Low key PlayBook launch day
Research In Motion’s much vaunted PlayBook tablet got off to a quiet start in North America on Tuesday.
After leaving an empty Staples midtown Manhattan store at about 7:15 AM, we hit the nearby Office Depot. It had no customers looking for the device. In fact, it was hard to tell Office Depot was even selling PlayBook at all until a store employee directed us to the basement.
It took a while to find the PlayBook display among the other office supplies.
Once we found it, the display itself wasn’t very impressive, just a basic promotional sign. In fact, the store said that RIM had yet to send it a demo unit.
Instead, the employee handed out a leaflet listing the product’s tech specifications. Apparently, the store had sold three PlayBook early Tuesday. At about 7:20, a man in a suit came in but it turned out to be a Wall St analyst who stopped by to check out how many people were buying the tablet. Both analyst and reporter were gearing up to interview each other until they discovered they were on the same mission.
Demand looked better in Canada, where a short line formed outside a Best Buy in Toronto. But at a Future Shop in downtown Toronto, staff waited to welcome PlayBook buyers who didn’t really materialize. The PlayBook was at the far end of the tablet aisle and customers had to walk past an iPad display to get to it.
RIM’s PlayBook looks smooth in first demo
Ever since its announcement last fall, gadget geeks have been itching to take Research in Motion’s new tablet for a test drive. Tech reporters finally got some hands-on time with the device — the PlayBook — on Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Amid a crush of iPad wannabes, RIM’s tablet proved to be a pleasant surprise.
Some companies used CES to show off less-than-fully-baked tablets, with vendors such as Motorola saying the software was not fully ready. The PlayBook (while also still a work in progress; the real deal will launch in February or March) was noticeably zippy (it sports a speedy dual-core chip). It also has an attractive, intuitive user interface, and played Flash-based videos from the Web at a snap.
It is of course way too early to say flatly that the PlayBook is a real-deal competitor to Apple’s iPad, but the initial take on the device in at least some prominent tech blogs seemed very positive. And with a slew of Android-based tablets hitting the market in the coming months, RIM’s tablet certainly offers a different option. RIM said flat-out that corporate interest in the PlayBook is “massive.” The mobile chief of AT&T said on Wednesday that his customers were looking forward to getting more information about the device.
While some analysts say it might be tough for anybody to catch up to Apple’s iPad, the great tablet war may turn out to be more interesting than expected. Stay tuned…
HP’s Slate tablet: The early reviews
Hewlett-Packard, at long last, has released the tablet computer first glimpsed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January, and it is a decidedly different take than what we’ve seen so far in the tablet space. Basically a business netbook sans a keyboard. That’s a far cry from Apple’s iPad — and maybe that’s the point.
The initial reviews of the HP Slate 500 are starting to trickle in and they are something of a mixed bag. There is plenty to debate, to be sure. The device sports Windows 7, Wi-Fi but no 3G, and has no app store link-up. But it features a digital stylus pen, has a relatively fast processor and plenty of room for storage. And then there is the little matter of that hefty $799 price tag, which has surprised more than a few people, given that the iPad starts at $499.
HP is not even pretending to be targeting the same buyers as the iPad. And a more interesting HP vs Apple showdown is likely to come next year, when HP releases the webOS tablet that everyone is curious to get a peek at.
With that in mind, a sampling of some early critiques on the Slate 500:
PCWorld: “Put alongside other tablets, the HP Slate could disappoint you, again.”
The Inquirer: “As a tablet device to rival the iPad or the Galaxy S, the price, weight and operating system of the Slate 500 make alternative devices seem far more attractive. However viewing the HP Slate 500 as a touch sensitive netbook makes it look slightly more palatable.”
CrunchGear: The Slate 500 is a very nice tablet. In fact I’d say the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the 500 are close cousins in terms of style and usability. The iPad may be the gold standard, but someone needs to think of the legacy applications! That’s what the 500 is here for. This thing runs Windows 7. It runs it just well enough to make it a compelling device for point-of service and other niche markets. It doesn’t run it well enough to, say, convince me to get rid of my laptop.”
from Summit Notebook:
Dell: stay tuned for “Streak”
It's hard to tell how much anticipation there is out there for Dell's upcoming "Streak" micro-tablet. The No. 3 PC maker's latest foray into a consumer arena that Apple's iPad has essentially helped create is set to hit stores this summer in the United States.
Consumer business unit chief Steve Felice told the Reuters Global Technology Summit that Dell isn't interested in becoming the No. 1 player in the smartphone and tablet mobile devices categories, where Apple and Google are waging a very high-profile war. But the former leader in personal computers fully intends to be a "top-tier player".
"We look at this whole thing as an experience between the computer and the remote device. We still view these as complementary devices," he said.
Like a bunch of other tablet computers in the pipeline -- courtesy of everyone from Hewlett Packard to Acer -- Dell's is getting a fair share of Web attention, but this one is a little different though. At just 5-inches, the gizmo isn't quite a smartphone, yet can't quite call itself a tablet a la Apple's 11-inch product.
It remains to be seen where consumers will actually want a smartphone-tablet size-hybrid. Much of that may depend on price of course, but Felice isn't talking -- yet.
(Photo courtesy of tech blog Engadget)
Don’t look for Sony’s iPad killer any time soon
Don’t expect to see Sony’s response to Apple’s iPad tablet computer any time soon.
We talked to Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer, who was in town to discuss the unveiling of Google TV, the initiative that marries the Web to television. Stringer was very excited about that product, which will appear first in Sony TVs later this year, giving the electronics maker a head start against what is expected to be a future filled with Internet-enabled TVs. While noting that Sony’s digital book reader product sales are still strong, he seemed much less thrilled about any iPad-killer plans for Sony, maker of the popular Vaio line of computers.
Everybody’s now making one aren’t they? Tablets, tablets, as far as the eye can see.
We have to find a way to make it cost competitive. Apple’s brilliance is always to make a relationship with an operator or someone to pay a significant part of it. That’s something we haven’t been successful at. Even with Google and Sony Ericsson, we are still working on relationships with operators.
We have got to master all of that before we simply launch yet another unprofitable product onto the marketplace.
Stringer’s comments come after Sony’s CFO earlier in the year said that the company aims to launch new products that will vie with Apple’s iPad, and has the necessary technology, but added “there is no denying that we are running a bit behind.”
A Sony representative confirmed that while Sony is studying the tablet PC market, it has “no concrete plans at this time to come to market with such a product.”
(Photo: Sir Howard Stringer at the introduction of Google TV in San Francisco)
Sony was Apple’s original partner in making the Powerbook. With the advent of Mac OS X, it might have been good for VAIO to run more than Microsoft OS but that’s all water under the bridge now. The thing Sony has never wanted to get tied up in is complex hardware user support, but now sees the pathway toward monetizing its content repertoire, of which it has tons.
No wonder Howard’s excited about Google TV. The future of asynchronously consumable pop culture depends on how, or rather how quickly, this entirely new business model pans out. When their VAIO series accommodates G-TV on an OS to match, Sony stands to do rather nicely. Not to mention Google.
Or did I just mention Google?
from Summit Notebook:
Is Apple in Intel’s future?
Apple developed the processor for it's recently launched iPad tablet PC in-house. Intel was left waiting on the sidelines but change may be in store. Future tablets from other device makers, and maybe even Apple, could prove to be a lucrative for the world's largest chipmaker. And why not, Intel already makes the microprocessors that are used in more than three quarters of the world's PCs. Tom Kilroy, Intel senior vice president and general manager of sales and marketing, says "wait til Computex" for a big announcement. So, what's likely to come out of the industry trade show this June in Taipei? Any thoughts? Click below to hear what Kilroy had to say in San Francisco at the 2010 Reuters Global Technology Summit.
Intel on Tablet Opportunities from Reuters TV on Vimeo.
I’d like to interview LifeOfBrian about his post as he’s clearly the only other person interested in the topic