Toshiba Will Offer Android-Based Folio 100 Tablet
The tablet could capture as much as 15 to 20 percent of that market in Europe by the end of next year, according to Gianluca Dianese, Toshiba's head of marketing for digital products in that region. He made the prediction at the IFA 2010 consumer electronics show now taking place in Berlin, Germany.
The Folio, expected to sell for about $500, will come with Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, Bluetooth and 16GB of storage. Toshiba told news media that it will also release a model that plays 3-D video, which is beginning to emerge on portable computing devices. On Wednesday, Sony showed prototypes of VAIO laptops with 3-D.
The Folio can boot up in 30 seconds, runs on a Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU, and features a 1.3-megapixel camera, a display resolution of 1024x600, and battery life up to seven hours. Ports include mini-HDMI, USB and a SD/MMC card reader. As with other new Android devices, it will support Flash 10.1, a competitive advantage against Apple's iPad. Apple is not allowing Flash to run on the iPad, preferring instead the emerging, standards-based HTML5.
The iPad, whose popularity has jump-started the tablet category, is beginning to acquire rivals, although no major competitor has yet emerged. A variety of companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Research In Motion and Google, are expected to release tablets in the next few months. Dell, ASUS and Samsung have already done so.
Apple's iPad success has been largely driven by its ecosystem of a large library of third-party applications that run on the tablet, in addition to the vast number of music and other entertainment offerings in...
