For Apple-watchers, it’s that time of
year again. Rumours about the shape and size of iPad 3 are pouring out
of Apple’s Chinese factories almost as fast as the revelations that few
of the workers there (the source of said rumours) have ever seen the
finished product.
My own network of spies informs me that cases for the new tablet look eerily similar to cases for the last one, ie, I can reveal that it’s still a screen, and still very slim.
Toshiba's AT200 runs on Android's 3.2 Honeycomb OS and has a 1280x
800-pixel LED backlit display, 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor, 1GB of
RAM, and 16GB or 32GB internal storage,Battery life is eight hours
I remain firm in the belief that tablets will eventually become so thin that they’ll vanish altogether and people will just be followed around by a glowing Apple logo.
Unusually, Toshiba is leading the
charge on this. Its AT200 is just 7.7mm thick – basically, a piece of
glass with electronics spread on the back like butter on toast.
To hold, though, it’s less alarming than iPad 2, which is so thin it feels like you’re passing some kind of sword around the living room – a very fragile, expensive sword. Toshiba’s slab isn’t tapered at the edge, so it feels less likely to slice the space-time continuum.
The machine, on sale this week, beats iPad 2 with a 1280x800 pixel resolution, and refreshes all the other parts Apple doesn’t reach – ie, it does play Flash videos, has a micro USB slot, and it can plug direct into an HDTV.
But with Android fans embroiled in a geek love affair with Samsung, will they defect from the Galaxy 10.1 for a near-identical Android slab that says ‘Toshiba’ on it? And will anyone buy any tablets until iPad 3 is announced?
I await with interest the latest news, fresh from people who glue chips onto motherboards in Asian factories.
My own network of spies informs me that cases for the new tablet look eerily similar to cases for the last one, ie, I can reveal that it’s still a screen, and still very slim.
I remain firm in the belief that tablets will eventually become so thin that they’ll vanish altogether and people will just be followed around by a glowing Apple logo.
Unusually, Toshiba is leading the
charge on this. Its AT200 is just 7.7mm thick – basically, a piece of
glass with electronics spread on the back like butter on toast. To hold, though, it’s less alarming than iPad 2, which is so thin it feels like you’re passing some kind of sword around the living room – a very fragile, expensive sword. Toshiba’s slab isn’t tapered at the edge, so it feels less likely to slice the space-time continuum.
The machine, on sale this week, beats iPad 2 with a 1280x800 pixel resolution, and refreshes all the other parts Apple doesn’t reach – ie, it does play Flash videos, has a micro USB slot, and it can plug direct into an HDTV.
But with Android fans embroiled in a geek love affair with Samsung, will they defect from the Galaxy 10.1 for a near-identical Android slab that says ‘Toshiba’ on it? And will anyone buy any tablets until iPad 3 is announced?
I await with interest the latest news, fresh from people who glue chips onto motherboards in Asian factories.
£400, toshiba.co.uk
