This weekend Asus confirmed that a Transformer 2 tablet is in the works. Meanwhile, the company has officially launched the Eee Pad Slider tablet.
Over the weekend, Asus chairman Jonney Shih told Forbes that the company is currently working on a sequel tablet to its popular Android-powered Eee Pad Transformer. Shih wouldn't reveal any details in regards to screen size or launch date, but promised that it would be "impressive."
There's speculation that the follow-up tablet will sport Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 (Kal-El) SoC slated for a September release. The current Transformer tablet, costing around $395 without the docking keyboard, uses Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 SoC and a high-resolution IPS display. According to Forbes, it's been the top-selling tablet on Amazon for the past two weeks; Shih claims the company shipped 300,000 units in June and 400,000 in July.
Outside the Transformer tablet, Asus currently has the 12-inch Windows-powered Eee Slate on the market, and still has the 10-inch Eee Pad Slider and the 7-inch 3D-enabled Eee Pad MeMo slated to arrive in the coming months. Shih said that Asus will unveil even more tablets before the end of the year.
“We’re running so fast, we can’t wait until [the January] Consumer Electronics Show,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, Asus officially launched the Eee Pad Slider tablet which features a slide-out keyboard, Google's Android 3.1 "Honeycomb" OS (upgradeable to v3.2) and a 178°-wide viewing angle IPS display. It also arrives in pearl white or metallic brown.
On the hardware front, the tablet uses Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 SoC while featuring a front-facing 1.2MP camera and back-facing 5MP camera. The screen is protected by a layer of scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass and supports up to ten simultaneous inputs. There's also a 16/32 GB eMMC slot, a USB port, a Micro SD card reader, and a mini-HDMI port.
According to Asus, the tablet also comes packed with applications such as MyNet, MyCloud, and MyLibrary.
"MyNet easily streams digital media wirelessly to home network devices, so HD videos or music can be played on HDTVs or desktop PCs," the company states in a press release. "MyLibrary consolidates downloaded books, magazines, and newspapers in one easy-to-browse profile, while MyCloud is a total cloud solution that provides access to digital content such as music, videos and photos. Users can even use MyCloud to remotely access and control their PC or Mac systems and access applications to extend the capabilities of the Eee Pad Slider."
So far pricing and actual availability hasn't been released, so stay tuned.
This market is eerie similar to the smart-phone market where every company are making 1 year refresh cycles, last years tablet will simply not be able to keep up. Technology is increasing so much quicker in the mobile market and for $400-800.
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Glowball Demo for Tegra 3. Very cool stuff.
Glowball Demo for Tegra 3. Very cool stuff.
That's with any piece of tech. Granted we are in the first round of devices, but still if you wait 2 years and buy one, within a year or less it will be severely outdated. Or the tablet market will have disappeared.