Slashdot Mirror
7-inch Google Tablet Coming From ASUS
First time accepted submitter Sez Zero writes "Google and ASUS have been collaborating on a co-branded 7-inch Android tablet, with a launch as early as May, according to sources, challenging low-cost rivals and the iPad with a $199-249 price tag. The fruits of the partnership, whispered to the runes readers at DigiTimes by industry sources, will take on the NOOK Tablet and the Kindle Fire, with ASUS selected for its willingness to flex to Google's requirements."
Actually I'll call bullshit on this and for a good reason: I recently purchased an Asus Zenbook UX21. Up untill this point I have never purchased Asus gear and have always gone for Toshiba and Fujitsu notebooks which have never let me down. But this Zenbook was preposteriously inexepensive, exactly the form factor I needed, and immediately available so I went for it. I'm so glad I did - I love the thing. It's well constructed and has killer hardware, the screen is nice, the keyboard is nice, it even looks nice. There are some small complaints about it sure but they are negligable unless I want to spend twice the price for a Toshiba Ultrabook (which looks fantastic, but basically the same specs + some minor polish and a few bells and whistles at 2x the price).
If anyone can pull off a great Android tablet on a budget it's Asus.
Your stance is exactly why Apple can charge so outrageous prices for their products and get away with it.
Seriously, most Android phones are excellent, are fast enough for their purpose and are well built. How many have you tried?
When people compare Android phones to iPhones they often compare the CHEAPEST model to to the most expensive phone on the market! FAIL - try comparing a midrange price Android to an iPhone... most like 1/3 to 1/2 the price of the iPhone. Believe me, that phone just works.
Go away, Apple fan boy.
Count me in for four at least for my own house, and as many for gifts for Christmas.
I'm ot sure where you're going with that 1984 rhetoric though. This stuff works for us, it delivers modern innovation - and yet it lets us do with it what we will. That's not the same thing at all as the dystopian vision you portend.
Have you some credible source, some study or even some analyst to call dire outcomes? Surely you must. Your fear, show me it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Actually it's quite the opposite. Every device Google has had a personal hand in designing has been one perfect experience after the other. It is typically the handset manufacturers who are unable to code decent software, then the carriers who load the devices up with junk that ruin the experience.
I have an ancient phone, yet I run CM9 on it. It is far smoother than phones twice as expensive, rather new, and spouting features like dual core processors depending on who had a hand in making the software.
I for one am excited about what google can come up with in this partnership.
Oh yeah, Android is horribly fragmented into camps that like physical keyboards or not, HD cams or no, front facing cams or not, items in pink, blue or prints.
Android vendors have better margins even than Apple, and that's saying something. I enjoy choosing, so I like the mess that Android is.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
you can get the Samsung or Motorola tablets at Staples for $299-$399 right now and I know that hardware is better than ASUS.
Sure the hardware is better, but it won't run anywhere near as well. If Samsung and Motorola have shown just one thing it's that they lack any competent programmers. I really did enjoy watching the dramas with RobustFS that Samsung released on their phones. You know you could quadruple and then some the I/O performance on the Galaxy S simply by converting the partition to ext4?
Yes at the time the Galaxy S was quite mean hardware. Yet the version of Eclair they shipped was about the only version of Android that I have seen which would force close apps because they were taking too long to load due to the OS overhead. The only good thing Samsung ever did was not lock down the bootloader on their devices. Although I'm not sure they did this out of kindness but rather their engineers were too dumb to figure out how.
Come on ASUS, you guys used to know what you were doing. Now it's a year late and a processor core short.
Not sure where you're getting your hardware specs from as tfa says the hardware is unconfirmed at this point.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I don't want something that is seen by some as an essential fashion accessory. I would rather do without.
So, you're allowing your choice to be influenced by what others think of the brand. You might think that's anti-fashion, but actually, that's fashion.
I just to not want to be associated with that group that does.
You are following the fashion, every bit as much as punks who said their choice was about not wanting to be associated with glam rockers.
Your list is just a way of justifying the fashion choice you've made. Just as a punk might have listed everything they found wrong with glam rock.
Are you insane? First, a 50" tablet is way too big to carry around. Second, the battery life would be absolutely terrible. Third, I like surround-sound.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Android OEMs have struggled by themselves but with Google's help and Asus' engineering they could come up with something really great at a price point that is easily palatable by people not well off enough to afford 4 and 5 hundred dollar plus devices.The naysayers should wait until something is delivered before throwing irrational hate at a piece of circuitry and glass they've never even touched.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
It may not fit your preference for the carefully curated device and I do see advantages to the Apple way but consumers like choice even if it does effect app compatibility which is what this is really all about. People like low prices and some Androids deliver that. People like hardware keyboards and some Androids deliver that. People like huge honking screens (me!) and Android delivers on that as well. Hell, there are even nut balls that like Android on their wristwatch (what? Like you don't think its cool) and yes, judging by the rooted Motorola ACTV sitting on my nightstand, Android has delivered. You can scream fragmentation all day long but its a hollow cry as the consumers have spoke and continue to speak to the tune of 850,000 activations a day. Now that fact may offend your delicate sensibilities but guess what? You are just one person and you don't get to tell anybody else what to think.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.