Notion Ink Atom Tablet

At CES. Check out this hands-on video.

Also the Notion Ink blog with pix
adam21.jpg
 
Also Color Ink from Qualcomm at CES.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEez79Y8_EQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
 
CES: Analysts grow skeptical of iPad competitors due to iTunes

By Daniel Eran Dilger
Published: 03:00 PM EST

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Two analysts monitoring the tablet extravaganza at CES have issued reports indicating that euphoria about new tablets outside of Apple's iPad may fall short of expectations because those products lack the iPad's extensive App Store software library and access to the wide range of media in the "digital ecosystem" of iTunes.

iPad may dominate tablets as iPod did MP3 players

Shaw Wu, Senior Research Analyst at Kaufman Bros, wrote in a note that after "investor meetings with the managements of Lenovo, HP, Synaptics and Toshiba at the CES trade show in Las Vegas," and having spent some time with product and marketing specialists at Samsung and Motorola Mobility, his firm has concluded that "tablets expectations may prove too high."

"One of the key focuses at the show is of course tablets," Wu wrote, "with many trying to come up with an answer to the strong selling iPad. This may sound controversial, but we are concerned that expectations may be set too high by market research firms with aggressive forecasts."

Wu noted that "we are not convinced that tablets outside of the iPad will see high volume success. The reason is that we believe success is dependent on: 1) the number and quality of apps and 2) a rich content library including music, movies, TV shows, e-books, podcasts and photos, such as that offered and managed by iTunes. To us, the iPad appears similar to the iPod business where one vendor (that being Apple) is likely to end up dominating the space."

Toshiba joining tablet, app store bandwagon

In the same report, Wu noted that Toshiba will be bringing an Android tablet to market "using similar components to the Motorola Xoom including Android 3.0 Honeycomb software and a Tegra 2 processor and is on track to launch in the Spring."

The company told Kaufman Bros. that "its strength in the channel could prove to be a key differentiator in doing better in tablets relative to competitors." The report added that Toshiba "sees a strategy toward driving a universal app store across its PC, tablet, and TV business which we believe could be a key differentiator."

An Android site reported in November that Toshiba would be launching an Android Appstore with Handster, an online website that has been selling Windows Mobile, Java, Symbian, BlackBerry and Android apps. It published an email from Handster to its Android developer mailing list, saying, "Do you have any new PAID apps that are not published in your Handster account yet? Please let me know if you wish to submit your paid apps for Toshiba appstore. You can login to your Handster account and upload paid apps. Or you can also send APK files for paid apps to me in ZIP and I will add them to your account."

Toshiba currently operates "AppPlace," which offers "cloud based" (web) apps for Toshiba PC users which are sold on a subscription basis $5 to $10 per month. The company also opened a Windows CE app store for its JournE Touch web tablet in October 2009, but it appears it has since been shut down along with Microsoft's Windows CE as a tablet platform.

Motorola Xoom "reasonable," but lacks iTunes, Apple experience

Brian White, the Senior Research Analyst at Ticonderoga Securities, said that Motorola's new Xoom (below), unveiled at CES, "seemed reasonable to us but wasn't our cup of tea as we still favor Apple's iPad and look forward to the second generation."

White noted that "the 10.1 inch (vs. 9.7 inch for iPad) Xoom will include the new Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system (vs. iOS 4.2 for iPad) and 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor (vs. A4 1 GHz for iPad). Keep in mind, we expect the second generation iPad to be released in March/April with enhanced features and performance."

Echoing Wu's comments, White wrote, "as we talk through CES and analyzed the various tablets, we are reminded that one of the most attractive features of the iPad is the seamless connection within Apple's digital ecosystem that extends across devices, combined with Apple's focus on aesthetics. Competitors will try to replicate Apple's ecosystem but we believe most will fail to provide the Apple experience."
 
I agree that CES didn't really give any iPad-killers.


But; it's not that simple.

The tablet-oriented Android looks promising, several new, fresh ideas. iPhone/iPad does have the problem that the user experience has been pretty much the same for the last four years now and iPad UI is just oversized iPhone UI. The driving force behind iPad is the ecosystem that Apple has managed to create with iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad.

Android-tablet hardware is here as shown by CES. Now Google just needs to get the software out. The ecosystem will continue to be so-so but there are workarounds, like using AppBrain to find Apps instead of going directly to the Android marketplace.

Competition is good.
 
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