The excitement is building with CES 2011 only a few days away, much of the excitement is due to the new crop of tablets that are anticipated to be announced and shown off. The tablet hype started last with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer displaying the HP Slate, a Windows 7 based tablet. This paved the way for a bunch of other Windows 7 based tablets from other big name players in the industry. But unfortunately none of the promised devices ever saw the light of day. The Slate did finally make it to the market but in a form design for a specific niche as corporate centric product. While all this was happening, the iPad was launched and absolutely dominated the market while also being named “Best Product of 2010? by Wall Street Journals’s Walt Mossberg.

Fast-Foward to a year later where the scene is completely different. With a market that was virtually non-existent a year ago at CES 2010, to today where the industry is almost flooded with competition for the iPad. With that being said, lets take a look at some of the big hitters expected at CES 2011.

HP PalmPad

With HP now owning Palm’s highly acclaimed yet commercially unsuccessful WebOS, it was an obvious move for HP to develop a tablet based on a modified for tablet version of WebOS. Despite it just being hear-say, it still rumored that the PalmPad might make an appearance at CES 2011. If HP uses the mature platform correctly it could prove itself to be a real competitor for the iPad.

BlackBerry PlayBook

The BlackBerry Playbook from RIM is likely to make the showcase at CES 2011. An entirely new OS bases on the QNX platform will be run on the device. The QNX UI is powered by flash while iOS doesn’t support Adobe’s Flash. Since most websites still use flash, the Playbook can make the claim to offer a better and richer internet browsing. The Playbook also has some decent specs, a 7-inch multi-touch ready, 1024 x 600 display and front and rear cameras.

Windows 7 Based Tablets

A large amount of Windows 7 based tablets are expected at CES this year. 2 companies that are rumored to be coming to the show with a strong line up are Samsung and Dell. Expected to be direct competition to the iPad is the device from Samsung which boasts a similar sized screen. A notable difference is that the Samsung device would be thicker than the iPad due to a slide out keyboard. Nothing is really known about the device from Dell. There’s also the EeePads from Asus that would sport a 12.1-inch tablet named the EeePad 121. A smaller screened Windows 7 based devices coming from the EeePad series. Lenovo is also expected to make a big splash among the plethora of other Windows 7 tablets.

Android HoneyComb based Tablets

The Android powered tablets are probably going to be the biggest threats to the iPad and iPad 2. Too add to the threat, there is a seemingly endless list of manufacturers making plans to release Android based tablets. The list ranges from HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Dell all the way to lesser known companies like Viewsonic and Notion Ink. Teasers of an upcoming tablet from Motorola have been posted which refer to the tablet as “Xoom”. The Xoom would be the first tablet running Honeycomb – a tablet specific version of Android. Moving on to HTC who has already talked of a 4G ready tablet called the Scribe. The Streak from Dell was able to grab a lot of attention in 2010 and now the company is following it up with a larger screened tablet called the Streak 7 that will come with a screen 2-inches large than the Streak. The Taiwanese brand, Acer is coming out with its own Android tablet called the Iconica that’s expected to be shown at CES 2011. There’s talk of Samsung coming up with a follow up to the Galaxy Tab as well. Currently the Galaxy Tab available comes with a 7-inch display, but the successor is claiming a bigger screen as well as running Honeycomb a possibility of a keyboard.

If you’re looking at purchasing a tablet this year then CES 2011 is going to be a real treat for you. Out of the competition do you think there’s anyone that stands a chance of dethroning the iOS tablets especially with rumors of the iPad growing stronger everyday?

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[Source: iPhonehacks]

Authors: V_Geek

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