Tablet Makers Start Bailing On Android

[hanrak]

Is anyone else now getting full page adverts flash up on toms that you have to click to get rid of? If this is a new permanent thing i am outta here.

 

[R6ex]

Kal-El & Win 8 will be game-changers!

 

[Guest]

Android tabs are better - you have more choice and control - but the manufacturers put their tabs up against the ipad thinking they were equals or better - when they should have sold at a very low margin with low prices until they got themselves established. They are now looking at having to reduce prices or just slowly slug it out with apple and others. The failure is Googles - they should have sorted out some sort of plan and strategy with all Android OS users.

 

[syrious1]

Go Windows8! GDIAF Apple

 

[fir_ser]

Interesting news, hope for better tablets in the future.

 

[stingray71]

I was in the "who needs these things" camp until I got one. Now I use it more than my laptop or pc. They are the swiss army knife of computers.

As needing a itunes type service, dang, TH you're loosing more and more credit with me every week with apple biased stories. Main reason I went Android was to get away from iTunes.

I guess you haven't read up on Amazon Cloud or Androids Cloud. Both of which I've started using and love, and now even Apple is doing it. Cloud based computing will only grow.

To many hands in the pie already, not surprised to see/hear some oems bailing. Only handful anyway to keep prices down. Even the Xoom dropped their price down to $499 at Costco!

 

[Guest]

Several months ago, I bought a Viewsonic G-Tablet. Cheap price: $350. Has Flash, and a very smooth email program. I can surf the web, read emails, and read comic and regular books.

I can watch movies on it, too, of course, but any headphones I use with it seem too quiet. The built-in stereo speakers are fine, of course, but when I'm home, I'd just as soon watch any movies on the TV, so the issue is moot. (I can hook my laptop up to my TV all the time in seconds, anyway, or just watch cable.)

Overall, the experience has earned the device a solid B grade, IMHO.

Very rarely, it will freeze up, especially when a browsing session includes any really heavy duty flash video usage, (i.e., clicking on more than five or six video clips on a blog site) but generally it works very, very well. Seriously, most of the time, the flash works great.
It's WIFI-only, which is fine for me. I have no intention of paying ANOTHER phone carrier charge. (SCREW THAT ).

The next tablet I get will probably be in 2012, when some quad-core models come out. Until then I'll hold off. Seems like pretty much all the Android tablets that have come out in this past year have lots of issues with flash not being that up to par on them (Hello, Motorola). I don't see why I should jump ship from my current device, and splurge on anything more expensive, if it isn't even going to be that much better, as regards flash.

It will be pretty awesome in a few more years, when tablets are as smooth as silk, performance-wise. I would never buy an Apple product, since it doesn't have flash, and I use flash sites alot.

 

[AndrewMD]

Which is about accurate for each of the lame unsupported comments mentioned above.

The article is spot-on. Every manufacture has been trying to capture a piece of this new found market with tablets and smartphones that are sub-par.

The "ME-TOO" concept of which these manufactures are trying to copy Apple lack one major feature WHICH is a central hub. Most consumers want this type of feature, which is why the iPad and iPhone have been a major hit with consumers.

Of the people that converted to Android based devices or were informed to purchase an Android based device because of its similar nature to an iPhone have now decided to get an iPhone or Windows Mobile device when their contract ends or go back to basic cell phones and carry an iPod touch.

Of course there will be a market for people that like to tinker with technology, Android for now is that platform. And while reports can say Android devices have over taken Apple in the number of sold devices or OS installs, there is an underlining reason for that. Many non-smartphone and non-tablet based devices are starting to use Android by replacing other proprietary OS that they have been using. (Samsung Refrigerator with integrated Web Screen) or in-car infotainment systems.

Because Android is also very much an ongoing beta, the release structure is such that not all devices are compatible with the updates or manufacture tend to forget them and move onto the next device.

There was a comment made about how Android could be looked at as an equivalent to the old DOS days when PCs were open and others were closed, this is a good comparison, but we are now in the days where people just want to toast bread, not figure out how to make it from scratch.

In the end, if you own an Android device and you are happy with it good for you! Be happy and do what ever you want with it.

 

[Guest]

We have both an iPad and an Acer A500. For a techie, an Acer A500, Samsung Galaxy 10.1, or an Asus Transformer is much more fun to tweak and play with. Visit XDA and see what I mean. Custom ROMs, overclocked kernels etc.

For users that just need it to work well out of the box and keep it it simple, then iPad is great.

iPad has no flash support, no standard USB connectivity options (NTFS HD and thumb drive mounting, mouse support etc.).

I wouldn't trust this article. Asus can't even keep their tablet in stock...Acer has sold millions of Android tablets.
RIM is not in the Android space....they just nicely ignore these facts. Good luck getting hold of that Windows 8 kernel so you can overclock it. If developers have a say, Android is not going to give up that easily.

 

[jn77]

I thought about picking one up, but later thought, that I would be better off with a 10 inch windows 7 based tablet, which, there are not many that exist. I need it to communicate with my pc with out the use of stinky sync software.

 

[eatmeimadanish]

Motorolla came out with a tablet that was more expensive then the current competitor and offered less? And they cant understand why they aren't selling as many? Here is a hint tablet makers: Value is what people buy, not tablets or technology. Make it worth their while and they will come in droves.

Netflix and Hulu need to be apps in the android space or the Ipad will beat them out everytime.

 

[Guest]

Of course they are bailing .... they were/are going to be crushed

New full Win OS tablets with far better connectivity have arrived with 32/64GB SSDs, SDHC card readers, USB2 & mini-HDMI at their exact same price points. Throw in AMD HD 6250 hardware-accelerated graphics and Brazos Bobcat dual-core x86 processors, and ARM-based products bravely run away this round. Wait until Intel sticks their toe in the water.

The time might come when ARM and x86 go head-to-head competitively, but this round ARM will go hide and weep quietly.

Some of the excuses in this thread for purchasing a tablet were really lame, and smelled of elderberries and troll.

 

[eddieroolz]

I hate Apple as much as the next guy, but I agree. Tablet seems to be the sole domain of the iPads.

 

[zeu5]

I have always failed to see the logic in the whole Android marketing system. When Apple releases one new iPad running the same familiar basic operating system every half a year or so, everyone is happy because you can still use your old one and get some of the same updates, and all the enthusiasts who want the new hardware can buy it, and they don't get bored of their toy. Whereas Motorola, Acer, Archos, HTC, etc. all build a new Android tablet or phone every few weeks, everyone's confused as to which is the best, and phones drop out of support with updates. Really, if these Android-based companies had one or two continuous product lines, they would make much better competition for Apple.

 

[thrasher32]

Tablet = Giant smart phone that doesn't make calls. I can see a tablet being useful for commuters or people who travel a lot, other than that they're useless imho. Just another niche-market fad.

Just make smarthones a little bigger and BAM you got it.

 

[thrasher32]

[citation][nom]eatmeimadanish[/nom]Motorolla came out with a tablet that was more expensive then the current competitor and offered less? And they cant understand why they aren't selling as many? Here is a hint tablet makers: Value is what people buy, not tablets or technology. Make it worth their while and they will come in droves. Netflix and Hulu need to be apps in the android space or the Ipad will beat them out everytime.[/citation]

If value is what people buy, how do you explain Apple's existence?

 

[zeu5]

[citation][nom]thrasher32[/nom]Tablet = Giant smart phone that doesn't make calls. I can see a tablet being useful for commuters or people who travel a lot, other than that they're useless imho. Just another niche-market fad. Just make smarthones a little bigger and BAM you got it.[/citation]
That's really not what a tablet is. It's not a giant smart phone that doesn't make calls. It's being seen as that by a lot of people now because these newfangled tablets run the same OSes as smartphones, but that's not how it used to work. Tablets were almost full computers, and did everything a laptop did in a much more portable form. Take the Archos 9 tablet, for example. It's a 9-inch tablet (so slightly smaller than a netbook) that runs Windows 7. That's perfect for what most people use the computer for. Web browsing and light use.