I'm about to go on CNBC to talk about the "Tablet Wars." Want to know what I'm going to say? It's all about the Verizon Motorola Android 3.0 tablet that Big Red hopes to ship in time for Christmas.
- Most of the specifics of yesterday's widely reported Verizon/Google tablet rumor - in particular, HTC as manufacturer and Chrome OS as the platform - were entirely made up. Verizon/Google tablet possibly on Black Friday? Yes. The rest of the details? Pure un-sourced speculation. HTC uses Qualcomm chips in their current high-end smartphones, so a move to Nvidia for a tablet would be very surprising at this point.
- My very well placed sources confirm that a Motorola-built, Nvidia-powered, Verizon/Google "pad" is on the current roadmap, targeted to go on sale for the Holiday season. The tablet is codenamed "Stingray" but that likely won't be the retail name for the product.
- Tablets from multiple OEMs are in the pipeline, but there's no credible information to indicate that an HTC-Nvidia-Verizon tablet is in the works. We likely will see Google-based tablets from Samsung, Toshiba, and possibly HTC in the near future, but my sources tell me that the Motorola tablet is slated to be Verizon's "hero product" for the Xmas season.
- The tablet will run on Verizon's new LTE (4G) network and feature some version of mobile TV.
- Earlier this week, Verizon executives showed a prototype of their FiOS cable TV service running on an iPad, so it stands to reason that they're trying to launch the Google tablet with some version of actual cable television, and not the current VCast service available on Verizon mobile phones.
- The tablet will likely run the next generation of Google's Android OS, version 3.0 code-name "Gingerbread," and not Chrome OS. Android 3.0 has long been detailed as the first "tablet friendly" version of Android.
- There is concern as to whether or not Android 3.0 will be ready to ship in time for the holidays. That could delay the launch of the tablet computer.
- In other related news, LG today announced their forthcoming line of Android-powered phones will be powered by Nvidia chips, including at least one dual-core processor smartphone that is slated to ship this year.
- Tablet computers from BlackBerry and HP/Palm are also very likely in the works for late 2010 or early 2011 launch.
Alright then, off to TV land ...
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