Tablet Hands-On Roundup
by Vivek Gowri on January 27, 2011 10:25 AM EST
This one came out of nowhere for me, so I was pretty interested. I had no idea that Panasonic had anything to do with the Android tablet game until I got a text from my best friend telling me to check out their new tablets. When I made my way to the Panasonic booth, I found that they had three new tablets, in 4”, 7”, and 10” sizes. All three are running a stock version of Android 2.2 and have Panasonic’s Viera Connect online video on demand service built in.
Panasonic seems to envision these tablets as television companions that connect to the latest Viera plasma HDTVs, with the press release touting ability to act as a “visual remote control” to operate the TV, or using the tablet as a sub-screen to view sports from different angles. It’s an interesting concept, but the Viera services only work with Viera TVs, so the user base is very limited.
The hardware is no great shakes either - the prototype units that Panasonic showed off on the show floor didn’t wow us on the design side, and the build quality was positively off-putting. We can put the shoddy build down to being early build preproduction units, but the design, with a lot of chrome plastic, a large bezel, and an expanse of silver plastic on the back, left a lot to be desired.
Panasonic wasn’t disclosing the specs of any of the three Vieras, but I had a chance to run Browsermark and SunSpider on them. The results I got from the 7” and 10” were consistent with tablets running 1GHz Cortex A9 processors, so it’s likely that they are running either Tegra 2 or OMAP 4 underhood. We’ve heard rumours that Panasonic chose to go with TI, but Panasonic refused to confirm or deny that. The 4” model had results more in line with A8-based processors, so I’d guess that it’s running OMAP 3, but again, Panasonic wasn’t willing to disclose any of the specs.
Overall though, Panasonic’s Viera line as a whole seems pretty mediocre unless you evaluate them as remotes for the Viera plasma TV line. As blandly designed tablets running Android 2.2 in the era of Honeycomb, they fail to stand out compared to similar tablets from other manufacturers, and I think Panasonic has a fair amount of work to do before the Vieras become compelling products in the tablet space.
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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