tablets

2010 CTIA Fall Show is all business

SAN FRANCISCO--New 4G networks and cool wireless gadgets like the iPad aren't just for playing games and watching movies, companies large and small are looking for ways to leverage this technology to make it work for their businesses.

While many technology trends have traditionally flowed from the corporate environment into the consumer market (think e-mail and voicemail as just two examples), many of the latest trends in mobility over the past few years have originated for consumers.

The Apple iPhone and Google Android phones, and the mobile app craze that has followed, have predominately been focused on meeting the … Read more

Week in review: PlayBook enters tablet playing field

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is attempting its own rewrite of the playbook for the nascent but increasingly competitive tablet market.

Showing the rest of the world that it's not just a boring, yet eminently reliable smartphone maker anymore, RIM on Monday unveiled its PlayBook, a tablet device due to hit the U.S. market sometime early next year.

As was widely rumored, RIM announced the PlayBook at the opening keynote event at its DevCon developer conference in San Francisco. The device has a 7-inch touch screen, is just under 10 millimeters thick, has a front- and back-facing camera … Read more

iPad fingered in mini-notebook decline

Netbooks and mini-notebooks are still selling, just not very well.

Market research firm DisplaySearch crunched some numbers in its Quarterly Advanced Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report released today and came up with a good news/bad new scenario for the between-a-smartphone-and-a-notebook category.

The good news is that when combined, second-quarter shipments of tablets, Netbooks, and mini-notebooks were up 29 percent in the last year. The bad news? If you take out the 3.3 million iPads that Apple shipped during that same quarter, the tablet-mini-notebook-Netbook shipment numbers sink to 13 percent fewer shipments than the year before.

DisplaySearch is … Read more

Windows tablets delayed until 2011? Remember, they're already here

[Note: Updated below with a new gallery of currently available Windows tablets and slates.]

There's much online chatter at the moment about a financial analyst's prediction that there won't be any tablet computers that run Microsoft Windows until mid-2011. According to Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert, says businessinsider.com, it's simply an impossible task right now:

Windows 7 is currently not supported on Qualcomm's popular SnapDragon processor, and Intel's low power Oak Trail processor (part of the Atom family) for tablets is not due out until March 2011. Microsoft could introduce Windows-based tablets … Read more

Report: Dell's 7-inch tablet due in 'next few weeks'

Dell will unveil its second Android tablet in the next few weeks, this one sporting a 7-inch screen. And a 10-inch model could arrive sometime in 2011.

The new tablet's debut was confirmed by Dell Greater China President Amit Midha in a Wall Street Journal interview published today. The news follows CEO Michael Dell's appearance last week at Oracle World in which he teased the audience with a brief glimpse of a 7-inch tablet but was mum on any details.

"It was showed off at Oracle World by Michael last week and we'll be launching very, … Read more

Everything we know about the BlackBerry PlayBook

We were excited and a little bit relieved that RIM announced its widely rumored BlackBerry PlayBook (with video) yesterday at the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Although we did learn some specs--like the tablet's dimensions--there's still much RIM isn't telling. We'll share what we know and will update our list as soon as we learn more.

What are the specifications?

7-inch screen (1,024x600 pixels) 5.1 inches tall 7.6 inches wide 0.4 inch (9.7mm) thick 0.9 pounds 3-megapixel front-facing HD camera 5-megapixel rear-facing HD camera 1GHz dual-core processor 1GB RAM 1080p high-definition video playback HTML5-capable browser 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Adobe Flash 10.1 support Adobe AIR support H.264, MPEG4, and WMV, HDMI video output Micro USB, Micro HDMI, and DLNA media streaming Enterprise-strength e-mail security

Get the full specs here.

Is the PlayBook a phone? No. RIM's new device will be an Internet-enabled tablet. However, RIM is emphasizing video calling over Wi-Fi, so you can expect to see video chatting software. … Read more

Leaked: Is this the HP Slate 500?

We've gotten our hands on a handful of leaked photos of what is purportedly the upcoming HP Slate 500 tablet. Following on the hands-on video found on YouTube last week, this is the second recent appearance of a Windows version of this much-delayed tablet.

These pics, courtesy of a tip provided to our pals at Buzz Out Loud, show a tablet running Windows 7, along with a docking stand (with USB and HDMI ports), and a leather-like case with a hole cut in it for the rear-facing camera.

If anything, these recent leaks of a Win 7 version of … Read more

Slimmer iPad on tap for second-quarter 2011?

Apple could release a more svelte iPad by the end of the second quarter of 2011, Goldman Sachs said in an investment report yesterday.

According to the analysts, Apple will keep the 9.7-inch display in the new iPad, but will attempt to make it easier on the grip by reducing its weight and thickness. The analysts also expect Apple to throw in a built-in camera and a mini USB drive for additional connectivity.

Goldman Sachs also touched on the possibility of Apple finally releasing the long-rumored 7-inch iPad, saying that plans for the smaller tablet have yet to be &… Read more

RIM BlackPad today?

  Links from Monday's episode of Loaded: Research in Motion venturing off to the tablet world Stuxnet corrupted Iran's first nuclear power plant iPhone 4 on sale in China Ping, Apple's social music service, gets an update