Now Best Buy is getting into the tablet space with it’s own Insignia Flex tablet, reported to be based on Android and run a dual-core 1GHx processor with a 9.7-inc screen and 10-hour battery life. Best Buy plans to sell this tablet for $239 – $259, says Reuters. This puts the massive consumer electronics chain in direct competition with Google, Apple and Amazon, which should seriously shake things up.
ASUS held a multitude of events across the globe to announce the new Padfone 2. The follow up to the unique phone/tablet combo of the original Padfone, the Padfone 2 is bigger, faster and sleeker. Unfortunately it still carries a few setbacks to make me question its worth.
The Patagonia MiniMass commuter bag ($69) is my first taste of Patagonia’s gear, and I’ve always wondered if their stuff was worth the hype. The company has a bit of a reputation — perhaps fair, perhas not — as the outdoor industry’s bourgeois player, probably due to generally higher prices than the competition, an innovative design ethic and the use of green materials throughout their line.
But Patagonia has also spawned a fanatical following. I once worked with someone who literally camped outside the company’s Southern California headquarters (it sits literally right aross the road from the beach) in the hopes she’d be hired. She wasn’t, but toting around my tablet in the the fantastic little MiniMass let me grasp why she tried.
The MiniMass is the smallest sibling in Patagonia’s family of courier bags (all of which end in “Mass” — a nod to the Critical Mass bicycle movement). This makes the MiniMass a perfect tablet carrier. And even though it isn’t explicitly to ferry tablets, it excels in the task.
Finally!
There’s been plenty of debate over whether or not Microsoft will ever bring its Office productivity suite to Android and iOS devices. Many reports have claimed it will, while Microsoft itself has denied the rumors. But now product manager Petr Bobek has confirmed that it will happen next year.
Cheap Android tablets are stealing the iPad’s market share.
A study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found a massive boom in tablets over the last 12 months, with 25% of American adults now owning a tablet of their own. As you might expect, the iPad is the most popular device out there at the moment, claiming more than 52% of the market. But that may not be the case for too long.
Android tablets are rapidly catching up, and in the not-so-distant future, there’s a good chance they will be king.
