This isn’t going to be an Android Tablet bashing post, but rather a precautionary word in your shell like (ear, if you’re not familiar with cockney slang).
It’s expected that the great ship Apple will launch the iPad 2 within is a matter of weeks. While, we’re not going to see a huge jump forward in technology, we are going to see some very important features current iPad owners, and 2nd generation adopters want. A Facetime camera, is a given, a slightly thinner lighter design are a very good educated guesses, more RAM and a faster CPU, most likely (RAM at the very least) and a 128Gb option. There might be more, possibly an iOS update (4.3) but overall all the list of upgrades are likely to cause a mild murmur rather than ear splitting applause (but, I could be wrong).
Never the less current iPad owners, those who were waiting for iPad 2 and Apple fanboys and girls will clamber over one another to get their hands on the new shiny Apple branded toy.
So what about the millions of original iPads that people have bought, what will happen to them? Ebay is the most obvious answer, and this is where the current Android Tablet market are going to see a very real and possible danger.
Current 10 inch capacitive screen Android Tablets from China mimic the external appearance of the iPad almost perfectly (sometimes even down to the Apple logo) but it’s on the inside that they are let down and where it really counts. Despite getting fast, 1Ghz processors and sometimes double the RAM of the iPad the overall user experience suffers due to a lack of research and development.
This lack of R&D means an Android O.S with left over phone functionality, such as the camera icon in the gallery and find my location in maps, which either don’t work or end up crashing the system leading to slow and buggy performance.
What’s more 10” capacitive screen prices have only just become affordable to Shenzhen based manufacturers making 10 inch tablet financially viable, that said though by the time your 10 inch tablet makes it from Shenzhen and in to your home the price of the tablet, shipping and whatever cut Paypal takes is going to mean a tablet costing upwards of $400! This is the price we expect second hand 16Gb iPads to start at (and we know which we would buy).
Gizchina News of the week
Like I said at the start of the post this is not meant to be an Android Tablet bashing or iPad love fest., but rather a word of warning to those would be 10” Android Tablet buyers. There are some perfectly good 7” Android tablets on the market now with great specs and prices, there may even be a few 8”, but 10” tablets in their current guise aren’t ready for the prime time and are likely to be pushed from the market by cheap second hand iPad prices.
Let’s see what happens in a few months though when Android 3.0 ships, perhaps we’ll change our tune.
For more Android Tablet news and how to articles head over to AndroidOSTablets.com
Follow us on Twitter to get more Android tablet news and articles, or leave a comment below if you think we’re full of it.
1 Comment