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Gadgets

Global Apple iPad Tablet Market Share Over 80%

A new report by market research firm, IDC, has thrown some interesting numbers with respect to the worldwide tablet and eReader market. According to their latest study, the Apple iPad currently constitutes over 87.4% of all “media tablets” shipped during the third quarter of 2010. That is 4.2 million units sold out of the total 4.8 million tablets sold worldwide during this period.

IDC however points out that it has set some criteria to differentiate tablet computers from eReaders which means Windows tablets and Amazon bestsellers like Kindle were not considered “tablets” and hence were not part of the study. IDC says, only electronic devices that measured between 5-14 inches and were equipped with color displays and lightweight operating systems were included in the study.

Despite this, iPad still owns a major share of the market. IDC notes that putting the tablets and eReaders under one umbrella will still keep the iPad on top at 79.5% market share.

Although 2010 was considered the year of the tablets, it is in 2011 that we will be seeing most of the competition. With devices like Motorola Xoom and Blackberry PlayBook on the pipeline, it will be interesting to see how the iPad market share stands one year down the line.

Categories
Gadgets

Notion Ink Adam Delivery Date Delayed Due To FCC Printing

If you are one of those who had pre-ordered a Notion Ink Adam back in December last year, you may have to wait for a little more time before the device ships home. The company has written an email to a number of customers who had pre-ordered a unit to note that they have been waiting for the final FCC and CE numbers to be printed on the device before they could ship. In the email, the Notion Ink Support team writes,

“This e-mail is to inform you that your shipment is ready, but we are awaiting final FCC and CE numbers which are to be printed on the device before we can ship them to you. The Holiday season in December pushed the administrative work and it will be cleared within this week.

We request your kind patience and cooperation till we inform you of
your shipment.”

We will update you on the exact shipment date when it is revealed.

Categories
Gadgets RIM

Blackberry PlayBook For Sprint Launching “This Summer”

A 4G supported version of the Blackberry PlayBook – Research In Motion’s much anticipated tablet computer will be available in the United States on the Sprint network from summer of 2011. This has been announced in a recent media statement where Sprint has noted that the availability will be exclusive. However, do bear in mind that this does not mean a non-4G version or a PlayBook with a different launch window is not possible on another carrier.

The 4G-compatible launch also means we could be seeing the launch of a 3G variant earlier than that. Also, it is speculated that an LTE variant could be launching as we move into the latter half of the year. In any case, this tablet with dual core processors and a multitasking operating system should find popularity among Blackberry users.

Categories
Gadgets Motorola

Motorola Xoom Features And Launch Details Revealed

We have heard quite a few things about the Motorola Honeycomb tablet in the past. In fact, Google’s Andy Rubin also carried it to a conference recently. Given the teasers that Motorola had released prior to CES, we were naturally curious to hear more about this upcoming device. And the features definitely do not disappoint.

Firstly, this is a 10.1-inches device that comes with a widescreen HD display with 1280×800 pixel resolution. The Motorola Xoom will run on a dual core processor – each running at 1GHz and will be equipped with two cameras – a rear facing 5-Megapixel camera and another 2-Megapixel front facing camera. There is also support for 1080p HD video and HDMI output. Other details that will be of interest include gyroscope, barometer, e-compass, accelerometer and support for Google Maps 5.0Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.

Motorola has noted that a 3G/Wi-Fi enabled device will launch in Q1 2011 while a 4G LTE capable device should be available in Q2 2011.

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Gadgets

Tablet PC Sales Forecast For US Market

According to a new research report published by Forrester, close to one third of American online customers will own a tablet computer by 2015. This is a pretty significant update from their position last year. Forrester has said that they were too pessimistic in their report last year where they had put an average tablet’s frequency of upgrade on par with PCs. In the latest report, the research firm has clubbed tablets with other “lifestyle devices” like smartphones that would be upgraded more often.

Forrester’s research shows that close to 44 million tablet PCs will be sold in 2015. These tablets will cumulatively attract close to 82.1 million users. While this is without doubt a pretty optimistic picture, analyst Ben Banjarin has said that he believe these numbers still do not paint the real picture. He expects 50-52 million tablets to be sold as soon as this year. Here are the numbers from the Forrester report

Tablet PCs sold (US)

2010 : 10.3 million
2011 : 24.1 million
2012 : 35.1 million
2013 : 39.8 million
2014 : 42.3 million
2015 : 44.0 million

Tablet PC Users (US)

2010 : 10.3 million
2011 : 26.0 million
2012 : 50.7 million
2013 : 67.7 million
2014 : 76.1 million
2015 : 82.1 million

Categories
Gadgets HTC

HTC Scribe Tablet To Take On Apple iPad

The beginning of 2010 saw people questioning the utility of a computer with a form factor like the iPad. Curiously despite a large number of people seeing no value in such a device, sales did pick up and today we have almost all the major tech giants building their own tablets to make their foray into this new space.

Now, according to a report on Bloomberg, Taiwanese company HTC has filed a trademark for a product called HTC Scribe which it explains is a “handheld wireless device, namely a tablet computer“. We do not have more information about this in terms of what this device could come with (specs) or the price and launch details.

However, with the Consumer Electronics Show scheduled for next week, we wonder if HTC would take the opportunity to unveil this new device to consumers. We will have to wait and see.

Categories
Gadgets RIM

Blackberry PlayBook Launch In March 2011?

So it looks like Research In Motion’s Blackberry Playbook may not be actually shipping this year or soon after the new year begins. Statements from RIM co-founder Jim Balsillie and a spokesperson have together offered a good deduction of the possible launch date of the upcoming Blackberry Playbook.

During the fiscal Q3 conference call, Balsillie noted,

“We’re committed to ensuring the BlackBerry PlayBook is enterprise-ready for launch. […]The PlayBook is expected to begin shipping in the United States in the first quarter of 2011”

In addition to this, a RIM spokesperson had said,

“There are no PlayBook revenues included in our Q4 guidance, and we expect the first revenue impact from PlayBook will be in RIM’s first quarter”

RIM’s fiscal calendar for this year closes on February 26, 2011. That leaves March as the only month in the first quarter of next year when the PlayBook could be available. Incidentally, the Apple iPad is rumored to become available exactly a month later in April. Given that Apple traditionally announces new products a fortnight or so ahead of launch, it is quite likely for Steve Jobs to be making his iPad 2 presentation very much during PlayBook’s initial days.

We wonder if this is going to play a huge factor in the success of the device then!

Categories
Gadgets Microsoft Samsung

New Windows 7 Samsung Gloria Tablet PC To Be Demoed At CES

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer will be unveiling his company’s plans to take on the Apple iPad during the Consumer Electronics Show to be held in the first week of January. This is after Redmond failed to produce any goods of worth in the past one year since the company demoed HP Slate at CES 2010.

So what is Ballmer demoing this time? Word is that it is going to be primarily two devices – one made by Dell and another from Samsung. The Samsung Gloria, as it is speculated to be called, will be a 10.1″ Slate PC running Windows 7. There is however another speculation that Microsoft could also reveal finer details about the next generation Windows 8 during the demo.

There is not much information on the specs of these Windows 7 tablets though the Samsung Gloria could be equipped with a ‘slide-out’ keyboard.

Categories
Gadgets Motorola

Motorola Tablet Features & Pictures Revealed

Andy Rubin, the VP of engineering at Google had last week given us a sneak peek into an upcoming Honeycomb tablet from Motorola. While not too many details were divulged, we did hear that the device will sport a NVIDIA processor along with a dual-core 3D processor and video chatting functionalities.

Now, we are coming to know about more features about this upcoming gadget. First of all, a new picture of the tablet comes with a Verizon logo imprinted which has sort of confirmed speculations about the carrier that this tablet could come partnered with. The tipster has also given us some details about some specifications of this tablet which include

  • 32 GB internal storage
  • NVIDIA Tegra 2 T20 dual-core processor
  • Gyroscope sensor
  • 1280 x 800 display
  • 2-Megapixel front camera
  • 5-Megapixel rear camera
  • 1GHz system processor
  • microSD support
  • 512MB RAM
  • Support for Wi-Fi, 3G, LTE & Bluetooth

Motorola Honeycomb Tablet

Categories
Gadgets

Notion Ink Adam Pre-Orders Opening Today?

The binary counter on the top right of the Notion Ink website is all set to hit zero today. As we had anticipated earlier, Notion Ink could be opening up Adam for pre-orders today. At least for those in the United States and possibly India (though that appears to be far fetched for no reason).

To top up these speculations, Notion Ink has also posted a teaser post on their blog. The latest blog post contains no text and is a mere image that shows the Adam half-way from being completely unveiled. Does this confirm our earlier speculation? In all likelihood, yes.

Notion Ink Adam Pre-Order

Check back here for an update on when the website opens up for pre-order. By the looks of it, it has to be in just a few more hours from now.