Tablets in 2012 - Now and Then

 Tablets are the most welcomed tech gadgets in the market attracting users with its great features. Tablets undergo radical transformation every year with new add–on features. As the New Year is just a few days away, the leading tech giants are all set to hit the tablet market with new upgrades, raising the expectation bar of the tech geeks much higher.

Lighter and Thinner Tablets

In the coming year, users can expect tablets becoming even lighter and thinner than they are presently. The shift has already begun for 10 inch class tablets as 1.2 to 1.3 pound-tablets are coming out as the new normal weight (down from 1.5 to 1.6 pounds in 2011), and 0.3 to 0.4 inch is becoming the new standard in thickness (down from 0.5 inch). These numbers will still edge lower once the Android manufacturers get to know what design leader Apple has in store for its iPad 3, which is widely expected to appear sometime in the first quarter of 2012. Manufacturers will likely turn their attention to the important details like display quality, text rendering, speakers, infrared ports for using a tablet as a remote control to reach the end users.

Soon a wide array of screen sizes can be seen from 7 inches to 10.1 inches simply because consumers have not yet shown enough of a preference to eliminate some of the middle sizes. There will be prices slashing down, especially models like the Amazon Kindle Fire, a 7-inch tablet that sells for 10,438. It is expected that the prices for tablets using Nvidia's Tegra 3 system on a chip will drop to 15,681 by mid-2012.

Quad-Core Chips

Nvidia launched the Tegra 3 platform and the Tegra 3 packs in a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU, a fifth "low-power" core for handling secondary tasks (such as playing music), and a 12-core GeForce GPU for graphics-intensive rendering. With quad-core chips, tablets will become more capable performers that compete better with laptops than they do today.

For example, Asus Transformer Prime seems poised to be the first tablet featuring Tegra 3. The Transformer Prime is a slimmer and redesigned version of the first-gen Eee Pad Transformer. The Prime is appearing in December with an expected price of 26,209 for a model with 32GB of storage.

Nvidia may have an early monopoly on the quad-core chip market for tablets. Qualcomm announced that its quad-core Snapdragon chips for tablets would not be out until its Snapdragon S4 line appears in the second half of next year. Qualcomm has already spoken of its chips being used for Windows 8 tablets.

Freescale and Texas Instruments have both said that they also will have quad-core ARM chips in 2012. Soon more tablets using quad-core chips from Nvidia and other manufacturers will be displayed.

Higher-Resolution Displays

The 1024 by 768 pixel of iPad 2 offers only 132 pixels per inch, the upcoming Toshiba Thrive 7 tablet will arrive with a 1280 by 800 pixel display that boasts 225 pixels per inch. The extra pixels are important, as they help smooth out the text so that you do not see the dots that form the letters.

Rumors are running rampant that a high-resolution display will be in the next version of the iPad. These high resolution displays gives a special look to the tablets that invade the market in the coming year. As display is one of the main factors in tablets, certainly it must undergo changes to compete in the market compared to other rivals.

Most of the tablets making companies are working on this to lead the tablet market to the next level that has a new version of technological materials.

Operating System

Tablet operating systems will evolve in a big way in 2012. Already, it is known that Android 4.0 called as Ice Cream Sandwich is the mobile operating system that Google is touting as the great unifier between the divergent Android 2.x phone and 3.x tablet platforms.

Asus soon offers a downloadable firmware upgrade for the Transformer Prime, to replace its shipping Android 3.2 OS with Ice Cream Sandwich. But that update would not be available until the beginning of 2012. In the meantime, users can get a glimpse of the new OS via Nvidia's video of Ice Cream Sandwich on the Transformer Prime.

The actual benefits and implications of Ice Cream Sandwich for tablets will bring a new wave; however, no tablet has shipped with Android 4.0 so far. In addition to new tablets carrying Ice Cream Sandwich, some manufacturers have indicated that some of the existing Android tablets will get an update to the new OS.

Windows 8 Tablets

Android is not the only news on the tablet-OS front for upcoming year. Microsoft's big coming-out party for Windows 8 is scheduled for 2012, and Windows 8 is bound for tablets in a big way. Several companies offer Windows 7 slates, including Dell, ExoPC, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Motion Computing, Samsung, and ViewSonic.

With prices starting at 34,082 and running to nearly twice, manufacturers typically position these tablets for the business world, where the Windows operating system reigns supreme, and where buyers tend to have custom software already designed for the OS.

Windows tablets were met with tough market situation so far due to their comparatively higher prices, shorter battery life, and lack of a touch-optimized operating system and apps, but that situation should change with Windows 8. The Windows 8 interface, filled with big "Metro-style" tiles, is optimized for touch navigation. And, in contrast to the current Windows 7 tablet models, which run on Intel Atom CPUs, Windows 8 will be able to run on ARM chips.

When it comes to complete end to end compatibility for data, apps, and peripherals, nothing can stand what a Windows device can offer. That’s a significant advantage over Android and iOS that Windows tablets should be able to exploit.

Still there is no clue of the shipping date for Windows 8, but there will be tablets running the OS coming as soon as summer 2012. At the very least, Windows 8 tablets with less-expensive ARM CPUs are sure to shake up the tablet status.

Apple Tablets

Finally, with Apple having just released iOS 5, there will be no expectation about the innovation or announcements surrounding the iOS operating system and how it plays with the iPad 3. Those announcements will likely stay unrevealed until closer to midyear.

Along the same lines, news of a rumored next Android OS, code-named Jelly Bean, is doing the rounds but the release date is not confirmed yet. Like other tablet makers, Apple will also bring variety of changes in the future innovations to regain upper hand in the market.