14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that, while the media slate market has been more or less subdued until now, CES 2011 may see it kick off more visibly, especially if many tablets based on NVIDIA's mobile ARM-based SOC get showcased.
The start of the year had makers of mobile computers especially optimistic about netbooks.
Then, Apple launched the iPad, and the nascent tablet market finally had a flagship product.
What followed was a period during which makers of mobile platforms, both hardware and software, were either uncertain about the new segment's future or quite eager to offer iPad competitors.
Some Windows 7 tablet prototypes were developed, and Microsoft even made sure to have the Windows 7 starter edition ready, although said OS was actually made for netbooks initially.
Then, the ARM architecture started showing up in forms better and better suited for the tablet form factor, and analysts begun to see high chances of slates stealing netbook market share.
One of the more well-known system-on-chip devices that was created based on the ARM technology is the Tegra 2 SoC from NVIDIA.
A successor to the Tegra 1, which did not see overly many smartphone design wins, the new product actually caused ripples through its support for advanced multimedia and support for Flash, among other things.
Basically, many companies adopted this platform, to the point where CES 2011 is expected to be full of them.
The Consumer Electronics Show is the expo that happens in January every year and has companies from around the world showing off their most recent inventions.
Now that Tegra 2 is almost done waiting for the Google Gingerbread version of the Android OS (probably Andorid 2.3 which should come out in a few weeks), the slate market should see a literal flood of new tablets.
What remains to be seen is how soon those models will start shipping to customers once they do see the light of day.