Apple iPad – UK reviews and advice

iPad competitors are coming out of the woodwork now! Heres our growing, updated ipad competitor list with prices. Updated as and when we get new tablet information

1. Amazon has  acquired Touchco – they are a small startup with apparently very cheap touchscreen displays. Will be a while before anything released, but expect it to be a major play and tie up with everything else Amazon, especially books

2. Google has released mock ups of its Chrome powered tablet. Mock ups only at this stage, so take with a grain of salt, they are probably quite happy to try steal some Apple thunder. Google books would seem to be a good point of tablet integration.

Google Tablet running Chrome

3. Microsoft unveiled 3 slate pcs at CES powered by HP, Archos, and Pegatron. Microsoft slates will be running Windows 7. This could be an opportunity for Microsoft.

It seems to us that you would have to be nuts to buy a MS slate considering their history and the range of competition available. However if Microsoft came in at the top of the market with something special, they could just steal someone elses thunder. Big if though…

4. Sony apparently stands ready to make use of its market power and laptop delivery to broach the new tablet market. Considering how easy it would be for them to brand and market a vanilla, standard tablet, its pretty much a  no brainer that they will enter the market.

Sony could however also  step up and sync up a Sony Tablet to their other products if they wanted a great USP.

5. Asus tablet rumoured off the back of their success with the Eee pcs. Again seems a no brainer for them at the low end of the market.

6. Fusion Garage has a JooJoo Tablet (you may remember it as the acrimonious Techcrunch Cruchpad in another life) and is accepting pre orders. You can preorder the JooJoo tablet here. From the Fusion Garage site as of 06/02/10 “We are only accepting pre-orders in the U.S at the moment. Pre-orders will ship in 8 to 10 weeks.”

Joo Joo tablet is $499 and you can get a Joo Joo stand for $29.99 

7. Motorola apparently are also looking to get in on the act

8. Out of left field the iFreeTablet - The IPTVMunicipal Avanza project in Spain releases an Orvita2 project star device called the iFreeTablet.  Its an open source tablet and looks to sell at 300-400 Euros (around $300). You can reserve an iFreeTablet.

Related links

http://www.ifreetablet.com/

https://thejoojoo.com/

http://www.dailytech.com/Amazon+Google+Prepare+iPad+Competitors/article17608.htm

http://www.inquisitr.com/60554/sony-drops-hints-about-their-own-ipad-competitor/

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/ifreetablet-the-open-source-ipad-competitor-from-spain-2010023/

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/2017181,motorola-ceos-ipad-smartphones.article