Toshiba’s tablet strategy puts a bet each way, with a low-price 10 inch slate running Android and a premium dual-screen (!) slate for Windows.
Apple,
Google,
Dell,
HP,
Samsung,
Asus, maybe HTC… now you can add another name to the slate. Toshiba has revealed its plans for the suddenly hyperactive tablet market, with two very different devices running very different operating systems.
In an
interview with the Reuters news service Jeff Barney, general manager of digital products for Toshiba America, detailed the two-tablet strategy and said that Toshiba “definitely sees a place for the slate. It’ll be expansive like netbooks, it won’t be cannibalistic”.
The first tablet will likely sport a 10 inch screen and run Google’s Android OS – which after this week’s
announcement by Intel could mean the device could run either an ARM or Atom processor. This will be the more mainstream of the two tablets, with a lower price tag to match.
The second slate will sport an innovative dual-screen design and run
Windows, both factors which will contribute to a “more expensive”
sticker.
Will Toshiba's dual-screen slate be along the same lines as this Microsoft mock-up of its Courier concept device?
Interestingly, Barney spoke only of the dual-screen device running “Windows” rather than calling out Windows 7 specifically.
This could be an indication that Toshiba is cooking up a tablet for Microsoft’s Courier platform, which runs Windows CE and sports two multitouch screens in a ‘booklet’ form factor.
Another Courier mock-up shows the dual screens running as an ebook reader (pic courtesy of Engadget)
Mockups of the prototype device and concept UI are pretty ‘out there’ and perhaps beyond what a suitable processor could achieve.
These UI designs for Courier aim to mimic a paper-based organiser in every way possible (pics courtesy of Gizmodo)
But as a digital version of the Filofax with added Internet, multimedia and ebook goodness, a Courier-class device from Toshiba would represent serious iPad-beating mojo for the company which built its name in the mobile computing arena.