Freescsale , supplier of the chip that powers the Kindle as well as about 70 % of the ebook market , has just developed a 7 - column inch tablet denotation design that will basically be the genesis of many tablets set off 2010 . And it ’s $ 199 .
Now , to be fair , those two figures are a bit preliminary . The $ 199 figure is the one quoted by Freescale , not the terminal damage that OEM companies that will buy this aim from Freescale and put their own twirl and customization on it will charge . And , although Freescale says this tablet design will appropriate company to bring the pad of paper to marketplace in as gloomy as 6 months , customizations ( hardware or software ) and bug killing will doubtless inflate that .
Even if only on report , this Freescale source design is moderately damn promising . It ’s powered by a netbook - esque ARM C.P.U. , a 7 - in touchscreen ( resistive , unfortunately , to keep the pattern under $ 200 — you’d go up to $ 250 if any OEM put a capacitive touch screen on there ) , 512 megabyte RAM , 4 - 64 GB interior storage , obliterable microSD slot , an optional 3 G modem , 802.11 b / yard / n , Bluetooth 2.1 , GPS , USB , audio port , SIM card , speaker , microphone , 3 - megapixel webcam , 1900 mAh battery , accelerometer and light detector . Whether or not include all these options in a build will result in a machine that ’s less than $ 200 is undecipherable , so there might be some sacrifices that need to be made .
As for the OS , it ’s primarily web browser base , but the root of it is a customized Debian Linux build , so you could theoretically go and set up Linux applications onto it . But , as a tablet , the great unwashed are mostly going to be eat media , so going with a web browser app , likethe JooJoo did , makes sense . Freescale did come up with an interesting $ 50 keyboard docking station addon that you may keep at home and purpose as an stimulant equipment if you actually require to do some typing , so it ’s kind of the best of both worlds .
The bottom furrow is that Freescale has made a moderately enticing design , and if a decent enough OEM picks it up and vex it to market at under $ 200 , it could be the starting line if a very interesting computing family — one that ’s a step higher than smartphones but a step lower than netbooks .
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