[afa]

*WARNING* Unnecessarily long post coming up!

Originally Posted by kartu

They have different screen.
They have different battery.
They have different weight.
They have slightly different design.

All those differences are largely very minor. For example, Samsung might indeed have the best screen, but it's not like the others are crap. Most good tablets will have a good screen. Weight is negligible since mostly we're talking about a few ounces (within the same size, of course). And so on...

Strange question. Do you mean manufacturers? They benefit from jumping on the android bandwagon, not having to pay for an OS that sells damn well.

Don't they have to pay some sort of patent fees to Microsoft or something? Or is that just Google?

In any case, it's great to have a free OS, and one that is quite popular, but individually they have no chance of competing with the Apple juggernaut. Google loves to mention that Android is the most popular mobile OS; true enough, but it's worth mentioning that iOS runs on a single phone made by a single manufacturer.

Android gained marketshare by bombarding the market with hundreds of devices from dozens of manufacturers. How many of those phones actually sell significantly? Does anything even approach the iPhone (or iPad for tablets)?

Let me illustrate my meaning with an example using completely made up numbers:

Let's say the total market for tablets is 200 million. Apple already has 40 million of them, leaving 160 million. Since the iPad is so damn popular, it's probably safe to assume that it will remain the dominant device and finish with, oh, 120m. So now we have 80m potential customers left; if we have 4 Android devices, they're all sitting happy with 20m each.

But that 80m is instead being split into 100 devices, leaving an average of 800,000 per. Is that really enough for them? Would Lenovo consider their tablets a success if they only sold 800k each? I don't know. If they do, then great for them. But I find it hard to believe these 100 devices will be individually successful. Because not only are they competing with the incumbent iPad, they're also competing with other Android devices, most of which (and this is the issue) offer virtually the exact same experience.

And, cough, consumers, cough? Let me see: more choices, lower prices?

Which is great, for sure (specially the price). Unfortunately, when I look at all these Android tablets I am not seeing much of a choice. The tablet itself is just a piece of hardware; ultimately it doesn't matter. The real meat of these devices is the experience. And the experience will remain largely the same regardless of which device you use since they're all running the same system. The biggest differentiator so far seems to be merely the size.

Look, I'm just speaking my mind here. I just don't get it. I don't get what the big deal is with "The 27th tablet running Android is out!" since that tablet hardly brings anything new that wasn't there in the first 26 (except maybe it's 3 ounces lighter).

Then again, I admit I'm not the best judge in this matter. I don't own a tablet and -- between my iMac, Dell laptop and BlackBerry -- see absolutely no reason to get one.