Can a Barrage of Android Tablets Endanger the iPad?

September 2, 2010 By Stewart Wolpin

New tablets from Samsung, Toshiba and Archos have lower prices and more variety than Apple’s iPad, but a lack of apps may hold them back.

The iPad suddenly has competitors.

At the IFA show this week in Berlin, Samsung announced its 7-inch Galaxy Tab, and Toshiba its Folio 100 (which won’t be coming to the U.S. for a while, if at all). Back in the U.S., Archos unveiled not one but five tablets — actually three small Android multimedia players and two tablets, with 7- and 10.1-inch screens.

Smartly, Archos has avoided the whole “iPad-killer” nonsense, a complete media creation. No executive at any of these Android tab makers — with the possible exception of Google itself — suffers any delusions about competing with Apple, the tech equivalent of bringing a butter knife to a gunfight.

By offering a full line of tabs (or however you want to classify the smaller versions), however, Archos hopes to offer a wide range of across-the-board alternatives to more budget-conscious, Apple-phobic, non-gearhead consumers.

There will be five Archos Android tab models:

28 (the model number indicates the screen size), $100, with 4GB

32, $150, with 8GB of memory, a 1.3-megapixel camera and VGA video recorder

43, $200, the nearest competitor to the new iPod Touches, with 16 GB, a microSD slot, HDMI mini out, HD video recording and a 2-megapixel still camera, running an 800MHz processor

70, $275 for 16GB of flash, $350 with a 250GB hard drive

10, actually a 10.1-inch screen, $300 for 8 GB, $350 for 16GB

Both the larger tabs have multi-touch screens, microSD slots, HDMI mini jacks, and front-facing cameras with video chat software coming later (Skype video compatible, but not Skype video).

All five models offer 16:9 screens, Wi-Fi (b, g, n) connectivity but no 3G, accelerometers, and auto 360 degree orientation, just like the iPad. All will be upgradable at some point soon to Froyo, the next-gen Android OS featuring a righteous voice-control capability.

The 28 is available for pre-order now; all the other models will be available by the end of this month or the beginning of October.

At 16 ounces, the 10, Archos’ iPad killer (there, I’ve said it) is shocking light compared to iPad’s 24-ounce heft, but feels firm thanks to a stainless steel frame. All the 16:9 screens are far better suited for video watching — you lose screen real estate when watching a widescreen movie on the iPad — but they become disconcerting long, like legal paper, for book reading.

Archos also falls behind on the cameras. None of the models offer cams competitive with the iPod’s excellent (and soon to be upgraded) 5-megapixel imager.

But all Android tabs will suffer in comparison with the iPad. True, each offers apparent spec advantages compared to the iPad at a lower price. But touting spec superiority is a losing game in the tablet wars. It’s all about the apps.

Archos has it’s own app store, listing apps compatible and approved for use with the five Archos tabs. It offers around 5,000 to start, a mere fraction of the total Android app universe. By comparison, there are 25,000 iPad-specific apps, and of course all iPod apps run on iPad.

For more casual users, Archos and other tab makers will offer a necessary set of apps, but long-term, I suspect this tab-specific app limitation will initially cripple all the iPad killer wannabees.

Showing 8 comments

Anish at 5:16am 5th September 2010 Hey - the iPod Touch does NOT have a 5 MP camera, the iPhone 4 has a 5 MP Camera. The iPod Touch has a measly 0.7 MP front facing camera. Get your facts right dt.!
Derek at 11:47am 3rd September 2010 I have an ipad and it's been great fun but I'm looking forward to a lighter tablet with more functionality and can be put in a large coat pocket. The ipad is too heavy to cart about. As a book reader I use the new kindle 3 when reading out of doors. The brighter the sun the easier it is to read and is so light and no contract for 3G. I love all the gadgets but if I had to chose to own only one of them it would be the kindle ebook reader. I love apple, but let's be fair, it's time to have a new boy on the street. Too much of a good thing becomes sickening after a time.
ioman at 8:01pm 2nd September 2010 Apple ipad FTW! I can't believe how thick this thing is.
npo at 7:58pm 2nd September 2010 The fact that you refer to android tablet potential consumers as non-gearhead couldn't be less accurate. The simple fact is apple has become more about brand than function and it's brand appeal is more catered to the less gearheaded of users who are ignorant of what android has to offer only because it wasn't made by apple. They don't realize the benefits of diversity and freedom in devices and how customizable android is when you don't live in apple's walled garden. I work in an environment with 300 true gear headed nerds and a vast majority have jumped apple's ship for high end android phones. Most are waiting on an alternative to the ipad if they intend to get a tablet at all.
DroidDoesnt at 7:53pm 2nd September 2010 a fanboy calling another person a fanboy, HA! anyways no nothing compares to apple products. android will forever play catchup. android tablet? yay! now you can forclose, crash, and lag on a bigge screen! haha
1. zig at 9:57pm 2nd September 2010 hmmmm...yeah...not so much. Was just showing some co-workers my 2.2 froyo incredible today. 1) swiftkey artifical inteligence keyboard that knows what you're gonna type before you type it. 2) flash 10.1 running smoothly and without issues 3) chrome to phone and foxtophone push alerts 4) speech recognition available globally throughout entire OS. anywhere you can type you can talk. 5) google speech commands that put iphone to shame google playing catchup to iphone? I can say that after that demo the concensus was flipped in the other direction. All the cool innovation is happening on Android right now. Apple can't keep up for the simple fact that they stifle creativity and freedom. Apple can't be more innovative than all the developers in the entire world all at the same time. No matter how much hubris Steve Jobs can muster.
  1. kidphat at 10:10pm 3rd September 2010 Funny how I had a similar discussion with some co-workers today. He was showing off his iPhone 4 voice commands and I showed him what Android can do. They were pretty blown away.
superlinkx at 6:08pm 2nd September 2010 You're forgetting that the Galaxy Tab has access to the Market and can use any of those 100,000 apps. Most will need to be optimized for tablet mode, but Android isn't like iOS where it has to emulate the screen size. Android was made to work on many screen sizes from the beginning. You're just being a fanboy.