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Companies showed off over a dozen new rivals for the iPad at Computex this year.
Compal Electronics, the world's second largest contract maker of laptop computers, unveiled
a sleek Android-based tablet with a 10-inch touchscreen and a stereo speaker it docked
into. The user interface is similar to Acer's Shell UI, which works on Android smartphones.
The UI simplifies navigation by making the home screen a room full of objects the user
taps using the touchscreen. Tapping a stereo icon, for example, starts music playing.
The company's tablet uses Android version 2.1 and is on offer to PC vendors worldwide.
Compal creates designs for vendors to choose from, then manufactures the devices at factories
in China.
Arm Holdings, which designs the processing cores popular in Android devices, estimates
there will be about 40 tablet devices made using Arm-based processors this year, and
several e-readers.
Arm's private showroom at Computex had several tablets on display, including the Lifepad
by Prowave with a 7-inch touchscreen running Android 2.1 with support for SD card expansion.
Arm also showed off a pair of 10 inch tablets; the N928-1 from Foxconn, and the Wanlida Groups's
Malata, an nVidia Tegra2-powered 10" tablet. The Malata will run Android 2.1 and support
1080p output via HDMI.
Android wasn't the only OS. Two manufactures, MSI and Asustek displayed Windows 7 tablets.
The MSI Wind Pad 100 features a 10 inch display, built in 3G and GPS and a custom user interface.
Asustek's Eee Pad 121 is a 12 inch tablet, a few inches larger than an iPad. It's based
around an Intel Core2Duo and Asus claims the tablet can go 10 hours on a charge. There
was also a smaller 10 inch tablet running Microsoft's Windows Embedded Compact 7 software.
It will cost between US$399 and US$499 when it debuts on world markets in the first quarter
of next year.
With reporting by Martyn Williams and Dan Nystedt in Taipei, I'm Justin Meisinger, IDG
News Service.