14 DAY TRIAL // Most of major players in the mobile phone industry appear to have turned towards the launch of Android-based tablet PCs, and Taiwan-based HTC Corporation is no exception.
Following official announcements on such devices being developed over at Samsung or LG, or info on what was said to be an Android 3.0-based tablet from Motorola, news on HTC planning a similar move also emerged.
According to a recent article on DigiTimes, High Tech Computer already placed orders with Taiwan-based notebook maker Pegatron Technology for the manufacturing of the device, at least this is what sources familiar with the situation claim.
Apparently, HTC is set to push the device on the market sometime in the first quarter of the next year, which means that it should run under the Android 3.0 Gingerbread, the next OS version, supposedly optimized for use on slates.
On top of that, a great deal of details on the hardware specifications of this tablet made it into the wild, including info on it being powered by a Tegra 2 chip from Nvidia, which seems to be the common choice for many similar devices these days.
The HTC slate should also include a multi-touch panel with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (no info on its size emerged), while the Tegra chip would be complemented by 2GB of memory.
The tablet is expected to pack a 32GB solid state drive (SSD), as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS capabilities.
Moreover, it seems that HTC's Android slate would boast better multimedia performance levels than Apple's iPad does.
On the features side, we should also note support for Chrome Web apps, as well as for applications available for download via the Android Market.
HTC's new tablet PC should be brought to the market via various wireless carriers around the world, and some expect it to benefit from strong sales due to HTC's close relationship with them.
The price tag for this device is said to have been set at around NT$25,000 (US$789.75), though nothing is certain yet, not to mention that it should benefit from carrier subsidies when made available.
In the end, chances are that HTC's tablet PC would become the strongest competitor against Apple's iPad DigiTime's sources claim, provided that rumors on its arrival and specs are accurate.