I’ve been a little busy over the last few days, between installing Windows 7 over the weekend, my new day job, and other things, but I’m going to try to catch up a little here.
As if triggered by my post wondering where all the iPad alternatives were, there are a whole new bumper crop of tablets on the way, either confirmed or rumored—including a new size of iPad.
I first touched on the 7” iPad rumors in my post about why I would probably get a new iPod Touch instead of an iPhone 4. Ars Technica didn’t find the rumor very credible at the time, but it seems to be getting a lot more play from a number of sources now.
One of those sources, Engadget, reports that the 7” device will have the same 1024×768 resolution as the 9.7” first-gen iPad, giving it more pixels per inch and bringing it closer to “retina” resolution. It will also have the Cortex A9 processor and 512 megabytes of RAM like the iPhone 4.
Meanwhile, our sister blog Gadgetell reports that Samsung is going to build a 7” Android tablet based on its Galaxy S smartphone design. There aren’t many details about this device, but more might be revealed soon.
A lot of cheap Android tablets have been coming out lately, including the Kmart Augen devices (I got a phone call from my Kmart yesterday indicating that they had a $149 tablet in stock again to fulfill my rain check request, but I don’t intend to buy it) and convertible e-book readers like the Pandigital Novel (a friend recently won one from a website contest and is very pleased with it).
But now the Business Insider’s “Silicon Alley Insider” section reports that HTC is working with Google to bring out a tablet by the end of November running not Android but the Chrome operating system. It is expected to have 1280×720 resolution, 2 gigabytes of RAM plus at least a 32-gig solid state drive.
We’ve touched on Google tablets before, but this is the first time one has been this close to market. It will be interesting to see if Google can tilt at the Apple windmill any more successfully than anyone else has. Certainly the specs are attractive.
