Tablet Hands-On Roundup
by Vivek Gowri on January 27, 2011 10:25 AM ESTEnspert was one of the most promising of the numerous new tablet makers we caught up with at CES. Enspert is the new name of Inbrics, a Korean company that made Android-based smartphones, and they were showing off a range of smart looking new Android tablets.
Let’s start with the S200 home phone tablet. It’s a combination of a 7” tablet and a VoIP phone, and is designed to be a media convergence hub. The tablet itself has an aluminum front face, with a white plastic backing. The build quality is solid, and the design is definitely attractive. The 7” screen has a disappointingly low 800 x 480 WVGA resolution, but is otherwise bright and has acceptable viewing angles. Interestingly, the Enspert tablets are all running Samsung’s Hummingbird SoC (1GHz Cortex A8 and PowerVR SGX 540, for those that don’t remember) with 512MB of RAM, so they’re on par with the Galaxy Tab as far as computing power goes. The rest of the spec sheet is fairly standard - 4GB ROM, SD card slot, front facing camera, mini-HDMI, mini-USB, WiFi, and Bluetooth, but the one fairly major blemish on the spec sheet is Android 2.1. Eclair was over a year ago, guys, get with the program. Enspert promises an update to Froyo shortly, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The E201 is Enspert’s first entry to the Android tablet space, and it has the same basic configuration as the S200’s tablet. That means Hummingbird, 7” WVGA, mini-HDMI, WiFi, Bluetooth, and Android 2.1. It also has an aluminum chassis (aluminum panels instead of a unibody construction like the iPad), and is set to hit Best Buy shelves for around $200 later this quarter. For the price, it feels pretty good, but the lack of Froyo is a big deal. As with the S200, an upgrade to 2.2 is promised soon.
The newest and most promising Enspert tablet is the E301. Designed as the successor to the E201, it’s set to hit market later this year as a higher end alternative to the E201. The specs are pretty similar, with three major upgrades: a 1024x600 WSVGA 7” display, Android 2.2, and updated industrial design. It’s still an aluminum sandwich, but it’s a cleaner design that’s less reminiscent of the iPad. With the small lip on the right side and the capacitive buttons, the design is actually a bit like the OpenPeak tablet that we saw at IDF. The entire chassis is aluminum and glass, so it feels like a very high quality product. Definitely one of the more well-designed new tablets we’ve played with recently. Enspert has partnered with one of the three largest US carriers to sell the E301 for a subsidized price on the good side of $300, and if they can deliver on their promise to have Gingerbread by the time the device releases, it’ll be a very interesting addition to the 7” tablet market.
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kenyee - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
I'm curious how well it does at displaying photos. From the specs, it looks like it only has 256K colors when the backlight is on and I think this will be a significantly worse display compared to an IPS display like the iPad's and even the Color Nook which also uses an IPS screen...ibex333 - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
All these tablets are irrelevant. They have already lost to the iPad before they even started selling. Why? SEVEN INCH SCREEN. Which means - sucks for reading PDFs.So people will keep buying iPads specifically because of the large screen, and Apple WILL NOT lower prices, because technically they are still king of the tablet market.
Is it really so damned hard to start making 10" tablets and NOT 7" tablets?
JMC2000 - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
That's what I wonder also, does Apple own the iPad's screen manufacturer? The is almost like the iPhone vs. the World issue, everyone claims to have an iPad killer, but they lose mainly on one aspect, screen size.Seriously, it is like everyone is handing Apple the market... FFS!
Penti - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
I'm pretty sure that like nobody else wants to pay 200-300 dollars for LG's "iPad" screen. Many stick to simple TN-panels. There are some other good panels out there though, but 7" is totally fine. A tablet is also not a e-reader. There's separate devices for that.Ylurien - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
I stopped reading this article after I looked up the specs on the Adam because that tablet only has 1024x600 resolution and I assume all the rest have pretty much the same or worse since Adam is the biggest tablet.In the day of HD video, why are manufacturers making tablets that can't even play 720p video at its native size? And where's the 64 ~ 128GB of disk space to allow all that video to fit on there?
Why build something that's obsolete before it even goes on the market?
Malih - Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - link
i suppose you should wait for Windows 7 tablet from Acer, utilizing AMD C-50 which presumably will have acceleration for H.264 playbackVinny DePaul - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
I planned to buy an Android tablet and was going to buy Notion Ink. However, after reading countless complaints, I have changed my mind and going to buy Xoom instead. Notion Ink is good if it is hand delivered to you. The ordering process is tedious, the returning process is a horrendous, and too many defective units. I may consider Notion Ink if the quality control, ordering and return processes are improved. For a new company, they are not bad. However, I want a good tablet, not just a "not bad" tablet.Since I live in US, I prefer to purchase in US and be able to return products easily. The protection for international purchase is almost zero for most people.
alexkinsella - Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - link
Hi Vivek,It’s Alex from RIM’s Social Media team, here. I’m glad you were impressed with the BlackBerry PlayBook at CES. The crowd reaction was amazing. At just under a pound, it’s easy to take anywhere. I can confirm that you’re correct: the PlayBook has a combination of the QNX based BlackBerry Tablet OS, and a TI OMAP 4430 dual-core 1GHz Cortex A9. One point of clarification: There will be a 4G/WiMax version of PlayBook available on the Sprint network this summer (this was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January). Please stay tuned to the Inside BlackBerry blog for the latest updates on BlackBerry PlayBook!
Thanks!
tina2010 - Sunday, July 17, 2011 - link
The touchsquid universal tv remote control tablet has a built in IR transmitter which opens up a whole world of remote control possiblities. It is a tidier solution compared to using dongles. See http://www.touchsquid.com