It’s not just the big dogs getting in on the tablet news today – smaller player Viewsonic also has tablet announcements, with their ViewPad 10s Froyo-based tablets now available around the country in Harvey Norman Stores.
The tablet, which is powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chip and features offers both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, plus HDMI output and MicroSD card slots, improves upon the Windows 7 ViewPad 10 launched last year by not offering the Microsoft operating system. With an RRP of $599, it’s certainly on the cheaper side thanks to a lack of on board storage – you only get 512MB on board plus a 1GB MicroSD card in the box, although the device supports up to 32GB MicroSD cards.
Given that one of the original Galaxy Tab’s biggest flaws was in the fact it only used Froyo as an operating system, the ViewPad 10s is almost certain to suffer from some of the same frustrations, especially with the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 launching for similar prices with much more tablet-friendly operating systems. It will be interesting to see exactly who the ViewPad will appeal to.