$50 tablet revealed for India

Allgo’s Stamp - an Android 2.1 tablet being currently created in India – isn’t particularly powerful or flashy but if it ever makes it out it’ll be dirt cheap. Why? Because it only costs $50 to maufacture.

The Stamp is the latest of a long line of devices designed to bring low-cost computing technology to the masses of India. It features Wi-Fi, USB and an ethernet port and has a 7-inch 800X480 pixel resistive touch screen display. A lengthy list of supported software can be found on Allgo’s official website.

There’s a video of a working prototype on YouTube too.  The prototype is at such an early stage that it doesn’t even have casing yet, so don’t expect it to be hitting shelves – Indian or otherwise – anytime soon.

ASUS get their slate on with the Eee Pad

Clearly everyone is jumping on the tablet PC bandwagon, and ASUS are no exception, with their newly unveiled Eee Pad – an extension of their Eee PC range, rather than just a bad renaming of the iPad.

The specs are quite lustworthy. It’s a 12″ tablet with rather high quality industrial design, running Windows 7. Under the hood there’s a fairly powerful CULV Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which brings this into the realm of laptop horse power, although with much less power consumption (the ULV in CULV means ultra low voltage). Even with the high performance CPU a 10 hour battery life is expected. Not much else has been confirmed not he specs side yet, though there will be a built-in webcam and at least a USB port.

A chirpy little 10″ version of the Eee Pad is also in the works, running a different OS and presumably lower specs.

Dell’s Looking Glass Android Tablet

As previously mentioned, it’s been a big day of new hardware leakage for Dell. We’ve covered their new phones, which look quite sexy we have to say. One of the other big highlights is the Dell Looking Glass, an Nvidia Tegra 2 powered Android tablet PC.

It’s not too different from the previously shown Dell Streak, their 5″ Android tablet, although the Looking Glass is of course bigger and powered by a much beefier Tegra 2 chip (as opposed to the Streak’s Snapdragon CPU).

The Looking Glass is essentially billed as a portable media player and web browser, with a built-in 3G connection (so yes, it is technically a phone too). Having the 3G connection means Dell can sell the device with the Android Market enabled – being a phone is one of Google’s stipulations for using the market. It also makes it a viable, cheaper alternative to the iPad (it runs Flash for starters).

The spec list is quite healthy. There’s that Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU, the 7 inch 800×600 screen, 4GB RAM, 4GB flash storage + SD slot, a 1.3 megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi and of course 3G. All packed into a system a bit smaller than an iPad, and lighter at just 500g. It’s due for release this November, and if the price is right it could be good.

Dell’s Thunder, Flash, Lightning & Smoke Phones

Dell had a bit of a mass leak today, with a flood of new phones. Some of which are actually quite impressive. Possibly the best amongst the bunch, is the Dell Thunder, pictured above. It’s an Android-based smartphone with a 4.1″ WGVA OLED screen and Dell’s own custom ‘Stage’ UI on top of Android (it’s also speculated to have a Snapdragon CPU, although that’s as yet unconfirmed). It looks quite nice indeed, and reminds us of HTC’s EVO 4G or Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10. It’s due for release at the end of this year.

Engadget also has coverage of all the other new phones Dell leaked, including the Windows Phone 7 based Dell Lightning phone (which has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard), the quite sexy Android-based Dell Flash which is a bit like a smaller, metallic version of the Thunder, the oddly designed Dell Smoke (a candybar phone with a QWERTY keyboard, also running Android), and Dell’s big Tegra 2 powered 3G tablet known as the Dell Looking Glass. That’s a lot of stuff!

Stuff get hands-on with the ICD Gemini

While it was only announced a couple of days ago, tech blog Stuff.tv have already had a hands-on with the Gemini, the new Nvidia Tegra 2-powered 11″ tablet PC from ICD. As it happens, they think it’s rather good.

The Gemini uses Android OS with the same web browser as the latest Android phones, which Stuff.tv really like, saying it has “blisteringly fast page renders, smooth scrolling, speedy rotation and full Flash support. Take that, Mr Jobs.”

They also say the Gemini has enough oomph for proper multitasking, a “lovely, sharp widescreen display”, “superb” speakers, and twice the battery capacity of the iPad. They did note some bugs and rough edges, but expect the kinks to be worked out for the actual release model. It’s expected to be released in August (for the UK at least) at a price similar to the entry-level iPad (£300-350, about $500).

It looks very promising so far.

The month of many pads

It’s a busy month for tablet computers. As every geek knows, the iPad launched over the weekend, selling over 300,000 systems on the first day. Quite impressive, though below the 700,000 analysts had predicted. We’ll have to wait and see how well the average consumer responds to the iPad.

At the same time time, Fusion Garage started shipping the JooJoo, an iPad-style Intel Atom-powered tablet PC running a custom version of Linux. There’s a bit of a backstory to that one (it was originally a collaboration between tech news website TechCrunch.com and Fusion Garage, going under the name CrunchPad, until there was something of a split between those two companies and other bad allegations). Engadget have just reviewed the JooJoo, and weren’t overly positive about the user interface or crummy 2.5 hour battery life.

Now another sexy pad (or tablet/slate PC) has been announced – ICD’s Gemini (pictured above), an Nvidia Tegra 2 powered 11″ device running Android OS, with Flash support and enough horsepower to decode full 1080p HD video. The spec list should make a lot of nerds giddy: 1Ghz Nvidia Tegra 2, 11.2″ 1366×768 multitouch screen, WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, FM Radio, GSP, SD card slot, Micro USB, two cameras (5MP back, 2MP front), and hopefully a battery that can cope with all that.

No word on any price or release date yet, though we expect the world will be flooded with tablet PCs by the end of the year.

A peak at OpenPeak’s OpenTablet 7

With the iPad, Joojoo pad, HP slate and a hundred other tablet PCs, it looks like 2010 is going to be the year of the tablet. So you may as well get used to seeing lots of new tablets that are all quite similar to one another. Today, say hello to OpenPeak’s OpenTablet 7.

Engadget have a little hands on with the device, which packs a 1.9GHz Intel Atom-based Moorestown CPU, a 1080p video camera on the front, a 5 megapixel camera on the back and HDMI connectivity, all on top of a Linux-based OS running Flash. The device is supposed to be quite polished already, with a smooth UI experience.

No word on price or release dates yet, but the OpenTablet looks worthy enough to stand out from the crowd.