Tag: Tablet

The Rack

Hey, $199 Cruz Reader Ships in September

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This is the summer of the Android tablet. With all the gadget sites tracking products from Archos, Sony, Asus, et al., I thought I’d remind you of  an inexpensive ($199) Android 2.0  color e-book reader that is also a media player and has a browser.   Velocity Micro is now taking orders for their Cruz Reader 7″ tablet, which it plans to ship in early September.  I just plunked down my money.  Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Cisco Cius: Unimaginative, but Slightly Intriguing

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Cisco Systems Logo
Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps only a company of Cisco’s still considerable market heft can foist its recently revealed Cius (pronounced “see us”) tablet on the citizens of cubeland. Many of the tech bloggers are underwhelmed and ask the question, “Why?”.

This tech blogger has the same query. Once upon a time the gadgets in the office were not obtainable on the street; now consumer gadgetry is far better than what’s available or officially allowed in walled off corporate castles.

For the record, the Cius is a 7” tablet that supports a multi-touch screen, WiFi/BlueTooth, HD video (720p), HD audio, 8-hour battery, and front and rear (for taking pictures of your coworkers?) facing cameras. The company expects to ship the tablet in 1Q2011.

Price? Under $1000. (long pause) Now for the intriguing part: Cius will run a modified version of  the Android OS.Continue reading

The Rack

$75 Tablet From OLPC

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The One Laptop Per Child Foundation has teamed up with chip maker Marvell to produce an inexpensive tablet computer for the education market.

OLPC XO-3 concept

OLPC , founded by Dr. Nicholas Negroponte, has committed to distributing a new family of XO tablets that will have some very desirable features, even for non-school children: based on low watt version of  Marvell’s Armada processor , multi-lingual, multi-touch soft keyboard,   multi-OSes (Android, Ubuntu, Windows Mobile), and 1080p  video. Continue reading

The Rack

Freescale's $200 Tablet Supports Multiple OSes

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At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Freescale was showing off what its chips can do. Freescale’s 7″ tablet reference architecture was meant to inspire manufacturers. And to my eyes, I think they’ll generate lots of interest. Since CES, they’ve added Chromium and Android OS to the line-up— at CES, they had a Linux mock-up. The expected retail price for a  Freescale gadget is in the  $200 to $250 range. Check out the demo after the jump.

Updated 3/23/2010: Read James Surowiecki’s article on why low-end (FreeScale-based) and high-end tablets (iPad) will dominate the market.
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