Arnova 7 G2: Humbler Tablets As Good As Their More Pretentiously Priced Rivals

For the past couple of weeks, I have been using a low-caste tablet computer. It does not have the genes or a pedigree that its higher-priced counterparts from Apple and Samsung can lay claim to, no sirs.

Despite its low-end bearing, the Arnova 7 G2 tablet performs as capably as most other tablets.

Nor does it come with any pretentions at all. Unlike those quite popular tablets whose marketers have claimed are made in the land of milk and honey but are actually made in Taiwanese-owned factories in China, the Arnova 7 G2 makes no effort to hide its low-market intentions.

Finally, a Real Windows Tablet

Finally, Windows fans can have their tablet fantasies come to life without betraying their favorite operating system.

An added pleasure would be knowing that the tablet comes from Microsoft itself.

Microsoft's Surface tablet comes with a cover-cum-keyboard.

After causing the most media buzz the software company has ever had for almost four decades of existence, Microsoft finally unveiled the Surface tablet computer.

Seems like Microsoft has got a beauty, from whichever angle.

Microsoft actually introduced two models of the Surface tablet. The Windows RT version comes with a USB 2.0 port, while the Windows 8 Professional version includes a USB 3.0.

Windows fans just have their tablet wish granted.

These tablets are expected to be available later this year.

I wonder, if I would be good and nice for the rest of the year, would Santa give me one of these?

So slender, this beauty-and-brain tablet.

A Microsoft-Branded Tablet Makes Sense, as Well as Enemies

Much has been said about why Microsoft should come up with its own tablet.

The reason most cited by IT columnists, bloggers, and all the other usual suspects is that by offering its own tablet computer, Microsoft can have control over the tablet's design and features, and most importantly, all aspects of the user experience.

Microsoft will launch its own tablet on Monday, some analysts claim.

Think of what Apple has done with the iPad — despotic control over everything about the world's most popular tablet computer. And consumers, millions of them, seem to love being told what to do. They love having no choice, apparently.

Kindle Fire: Waiting for Amazon to "Friend" customers with non-U.S. IP addresses

Since its U.S. launch on November 14, 2011, Amazon's Kindle Fire has certainly made the tablet computer market a much more interesting space. Finally, consumers (at least, those who reside in the states) now have choices that are not limited between the expensive iPad and high-end Android slates and the low-cost, jocular excuses for a tablet computer.

Amazon's Kindle Fire is one exciting tablet computer. Local consumers, however, better wait for Amazon to resolve its geographical limits.

The Kindle Fire makes no pretensions as far as its list of features and capabilities is concerned. This doesn't mean, however, that it is a stingy and underperforming, underwhelming piece of high-tech tool-cum-toy.

Huawei brings MediaPad tablet computer to the Philippines

Months after Huawei introduced it at the 2011 CommunicAsia in Singapore, the MediaPad is finally available from your favorite local IT retailers.

Running on the Honeycomb 3.2 build of Google's Android mobile operating system, the MediaPad comes packing a 7-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, encased in a 10.5mm (or 0.4 inches) thin body frame.

The MediaPad is Huawei's take on what consumers want from their tablets.

This 390-gram tablet computer is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor and includes a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel auto-focus main camera that also shoots HD videos.

Hewlett Packard's TouchPad Tablet Computer Receives a Reprieve

Agreeably surprised by consumers' rabid desire to own one of those TouchPad tablet computers they had earlier declared dead, HP executives recently announced plans to "produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand."

Fire-sale prices made a bestseller out of the HP TouchPad.

HP cut the price of the tablet from $399 and $499 to $99 the weekend following the company's announcement it was ending its tablet PC business on August 18. The move was part of HP's decision to give up its consumer business and focus instead on the enterprise market.

The fire sale created an online feeding frenzy, with consumers seeking to get their hands on one or more of those tablets set to become a piece of IT history or consumer electronics foible.

HP loses money with every TouchPad it sells. 

HP is set to lose money on every final-production-run TouchPad. HIS iSuppli's estimates it costs $318 to produce a 32GB version of the tablet computer.

I wonder why HP would want to have this "final run?" Is the company doing it just to spite Apple?

Hmm. There must be a business model somewhere here.

Source: Reuters Technology News

Canalys report adds to growing death knell for the netbook

Various market reports and IT industry analysts' assertions would like us to believe that the netbook is on its way to history's dustbin. The latest in this growing list of virtual obituaries for the netbook is a recent report from market research firm Canalys, which predicts that shipments of tablet computers will grow to 52 million in 2011. Apple will grab more than 75 percent of the market, the company says.



The iPad 2 from Apple leads the tablet computer's pillage of the netbook country, market analysts say.

 Also-ran tablet brands will have to kill each other for the remaining 12 million.

The market research firm's PR department created some sticky sound bites for its latest market study. And most of the world's IT media people and bloggers picked up those designed-for-TV one-liners, such as "For every two tablet computers sold, a netbook (or laptop) won't be shipped," or something to that effect.


A deeper look at data presented by these analysts, however, shows the netbook is going strong.

 A closer look at Canalys' figures, however, would reveal some feet of clay for most IT industry analysts' doomsday forecasts for the PC sector — in particular, the notebook and its smaller cousin, the netbook.

The market research firm's study admits that demand for notebook computers will grow at least 8 percent. Netbooks, despite its projected demise, would still sell some 34 million units.

Tens of millions units sold and analysts say the netbook is gone and dead? I wonder what these people are ingesting. Applegesic? Or MacOpium? Or iViagra?

iPad 2 rubs it in: Apple still the real boss in the tablet computer space

Here's a good-news-and-bad-news routine for Apple's rivals in the tablet-computer market.

The good news first: The iPad is no longer the number 1, best-selling tablet computer.

The bad news: It is now the iPad 2.

The iPad 2 shows who's boss.

Its detractors can rant to high heavens and as much as their hearts desire, but the fact remains: The iPad 2's coming is a most blunt reminder for everybody about who is the real king in the tablet computer market — and who are mere pretenders to the throne.

Samsung Galaxy Tab: Gadgets on my wish list, part 2

As each day passes, more and more of my friends and family are giving in to their desire for an iPad, Apple's wildly popular tablet computer. This despite the fact that the iPad has still yet to be launched (officially) in the Philippines. As of today, those hundreds of iPads you see being bandied about by their owners around the metropolis -- they're all gray-market iPads.

Can hardly wait until Samsung's Galaxy Pad rocks my world.

I never would turn down an opportunity to buy myself an iPad, too. But I just cannot bring myself to spend a considerable part of my annual income on something that almost everyone I know says is the coolest thing to own. I never appreciate being told by almost everybody else what is cool and what is not.

I'd rather be the judge for myself of what is cool and what should be avoided at all cost. That is why, I am waiting for Samsung's Galaxy Tab to reach these local shores.