7/14/2011
By: Tien Phan
There's a slew of new Android tablets recently released and they all suck, well not all but most. Sales of these honeycomb tablets aren't what these makers projected and the blame goes to both Google and the hardware maker. Honeycomb 3.1 is half baked (more on this later). If you want to get my hard earned $500 bucks (hopefully less in the near future) here's how.
Build a tablet that's at least the same weight or lighter than the iPad - even the same weight as the original iPad will do. Make it at least as thin too. As for the screen, we want a high resolution (currently the best is 1280 x 800) IPS gorilla glass 10.1 inch screen. I'm digging the samsung galaxy tab 10.1 screen, but that's the only thing good about that tablet. Tegra 2 processor is a minimum (Tegra 3 is soon approaching). Give it good battery life of 8-10 hours and charge relatively fast - the Toshiba Thrive has a quick charge technology that's takes only 1.5 hours to charge the tablet. Throw in some ports on there - at the very least a microsd card but preferably a full sd card reader, a mini USB and if you can, a mini HDMI port. The Toshiba Thrive has all these ports in full size. It's a shame the Thrive is so ugly in aesthetics. I don't mind if these Android makers cut back on the megapixels on the front and back cameras to keep cost down. But 3 rear and 2meg front will do. Throw in GPS as well. It's practically a standard. Too bad iPad wifi didn't have one - it was a deal breaker for me. Now for the use of materials - brushed metal is a must - even if it's only on the trim areas like on the Lenovo Ideapad K1 (nice looking tablet btw). Use hard glossy plastic strategically. Give us some decent speakers! If you want us to use these tablets as media devices, make it worth it. Support your device and give us quick software updates and patches! Don't be like ASUS and postpone all the necessary updates for our tablets. Price is a huge factor as well. Apple set the tone with $499 for the entry point of a tablet. Now it's up to you to match it or better yet beat it. The XOOM failed big time because of it's high initial cost of $700-800 dollars. Motorola is crazy. The transformer is a big success relatively speaking because of it's entry price of $399. Give us a tablet for $349 (8 gig model) or $399 (16 gig model) and we will be glad to spend $10-50 on a SD card to bump up our memory to 32 gig and beyond. If you really want the final bell and whistle, give us the option of an IR emitter - Vizio's new tablet will have this.
Now I know hardware is only half the experience on these Honeycomb tablets. Android Honeycomb 3.1 has bugs that will make even the best designed tablet a lackluster experience. From the lagging keyboard on the browser, to the no full frame in picture viewer and mobile/desktop view for web sites issue, I believe (hope) Google will make Ice Cream Sandwich a refined and polished OS that will be ready to compete with iOS 5 in September. By then, Android Market should also have a few more tablet ready apps. See, it's pretty easy to build a device to compete against the iPad. Now get to it!
Tien Phan is a creative strategist and technology enthusiast working in the central valley and bay area of California.
