CES: Toshiba Tablet announced, with 10-inch HD screen, Android Honeycomb
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The Toshiba Tablet is the latest in a slew of tablets that will be shown off at CES in Las Vegas this week.
Toshiba, a consumer-electronics maker now known mostly for its TVs and notebook computers, announced the device in an Associated Press article Monday.
The Japanese company isn’t taking the smaller-screen approach that many companies have shown off so far. Rather, the touch screen on the Toshiba Tablet will be slightly bigger than that of the bestselling tablet so far, the Apple iPad.
The Toshiba Tablet will have a 10.1-inch display, compared with the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen.
Like many tablet competitors currently on the market and about to be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, the Toshiba Tablet will run on Google’s Honeycomb version of its Android operating system.
Honeycomb, which has yet to be released, is a version of Android built for tablets, rather than smart phones as the current Android Froyo OS is.
More than 80 tablets are expected to be teased, unveiled and displayed at CES this week, with many of them running Android.
Toshiba is planning on releasing its Toshiba Tablet by about the end of June and has not yet set a price for the device, though the company is considering a cost close to the iPad, which sells for $500 to $840, depending on features such as memory or 3G connectivity, according to the Associated Press.
Phil Osako, Toshiba’s director of product marketing, showed a non-working prototype of the Toshiba Tablet to the AP in December.
At that time, Osako told the AP that the device would be the first in a ‘family of tablets’ that the company plans to release.
The prototype Toshiba Tablet had a black, glossy screen on top, and a rubber coated back, the AP said.
Toshiba told the AP that the tablet will be capable of displaying video and other content in 1080p resolution, the highest resolution found on current TVs, and that the tablet would include an HDMI port to connect to HD TVs.
The tablet will be powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and feature a 2-megapixel camera above the screen for video chatting and a 5-megapixel camera on back for shooting photos, the AP said.
A USB port, mini USB port and memory-card slot also may be on the Toshiba Tablet when its design is finalized, the AP reported. PCMag.com published a hands-on look at the tablet Monday.
Osako told the AP the tablet will include Wi-Fi but won’t initially be available with a 3G wireless option, but that may come later.
Users of the Toshiba Tablet will be able to download games and apps through Google’s Android Marketplace, as well as through Toshiba’s own app store, Toshiba Places, which also will sell movies and music, according to the AP.
Books will be able to be purchased through the Toshiba BookPlace marketplace as well, the report said.
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles