CES Day 2: the day the tablets took over

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The ASUS Transformer Prime.

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Updated: January 12, 2012 3:10PM

Day 2 of CES. And is it time to talk about tablets?

Maybe. There’ve been a bunch of announcements and demos that stop short of being actively, We-Interrupt-This-Story Newsworthy . . . but they’re certainly Interesting at least. I’m starting to see cracks of daylight and hope for Android tablets.

By the end of 2011, major makers stepped up to the plate with their own iPad knockoffs and they all went down one, two, three. Motorola’s Xoom hit a solid shot out of the infield, but the ball was caught on the first hop and the runner was thrown out at first base.

Next up were RIM and HP. I won’t claim that the PlayBook and the Touchpad struck out. That’d be too charitable. Those two companies tried to bunt their way onto base by sticking their faces into the strike zone. And when the Apple fastball knocked them unconscious, they fell on top of the ball, thus tagging themselves out. It really wasn’t pretty. Hysterically funny, yes . . . but not pretty.

Instead, the only real winners in 2011 were two devices sold by booksellers: Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. They’re nifty 7-inch Android-based tablets that sell for less than the cost of an iPhone, and they can handle the basic functions that most gadget buyers expect from color tablets: media, the Web, gaming, and a smattering of non-critical apps.

Kudos to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. But we’ve yet to see a successful tablet that was actually made and sold as a straight-up tablet computer. We’re still looking for a device which can fill the full suite of functions that define the iPad. Loosely-defined, this device needs to handle all of your needs during a two or even a three-day business trip. It should also be capable of serving as someone’s sole computer, if they’re one of those types who rarely go beyond email, the Web, and letter-writing.

Getting closer

I’m not certain that 2012 will see a change in fortunes for any iPad competitor. But CES announcements indicate that more and more of the required elements are at last sliding into place.

Chief among them: a credible tablet operating system. Android shipped Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) late last year and no manufacturer at CES gets more than five minutes into their demo of a new tablet without mentioning that it’ll either ship with ICS or that there’s a firm date for a free over-the-air upgrade. It’s that important to a tablet’s credibility. Smart consumers are all too aware that even many big-name companies ship hardware with previous-generation Android software and then never release any updates.

When Google released Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), they defined it as their first tablet-optimized edition. Ignore that. 3.0 was merely the prequel; 4.0 is Android’s New Hope. The operating system, known as Ice Cream Sandwich, is more refined and developers can create a more muscular class of apps with it.

(God only knows if those apps will actually materialize. As always, Google proposes and the Android developer community disposes. But if the stature of Android tablet apps improve from their current Don Knotts-like physique to the compact build of, say, a David Hyde-Pierce or a Dana Carvey, it’ll still be a huge step up.)

Getting faster

The second required element is NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor. It’s a bit of a monster. Its performance is a huge leap ahead of the Tegra 2 that populated so many early Android tablets. It appears to be optimized for high-resolution, high-frame rate video playback and gaming, while sipping power like a supermodel.

Actually, “quad-core” is a bit of a misnomer. The Tegra 3 has a fifth core which shifts into gear whenever the CPU is so undertaxed that it can sacrifice maximum speed for lower power consumption. So, for instance, when you launch a word processor, the T3’s four high-speed cores light up and handle the complicated process of putting a dormant app back on its feet. But then, when you start editing, the four power-hungry cores shut off and hand off this light-duty task to the fifth core.

Many of the available demos of the T3’s graphics performance are damned impressive. NVIDIA created a tablet game called “Glowball,” specifically to showcase the rendering performance of the CPU. It’s less of a showcase than a showboat. Name a complicated visual effect — particle systems, lighting with multiple sources, translucent objects made from different materials, water effects — it’s all there on the screen at the same time, in the form of in-game items that react to the user’s movements in realtime.

ASUS Transformer Prime

So we’ve got an OS that’s another level of sophistication closer to the iPad, and a CPU that can yield extremely high performance and (at least in theory) those extra few hours of battery life that can allow you to leave your charger at home.

Needless to say, I’m keen to see how well all of this plays out in the real world. ASUS has two devices that have grabbed my attention. They released the Transformer Prime tablet late last year. It’s a premium 10-inch widescreen tablet packing a Tegra 3 and it’ll receive the Android 4.0 update this week (which is why I’ve held off on reviewing it).

The Transformer’s optional keyboard dock is very interesting. It locks into the Transformer and, er, Transforms it into a skinny ultrabook-like device (complete with trackpad) that opens and closes like a normal notebook. An internal battery supplements the Transformer’s, and allows the combo to run for 18 hours before a recharge.

I’ll be doing deep-soak tests with it shortly. Pricing is set at $499 for the 32 gig model and $599 for 64 gigabytes; the dock will run you another $149.

I don’t flinch at that price; I paid close to $900 for my 64 gig iPad plus a Bluetooth keyboard and I consider it one of the smartest purchases I’ve made. The Transformer dock is attractive enough that it makes me wonder if it’ll serve as an answer to the question “If it costs as much as an iPad . . . why not just buy an iPad?” “Because: none of the available iPad keyboard docks integrate with the iPad as intimately as the Transformer’s keyboard (at best, you wind up with a Frankennotebook), and none of them extend the device’s battery life.”

“OK, but even for $750, why not buy a notebook instead?” you ask. Well, because then you’d have a notebook instead of a tablet. Them’s two different things; it’s like complaining that a new motorcycle has half the number of wheels as a very good secondhand car, and yet costs the same money.

ASUS MeMO 370T

The ASUS MeMO 370T debuted at CES, and it’s . . . intriguing. It’s a 7-inch color Android tablet. But unlike Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s book readers, the MeMO is a straight-up Android tablet. It ships with the latest version of the OS and is built around that quad-core Tegra 3 processor. ASUS couldn’t confirm the pricing to me, but others covering CES have written that it’ll be $249.

If that’s true, The MeMO could (could) be kind of remarkable. The 370T would be a real tablet computer, running the latest OS with the latest CPU (though probably a lower-speed version than what you’d find in a 10” tablet), and it would sell for barely more than what Amazon charges for a media-consumption device that runs Android 2.3. I’m pleased enough when I can fly out for a two-day conference with just my iPad and my Apple Wireless Keyboard in a tiny netbook satchel. How about boarding with a MeMO and a folding keyboard in my back pocket?

That’d be hugely cool. So much so that it’d almost be worth boarding with no luggage whatsoever, and buying new socks and underwear every day until I fly home.

Well, let’s wait and see. The MeMO 370T will be available “sometime by the end of Q1.”

Tabletstravaganza

A bevy of other major manufacturers are showing off premium 10-inch tablets with that desirable combination of Tegra 3 and Ice Cream Sandwich. As usual for CES, many of these machines are presented in Snow White conditions . . . sleeping under glass. Many of the rest are fully functional and are being carried and operated by company reps who trained for their CES booth duties by watching the scene from “This Is Spinal Tap” where Nigel Tufnel shows off his guitar collection, over and over and over again.

“Can I ask you if . . . ?”

“Don’t touch it. This tablet mustn’t be touched. Ever.”

“I wasn’t going to touch it. I was just pointing at it”

“Well, don’t point at it.”

“Can I at least ask a . . .”

“Don’t. Just . . . you’ll ruin it.”

If the possible salvation of Android tablets is demonstrated by CES’ premium tablets, the destruction of the platform is represented by damned-near all of the rest of them at the show. What lessons did tablet manufacturers learn from the beatings they received in 2010 and 2011? Mostly that they can’t compete with Apple by selling a slightly-inferior tablet for the same price as the iPad.

“Well, then let’s sell a vastly inferior tablet for lots less,” many companies concluded, and the air around the CES floor is ponged with the offgassing, both literal and figurative, of the race to the bottom of the tablet market.

That’s a shame. When someone buys an iPad, Apple wins a customer for life. When someone buys a $299 10-inch Android tablet . . .Apple also wins a customer for life.

On the lighter side of the news, Research In Motion demonstrated Version 2.0 of their Playbook OS. Isn’t that adorable? It’s like the kids next door found an even bigger refrigerator carton, and they’ve decided to convert their three-kid submarine into a four-kid space shuttle.

OK, OK . . . yes, I apologize. But you can’t blame me, can you? The reason why you kick someone when they’re down is because, you know, they’re already there.

In truth, it’s a nice update. I mean, holy jumping Zarquon: the thing actually has an email client?

(I’m ashamed that I promised to tone it down and failed. I promise I’ll be good from now on.)

The major highlight is access to the Android App Player that does what its name implies and immediately expands the device’s app library by a factor of Very Much. But is Playbook 2.0 enough to rescue the device from the Island of Unloved Tablets? It’s certainly a big win for current owners, and that’s reason enough for it to exist. With so much competition coming in 2012 from Android tablet makers (to say nothing about what Apple has up its sleeve), I can’t imagine how this story can end well for Research In Motion.