SourceCode: The Tablet Situation, A Mid-year Report

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

2011, the proclaimed "Year of the Tablet," has reached the halfway point.

We now have something resembling a very young marketplace for tablets other than Apple's iPad. Most of the new models have bet the farm on Google's Android OS and hope it will succeed as wildly and as quickly on the tablet space as it did in smartphones.

Braver manufacturers like RIM and HP are pushing their own hardware and software platforms hoping that customers who want 'something different', might subscribe to their approach and buy their products.

We've now had a chance to spend some time with most of the major tablet releases this year (so far).

We've seen the 10.1" inch tablets (four Androids; the Motorola XOOM, the Toshiba Thrive, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1" inch), HP's enigmatic TouchPad webOS tablet and Apple's genre-leading iPad 2.

We've also spent considerable time with the three 7" inch tablet offerings. Namely, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7, HTC's pen-savvy Flyer and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook. This smaller form factor is equally interesting and brings unique opportunities to users who prefer more compact devices.

Trends in the landscape

We're seeing different trends emerging in the tablet landscape. Many of the companies pitching 10.1" inch tablets are clearly gunning for the iPad 2.

Whether they claim being thinner and lighter (Samsung), offering more ports and removable batteries (Toshiba), better multitasking, wireless charging and touch to share technology (HP), a keyboard attachment (ASUS) or the promise of Adobe Flash integration (everyone) the 10" inch tablet space is clearly all about differentiating themselves from the Big Kahuna.

7" inch tablets (from right) Samsung Galaxy Tab, BlackBerry PlayBook and the HTC Flyer

The 7" inch tablet space is clearly up for grabs since there isn't a dominant player in this area yet although with 500,000 units shipped  RIM's PlayBook looks to be the forerunner right now even without fully realized software solutions (still no native Email, BlackBerry Messenger, Contacts and Calendar apps).

The PlayBook does have a fast dual-processor, quick multitasking performance and a great screen and shows ample potential as a crossover enterprise and consumer device but the software needs to catch up soon and the third party apps are nowhere near where they need to be to make this device truly useful.

The other two devices, Samsung's Galaxy Tab (Android 2.1) and HTC's Flyer (Android 2.3) both use smartphone versions of Android's OS. Phone apps are scaled-up to display properly

They are, essentially, large smartphones without the telephony aspect. The Galaxy Tab 7" differentiates itself by having a SIM card slot for 3G data making it one of the few tablets today that has its own 3G data capability.

The HTC Flyer, on the other hand, is enhanced by Magic Pen (a hideously priced $80 option)  with input capability which runs atop of HTC's Sense UI and makes it easy to sketch, write notes as well as highlight text but only within the realm of HTC Sense.

Running on more prevalent smartphone versions of Android OS actually means that, right now, these devices have a far larger collection of available apps for their users than the larger tablets running Google's Honeycomb OS, which has proven to have regrettably poor assortment of tablet specific applications two months in.

The problem with the 7" inch tablet space is the pricing. Many of these tablets start at US $499 which is also the starting price of the smallest capacity iPad 2 which has a bigger screen, abundant apps and an unparalleled accessory ecosystem. Some consumers just don't feel they're getting their money's worth.

Tablet Equation

There are three elements to the Tablet Equation. One is the hardware, the second is the operating system and the third is the application and developer ecosystem.

Most of the tablets our right now feature impressive specs. Dual-core processors, at least 1GB or RAM, stunning screens, dual-cameras for video chatting and battery life for 7-12 hours depending on user settings.

Most tablets sold today are WiFi only variants.We're not sure if this is to keep costs down and avoid the pedantry of setting up costly data plans with mobile carriers or because smartphones can now act as mobile hotspots to share data.

With the operating system and the applications, this is really the area where most contenders need to ramp up quickly. For users, once the initial thrill of owning a tablet wears off, the question of "what can I do with this device," becomes critical. In the enterprise market, this is an even bigger deal.

A number of buyers will likely return a tablet that they feel doesn't have the applications and functionality they desire or expected.

With the apps, it isn't a numbers game either. It matters more to users that the right apps are available than having tens of thousands of apps that aren't of any real use.

Potential buyers really need to suss out what it is they want from their tablets, ensure that the apps they need are present on their platform and work with that. Manufacturers are also selling these things half-baked and prematurely. Don't sell us features that are "down the pipeline," or "coming soon," because that doesn't matter in the here and now.

This is still the first wave, we're already hearing of second generation tablets coming for 2012. Let's just hope that the applications and supporting ecosystems start pouring in while the prices start coming down.