While Mobile World Congress has in the past been all about mobiles and mobile apps – it is in the name after all – we’re expecting this year’s event, taking place in Barcelona next week, to be a little different. In case you’ve been comatose for the last year, tablets are the talk of tech town, and we’re expecting to see plenty at MWC 2011 – and not all Android flavoured either. Read on to see the iPad 2 rivals we’re expecting in the best of show tablets category.
Motorola Xoom
We saw the hardware up close at CES but journalists have yet to be given a chance to play around with the Android 3.0 software on a UK bound Motorola Xoom. We’ll be hitting Motorola’s stand to try it out, and let you know whether Honeycomb really can take on iOS on the rumoured iPad 2 just around the corner.
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 2
A leak of Samsung’s Sunday press conference itinerary suggests we’re going to see a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 unveiled alongside the Samsung Galaxy S 2 Android phone. Considering the first 7-inch Android tablet was only launched in September, that’s quite a quick follow up – will this one be the same size, and will it run Honeycomb? We’ll be at the prezzer to let you know.
HTC Flyer
According to the latest reports from the East, a HTC Flyer Android tablet is set to go on sale in March, which points to an unveiling at Mobile World Congress 2011, where HTC will have a big presence. Interestingly, the rumours suggest this slate will run Android 2.2 or 2.3, which isn’t meant for tablets: if so it’ll have to have been seriously polished by HTC’s Sense software coders for it to stay revelevant.
HP TouchPad
The HP TouchPad, produced by the team formerly known as Palm, was unveiled in San Francisco just yesterday, and it looks like the first real iPad rival that can match it for sheer beauty. it’s 13mm thick, and looks like a waif of obsidian. Inside is a dual core 1.2GHz CPU and a 9.7-inch display that matches the iPad for resolution. Add webOS 3.0 in the mix, and we could have something that puts HP back in the mobile game. HP’s going to be at Mobile World Congress, so we’ll go check it out for you.
BlackBerry PlayBook
The BlackBerry PlayBook’s been turning up at press events and tradeshows for a while now. We loved what we saw at CES, and now we’re hoping to see some more of it at RIM’s MWC 2011 booth – fingers crossed it’ll be paired with a BlackBerry so we can see how that syncing solution works.
