The withdrawal by some companies from the tablet market, together with reports of others struggling with sales of their own slates, evidently hasn’t deterred other electronics firms from entering the fray and having a go with their own similar devices.
At the CEATEC electronics show being held near Tokyo this week, Toshiba unveiled a tablet which it hopes might draw Japanese consumers away from the current market dominator, Apple’s iPad.
Weighing just 1.23 pounds (558 grams) and with a thickness of only 0.3 inches (7.7mm), the 10.1-inch AT700 is the world’s lightest and thinnest tablet and, according to a Cnet report, it’s been creating quite a stir at the Japanese tech show. Let’s just compare those specs to Apple’s iPad. The Cupertino company’s Wi-Fi only device weighs in at 1.33 pounds (601 grams) and has a thickness of 0.34 inches (8.8 mm) – so its little wonder the AT700 is turning heads.
A 7-inch version – the AT3S0 – was also unveiled by the Japanese electronics company. The AT3S0 is 0.48 inches (12.1mm) thick and weighs 0.83 pounds (379 grams).
The AT700 runs version 3.2 of Android, and sports 1GB of memory, 32GB of internal memory, a 1280×800-pixel resolution screen, a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor. It also has a rear-facing camera (5MP) and a front-facing one (2MP).
Both the AT700 and the smaller AT3S0 are currently set for the Japanese market and will launch in mid-December. Prices for the two devices aren’t yet known.
Toshiba already has a tablet selling in the market outside of Japan – the Thrive (with a 10.1-inch screen). Another one, the Thrive 7, is set for launch later this year. However, these two models are heavier and thicker than their AT counterparts.
Those outside Japan who like the sound of the AT700 will be interested to know that Toshiba unveiled a tablet with a similar spec at the IFA conference in Berlin last week – the AT200. It should hit shelves in Europe by the end of year, though a US release date has not yet been announced.
