When Should We Expect the Barrage of Cheap Android 3.0 Tablets?

Android 3.0 Honeycomb has been shown off on the Motorola Xoom, but many developers and factories are still unsure of what the hardware requirements for the latest installment of Android are, which means we could be in for more of a wait for Honeycomb tablets than we thought!

More details after the jump!

The biggest hurdle for tablet makers is what hardware requirements the latest tablet ready version of Android needs to operate, without knowing these parameters factories won’t know if their current tablets will be able to accept a Honeycomb upgrade or if an entirely new tablet needs to be developed.

Personally looking at the rumors for Android 3.0 (at least an A8 Core CPU or possibly even dual-core, and at least 512mb of RAM) we believe new tablets will be needed with better components and screens than the current crop of cheaper devices.

However, judging by the current quantities of ARM 9 chips (VIA8650, RK2818 and TCC8902) being produced for the first half of this year we are unlikely to see smaller factories adopting newer dual-core CPU’s due to the current ARM 9’s attractive price point. Although ARM 9 chips are are very powerful they would probably only support Android devices up to to Android 2.3 or possibly 2.4, meaning we might have at least a 6 month wait until we see cheaper Chinese made Android 3.0 running tablets!

Hopefully while we wait for hardware prices to drop, we will get to see some great innovations from smaller Android tablets makers, and hopefully some custom user interfaces for the current (mobile phone) version of Android.
With a good hardware specification and a little care and attention when it comes to the UI we might get to see some rather special and competitively priced tablets soon running Android 2.3 and 2.4 which may give the rather expensive 3.0 tablets a run for their money!

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