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Dell Reveals Specs For the Looking Glass Tablet
adeelarshad82 writes "Dell hasn't officially unveiled its Looking Glass tablet, but it's on record at the FCC. The spec sheets reveal a device with a 7-inch screen, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, and an SD card slot. The Looking Glass will likely be announced at next week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which is sure to have no shortage of new tablets. Dell filed the documents for device approval by the FCC on December 17. The Looking Glass is expected to be one of the first devices to pack an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, a powerful chip for mobile devices that can support both typical functions (like e-mail and Web browsing) as well as advanced graphics — all while preserving battery life."
Why are all these ipad competitors doing 7 inch screens?
Because they're probably cheap and don't require the display grunt to drive a larger one. If they can sell for $300 it'll be difficult for the iPad to compete in the 'Entry tablet market'. And it makes it easier for tablets to compete with netbooks.
Unless it includes a fully functional "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" it's destined for failure.
Although it may have a tilt sensor, don't shake it. If you shake it, it turns into a kitten.
Just FYI, a recent business IT survey shows interest in iPads stomping all other tablets: about four fifths of companies planning to buy tablets next quarter plan on buying iPads. And it shows satisfaction with iPads vastly outstripping other companies' offerings. (It's also extremely interesting to note that 38% of IT respondants using iPads say they are using them for laptop replacement.)
In other relevant iPad news, holiday sales numbers seem to show iPads squashing competitors in the consumer channel.
: )
Cheshire Kitten
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Sorry for my ignorance regarding this tablet, but what OS is it planning to come with?
Good luck with that 7" screen. I find the iPad screen just barley large enough for a tablet. With a 7" screen you may as well just have something that can go in a pocket.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's neat, it looks like they're using some kind of inductance interference to register finger proximity to the touch pad, so you don't even necessarily have to touch the screen. They're only using one attenuator/sensor, so it will only serve the purpose of turning the screen/device on when you move your finger near it, but if they were to use several then theoretically you could do away with the "touch" aspect. Forgive me if any of that's olden but it's news to me.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Meet the new crap.
Same as the old crap.
...this has not anything to do with Looking Glass does it?
The project seemed to me worth of interest back then.
My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
This seems like ad copy meant to promote a technology that may or may not be successful. The mobile devices that have use the chip, the Kin and Zune, are not widely successful. The tablet that has used this chip, the Folio 100, has evidently been pulled from shelves and has required a firmware update to be minimally function. This is surprising as the chip uses the SOC model that all other tablets use. And there does not seem any cost saving for use the chip and Android, as the prices seems the same as an iPad.
I am looking forward to the tablets, as a $300 tablet will revolutionize the way we interact, but I do not see such devices yet, and this chip does not seem to move the market forward in any meaningful way, other than in the area of meaningless jargon.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
He got so frustrated with his new tablet that he threw the Looking Glass out the window.
It appears most people want a bigger screen - the size of the iPad for example. The iPad's screen isn't big enough for me! I want a screen that is the size and shape of either A4 or 8.5x11. A true paper replacement. And it would need to be fairly high resolution, and speedy.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I live in a warm climate and never wear a coat. My iPad fits in my back pants pocket just fine. I carry it there all the time. I just have to remember not to sit on it.
To me, the iPad is the right size because it's big enough to read and slim enough to be portable. A notebook or netbook wouldn't work as well since even the thinnnest is still too thick for me to be willing to carry around in a pocket.
Does anyone tire of hearing about tablets? I am pretty sure I remember some buzz like this around 'tablet laptops'... The ones that the monitor spins around and you use a pen. Turns out those weren't as wonderful as we thought. Almost everyone used the keyboards after about 5 minutes. Some time goes by, and we get the iPad. Its interesting, but I still don't get the *real* point of it. The device itself isn't particularly useful for business. I've seen them 'forced' into a business and not really work any better than an iPhone for scheduling meetings. The business model was pure creative on top of that, something that Apple clearly caters to with their design cues. Other than being a really fancy calendar and email thing, it was not particularly useful. We didn't pass them around looking at graphs and images, we used the overhead projector hooked to a PC. Not everyone runs around in fancy suits doing business on the go, smiling like stock photo people... not having time for a PC. Most of us use a desktop. Until something can be *that* useful, its just going to be a 'oooh I gotta have that' thing, not unlike a kid wants a particular toy because their friends have it or they see cool advertising. I don't think screen size is an important factor, and I also don't think that available applications are the factor. Theres a million for the iphone, yet I only install maybe 10 on mine. Until someone finds a way to do useful database administration, or web development from one of these devices, I don't see them really finding a good use other than entertainment.
Crunch the numbers on it --- 326 ppi even on the iPad's 10.4" display is _way_ more display bandwidth than any graphics chipset currently available, let alone feasible for portable use.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
It is not about it being 7 inches, it is about it ALL OF THEM being 7 inches.
If by "THEM" you mean "tablets that aren't the iPad", they aren't all 7 inches. Of those on the market or announced, the range is something like 4-12 inches. 7 in. seems to be the most common, but it is far from the only size.
There's actually quite a few 11.6" and 12.1", 1366x768 tablets.
If I can get 1920x1080 on a shitty Intel integrated, why can't they just sit down and make something that allows it on a portable device?
The question is mindboggeling!
It uses a tegra2, and is 10 inches, and is launching at CES. Just thought I would point that out. Oh and looks kick ass.
at first glance it looks like an updated Pocket DJ that Dell made around '05
Even something like 1600x1200 (which would be ~200ppi for iPad) would be a huge improvement. As it is, pixels are really very noticeable on iPad screen. What more, as it uses the same font rendering as OS X, which does a lot of anti-aliasing, small text looks very blurry around the letters, which is very distracting.
Anyway, If anyone could make a 10" iPad competitor at $500 or less, they'd have done so by now.
There's actually quite a few ~10" Android tablets that have been announced at that price point; all 4 of the Notion Ink Adam 10.1" (1024x600) models which sold out of preorders this month had prices under $550, 3 of the 4 under $500 (all but the Pixel Qi + 3G model).
The ViewSonic G 10.1" (1024x600) tablet that has been on sale since November seems to be $399.99 at most major online retailers that sell it, slighlty lower at some.
That everyone who is trying is coming in at half the screen size should be confirmation.
Actually, several competing models that have been announced (including a few already available) are in the 11.6" to 12.1" range (typically 16:9, 1366x768), and quite a few are 10.1" (1024x600) devices.
Geez where is the love for the G Tab? Viewsonic has had a Tegra 2 tablet with a dual arm processor on the shelves for months. Sure the default interface is crap...but its nearly the exact specs hardware wise as the "announced" tablets and a standard andoid 2.2 install is pretty simple on the device. The really funny part is the several of the "announced" tablets are actually rebadged viewsonic.
I agree, there really isn't a market for a poor man's tablet with android or webos or windows 7. That's because poor people need to do work to get by, and don't see the need for a rich man's toy that is actually less functional than a real computer in just about every possible way but still costs just as much.
You could have that, if you're willing to accept the tradeoff in battery life / performance.
A Retina-display-like 326 ppi would require 2529 x 1897 pixels for an iPad's 10.4" display --- 13.7MB for display alone (up from 2.25MB for 1024 x 768) --- unfortunately, that's not happening in the near future.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
300+ DPI screens may be tough to scale past 7 inch screens, but there are two sizes that I hope manufacturers don't give up on:
1280x720 at 4.5" (326 DPI)
1920x1080 at 7" (315 DPI)
I still think 4.5" is not too big for a phone, though for some reason it seems everyone stops at 4.3" except for the Dell Streak at 5".
I haven't played with tablet devices to know for sure, but I suspect I'd prefer 6.5-7" over Apple's 10" for the ability to use it one handed and to fit in a jacket pocket.
~7" is the size of the early Newton MessagePads and many other PDAs (also a fair number contemporary ebook readers).
It's a useful size and one which I've found worth carrying around since having shirts tailor-made to have pockets to accommodate my Newton --- even now I frequently carry my Sony PRS-600 in a shirt pocket.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.