Well that didn’t take long. Just a few days after Apple’s iPad hit international markets, both Asus and MSI, the Taiwanese PC brands best known for their netbooks, on Monday unveiled their respective versions of the tablet PC ahead of Computex.
They weren’t the only ones, either. Gianfranco Lanci, Acer chief executive, beat both his competitors to the mark by showing a glimpse of Acer’s tablet PC at a Beijing press conference last week. So what to make of all these competing devices? Several things stood out, after the jump:
- Everybody’s trying hard to segment the market and avoid being seen as selling a me-too device. Acer’s tablet is only 7-inches in size and has a physical keyboard. MSI’s tablet has built-in GPS and facial-recognition security. Asus is aiming its premium model at professionals by including a detachable keyboard as well as a ‘notebook dock’ that transforms the tablet into a standard clamshell notebook. “We’re really trying to leverage the concept of Transformers,” Johnny Shih, chairman of Asus, said.
- Everyone’s eager to capitalise on the iPad’s technological shortcomings. Both Asus and MSI took delight in pointing out the fact that their devices allow the consumer to access Flash content, which the iPad does not support. Other improvements include: webcams, USB ports, docking stations, dual-core processors, GPS and built-in location based apps.
- It may not be a race to the bottom on price at all. Acer did not reveal the pricing for its tablets, but Asus is looking to sell its more basic 10-inch model for between $399 to $449, a comparable price to the iPad, while MSI is pricing its Wind Pad at between $499 and $699.
- Apple’s head start is safe for a few months yet. MSI will likely be among the quickest by launching the Wind Pad in the third quarter. Acer’s tablet won’t be on the market until the fourth quarter this year, while Asus said its Eee Pad will go on shelves in the first quarter of next year.
- Intel 2, Arm 0 so far, but it’s really still too early to tell who’s going to win. Both Asus and MSI officially showed off an Intel and Windows-based tablet. (Acer didn’t say what processor ran its tablet other than that it’ll run on the Android operating system). Yet MSI, at least, is definitely also working on an Arm and Android-based product that will sell for less than its Windows counterpart.
