yay, i can't wait for the slew of ipad killers. the industry is getting really good at this.

How long after their iPad clonings-gone-horribly-wrong do you think the rest of the industry will take to finally realize that they aren't producing i-Killers but i-Sort-Ofs?

Not that one of them might not come up with a dominant product ... after all, RonCo totally dominated the Scramble-An-Egg-Inside-Its-Shell market when that product came out.

even have an idea of why they want to develop tablets. Merely trying to one-up Apple is a pretty poor plan. All I continue to hear is that their tablets have much better hardware than the iPad. I almost never hear them talk about ease of use or easily downloadable content. It would seem these companies are trying to provide partial hardware solutions and let the user find their own content. I never hear them talk about marketing and customer support either. It's like they're saying Apple is building a consumer tablet market so just build a tablet with better hardware and take it away from them.

If you at all read the article, you'd notice that the people 'announcing' this tablet weren't really announcing it. They were showing off a prototype to try to sell to other people for them to sell.

In fact, it was the chip maker who made the thing, most likely trying to find people looking to build tablets and sell them chipsets and the like. So to even start talking about an iPad killer, one would actually need a product, even imaginary. This isn't even that.

And why does anyone who announces/releases/discusses a product that covers the same market as an Apple product always tagged as someone trying to 'kill' Apple's product? I know it is a strange concept, but it is allowed to have multiple products in the same field. There are 500 computer makers out there. Their goals are not to go out there and kill all the competition, it's to be part of the competition.

But, no, when it comes to Apple, people apparently are still suffering from a persecution complex and believe everyone is out to get them.

...even have an idea of why they want to develop tablets. Merely trying to one-up Apple is a pretty poor plan.

Not really. There's supposedly enough Apple-haters out there to fund a few products, right?

It would seem these companies are trying to provide partial hardware solutions and let the user find their own content.

By content do you mean apps? Yes, it is so hard to find applications out there. I mean, people have these things called computers, but so many have no clue that you can get software to run on them. And so few know that you can find and download software as well. They just sit there, staring out their Windows Start menu going "Wow, solitaire is great!" And it is more of the same for all those handhelds and other devices. Only Apple users have figured out how to get content for their devices.

I never hear them talk about marketing and customer support either.

Well, I never hear Apple talk about marketing and customer support, either. And if a company said "We're going to have great support!" you'd rip them on just the thought they could do it, or that their product was so bad, they have to have great support to handle all the problems people are having.

It's like they're saying Apple is building a consumer tablet market so just build a tablet with better hardware and take it away from them.

Or maybe they're saying "Hey, we've been building tablets for 4 years, and now that Apple has finally entered the arena, maybe people will finally look at our products as well!" But I'm sure even those people get blasted for trying to ride Apple's coattails.

Or maybe they're saying "OK, Apple's getting into the consumer tablet market. Let's skip that and push into the corporate market, where the real money is. We'll sell them on 'open platform' and 'choice'."

Of course, some people act like Apple invented the tablet computer and everyone is playing catch-up.

"Of course, some people act like Apple invented the tablet computer and everyone is playing catch-up."

- When in fact what happened was everyone waited for Apple to DEFINE the tablet so that they could play catch-up.

"So to even start talking about an iPad killer, one would actually need a product, even imaginary. This isn't even that."

- So if this product isn't real and this product isn't imaginary, what is it? Or isn't it? (Been shoving cats into boxes a little too much lately?)

Testudo is right about this company, they show products that aren't being produced. They were at the latest CES with some pretty nifty devices, but when you would ask how much and when they would be available, they had no answers. It was a real letdown to play with a working device and be told "no, we don't sell it".

... hobbies?