Toshiba's jumbo tablet, the Excite 13, garners early kudos, scorn

New tablet has 13.3-in. display and weighs 2.2 lbs.; goes on sale in June

The tablet market is already populated with dozens of models of various sizes, many close in size to Apple's highly popular iPad, with its 9.7-in. screen.

                           The Toshiba Excite 13 tablet has a 13.3-in. screen, the largest for a tablet computer. (Image: Toshiba)

So how does a vendor distinguish its tablets from the competition? One way could be introduce a model with a radically different screen size, like Toshiba this week.

Toshiba expanded its Excite family of Android tablets with three new models, but the one getting all the attention, and already some scorn, is the Excite 13, which features a 13.3-in. display that offers 1600-x-900-pixel resolution and more than 75 square inches of viewing area.

The other tablets that Toshiba announced are the Excite 10, with a 10.1-in. screen and more than 43 square inches of viewing area, and the Excite 7.7, with a 7.7-in. display and more than 25 inches of viewing area. All three tablets run Android 4.0 and use Nvidia Tegra 3 quadcore processors.

The Excite 13 boasts the largest screen of any tablet on the market. But at 0.4-in. thick and weighing 2.2 lbs., it's not as bulky and heavy as you might expect it to be.

Toshiba emphasized that it's not just trying to stand out by offering a jumbo tablet; its goal is to provide a range of sizes to meet a range of user needs. "One size does not fit all, so we are carefully considering how and where people are using tablets and [will] design form factors to best suit various needs," said Carl Pinto, Toshiba's vice president of product development, in a statement.

Jack Gold, an analyst at J.Gold Associates, defended Toshiba's approach with the 13-in. model. "There is no ideal tablet size, just like there is not one size of car, TV, refrigerator, mattress or even PC screen," he said.

"At 13.3 inches, it is probably not terribly portable in the sense of putting it in your pocket, like you might with a 7-in. or smaller size, but it is probably great for uses like looking at X-ray images in a medical setting or detailed schematics and diagrams in certain work situations, " Gold said.

The display is the most expensive element in any tablet, and the larger the display, the higher the price tag, Gold said.

The Excite 13 will go on sale June 10 at prices of $650 for the 32GB model and $750 for the 64GB model. Toshiba will start selling the 10.1-in. Excite 10 on May 6, charging $450 for the 16GB version, $530 for the 32GB model and $650 for the 64GB device. Toshiba's smallest tablet, the Excite 7.7, will also go on sale June 10 at prices of $500 for the 16GB version and $580 for the 32GB version.

While Gold suggested the Excite 13 could be used in the workplace, Toshiba described it as "ideally suited for the home" for tasks such as sharing photos, surfing the Web, playing games and watching movies with a group. It is powered by a quadcore Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, has 1GB of memory, and is marketed as a gaming and multitasking device.

Despite such qualities, a few experts said the Excite 13 will be seen as being too big. "The problem with big tablets is that the bigger they are, the harder they fall," noted Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner. "There's a direct correlation between size and the frequency of being dropped."

Toshiba said the three new tablets all have sturdy aluminum shells and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass displays to make them durable, although the analysts noted that "durable" doesn't mean the devices are drop-resistant like some ruggedized tablets that cost hundreds of dollars more.

Dulaney said Toshiba is probably trying out different tablet sizes to see how well they do in the market, just as Samsung has done with its tablets, including the Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), which has a 10.1-in. screen, and the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), which has a 7-in. display. Still, Samsung has resisted building a table with anything larger than a 10.1-in. screen, and that makes the Excite 13 all the more unusual.

Ultimately, Dulaney argued that tablet manufacturers "will conclude that the 10-in. tablet is the best size, just like we have concluded that 8.5 by 11 is the best size for a sheet of paper."

Steven Buehler, an analyst at IDC, called the Excite 13 "intriguing," but he also said it is "among the experiments that manufacturers are trying as they attempt to stay in front of the market."

Buehler said tablets, even models as large as the Excite 13, are not ideal for fine detail work, because they require people to use a finger on a touchscreen. And even if a tablet is paired with a keyboard and mouse, the result is still not as effective as using a PC, he added.

"Only time will tell whether users adopt the [Excite 13] form factor, but to me it seems too big to be a good tablet and too tablet-like to be a good PC," Buehler said.

First BlackBerry 10 smartphone to launch in October, reports say

        Timing might give RIM a chance to set a better course

Reports indicate that the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone will be announced by mid-August and will be launched in October, somewhat earlier than expected.

An October launch would give Research in Motion several weeks' advantage with holiday sales, which are much needed by RIM, especially in North American markets.

The website N4BB.com reported the October launch on Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who claimed the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone would be touchscreen-only. That source said a BlackBerry 10 device with a physical Qwerty keyboard, possibly a slider style, will be released in the first quarter of 2013.

BGR.com noted Thursday that the October release conforms to its own earlier reporting for a BlackBerry 10 smartphone, code-named BlackBerry London, that would be launched in September or early October.

RIM didn't respond to a request to comment on the BlackBerry 10 smartphone release.

RIM's BlackBerry World conference starts next week, but analyst say RIM isn't likely to discuss specific release details beyond CEO Thorsten Heins' earlier statements that the BlackBerry 10 device would appear in the second half of 2012.

RIM's smartphone market share has slipped, in part because the smartphone maker has fallen behind on new smartphone releases.

Last year's RIM network outage and product delays have forced some IT managers to adopt new policies to allow smartphones on iOS and Android into their workplaces.

Tablet priced under $100 with Android 4.0 surfaces

A first-of-its-kind tablet with Google's Android 4.0 priced under $100 is now available in China, and will reach other countries soon, according to companies that helped build the device.

Ainol's Novo7 tablet has a 7-inch capacitive screen and runs on a 1GHz single-core MIPS processor, said MIPS Technologies and chip maker Ingenic in a joint press release. The tablet's battery lasts eight hours on watching video, seven hours when browsing the Web and six hours when playing games.

Ainol's Novo7 tablet

The tablet runs on Google's Android 4.0, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the successor to Android 3.0, code-named Honeycomb, which is found on the more advanced tablets today.

For its price, the tablet also has a vast feature list. The Novo7 includes cameras on the front and back, 3D graphics capabilities, 1080p video decoding and an HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) port to connect the tablet to high-definition TVs.

"I'm thrilled to see the entrance of MIPS-based Android 4.0 tablets into the market. Low cost, high performance tablets are a big win for mobile consumers and a strong illustration of how Android's openness drives innovation and competition for the benefit of consumers around the world," said Andy Rubin, senior vice president of mobile at Google in a statement.

The tablet is available only in China through Ainol Electronics, but will come to other countries within the next several months under brands including Leader International and OMG Electronics. New tablets with 8-inch and 9-inch screens will also become available in the future, MIPS and Ingenic said.

The tablet has acquired Google certification to run applications such as Google Maps, Gmail, Google Music and Google Talk. However, Google does not provide official Android market access in China, so the device lacks that feature, said Jen Bernier-Santarini, a MIPS spokeswoman. Access to Android Market is an ongoing concern for inexpensive tablet users.

"Android Market access is provided by Google through negotiations with carriers and OEMs as part of Google Mobile Services in other geographies. So Google will need to work with U.S. OEMs on this for future releases of the product," Bernier-Santarini said.

However, the tablet can access other third-party app markets such as Amazon, from where apps like Angry Birds can be downloaded.

The sub-$100 price is a breakthrough for users looking for new tablets with the latest Android OS. Most inexpensive tablets come with versions of Android 2, which is for smartphones, while notable tablets that come with tablet-optimized Android 3.0 are priced above $250. Other device makers are also announcing tablets with Android 4.0, which has already been ported to the ARM and x86 processors.

The Novo7 is also a showcase tablet for MIPS, a chip licensing company that is battling ARM and Intel for smartphone and tablet market share. Tablets using MIPS processors include Velocity Micro's $139 Cruz Tablet, but MIPS processors have not found wide acceptance in the tablet market dominated byApple's iPad, which runs on an ARM processor.

The original development of Android 4.0 revolved around ARM processors, but Intel and MIPS quickly ported the OS to work on their processors after Google released the source code last month.

MIPS dominates the embedded market, with processors found in set-top boxes, TV sets and other embedded devices. The company believes the smartphones and tablets are a natural extension from the embedded market. The company's processors are also being used by the Chinese government in chip designs.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) review: A nice price, but where's the 'wow'?

Android devices -- both smartphones and tablets -- are getting increasingly affordable. With its new Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) tablet, which goes on sale on April 22 for $250, Samsung is obviously hoping to claim its piece of the budget-price pie.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)

However, while the price is new and noteworthy, there's not much else about the tablet that's fresh or exciting.

Don't get me wrong: The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) is a perfectly fine device. It has an attractive form and solid performance. The problem is that it seems like a step sideways -- or, in some ways, backwards -- from the 7-in. tablets Samsung already has available. And by simply recycling and remixing an existing concept, Samsung has doomed the product to being quickly outpaced.

The many faces of Samsung's 7-inch Tab

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) stands alongside two other current 7-in. Samsung Galaxy tablets: the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, available for $350, and the Galaxy Tab 7.7, which comes with LTE connectivity and sells for $500 with a two-year Verizon data contract (or for $700 with no contract). Generally speaking, choice is a good thing -- but lined up next to Samsung's other 7-in. offerings, the only significant distinguishing feature the new Tab can claim is its price tag. To be fair, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) does look a little different from its predecessors. The tablet has a gray plastic back and is slightly thicker than Samsung's other 7-in. devices, measuring in at 0.41 in. compared to the 7.0 Plus model's 0.39-in. size and the 7.7 model's even svelter 0.31-in. waistline. It weighs 12.2 oz., the same as the 7.0 Plus tablet and 0.2 oz more than the 7.7.

The tablet feels good in your hands; it's not at all slippery and is comfortable to hold, at least in the horizontal position. Because of its size, I found the tablet a bit awkward to use vertically; in that orientation, it's slightly too big to hold in one hand and slightly too small to hold naturally with two.

The display itself is good but not breathtaking. The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has a 1024 x 600 PLS TFT screen -- the same kind as the Tab 7.0 Plus. It's easy on the eyes and certainly nothing to complain about, but it's also far less impressive than the high-quality screens we've seen on other recent devices -- including Samsung's own Galaxy Tab 7.7, which uses one of the company's newer Super AMOLED Plus (1280 x 800) displays.

Hardware and performance

Under the hood, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has a 1GHz dual-core processor along with 1GB of RAM. Curiously, Samsung won't divulge exactly what type of processor the tablet uses -- a spokesman told me he couldn't comment on the matter -- but I independently confirmed that the chip is not Nvidia's Tegra 2 processor, which powers many of the current dual-core Android tablets.

Compared to Samsung's more expensive 7-in. tablets, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) is a bit of a downgrade in terms of pure processing power: The Tab 7.0 Plus runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM, while the Tab 7.7 uses a 1.4GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM.

Regardless, the difference is fairly minor and the tablet performed well in my hands-on tests. Apps loaded quickly, Web browsing and page-zooming were fast, and the system generally felt speedy and responsive. My only issue was with swiping through the five home screens, which felt far less fluid and snappy than I've come to expect from using similarly powered devices.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) comes with 8GB of internal storage, though my device showed only about 4.3GB free immediately after initialization (with no nonsystem apps installed). Samsung originally said the Tab 2 (7.0) would be available in three storage options -- 8GB, 16GB and 32GB -- and its consumer website still reflected that multitiered lineup as of this writing. However, a company spokesperson told me that the 8GB model I tested is the only version that will be available at launch.

At a Glance

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)

Samsung 

Price: $249.99 

Pros: Affordable; comfortable to hold; ships with Android 4.0; microSD card slot 

Cons: Underwhelming display; some lag in home screen swiping; limited internal storage space

Fortunately, the Tab 2 (7.0) has plenty of supplementary storage options. The device has a microSD slot that supports cards up to 32GB (no cards are included with the tablet at purchase). It also comes with a one-year subscription for 50GB of cloud-based storage from Dropbox, but take note: If you want to keep that subscription beyond your first year, it'll cost you $10 a month or $100 a year. Without extending the subscription, you'll be defaulted back to Dropbox's free storage level, which gives you 2GB of space.

In terms of cameras, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has an adequate but not exemplary 3-megapixel rear-facing camera and a VGA-quality front-facing camera -- the latter of which is a step down in quality from the 2-megapixel front-facing camera found on the other two 7-in. Galaxy Tab models. The Tab 2 (7.0) also has a built-in IR port that, combined with the preloaded Smart Remote app, allows you to use the tablet as a remote control for your TV. I found the function to be easy to configure and novel to use.

A new flavor of Ice Cream Sandwich

The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) ships with Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich -- the latest version of Google's mobile operating system. Samsung did modify the OS with its proprietary TouchWiz skin, as it typically does, but the changes here are far less severe and regressive than what we saw recently onSamsung's Galaxy S II smartphones.

A "Mini Apps" button, which Samsung added at the center of the bottom of the screen, brings up a menu of applications.

With the Tab 2 (7.0), for the most part, you're getting the actual ICS-level interface with some arbitrarily changed colors and fonts that make it look a little less classy and polished. Samsung added a handful of features, too, such as a "Mini Apps" button -- found at the center of the bottom of the screen -- that brings up a menu of applications, all of which can be loaded in small overlay windows from anywhere in the system.

Samsung replaced the stock ICS Camera app with its own, too -- a cosmetic change, more than anything -- and added a somewhat intrusive screen-capture icon to the main system navigation area. (Ice Cream Sandwich has a native screen-capture command that can be activated by pressing the volume-down and power buttons together, making Samsung's addition rather redundant.)

The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has Samsung's usual sets of Hubs (interfaces for buying and managing music, games, multimedia files and news/magazine content) and bloatware as well, but Ice Cream Sandwich gives you an easy way to disable and hide most of these if you don't plan on using them and want them out of your way.

Bottom line

All things considered, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) is a pretty good tablet at a really good price. However, I find myself wondering why Samsung bothered creating it. The tablet bears no real improvements over its eerily similar predecessors; the few changes that it does have are either lateral or marginally regressive.

If the company's goal was to offer a respectable 7-in. tablet at a lower cost, I think a far more customer-centric approach would have been to deliver an ICS upgrade and a $100 price drop to its existing 7.0 Plus model (which is still awaiting Android 4.0, with a vague promise but no specific time frame for delivery). As it stands, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) lacks any "wow" factor and leaves Samsung's existing Tab users looking like second-class citizens in a waiting game with no end in sight.

(A similar situation may unfold with the company's upcoming Galaxy Tab 2 10.1-in. model, which is slated to be released on May 13 at a price of $400. Although review units weren't available at press time, it appears that, like the 7-in. model, the Tab 2 (10.1) will offer few significant changes over its predecessor -- which has also yet to be upgraded to Android 4.0.)

In addition, Google's I/O developers' convention is just over two months away. Asus has already discussed plans to release a $250 quadcore 7-in. tabletbetween now and the end of June, and Google is rumored to be working on an ext-gen 7-in. tablet that will cost in the $150 to $200 range and could be available this summer.In short, anyone in immediate need of a low-cost 7-in. tablet would do well with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0). But with tomorrow's technology almost upon us at budget-level prices, it's hard to recommend dropping that cash on yesterday's technology today.

The future of the $200 tablet

You'll soon be able to get a lot more value for a lot less money. 

Spending $150 to $200 on a tablet won't get you much these days: In most cases, you're looking at an off-brand Android product with a single-core processor, barely any RAM and a low-resolution, low-quality display. Depending on the device, you might not even have access to Google's app market or other basic services -- and while that approach may work with retailer-backed, limited-use products like Amazon's Kindle Fire, when it comes to more traditional Android tablets, it doesn't usually lead to the best user experience.

The budget tablet strategy

The Android tablet challenge

Low-end tablet competition

It's a stark contrast from what you get at the high end of the tablet spectrum, where $500 and up will buy you quad-core processors, a full gigabyte of RAM and eye-popping screens. Even midrange devices, which tend to have last year's hardware, are capable of delivering decent results. But once you hit that sub-$200 range, it's like you've entered a different dimension -- one filled with glorified e-readers and sluggish, subpar slates.

Get ready, though: That dimensional difference is due for a change. A major shift is brewing, and it could bring about the biggest transformation we've seen to the tablet class divisions. Put simply, budget-conscious buyers are about to get a lot more bang for their buck.

The tablet class shift

The first signs of the pending tablet class shift showed up in January, at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There, hardware maker Asus showed off a 7-in. tablet powered by Nvidia's Tegra 3 quad-core processor. 

"One size doesn't fit all," Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang declared, citing the need for "different strokes for different folks."

Asus and Nvidia described a tablet that would run Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich -- the latest version of Google's mobile operating system. An early prototype of the hardware featured a 1280-x-800-resolution IPS display; 1GB of RAM; micro-USB, micro-HDMI and microSD ports; and two cameras, including an 8-megapixel rear-facing lens. Hands-on reviews of the product were glowing: One blog touted the tablet's "blazing fast" speed, while another talked of its "bright, vibrant screen."

Perhaps most impressive of all, though, was the tablet's price tag: $249 -- a seemingly impossible cost for a device of that caliber. But this was no mistake.

"As we continue to see the volume of existing tablets increase, prices naturally come down on component cost," explains Nick Stam, Nvidia's director of technical marketing. "You'll see a number of devices coming out this year that will be lower cost than what you've been used to."

Indeed, $249 may be only the beginning. Rumors have been rampant that Google is working with Asus on a product similar to the 7-in. tablet introduced at CES, only with a price closer to the $150 to $200 range. Numerous reports suggest the tablet will run a "pure" version of Google's Android operating system, with no manufacturer modifications, and will be a joint effort between Google and Asus -- similar to Google's work with other hardware manufacturers when creating its Nexus and "Google experience" devices.

While Google representatives won't comment on rumors and speculation, the evidence is certainly starting to stack up. A quick search of the Internet turns up no shortage of purported leaks and insider winks. Sources close to the situation with whom I've spoken have discussed the project with a similar level of certainty, pointing to this June's Google I/O developers' conference as the time when the details -- and perhaps the product itself -- will be unveiled.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Nvidia's Huang strongly hinted that an Android tablet running his company's Tegra 3 processor would debut this summer for a cost of $199. "We took out $150 in build materials, things like expensive memory," Huang is quoted as saying. "At $199, you can just about buy a tablet at a 7-Eleven."

So how are prices on such seemingly high-quality devices suddenly plummeting so low? While Nvidia points to falling component costs, some analysts suspect there's more at play.

"Companies just aren't making much of a profit off of these tablets," says Rhoda Alexander, director of tablet and monitor research for market research firm IHS iSuppli.

Alexander notes the success of Amazon's $200 Kindle Fire tablet, which -- while relatively limited in both performance and capability -- has sold exceedingly well. For Amazon, Alexander says, it isn't about making money off the hardware itself; it's about making it easy for customers to spend money with the company every day.

"Where they're making the profit is in the long term of bringing people into the Amazon universe," Alexander says.

Amazon's strategy is clearly winning people over: The company accounted for more than half of all global tablet sales in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to IHS iSuppli's estimates, shipping 3.9 million Kindle Fires and shooting past Samsung to become the world's second-largest tablet shipper for that quarter.

In the bigger picture, with the help of Amazon's product -- which runs a highly customized, almost unrecognizable version of the Android 2.3 OS -- Android's share of the tablet market is slowly but surely starting to rise. Research by market analysis group IDC (which is owned by International Data Group, the publisher of Computerworld) showed that Android owned 44.6% of worldwide tablet sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 -- a 38% jump from its position in the previous term.

Much of that growth came at the cost of Apple. The iPad maker, while still experiencing strong growth, dropped 11% in total market share in 2011 from quarter to quarter, according to IDC, coming in with 54.7% of tablet sales for the final three months of 2011.

The million-dollar question now is whether Amazon's model of success can extend to the rest of the Android tablet market, which thus far has struggled to take off. While many analysts predict continued growth for Android overall -- Gartner, for example, forecasts Android tablet sales increasing eight-fold over the next five years -- some industry experts question whether playing the price game will be enough.

"Lowering the price on Android tablets will help, but that in and of itself won't sell the products," contends Sarah Rotman Epps, a senior analyst with Forrester Research.

Epps argues that products like tablets are as much about their interface as their hardware: You buy an Amazon tablet because it provides simple access to Amazon's content, just like you buy an iPad because it makes it easy to get and use stuff from Apple's iTunes store. The hardware matters, she says, but it isn't everything.

"Amazon has been successful because it does a great job delivering on the customer relationship -- the transaction," Epps explains. "A cheaper device from Google doesn't fix its shortcomings in that area."

Google may not have reached Apple's or Amazon's level of marketplace success, but it's working to get closer. The company has taken steps toward improving its mobile ecosystem over the past months, integrating its marketplaces for purchasing movies, books, music and mobile apps, and then rebranding it all as "Google Play". Still, fighting the perception that the Android tablet ecosystem is lackluster may be Google's greatest challenge in establishing itself as a major tablet player in the months ahead.

"Google has spent more than a decade training consumers to associate its brand with 'free,' and now they're trying to retrain consumers to transact with them," Epps says. "That's a hard sell. Part of making Android tablets successful is convincing consumers that Google has a marketplace where they want to do business."

One way or another, the lower end of the tablet market seems to be an area where Google thinks it can thrive. In the company's quarterly investors' conference call this month, CEO Larry Page acknowledged the success of "lower-priced tablets" using "not-the-full-Google-version of Android" and touched on the company's plan to pursue that segment of the market further.

"We definitely believe that there's going to be a lot of success at the lower end of the market ... with lower-priced products that will be very significant. It's definitely an area we think is quite important and that we're quite focused on," Page said.

Frequent Google partner Samsung already seems to be on the same page. The company just launched a new 7-inch version of its Galaxy Tab tablet that bears an eye-catching $250 price tag with hardware that exceeds the typical budget-tablet model. With that device and the even more attention-grabbing products on the horizon, we could soon see a change in the very notion of what a "low-end tablet" means.

For makers of existing budget tablets, that may mean being forced to drop even lower in price in order to stay relevant. The logic is simple: If you can buy a quad-core tablet with an impressive display and full Google services for $150 to $200, why would you pay the same cash for a second-rate alternative?

"Wherever the ceiling is set for these new tablets, the budget manufacturers will aim for a yet lower-cost version of that," IHS iSuppli's Rhoda Alexander predicts. "They're playing in a different ballpark and will continue to fill a niche within the market."

And let's not forget: Android manufacturers may not be the only players looking to cash in on lower-priced tablets. The always-present rumors of a 7- to 8-in. Apple iPad are picking up steam, with many predicting the advent of a $300 "iPad Mini" before the end of the year.

One thing's for sure: As more companies move into lower-priced territory and duke it out for market share, it's the customers who will reap the rewards. After all, in a world where the same dollar seems to buy less with each passing year, getting a better tablet for a lower price is something anyone can appreciate.

SOURCE: JR Raphael is a Computerworld contributing editor and the author of theAndroid Power blog.