Most of us have already heard about Amazon’s upcoming Android tablet…But did you know that Barnes and Noble is also rumored to release the Nook Color 2 in just a few weeks? Not only that, but I just read today that Lenovo is also expected to release a budget tablet very soon as well.
Finally, were getting some real competition in the budget tablet department! Other than the original Nook Color, there wasn’t really anything else that was low cost and high quality. And before all you HP TouchPad owners get bent out of shape, I don’t count the TouchPad as a budget device because the $99 price was simply to eliminate HP’s massive inventory. If you happened to grab one, kudos to you as it’s a nice piece of hardware!
But as may of my readers know, I own and love my original Nook Color. It’s really great hardware for the price once you put CM7 on it and overclock it to 1GHz or higher. If B&N does release a Nook Color 2, I’ll be interested to see just how much of a spec bump it actually gets.
If I wasn’t still satisfied with my NC, I would be very interested in the Kindle tablet as I’ve always been impressed with the current and past Kindle models. Amazon doesn’t skimp on the hardware and they’ll likely drop the price down to where they’re just barely making a profit on the hardware in the hopes that they’ll sell a ton of E-books to make up their gains…sort of the XBox 360 model when it was first released. The Nook Color had a similar strategy as well being priced at $250 when the hardware itself was said to have originally cost between $220 an $250.
Because of the possibility of increased revenues with the Amazon and Nook Color 2 tablets, I wonder how the Lenovo tablet will turn out in terms of quality components. The tablet’s name is the Ideapad A1 and it is rumored to have a 1GHz A8 processor, dual cameras, GPS and other high-end features. All of this is said to start at $200? If that’s the case than tablet components are starting to get VERY cheap as Lenovo has to make a profit from the start — they can’t rely on E-book sales like B&N and Amazon.
Look for the trio of 7 inch budget tablets to be hitting the shelves in September and October. And you never know, if the new hardware is really great, I may just have to upgrade my trusty Nook Color!
