Toshiba To Release Android Honeycomb-Based Tablet Midyear

Although Amazon’s page does not offer a specific price or release schedule, several online reports say the Toshiba tablet is due sometime midyear, possibly in June. Toshiba’s previous tablet device, the Folio 100, had very little impact on the mobile market and the company has yet to unveil the new moniker for the device.

The device displayed on Amazon’s page features a 10.1-inch touch-screen and runs a 1 GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset with integrated graphics on the Android platform. It comes with a user-replaceable battery and Toshiba’s Adaptive Display Technology for viewing multimedia content on its 1200x800 pixel resolution display. It also includes an Easy Grip changeable back plate that comes in various colours, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a 5 MP rear-facing camera with autofocus for 720p video recording, as well as a 2 MP front-facing camera.

Toshiba in January unveiled its upcoming tablet with a prototype demonstration at CES 2011 -- with the sole difference that at the event the Toshiba tablet ran Android 2.2, codenamed Froyo, rather than the latest tablet-optimized version Android rolled out at the same event. In fact, Toshiba’s device was one of many Android products on display at CES, as additional vendors and distributors begin adopting Google’s mobile OS.

Toshiba’s tablet also comes with a host of accessories that may help to distinguish the device from its growing number of competitors: a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a GPS, an e-compass, an ambient light-sensor, mini and full-size USB 2.0 ports, an SD card slot and an HDMI output. Finally, just as Apple’s App Store offering thousands of unique applications is essential to its success, Toshiba is launching its own app market named Toshiba Places.

Apple earlier this month released its thinner, more lightweight iPad 2 follow-up to the highly-successful iPad, which won 87 percent of the tablet market in 2010.

There appears to be plenty of space in the burgeoning tablet market for manufacturers like Toshiba who are known for their more traditional form factor PCs, which may in turn see declining sales as tablets gain momentum. According to research firms IDC and Gartner, tablet PC cannibalization became increasingly apparent toward the end of last year. IDC said PC sales in the U.S. declined 4.8 percent in the fourth quarter to 20.0 million units, while Gartner estimated that PC sales in the U.S. slipped 6.6 percent to 19.1 million units.

Toshiba has not offered details regarding pricing for its upcoming tablet device.