Mobile Computing News

Photo: Nokia

Surely you didn’t think Nokia was going to sit on the side and watch competitors like the Google Android platform and Samsung roll the dice in the tablets wars, now did you? The company is reportedly planning a late 2010 shipment of their own tablet computers, too.

ARM-based

According to Digitimes Research via Digitimes, the Nokia tablet computer will be ARM-based and will see release sometime during the fourth quarter of this year.

Conversations with ‘upstream component makers’ have led Digitimes Research to believe that Nokia has already engineered 100 samples for testing purposes. The Nokia tablet computer’s panel size will be available in either 7-inch or 9-inch variety. Oh, and as an interesting side note and in case you did need proof the controversy surrounding this Chinese manufacturer would do little in affecting business, Foxconn International Holdings will be manufacturing the device, according to the analysts. Yes, the same Foxconn that had the spate of suicides.

Operating system and retail

It is expected that MeeGo, the joint venture between Nokia and Intel, would be the mobile operating system that powers this Nokia tablet computer. In retailing terms, Nokia is expected to leverage the various relationships it has with carriers around the globe.

Back to winning ways?

We (and others) have been very critical of Nokia of late, with the company’s forecast revision doing little to convince analysts, journalists and investors alike that this criticism was unjustified.

Photo: Apple

The basic criticism is when it comes to the smartphone industry, Nokia has missed a curve and is playing catch up to the contemporary smartphone manufacturers that are dominating.

With tablets, however, this is not so, we believe. Though the early success of the iPad is seen as validation of the market, many users are still unsure if the way in which the iPad works is how tablets should work. And if Nokia can out innovate and out execute Apple (and the many competitors who will be on the scene come Q4 2010), the Finnish company can potentially get back to its winning ways.