Dozens of tablets ready to challenge iPad

Robert Clark | May 31, 2010

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With the iPad’s global rollout now underway, a swathe of other tablets is set to hit the market.

The iPad, which launched in the US on April 3, finally hit the stores in western Europe, Australia and Japan last Friday, met by long queues of customers.

Now dozens of rival devices – many powered by Android – are likely to be unveiled at the Computex show in Taipei this week.

Asustek, which pioneered the net book sector, is expected to issue details of its tablet, while giants Acer and Dell have already announced plans, WSJ said.

Industry execs noted that because of the importance of applications in the tablet devices, many OEMs were planning to deploy Google’s Android operating system.

“The tablet trend is clearly going toward Android,” Jack Kang, director of technical marketing for Marvell Technology, told WSJ.

But smaller electronics firms such as Eken, G-Link and Bluesky, are also lining up to take on the iPad, with prices at around $100 (€81), according to FT.com.

Richard Brown, head of marketing at chipmaker Via, said he expects 50 tablets containing Via’s Prizm processor to be announced this week at the show, one of the world’s biggest computing trade fairs.

Meanwhile, the new version of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader will be thinner and have a higher definition screen, Bloomberg reported.

But it won’t include a touch screen or color, sources said.

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Robert Clark