Toshiba £300 'entry level' Froyo tablet back on sale next month
Honeycomb offerings to be premium products
Toshiba will not be canning its Folio 100 10.1in Android tablet when its 10.1in Android Tablet arrives on the scene.
The Folio, which has at last received Adobe certification for its implementation of Flash, paving the way for its re-introduction after being dropped by exclusive supplier Dixons in November 2010, will return to the market in March, Toshiba staff told Reg Hardware today.
Toshiba's Tablet
Folio will run Android 2.2 Froyo at re-launch but will not be upgradable to Android 3.0, we were told, because it doesn't meet Google's Honeycomb hardware requirements.
The Toshiba tablet that will, simply called Tablet, will debut some time in Q2, Toshiba said. Tablet was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.
It will have a 10.1in, 1280 x 800 capacitive touchscreen, contain an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, and combine 0.2Mp and 5MP front- and rear-facing cameras. You can add to that HDMI, USB - mini and full size - SD and analogue audio portage, and 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi.
Today, Toshiba said it will also sport the company's Resolution+ upscaling technology for crisper pixel-expanded imagery.
Toshiba wouldn't discuss the Tablet's pricing, but it did say that the £300 Folio 100 will be its "entry level" offering. That suggests the Tablet will be a rather more expensive, premium offering.
Dixons, incidentally, will no longer have the exclusive on the Folio 100 when the tablet returns next month. ®
Next page: Toshiba Tablet Pictures
COMMENTS
This isn't the launch.
It appears to have been "launched as in reviewed" in September 2010 (unless that's a typo on a review web page), and on sale in November. That's five months ago and three months ago. And presumably there's a lot of 'em in a warehouse somewhere. Still, I'd evaluate carefully, and maybe look for a discount from list price.
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/ipad-and-tablets/toshiba-folio-100-review-50000606/ - for it was they - reckoned that they had a wi-fi-only, no Android market, model, to look at, and a version with 3G would show up at "the start of 2011".
Not the same..
Five months is one thing, six months is another - which is roughly how the development cycle of Android products and releases is going at the moment. As already mentioned, Android 3.0 is due out soon, so this product will be obsolete at launch.
Does the product do what it says? Yes it does - the same as the Creative Android tablet cum MP3 player. The supplemental question, though, is : should Android succeed? If so, all these flawed devices do not help.
Doesn't meet the hardware requirements?
If true, which I doubt given the way Google have denied minimum requirements in the past, the only thing it could possibly be is a minimum display resolution. The thing has a Tegra 2 processor, what else could it be? I still highly doubt it's true and as many people suspect is just a way to try and force early adopters to buy the newer and vastly more expensive model.
Google's Honeycomb hardware requirements
Did I miss the announcement of the minimum requirements for Honeycomb? Last I remember was Google's Dan Morrill denying that there were minimum requirements (some time in Jan?).
@Peter Kay
Oh, scary, "fragmentation" I hate it when I buy a device and it does what it says it will when I buy it then, a while later, can't use the fastest software.
I bet that Mr Jobs will stop all future Apple products from doing anything the first iPhones couldn't, to stop "fragmentation".
Written on my pesky "Lenny" Pc which can't run "Squeeze" applications! What a con! I bought it less than 5 years ago! I must swap it for a PowerPC!
