Viewsonic announces ViewPad 7 tablet, plus a 10-inch iPad competitor

Consumer Reports News: November 01, 2010 04:07 PM

Viewsonic ViewPad 10
Photo: Viewsonic

With new tablet computers being announced seemingly every few days, ViewSonic just added two interesting new tablets to the mix.

The ViewPad 7 is a 7-inch, Android 2.2 tablet with 3.5G capability. It has an 800-by-480 multi-touch LCD display as well as a 3-megapixel rear-facing camera and 0.3-megapixel front-facing one. (Samsung's 7-inch Galaxy Tab has higher display resolution and a 1.3MP camera on the front). The ViewPad 7 should be available before the end of the year; Viewsonic estimates the price at $479.

At 10 inches, the ViewPad 10 is larger than several other tablets recently announced. It's also different in some other ways: It's a dual-boot tablet, which can run either Android 1.6 or Windows 7 Home Premium, a computer operating system. (Note that a tablet running Android 1.6 may not be able to download apps from Google's Android Market app store.) The ViewPad 10 uses an Intel Atom 1.66GHz , the class of processor many netbooks use, and has 16GB of flash storage.

And the ViewPad 10 will be Wi-fi only—that is, it won't use a wireless 3G service. It should be available in the first quarter of 2011; ViewSonic estimates the price at $629, compared with the $499 Apple asks for a 16GB Apple iPad with Wi-fi and the $599 Verizon is charging for a 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet without a 3G plan.

The Galaxy Tab is scheduled to go on sale at T-Mobile the day after tomorrow and at Verizon on Thursday. It also scheduled to go on sale at Sprint on Sunday for $399 with a 3G plan.

Other tablets from major brands aren't far off now, though not all have been officially announced.

It promises to be a fascinating holiday season in computer tablets. Stay tuned: We'll have hands-on assessments and lab tests on all the new tablets as they become available.

—Jeff Fox