tablet

Amid a tablet market crowded with pricey products, ViewSonic is offering more cost-conscious consumers an alternative with its new ViewBook 730.

Powered by an ARM Cortex-A8 1GHz processor and running Android 2.2, the ViewBook 730 will sell for just $250 when it makes its debut in late June. Though at that price, the tablet does skimp on a few features and specs found in more expensive models.

The 7-inch tablet provides an 800x480 LCD LED backlit touch screen with 8GB of memory and an extra 32GB of storage via a microSD card slot. ViewSonic includes a mini-USB port and a mini HDMI port, the later of which can pipe in 1080p video. A single VGA Webcam is built onto the front of the device.

As an Android tablet, the ViewBook 730 supports Flash, specifically version 10.1.

For connectivity, the ViewBook 730 comes with Bluetooth 2.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g. (Sorry, no Wireless-N.) The tablet offers ViewSonic's AirSync technology, which lets it automatically receive over-the-air software updates and enhancements as they become available.… Read more

Sprint announced today that the HTC Evo 3D and HTC Evo View 4G will both be available on June 24 for $199.99 and $399.99, respectively, with a two-year contract.

Sprint Premier customers will actually get a bit of a head start, as they'll be able to purchase the Evo 3D (only) online starting June 21 while supplies last. However, anyone can preorder the devices now at any participating Sprint store with the purchase of a $50 Sprint gift card. The carrier will open stores early--8 a.m. local time--on June 24 if you're really anxious to … Read more

After showing up in search results and being teased by a Sprint employee in a blog post last week, the 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook finally went on sale on Sprint's Web site today for $499. As the Wi-Fi-only version, Sprint will not be offering any additional services and the tablet won't require a contract.

Sprint announced last January at CES that it would carry the PlayBook by the summer, but until last week the carrier didn't offer any details. But then on Thursday, Gerald Evans, a Sprint public-sector market director for the Midwest region, said on his personal blog … Read more

Though the iPad got the ball rolling, Windows 8 may be the catalyst that finally brings about the "post-PC" era, as Apple likes to call it (and others prefer not to).

While many digirati were attending a conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., I was further down the coast in San Diego attending a less glamorous but hardly less important Qualcomm conference. Qualcomm is, after all, the enormously profitable company (with a market cap just shy of $100 billion, rivaling Intel, which is at about $115 billion) that supplies the guts of many of the world's feature … Read more

Apple is staying on message about the imminence of the post-PC era proclaimed by CEO Steve Jobs.

In a midweek meeting with Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope at Apple headquarters, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said he "remained remarkably optimistic about the demand for the iPad and the long-term market opportunity for tablets."

As a result, Apple's COO sees "no reason why the tablet market shouldn't eclipse the PC market over the next several years," according to a copy of Shope's note on the meeting sent to CNET.

Shope himself believes that iPad shipments will surpass expectations this year and next and that demand for PCs will suffer as the tablet market continues to take off.

With Apple seeing improved supply and rising demand for its tablet, the analyst is forecasting iPad sales of 8.1 million for Apple's third fiscal quarter, ending in June, a jump of 72 percent from the same quarter last year. That estimate compares with only 4.69 million iPads that Apple sold during its second quarter when some analysts had been eyeing sales of anywhere from 5 million to 9 million.… Read more

Designing an operating system that will potentially make its way onto millions of next-generation tablets is a daunting task. To make things more difficult for any entrant to this space, the competition is fierce and maturing at a steady rate.

The mountain is steeper to climb for a company like Microsoft, which unveiled Windows 8 earlier this week (though it's unlikely to ship it to consumers until next year). Considering where rivals like Apple, Google, and even HP will be by then, the company has its work cut out for it.

Microsoft has one big advantage though: Windows has long been the most widely used operating system for desktop and laptop computers, and familiarity may be valuable for Microsoft when it unleashes its first operating system optimized for tablets.

Windows 7 failed to take off on tablets for two big reasons: The user interface wasn't tailored for touch screens, and x86 processors sucked up too much juice to work on the form factor. With Windows 8, Microsoft has responded by going with the same type of "Metro" tile-based interface that's been well-received on Windows Phone 7, as well as adding compatibility for ARM processors that stretch battery life.

The tile interface is attractive, and reminiscent of the Windows Phone 7 UI design, an interface not many consumers are familiar with. The company is encouraging software developers to create new interfaces for their programs that can interact with this special environment made for touch screens.

In some ways, Microsoft is betting its future in tablets on a beefy skin with extra functionality for Windows that reminds me of Windows Media Center. Sure, it's pretty, but is Microsoft taking the right approach to a tablet OS? Vote in our weekly poll, and be sure to elaborate in the comments section.… Read more

Nvidia and Qualcomm have very different schedules for putting chips with four processor cores in tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Nvidia's CEO and a Qualcomm vice president spoke to CNET recently on the topic.

Qualcomm announced that it is developing quad-core chips this week for Windows 8. Nvidia made a similar announcement earlier this year. And this week at Computex, Microsoft even floated the concept of a laptop running Windows 8 on top of an Nvidia quad-core processor, according to Anandtech (see photo below).

Analysts are even beginning to mention Apple's future A6 processor as a possible candidate for … Read more

It seems not a day goes by where another Android phone or tablet is either announced or arrives on the market.

A quick glimpse across the four major U.S. carriers, and I see at least eight handsets on the horizon, with another half dozen rumored devices. It's certainly not a bad issue to have, but with so many recent Android announcements and leaks, things can get confusing.

So, to help keep track of everything, I thought it would be worth rounding up all the upcoming and expected devices in one place for your viewing pleasure.

What's coming T-Mobile has been the most active lately, announcing three phones in rapid succession. The company started off the week by tapping the HTC Sensation 4G with a June 15 launch date and quickly followed that with today's Samsung Gravity Smart and Exhibit 4G announcements.

The two Samsung handsets are expected in June, but exact release dates were not disclosed at this time. While the Sensation 4G will appeal to savvier Android users and early adopters, the Gravity Smart and Exhibit 4G should do quite well considering their low price points. … Read more

If you're coming out with an Android tablet this summer, it's going to be challenging to stand out from the sea of 9- and 10-inch Honeycomb 3.1 slates. But Toshiba's going to give it a shot.

The Japanese company known mostly for its laptops is hoping to make inroads into the Android tablet market with its first attempt, called the Thrive. The Thrive is mostly what you'd expect: a 10.1-inch screen, the latest version of the Android operating system, Honeycomb 3.1, front-facing 2.1-megapixel camera and 5-megapixel rear-facing camera for photos and video … Read more