HTC is said to be working on three Android-running "Flyer" tablets. The first will reportedly begin shipping in the United States in March.
HTC is
planning to launch three media tablets in the first half of the year, according
to reports.
The first
model, according to a Jan. 20 report from Taipei-based
DigiTimes,
is slated to begin shipping in the United States in March. No specs were
offered, but Digitimes noted that an unnamed source said the tablet would look
like "an enlarged version of HTC's Desire smartphone." It will reportedly also
run Android 2.3, and users will be able to upgrade to Android 3.0, or
"Honeycomb," when it becomes available.
The language
in the report makes it unclear whether the first tablet will be called the
"Flyer," or if the trio is part of a Flyer series.
"HTC will
launch the Flyer tablets in cooperation with a telecom carrier," DigiTimes
added, "aiming to push sales ahead [of] the planned launch of RIM's PlayBook in
March and Motorola's Xoom in April."
The second two
tablets, running Android 3.0, will reportedly begin shipping to other markets
beginning in the second quarter.
The
Taiwan-based company rolled out a number of highly successful Android-based
smartphones last year, including Sprint's Evo 4G, Verizon's Droid Incredible
and T-Mobile's myTouch 4G. It came as little surprise, then, that it should
decide-with dozens of other companies-to also create Android-running media
tablets.
On Dec. 26,
the company filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a
trademark on the name "Scribe" -indicating that
it was for a handheld electronic device.
IDC program
director Will Stofega told Bloomberg at the time, "This will provide an
alternative to the iPad. This will compete on pricing and could be as good or
better."
Nearly 100 tablets were on display at January's
2011 Consumer Electronics Show, but the Apple iPad, the device that created
the market and set the bar, is still the tablet to beat.
According to IDC,
4.8 million tablets shipped globally during the third quarter of 2010, and Apple's
iPad accounted for nearly 90 percent of them. During the fourth quarter,
Samsung introduced its swiftly selling Galaxy Tab and became the "first
tier 1 device vendor to the Android media tablet market," IDC wrote in a Jan.
18 report. During the first quarter of 2011, several new tier-one tablets
are expected to join it. Most notable are the Motorola Xoom, running Android
3.0, and the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook, running RIM's BlackBerry Tablet operating
system, based on QNX technology.
IDC expects
44.6 million tablets to ship in 2011 and 70.8 million in 2012. Driving growth
through 2011 and beyond, it added, will be vendors introducing Android-based
tablets, "as well as price and feature competition and strong demand in both
the consumer and commercial segments."
Apple, again
setting the precedent, has proven that tablets, described by Gartner analyst
Mikako Kitagawa as "good enough devices for those who want to have a second and
third connected device for content-consumption usage," can additionally find a
place in the enterprise, opening up whole new streams of revenue.
During Apple's
first-quarter 2011 earnings call on Jan. 18, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said
the iPad is currently being piloted or deployed by "80 percent of the Fortune
100."
HTC introduced
its Desire handset, which features a 3.7-inch AMOLED (active-matrix organic
LED) touch-screen, at the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Images of
the Desire, as well as the HTC Legend and HD2, can be
viewed here.
Email
Print
