For months, analysts have said that this would be the year of the tablet computer and just one week into 2010, it looks like their predictions may be coming true.

(Business Wire Photo)

On Monday, while Apple fans continued to trade rumors about when the company’s long-awaited tablet would debut, Freescale Semiconductor got down to business.

In advance of the Consumer Electronics Show this week, the Austin, Texas, company announced its own touchscreen tablet that it calls the “future of the smartbook category.”

At 7 inches, Freescale’s tablet is smaller than the 10- or 11-inch model expected from Apple and others, but the smaller size comes with a big payoff: A $199 price tag, instead of the thousand-dollar (or more) price tag that will likely accompany Apple’s. | The company said its lightweight device provides four times the viewing area of a typical smartphone, but is about one-third the size and volume of the average netbook.

The tablet is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled and can be fitted with a modem to run on 3G networks. And it’s ready to serve a wide range of on-the-go needs, from Web browsing and office applications to social media widgets, picture taking and more.

Though Freescale will demo the device, which runs on both Android and Linux operating systems, this week at CES, it won’t be ready for mass consumption until the summer.

[via ABC news]

We’ve been keeping an eye on the ODROID Android-based portable entertainment device over the past few months, and today our source at the company let us know that the developer version is going up for pre-order from today.  Priced at the equivalent of around $320, and with deliveries expected to begin from November 5th, the ODROID developer edition has the same 833MHz Samsung S5PC100 processor as in the iPhone 3GS, 512MB of RAM and a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen.

There’s no integrated 3G – though there’s a USB port that we think you can plug a 3G dongle into – but you do get WiFi b/g, Bluetooth and a mini-HDMI port.  The whole thing runs Android OS 1.5 from a 2GB TFlash card, while an 8GB SD card is also included for user data.  Developers also get a download/charger cable, serial console debugging board and batteries.

It should be interesting to see what coders can produce when they have the same sort of 3D crunching hardware as in the iPhone 3GS; this could perhaps kick-start the “proper” Android gaming market.  According to the company, the consumer version of the ODROID is expected to drop in December this year, priced at $250.

[via Slash Gear]

UPDATE:

embedded by Embedded Video

embedded by Embedded Video

RAmos will hold an event in Shenzhen on September 25 Beijing Time, in which they will launch a set of products, including an Android MID and a 1080p PMP. Now the Event is still going on. On RAmas’ offical website, we found there’s a picture about their upcoming Android MID. There’s still not much information revealed, but we’ve got to know the Android MID is called W7. We’ll update this post when more information comes out.

update: Ramos W7 is based on Rockchip’s RK2808 chipset, with a 600MHz processor. It features a 4.8-inch 800×480 capacitive touchscreen, Wi-Fi connectivity, and 780p support. It supports numerous video formats including MKV, AVI, RMVB. The device is very thin, only 2mm thick at minimum and 10mm at maximum. The price was also disclosed on the even, 1299 Yuan (about $191) for the 8GB version, and 1599 Yuan (about $235) for the 16GB version.

[via Cloned In China]