Could it be that Android tablets are actually selling?
Reports claim that Asus is shipping somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 units of the Eee Pad Transformer per month, which is pretty impressive, especially since Asus appears to have orders for up to 4.5 million units for the second half of the year. You could be very pessimistic and say that shipments and orders do not equal units sold. However, the Transformer appears to be a bright light in what has been a very dark environment for non-iPad tablets so far.
Asus is quiet about any numbers, but we know that the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Motorola Xoom were not exactly blockbusters. the most successful tablet next to the iPad may have been the Blackberry Playbook, which strongly leverages the Blackberry platform as an incentive for Blackberry users.
The most promising candidate to rival the iPad appears to be the rumored Amazon Kindle tablet that could debut sometime during this quarter. If platform is what makes a tablet successful, then Amazon should have the best shot at an Android tablet these days.
$400, same stats as others, looks good, not a fingerprint magnet. Designed to work with a keyboard that doubles as a screen cover.
These numbers are pretty good, considering that Apple is selling about 3million iPads a month.
Tablets are not useful devices. They are ergonomically atrocious. I will take a notebook form factor any day!
They are VERY useful... it depends on WHAT they are used for. A notebook is nowhere near as functional as a desktop. But why do you want a notebook for?
Try talking to 120+ people a day over a 10 hour period... a 1.5lb tablet that rotates easily with an 8+ hour battery life or a 3~5lb notebook with a 2~3hr battery life?
Lets see ANY notebook or netbook have a 1-second boot-up time... eh?
Now, the Asus transformer gave very useful features to the "tablet" concept with a cheap twist (cheap is not a trivial word IMO) and not leaving quality behind. I used it for a while (a friend has it), but I'm not a target for them at all, so all I can say is that tablets are a niche product that fit very specific needs. If they try to broaden those needs, disaster will occur: price will go up, performance will go down; or even worse, they'll step into PC territory (notebooks). Side by side, though, the Asus looks better than the iPad in functionality, but the iPad is way way easier to use. It's like Android was meant for engineers and iOS for... Well... You know... Masses.
When Apple steps into the PC territory, they won't care though, because it's their own ecosystem (phone -> tablet -> notebook -> desktop). But Android... Android is Linux kernel + Java, so it's closest relative is Linux and we all know about Linux for the masses: is non-existent. Google is taking big steps to make that change, but there's the other big brother called Microsoft that won't budge on that market, lol.
Cheers!
It has done everything I asked of it - mostly being to remove any personal stuff I still had on my work PC, but the browsing, emailing, networking, gaming and media functionality have gone above the call of duty. I use it about 90% of the time with keyboard dock, making up the entire time I'm at work, but when I get home I put the dock on charge and detach the tablet to sit on the couch for some relaxation and chatting time.
It really is the perfect accessory for any desktop owner. And that is the only caveat I will apply; don't rely solely on the TF for all needs, but partnered with a PC it is simply wonderful.
It was a mess for my purposes. You can't honestly enjoy typing on a touch screen. It's no where near as useful as a keyboard. Without a mouse, some productive stuff is just not possible. I can't see this in my house.
We live with touch screens on phones because we need them carried on us, but iPad's aren't something you can just travel with you everywhere you go. It's luggage, much like a laptop, so we shouldn't need to sacrifice functionality.
Here is the correct pricing for a tablet: 1Gb RAM, 16Gb SSD, Kal-El - $200 Paying more than $200 for a tablet no matter what's inside it is insane and simply stupid!
And I wish tablets come with ebook reader-like displays, something to what PixelQi offers.
Could you explain why? I've tried in a store iPad 2 and a Transformer and an Iconia. I think that iPad/iPhone are much better designed and useful than anything Android I've seen so far.
BTW I'm not an Apple fan. I do not own anything Apple and I don't imagine myself paying the premium Apple prices but I still find Android not to be there yet?