
Toshiba to make quad-core Android 4.0 tablets in 7, 10, and 13 inch sizes - iProject
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/04/toshiba-to-launch-a-line-of-quad-core-android-40-tablets.ars
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dreadsword
Its shocking how effectively Apple is able to move the eight-ball on companies
like Toshiba. "We have lots of cores!" "Available in any screen size!"

Hey Toshiba: no one cares about those specs right now - Apple shifted the
conversation for the majority of the tablet market to screen res, where they
have an essentially unassailable competitive advantage for quite some time.
And, Toshiba missed the boat, which makes their claims for cores and screen
sizes seem flat and mis-timed.

Note: I have an awesome toshiba laptop that I carted around the world for me
in 2008, which is still going strong. Added a hybrid ssd/platter drive to perk
up win7 performance, and its still my daily driver. Toshiba makes great
products, they're just eating Apple's dust, like everyone else.

~~~
huggyface
* "We have lots of cores!" "Available in any screen size!" Hey Toshiba: no one cares about those specs right now*

We're talking about the Apple that is trialing a 7" tablet, right? The one
that talked up "4 cores" at the 3rd generation unveiling? Same Apple?

There are millions and millions of non-Apple tablets being sold. This seems
like a laughably tiny number compared to the incredible success Apple has
yielded, but in consumer electronics it is substantial. It is bloody sad,
however, that every time someone tries to make a product this whole clucking
"nah nah Apple is better" nonsense gets carted out.

Keep on keeping on Toshiba, and samsung, and LG, and...

~~~
dreadsword
You've managed to nail my point exactly in your pugnacious response. A year
from now, when Toshiba, Dell, and everyone else have pivoted and are talking
up even better screen resolution, Apple's going to move the eight-ball again:
maybe to 7 inch tablets, maybe to cores, nobody knows but Tim & Jon.

Did you even read my post? I don't think Apple is "better" - I think they're
great at wagging the dog, the dog being us consumers.

~~~
nkassis
I believe it's only a matter of time before tablets become commoditized like
the smartphone market is doing right now. Amazon is working hard on that.

Some will still care for the Apple brand and whatever quality advantage it has
but in the end Apple won't be forever selling 5 times what it's competitors
are selling.

You don't have to be the best at this point, just managed to sell enough to
make some money per run.

~~~
jad
> I believe it's only a matter of time before tablets become commoditized like
> the smartphone market is doing right now.

Why wouldn't tablets be more like, say, the iPod than the iPhone? The phone
market is significantly warped by carriers. When people's contract are up,
they walk into their carrier store and ask the salesperson what phone to buy.
Articles about the Lumia 900 launch indicate AT&T is planning to push it as
their primary high-end phone[1]. In this regard Apple does not control their
sales channel as they do with all of their other products. This is
significant, as recent data show that the vast majority of iPhone buyers
purchased their device at the carrier's store[2].

The only real vulnerability Apple has in tablets right now is price, but I
think the chances they'll leave a price umbrella where people can continue to
swoop in at $199 and undercut the iPad is very small. I expect their pricing
to play out like the iPod, where eventually there was a model at every price
point from $50 to like $400 at $50 increments. They've also done this with the
iPhone, where what started out as either a $500 or $600 phone is now sold for
$300, $200, $100, or $0.

If the quality of competing tablets does not improve significantly, there is
nothing at all inevitable about the tablet market playing out like the phone
market.

1: [http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/09/att-going-big-with-
lumia-90...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/09/att-going-big-with-
lumia-900-advertising-could-spend-as-much-as-150-million/)

2: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-
only...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-only-
sells-2percent-more-iphones-than-best-buy/2012/03/23/gIQAIvEoWS_print.html)

~~~
huggyface
_The phone market is significantly warped by carriers. When people's contract
are up, they walk into their carrier store and ask the salesperson what phone
to buy._

The phone market is indeed significantly warped by _subsidies_ from the
carriers. If carrier subsidies didn't exist (if people didn't fall for it
being subsumed into the cost of plans) the iPhone market would never have
taken off (Ballmer in his original dismissal of the iPhone was actually right
-- people won't pay $600 for a phone. They will, however, pay $149 and pay the
rest over the contract period while acting blind to it). Those value options
would decimate it.

Aside from that whole "carriers against Apple" bit ( _completely_ opposite of
reality), the tablet market already is playing out like the smartphone
industry. With each successive quarter Apple's share drops (while their volume
increases just as in smartphones). They once had it in the bag, and now
account for about 1/2 of tablets, heading ever downwards.

~~~
DavidAdams
Except that the original iPhone launch was gangbusters, and it _did_ cost
$600. But Apple had the advantage of absolute novelty and a dose of fanboysim
back then. So Ballmer was right in general about the phone market, but he was
oh so wrong about the iPhone launch in particular. Apple just needed to pivot
to a carrier-subsidized model once the initial enthusiasm wave receeded.

------
nl
7" is a great form factor.

I have a cheap 7" Android tablet (along with a 10.1" Transformer, and iPad2, a
Galaxy S, and iPhone 4 and and iPod Touch..), and I love the size.

It's _slightly_ heavy for me to use comfortably as an ebook, though. I've
tried the Samsung 7", and that thing seems fantastic - roughly as light as my
ebook reader, but _so_ thin.

Toshiba as a tablet manufacture.. meh. I'm not impressed with what I've seen
so far, but I guess they might get there.

I'm not sure about 13", but I'm sure for the _I'm a basketball coach with big
hands and 10" is too small for me_ market it will be a big hit.

------
makmanalp
To me, this seems akin to Gillette's ads. "Now with 20 blades!!!" 1 core is
good enough for most and 2 cores is good enough for anyone with a tablet.
Maybe later, _after_ all the usability and product design issues are solved
and mobile software can properly make use of multiple cores, this change would
be justified.

Edit: This points towards a more global trend I keep seeing with product
companies (with apple as the poster child) focusing on a single product with
minor variations in the product line and iterating that, versus hardware
companies coming up with 6 new tablets every year with model names like tsb-
vtbl-32blk. Guess which one generates more of a user following.

~~~
maggit
The point of cramming lots of cores into mobile devices is apparently to
reduce battery drain, not to gain processing power. This might or might not be
new to you, but to me, short battery life is still an inconvenience :)

(Random corroborating source:
[http://www.tested.com/news/news/articles/1483-more-cores-
mea...](http://www.tested.com/news/news/articles/1483-more-cores-mean-more-
battery-for-your-next-smart-phone/2/) )

~~~
AnIrishDuck
This makes no sense to me. More cores means more processing throughput. Design
advances lead to reduced power consumption. Both are happening at the same
time, which is the only reason there might be any correlation.

~~~
MaysonL
Well - when you can turn all but one of the cores off (or down to extremely
low power consumption), and/or when you have asymmetric cores where the one
core that runs alone most of the time (when the device is sitting there,
waiting for user input) is an extreme low power one, then yes, more cores mean
stingy power use.

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noonespecial
These guys can't make a "better" tablet than the iPad no matter how many cores
they put in it. Take a hint from the HP touchpad sellout.

We don't need another me-too ipad. We don't need 4 cores. We need capacitive
multi-touch tablets that don't completely suck for less than $200.

If they're not planning on delivering that, they should just save their
research dollars until they can. I need _another_ not quite as good as iPad
for the same price as iPad choice like a broken leg.

------
JVIDEL
"the Excite 7.7 will start at $499.99"

Wasn't Asus going to launch a 7 inch tablet with Tegra3 for $250?

If that's the case Toshiba is borked, big time.

~~~
noarchy
Borked in a big way. You can't sell an inferior tablet for the same price as
an iPad. The ones who are succeeding against Apple (like Amazon) are
effectively competing on price.

