While gadget enthusiasts wait for the fabled but possibly $1,000 tablet from Apple, cheaper alternatives are possible, says Freescale Semiconductor.
The company has created a tablet reference design featuring a 7-inch touch screen and has a a form factor that is approximately a third the size and volume of a typical netbook. The idea is to help PC manufacturers create a device that uses the company ARM processor and is priced at less than $200.
“Freescale?s new tablet is optimized to support common online activities including social media, high-quality audio and video playback and light gaming,”says Henri Richard, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Freescale. “We believe the tablet will emerge as a popular form factor for the next generation of smartbooks.”
Freescale’s tablet design offers instant-on functionality and all-day battery life, says the company. It plans to show some prototypes running the Android and Linux operating systems at the Consumer Electronics Show later this week.
The tablet includes a i.MX515 processor that uses ARM Cortex A8 technology, 512 MB memory, 4 GB to�64 GB internal storage, a 3-megapixel camera and an accelerometer.
The device also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and support for 3G connectivity. The tablet has a web browser with Flash player, PDF and image viewers, a mail client, RSS reader, office suite, handwriting utilities and widgets for Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, weather, text messages and other applications.
Freescale says products based on the design could hit retail shelves in the summer of 2010. But that’s only if some of the Taiwanese PC manufacturers buy the idea.
Photo: Freescale smartbook designs/Freescale
Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/Hik0GIcftSA/
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