There will be a swathe of Android 3.0 releases, nicknamed Gingerbrad, in the form of fully touch compliant tablets come January at the CES show in Las Vegas. This detail was leaked by Taiwan’s Digitimes which said that Acer, Asus, HTC and Motorola are all set to launch tablets on Gingerbread there. While it may seem like some manufacturers have been slow to enter the tablet game, and some such as LG and HP have postponed their tablet plans, it is largely due to the fact that Android 2.2 cannot natively support a full tablet experience. This will all change though with the new release which should be sometime in early 2011, followed later in the year by Android 4.0.
Google has recently informed partners that Android 3.0 is near completion with samples being distributed in December. There are plenty of tablets such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab which run the current build of Android but even Google admits that Android 3.0 will be the first version of the OS to take full advantage of tablet hardware. Along with the announcement of manufacturers launching their first tablets is the news that Samsung will be using the show to debut a Galaxy Tab running Gingerbread.
The source of the CES rumor noticed that a major factor in manufacturers adoption of Android over Windows is the cost. The price of adopting of a Microsoft Platform would be around $50-60, Android just $10. There’s also a price gap of $30 between Intel and ARM processors which would make Android a more attractive option for tablet builders trying to keep their costs down.
November will see the start of the tablet wars though it may be a slow start for the Android camp until the update OS is ready. Steve Jobs has also already aired his views about Google’s OS though the only off putting thing about the main Android tablet at the moment, the Galaxy Tab, is a relatively high price tag.