear in the Intel keynote at CES tomorrow.

Good tablet  news coming in via Pocketables.

SMiT will bring a 7″ Android tablet to CES. There’s no information about the specifications and just a fuzzy image so let’s add this one to the ‘hit’ list and see what we can find out over the next few days. Is it going to be a ‘real’ Google Android deices or just another basic Android build. I fear the latter but it will certainly be competition for the W1060.

Pocketables: SMiT invading CES with MID tablets in tow.

While I was researching the ARM platforms over the last two days [report] I came across a presentation from Freescale’s Steve Sperle that outlined their research into new consumer form factors. The presentation shows a number of form factors and summarizes that the small form factor, 4×6 inch screen without full qwerty keyboard is one of the best form factors for the next generation of young users.

You can resister and get to the interesting presentation here.

Today Freescale have announced what is clearly the next stage of work from the same project team. It’s a reference design for a 7 inch (roughly 4 inchx6 inch) ‘smart’ tablet computer. The SABRE tablet platform for smartbooks.

Freescale Press Release here.

Smartbook reference design features

• Size: small/thin form factor (200mm x 128mm x 14.9cm and weighing 376 grams); no need for fan or heat sink
• Processor: Freescale i.MX515 applications processor provides high performance and low power
  • ARM Cortex-A8 core
  • OpenVG & OpenGL/ES graphics cores
  • HD video decoder hardware
• Power management IC:
  • Battery charging system for both USB and wall charging
  • Output buck converters for the processor core and memory
  • Boost converters for LCD backlighting
  • Serial backlight drivers for displays and keypad, plus RGB LED drivers
• Display: 7-inch (1024 x 600) touch screen
• Memory: 512 MB DDR2
• Storage: 4-64 GB internal storage; removable micro SD
• Connectivity: 3G modem (option) 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, RF4CE (option)
• Ports: USB 2.0 and USB mini (also for charging), audio in/audio out, SIM card
• Audio: speaker, microphone
• Camera: 3 Mpixel (video recording up to VGA @ 30fps)
• Battery: 1900mAh, USB charging
• Sensors: MMA8450Q 3-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor

Looking not unlike an Origami ultra mobile PC from 2006, this has a vastly different hardware and software build designed to hit low-cost pricing with a lightweight build and dynamic, media and location-focused capabilities.

The CPU is ARM-based (Cortex A8 design) and there’s 512MB of memory (which is actually quite a lot for a device using a smartphone-style platform.) Storage is solid-state and there’s support for 3G, Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, RF4CE (radio remote control) an accelerometer and light sensor.

The software stack is likely to be a Linux build.

The reference design will be available at CES and Freescale say that availability for evaluation is expected in Feb 2010.

We’ll be keeping our eyes open for this at CES over the next week.

Interesting tablet thoughts from John Gruber of Daring Fireball.  Having researched the ultra mobile PC market for over three years I’m of the opinion that this space is for multiple niche products and not a multi-million selling success story but if there’s one company that can prove me wrong,  it’s Apple.

I have a thousand questions about The Tablet’s design. What size is it? There’s a big difference between, say, 7- and 10-inch displays. How do you type on it? With all your fingers, like a laptop keyboard? Or like an iPhone, with only your thumbs? If you’re supposed to watch video on it, how do you prop it up? Holding it in your hands? Flat on a table seems like the wrong angle entirely; but a fold-out “arm inch to prop it up, à la a picture frame, seems clumsy and inelegant. If it’s just a touchscreen tablet, how do you protect the screen while carrying it around?

via Daring Fireball: The Tablet.

Smarthouse reports:

An Android based device which is set to be shown privately to core HTC customers at the CES Show is set to incorporate new Qualcomm processors, touch technology and new software from Adobe.

It makes complte sense for HTC to be exploring this potential. They have all the right relationships, design skills and positioning to make a good job of it.

Questions still remain about what the best size/format/capability for such a ‘tablet’ is but maybe that’s somethign we shouldn’t worry about. If so many consumer devices are going to hit the market in 2010, there’s a good chance that one of them will gel with you.

Source HTC To Launch Apple iSlate Competitor – Smarthouse.

Via Slashgear.

Today, on the last day of 2009, it’s time to talk about something that’s been a hot-topic in 2009 but something I’ve never talked about on Carrypad before.

It’s the Apple ‘Pad’ , ‘Slate’ , ‘Tablet’ or whatever you’d like to call it and the reason I want to talk about it is that is that many rumors and news items are converging on an Apple Event that has been ‘confirmed’ for the 26th of Jan in San Francisco. Everything points to a mobility event and commentators (that mostly means over-excited keyword-stuffing analysts, journalists and bloggers) appear to be feeling confident that it’s going to be a new device that is larger than the iPhone. Possibly a tablet.

Based on the progress of mobile platforms at the moment, I’d put the chances of a large-format tablet at about 1:5 purely because bigger needs to be better in most peoples eyes and there isn’t a mobile computing platform out there that can really deliver what’s needed for Apple at over 7 inch right now. ARM Cortex A8 will be too slow for full web activities and everything else is either not ready or to big, hot and heavy.

What I do think is possible is an iPod-Plus, something we wrote about last year on our sister publication, UMPCPortal. Expectations of speed, power and productivity will be less on a a 5 inch-7 inch device and it’s here where an ARM Cortex A8-powered platform fits the bill nicely. Apple doesn’t need to break completely new and dangerous ground with a tablet or mini-netbook but a large-format iPod Plus really fits the bill nicely. A low risk device that enables a new category of HD video and Ebook sales through iTunes.

Of course, even if someone does spill the beans on the real story, the amount of ‘noise’ being broadcast around this rumor is so great that it will be hard to spot it but we’ll keep focused here at Carrypad and bring you an update the next time we think we’ve spotted the real news.

Apple Event news via FOXnews

In a significant architechtural move away from X86, the 2011 generation of the XO (One Laptop Per Child Project) will move from a VIA C7 CPU to a Marvell design based on ARM cores.

In an updated article at Engadget, the word direct from OLPC is that it will ‘enable two times the speed at a quarter of the power usage. That version will sell for somewhere in the $175 range.’

Sounds like a ARM Cortex A9 MPCore to me.

If the tech details sound boring though, check out a concept they’re touting for XO-3!

More images and reading at Engadget:

OLPC shows off absurdly thin XO-3 concept tablet for 2012 (update: XO-1.5 and XO-1.75 coming first) — Engadget.

Information on the ICD Ultra appeared via Engadget and NBC (Via Ebooktest)  over the over the weekend and we’ve just spotted that the information is also available on a new webpage and hidden PDF (currently available here) on the ICD website. The information reveals a ton of exciting specifications including Android V2 and built-in 3G.

Engadget’s hands on says:

“The version we had a chance to play with — a prototype running Android 2.0 — was blazingly fast when it came to 1080p playback and web browsing inch

Looking at the specs it appears that we’re seeing the first device on the new Nvisia Tegra Platform. Details aren’t available but we suspect it to be a multi-core Cortex A5 design. If it’s running at 1Ghz and if Android can take advantages of a multi-core OS then yes, this is going to be fast and multi-tasking capable.

Information and updates are being tracked in a new ICD Ultra product page at UMPCPortal

As for size, we’re a little dissapointed. The target weight is 600gm which is too big for e-reading. Based on whave we’ve seen with the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, we’re sure that something thinner and lighter is possible. The 16-bit screen isn’t going to impress video fans either.

However, if ICD can sell entry-level versions of this for under 300 as is suggested on the Engadget article, it makes it a very very interesting home tablet indeed. 7 inch works well in the hands and looks great on a coffee-table.

Specifications from our ICD Ultra product information page.

• Manufacturer: ICD
• Model name: Ultra
• CPU type: Nvidia Tegra
• CPU speed: 1000 Mhz
• OS: Android V2.0
• Display Size: 7″ 800 X 480
• RAM: 256 MB
• Flash: 512 MB
• Weight (target): 600gm / 21.2 oz.
• Size (w/h/d mm) 186/158/18 mm
• Size (w/h/d inches) 7.3/6.2/0.7

Physical Interfaces

• Micro USB
• HDMI
• Line-out / Headphone (3.5mm)

Wireless Interfaces

• 802.11b/g
• BT 2.1
• 3G option

Additional Specs and Accessories (can vary)

• FM radio
• Ambient light sensor
• Mic array
• Accelerometer
• Stereo speakers
• GPS (option)

Alternatives and comparable devices can be found in the product database.

Stay tuned for more information and hands on. We plan to check this one out in detail at CES in Jan.