By Patrick Avenell
SYDNEY, NSW: After yesterday’s look at the ViewPad 7, it’s the turn today of this pad’s bigger, more business oriented brother, the ViewPad 10. Although a nominal challenger to the iPad, Viewsonic is pitching this 10.1-inch tablet at the business market, with a number of key differences between in and both the ViewPad 7 and the iPad.
There are two big changes that must be covered immediately. The first is the dual operating system: Android 1.6 (the VP7 has 2.2) and Windows 7. The second in the absence of 3G from the unit. Unlike the iPad, which offers consumers a choice of Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi plus 3G, there is no choice for ViewPad 10 users.
The all-important touchscreen is high resolution LED capacitive, whilst there is a 1.66Ghz Intel processor and an integrated 16-gigabyte SSD hard disk drive. Connectivity includes two USB ports, one mini VGA, one DC-in port and Bluetooth. There is one 3.5 millimetre audio jack.
The camera is 1.3 megapixels, which seems very slight by today’s standards. The quoted dimensions of this tablet are 275 x 170 x 14.5 millimetres. Viewsonic quotes the weight at 875 grams.
In addition to have the full PC functionality afforded it by having Windows 7 on board; this device also acts as an full media player, an e-reader and an apps client: best experienced through Android. Only having 1.6 is a drawback, as is the somewhat cumbersome OS switching process, which took around one minute when Current.com.au was playing with a prototype at the launch.
The ViewPad 10 will be released sometime in January 2011 for RRP $799.
The ViewPad 10 (RRP $799).
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