Asus teased a few days ago that it would be launching its follow-up to the reasonably successful (for an Android tablet) Asus Transformer tablet in the coming weeks. Now, during the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong, company Chairman Jonney Shih unveiled the 8.3mm quad-core tablet dubbed Transformer Prime.

At this point we don’t know too much about the Tegra 3 inside the Transformer other than it has four cores (actually five), and that it will offer up to 3x the GPU performance of its Tegra 2 predecessor. Shih, in unveiling the Transformer Prime, claims that it will be the first tablet to market with Nvidia’s new chipset, along with a 10″ screen, SD slot and mini-HDMI port. The other good news is that although it will ship with Honeycomb, the device will get Ice Cream Sandwich soon, likely before the end of the year.

The official unveiling of the Transformer Prime is coming November 9th, but he showed off a working prototype to Walt Mossberg, and it’s definitely a looker. The Tegra 3 chipset should power many new tablets in the new year, with smartphones coming a few months later as they transition to a more mature manufacturing process. In addition to extra speed, Tegra 3 promotes up to 60% power reduction in some areas compared to Tegra 2 performing the same tasks. This is due not only to the more efficient design, but by being developed for mobile right from the start.
[SP]

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The 7-inch new Android tablet from Samsung, the Galaxy Tab 7 Plus is up for pre-order on Amazon. Offered with a $399.99 price tag for the 16GB version and $499.99 for the 32GB, the Galaxy Tab 7 Plus sport a 1024 x 600 pixels 7-inch PLS display. a 1.2GHz dual-core processor is the heart of this Honeycomb 3.2 tablet. The tablet will arrive with Touchwiz UI, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, a USB 2.0 port, a 3MP rear camera and a 2MP front camera. Unfortunately still no info of it’s shipping date.
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HP TouchSmart 520PC All-In-One Desktop PC

HP have announced another machine from their All-In-One TouchSmart Series, it is the TouchSmart 520PC. This new PC comes with a 23-inch Touchscreen display with a 1920×1080 Full HD resolution, it packs the power of a 3.10GHz Intel Core i3-2100 pocessor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM and up to 500GB of Hard Drive Storage. Other than a really good processor for better multitasking, the TouchSmart 520PC runs the Windows 7 Home Premium OS, there is a DVD Super Multi Drive plus it comes built to order with a price tag of approximately $910 per unit. [TH]

Kobo Vox ebook Reader

Kobo Vox is the latest eBook reader in the Kobo family and it is referred to as ‘the first social eReader’.  Kobo Vox is the reader for your connected life, and opens the door to the next generation of eReading – social eReading – where books can come alive in color and conversation. Readers can get more out of their experience by connecting with Kobo’s global community of booklovers.

During the recent Facebook’s f8 conference, Facebook selected Kobo as its only eReading partner, which makes the Canadian company the first eReading platform to be integrated with Facebook Ticker and Timeline to enable further reading discovery and entertainment.

Vox, based on the Android 2.3 OS, will be equipped with a 7-inch color touch screen which will be great for reading, but also for browsing the web, e-mail and social networks as well. You can even watch movies on your Kobo.[NC]

ICOO D30PRO Android Tablet

ICOO has showed off another one of its upcoming Android tablet namely the D30PRO. The device sports a 7.0-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen display, a 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A10 processor, a Mail 400 GPU, a 512MB DDR3 RAM, a microSD card slot, 2160p Super HD video playback support, a G-sensor, WiFi and runs on Android 2.3 OS. Pricing and release date are still unknown at the moment.[GZ]

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Many Android tablets from different manufacturers are said to get Android Ice Cream Sandwich update. But which one will be the first ?No one know yet but Fudzilla heard repeatedly that the lucky manufacturer will be Motorola. Motorola’s Xoom tablet is rumored to be the first tablet to receive Ice Cream Sandwich update. Don’t take this news for granted, Google itself said hat they won’t playing favorites, but who knows.. Motorola also will held an event todaywhere they’re expected to announcing the Motorola Droid RAZR and maybe Xoom 2 too. On the other hand, Samsung and Google also held an Ice Cream Sandwich event in Hongkong today. They will unveild the mysterious Ice Cream Sandwich device, the Samsung Galaxy Prime AKA the next Nexus phone.

Ideapad U300s, another ultrabook from Lenovo is available at Amazon, the device itself already listed at Amazon since early this month. Lenovo Ideapad U300s sport a 13.3-inch 1366 x 768 pixels LED backlit display and running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system. Sold with a $1,199.99 price tag, IdeaPad U300s is equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M processor, an Integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 128GB SSD. Features jammed to this Lenovo’s ultrabook including a USB 3.0 port,USB 2.0 ports, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and a 1.3MP webcam. It’s battery can last for 8 hours.
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Apple iPad Mini may be more real then you think.

According to the Taiwanese Economic Daily News, two potential suppliers – Korean LG Display and Taiwanese AU Optronics – have recently sent samples of their iPad Mini displays to Apple. EDN sources tell them that Apple has already set the specifications for the smaller tablet, which is scheduled to ship early next year.

iPad mini display panel size is 7.85” and it has the same resolution as the iPad 2.

There is a lot of speculation that iPad Mini is Apple’s response to the cheap 7” Kindle Fire that Amazon launched earlier this month. But I do not think this is a case.

While Steve Jobs dismissed 7” tablets in Apple’s earnings conference call a year ago, it does not mean much. Steve has been known to publicly deny and dismiss a lot of products until Apple was ready to launch them. E.g.video iPod or even the idea of tablet PC itself.

A smaller 7-8” iPad does have a lot of merit in and of itself. In addition to being cheaper due to smaller display panel size, it will be a much more portable device, easier to carry around, which could make it attractive to a whole new set of customers.

And while Apple seems to have found a sweet spot, “one size fits all” form factor for the iPhone, and has no immediate plans to change that, tablets are a very different category of device. It is a completely new and uncharted market, with a lot of room to explore an additional device sizes and form factors.

Broadening a product range with a cheaper, smaller and more portable tablet should help Apple maintain the market dominance it enjoys now, even longer.
[UW]

In addition to the Series 7 all-in-one, Samsung also releases the Series 7 slate PC in the US market. The new Series 7 Slate is designed for on-the-go- users who need a slim and lightweight PC running full version of Windows OS. The Series 7 is powered by Intel’s Core i5-2467M processor with 4GB of RAM and integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics.

The XE700T1A-A01US and XE700T1A-A04US models both get 64GB solid state drive while the XE700T1A-A03US and XE700T1A-A05US have 128GB. They have a 11.6-inch 1366×768 touchscreen with Superbright Plus Technology, a 2 Megapixel front camera and a 3 Megapixel rear camera, integrated microphone, and support for Bluetooth 3.0 and WiFi connectivity. HSPA/3G and WiMax support are available as options. The slate PC includes Samsung’s FastStart technology, which enables the slate to transition from a hybrid sleep mode to full functionality in two – three seconds, enabling users to quickly jump into work or play anywhere.

You can buy the Samsung Series 7 slate PC from Amazon.com.
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Amazon rocking the Android tablet world when announcing $199 price for their Kindle Fire.Maybe you think that $199 is the rock bottom price for a 1GHz tablet, but guess what ? A company called Epesitec can offer you a 7-inch Android tablet powered by a 1.2 Ghz Freescale processor called Epesitec E515 with just $189 price tag. Now that’s what we call competition. The tablet sport a 7-inch capatitive touchscreen display and PowerVR Series5 graphics, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage.For wireless connectivity, Epesitec E155 rely on WiFi network and Bluetooth. Other features including a webcam, a USB port and a TV output.

Now if you need similar tablet plus 3G connectivity, Epesitec also has E516, Similar tablet to E515 but packs 3G module. Both E515 and E516 will be available starting on November 1st.
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