What to expect in CES 2012 - More Tablets

A deluge of tablets. Like 2011, at CES 2012 we will be seeing a deluge of Android tablets, of varipous sizes with the flagship models running Nvidia's latest Tegra system. The difference this year is that unlike last year when only Motorola had Honeycomb, these year all manufacturers will already have Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, so we can expect manufacturers to release their latest offering immediately to head off Apple's iPad 3.

Nvidia's latest quadcore Tegra 3 is already used in Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime and the specifications of Acer's Iconia A700 and A701 with a full HD 1900 x 1200 screen have already been leaked so it does not appear that anything released at CES 2012 will be too surprising. 

I do expect to see more lower cost 7-inch dual core tablets with 1024 x 600 screens, trying to capitalize on markets not service by Amazon's Kindle Fire.

The most interesting thing we are likely to see at CES 2012 are the the Intel Atom powered tablets running Android 4.0. Whether manufacturers will flock to this new platform is uncertain, and it may be some time before they hit the market. 

What to expect in CES 2012 - More Ultrabooks

We have already seen several ultrabooks in 2011 from Acer, Asus, Lenovo and Toshiba, but PC World reports that we should expect at least 30, maybe as many as 50 new ultrabooks to be announced in CES 2012.  

 

The ultrabooks is expected to receive a boost with the launch of Intels Ivy Bridge chip in April 2012. Ivy Bridge is based on a smaller 22 nanometer process rather than the current Sandy Bridges 32 nanometer process.  The die shrink results in a smaller footprint than existing processors so hardware based on this chip smaller and thinner, too.

By middle of 2012 I would expect that Ultrabooks would become the mainstream consumer laptop. Intel is hoping that these slim and sexy laptops woo some would be tablet buyers back to the laptop fold.