Apple certainly isn’t going to be the first to announce a 7-10″ thing tablet computer. We already had the Joo Joo, and now Freescale has joined in on the fun with a 7″ tablet reference design. Let’s talk about Freescale’s tablet, and as hinted at during yesterday’s podcast, let’s spend/waste (pick one) a few words on Apple’s tablet as well.
Freescale
Primarily, Freescale is an American semiconductor manufacturer producing all sorts of chips and silicon for the embedded market. The company designs and builds both PowerPC and ARM-based processors, and most Mac people will probably know Freescale as the supplier of Apple’s past PowerPC G3 and G4 chips. Now, the company has produced a reference design for a 7″ tablet.
The press release conveniently lists the specifications of the reference design:
- Size: small/thin form factor (200mm x 128mm x 14.9cm and weighing 376 grams); no need for fan or heat sink
- Processor: Freescale i.MX515 applications processor provides high performance and low power
- ARM Cortex-A8 core
- OpenVG & OpenGL/ES graphics cores
- HD video decoder hardware
- Power management IC:
- Battery charging system for both USB and wall charging
- Output buck converters for the processor core and memory
- Boost converters for LCD backlighting
- Serial backlight drivers for displays and keypad, plus RGB LED drivers
- Display: 7-inch (1024 x 600) touch screen
- Memory: 512 MB DDR2
- Storage: 4-64 GB internal storage; removable micro SD
- Connectivity: 3G modem (option) 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, RF4CE (option)
- Ports: USB 2.0 and USB mini (also for charging), audio in/audio out, SIM card
- Audio: speaker, microphone
- Camera: 3 Mpixel (video recording up to VGA @ 30fps)
- Battery: 1900mAh, USB charging
- Sensors: MMA8450Q 3-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor
Pricing is interesting: Freescale claims this can be sold at less than 200 USD, which is considerably cheaper than the Joo Joo. Of course, the reference design doesn’t look exciting or pretty at all – the enclosure is a basic plastic one, ready to be replaced bys omething more fancy and durable, which will most likely jack up the price.
“Freescale’s new tablet opens the door to an exciting new world of compelling form factors specifically designed and optimized to support common online activities including social media, high-quality audio/video playback and light gaming,” said Henri Richard, senior VP of Sales and Marketing for Freescale, “We believe the tablet will emerge as a popular form factor for the next generation of smartbooks. By introducing this prototype reference design, Freescale intends to play a vital role in propelling the mainstream adoption of smartbooks.”
This is just an intermission, but where did the first generation of smartbooks go? We’ve been hearing promise after promise when it comes to ARM netbooks (smartbooks), but so far, little to nothing has come to fruition. Maybe things are different elsewhere in the world, but here in The Netherlands all I see is the bog-standard Atom-based frankenbooks (you know, power-efficient Atom processor coupled with a chipset from the stone age powered by coal).
In any case, Freescale will show off their tablet at CES, which starts later this week.
Apple
If you speak of tablet, you speak of Apple. The internet has been going absolutely bonkers with rumours over the holidays about the upcoming Apple tablet, but it seems like to me that Ars Technica’s John Siracusa has it more or less nailed with his prediction. If you’re holding out for Apple to include mind-control or access to the galactic mass relay network, you’re going to be disappointed.
“Instead of being all that people can imagine, it’ll just be what people expect: a mostly unadorned color touch screen that’s bigger than an iPhone but smaller than a MacBook,” Siracusa writes, “If I’m being generous, I’ll allow that maybe it’ll be something a bit more exotic than a plain LCD display.” According to Siracusa, three things will make Apple’s tablet stand out, even without technological shininess: customers (Apple has more than 100000 customers with credit cards thanks to iTunes), developers (think App Store), and relationships (with content providers).
That last one is interesting, as it will most likely mean Apple will court print publishers, rumours of which have already appeared in the media. It means that apart from audio and video, the iTunes Store will also offer print content, ranging from newspapers to comic books. Siracusa thinks this content will be delivered in a new format for electronic print media distribution.
“It will most likely be based on web technologies, much like the iTunes LP format,” Siracusa believes, “Best case (but also the least likely), it’ll be a slightly incompatible extension of the ePub standard. Worst case (and most likely), it’ll be an entirely new format. Either way, like iTunes LP, the format will be publicly documented and there’ll be an SDK available to all interested parties – eventually.”
We’ll all know for sure January 27. In the meantime, I’m much more excited about tomorrow, when we will finally know what the new Amiga will be like!
Forget those ARCHOS 9 PCtablet
Without an OLPC (Pixel Qi) screen _I_ find all tablets utterly pointless. _I_ want to READ for A LONG TIME on such a device. No backlight should be involved for that use case.
Broken record indeed, I find the continued blabbering about the Pixel Qi screens just that. For a decent device covering the most common use cases, it’s not needed.
I want to be able to read comfortable, so what I want is a real screen not those puny small ones. Something with a decent size, well over 11 inces. Even 13-14 if the weight can be kept reasonable.
In any case when reading(or browsing) I would do it at comfortable souroundings(where lighting conditions is easily controlled), like in my own home, not on the road. So those overated Pixel Qi screens does not add very much value. Based on current laptop designs, a 5-8hour battery life is easily obtainable. And recharging when the device is not in use, or sitting in the sofa reading with a thin powercord from a brick connected would be a minimal annoyance.
It’s like with books, you drag the cheap paperbacks to the beach, but when at home a hardcover is much nicer.
… had a link with pretty pictures.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10423606-64.html?tag=newsLatestHe…
MorphOS on one of these things (with touch support). mmmm
Yeah! Let the world move from one proprietary OS (Windows) to another one (MorphOS)!
Well, somehow I don’t think the world (or more accurately the people in it) would mind as long as it works and does so reasonably well. Come on, most of ’em still put up with Windows don’t they? That’s the trouble with some of the f/oss oses, particularly those based on Linux. Too many layers, being pulled in too many different directions and subsystems never getting even a decent amount of testing. That’s why proprietary oses typically offer a better experience for most, since there’s actually that rather important bit about some testing and debugging? Most users do not wish to be beta testers, they just want something to work.
Back to tablets though…
Yet another current tablet: http://gizmodo.com/5438716/google-and-htc-working-on-a-chrome-os-ta…
Here’s a recent home-made one: http://www.slashgear.com/dell-mini-10-netbook-mod-creates-huge-mini…
By the way, tablets are nothing new.
Edited 2010-01-04 20:59 UTC
That Google/HTC tablet seems nice, it will probably be based around Qualcomms snapdragon.
yeah but that doesn’t support Full HD Video dose it? (in 1080p resolution)
Screw apple there way overpriced and use similar hardware int he end its all to get OSX and Linux tops it… Well i guess i can’t say that being OS is all opinion…
That sounds really cool, although 7″ computer screen is “da pain in yer royal @#@!” [I had netbook once, so this comes from my own experience
].
Reference design not equal to actual product.
IMHO any tablet either needs to have a physical keyboard or at minimum the ability to connect one for long writing sessions. Those on-screen keyboards are fine for quick tap outs but for anything much longer they get to be very uncomfortable very fast, at least for me. I already have a device for mobile tasks and quick tap outs, my iPhone. I’d be looking for a tablet that would sort of bridge the gap between the iPhone and a netbook, something thin and light you could take with you but that could also serve in a pinch for writing out a document while getting way more battery life than an Atom-based netbook. Running standard desktop software isn’t that important to me on a device like this, in fact I’d rather not and instead have software that is optimized for a touch-based UI.
Most tablets you can connect a keyboard… If yours can’t its a not very good i guess.
…or does the mock-up screens in the pictures look shockingly similar to Chrome OS?
Yeah, you can tell it’s only $199. Ugggggglyyyyyyy.
All tablets until now failed. Not because of the hardware. The software was never designed for the hardware. Until it is, tablets are just awkward laptops without a keyboard.
Partly true, but I the biggest reason for the failure has been the price. Regardless of software, a tablet is only suited to a subset of task a laptop can handle. Until now all tablets have been rather too expensive, in the same price range as medium to expensive laptops. And for that you usually get low power hardware and small screens. Essentially they are seen as you describe them,as awkward laptops without a keyboard.
This is about to change, partly because of the netbooks. It’s apparent that with low prices, people buy secondary devices suited for only a subset of tasks compared to full featured laptops.
The primary use cases for netbooks are browsing the web and perhaps checking of e-mail. With a tablet you can fulfill those use cases with a more elegant hardware, without the bulky keyboard. The little typing you do during such use, can easily be solved by a decent on screen keyboard. Touch screen phones are doing this quite well.
Edited 2010-01-05 11:53 UTC
That would very much depend on how much typing you intend to do. Netbooks, after all, aren’t just good for browsing and emailing but also for a small wordprocessing machine. If you’re going to do a lot of writing, which is a very common use case for netbooks especially those with nicer keyboards, you really do need a physical keyboard. The tablet doesn’t necessarily have to have one built in as long as you can connect one to it and fully utilize it for entering and moving through text.