Tablets Will Probably Be Cheaper By Autumn

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Tablet technology definitely dominated the much hyped Consumer Electronic Show this January in Las Vegas. With many of the models set to hit shelves this year, consumers might want to bide their time and see how the competition plays out.

The biggest star of the Consumer Electronic Show was arguably the Motorola Xoom and the new OS developed by Google to run it on, the Honeycomb. The Honeycomb is really the Android 3.0, and it is the first OS of its kind because it was specifically developed for the tablet platform. Google and Motorola claims it will be better optimized for the size of a tablet screen and will run smoother, claims backed up by all those who handled the device at the Consumer Electronic Show.

However, since the device is not slated to be available right away, it gives Apple some time to catch up with the iPad. By the time consumers can get their hands on a Motorola Xoom tablet, Apple will probably have an upgrade available for the iPad. The only way to truly reach in and loosen some of Apple’s stranglehold on the market will be if the average consumer thinks as well of the Xoom ...
... as the show participants and media do. Otherwise, people will still just keep buying iPads.

Research In motion is also expected to also introduce a tablet: the Blackberry Playbook. Unfortunately the Playbook has already suffered from some negative press on the Web. It was slated to arrive in stores sooner, but a bad review stating that it was slow and had only a short battery life caused the product to be withdrawn by RIM until the issues have been worked out. For its part, RIM has insisted that only an incomplete beta version was leaked and tested, therefore any negative reports about the device should bear that in mind. Still, the fact that the release date was delayed does make their defense sound hollow.

By the end of the year, we will be seeing three major players vying for the tablet market: Apple’s iPad using iOS, Motorola’s Xoom using Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and Blackberry’s Playbook using RIM’s proprietary OS.

This is good newsâ€well at least for consumersâ€because the cost of owning a tablet is very likely to go down in the coming months as the competition between the three heats up. Whether consumer demand increases or dilutes the pool of potential buyers, the cost of these devices will still go down in response, making the technology both more affordable and widespread than it currently is.

Microsoft, who tried unsuccessfully to introduce the concept as far back as 2001, is now in the curious place of being the last in line, as it currently does not have a tablet model to bring to market. However, as the iPad and others continue to do the groundwork for them by entrenching the platform firmly into the public’s mind, no doubt they could catch up quickly if they wanted to.

The other benefit of course is that the pace of technological advancement of the platform will be that much quicker with three viable companies competing for the top market position this year, assuming Microsoft is simply not ready to put its foot in by 2011.

We might all be toting around tablets instead of laptops by September depending on what happens.