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Sunday, Feb 06, 2011
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National

Honeycomb promises to hot up tablet PC race

Karthik Subramanian

Android 3.0 will help a new generation of tablet PCs take on Apple's iPad

CHENNAI: Earlier this week, Google unveiled its Android 3.0 operating system code-named ‘Honeycomb.' It has since received positive buzz across online geek forums for what many see as the open source operating system that will help Android Tablet PCs challenge Apple's iPad, the undisputed market leader now, which runs on its proprietary operating system.

Technology writers, who were invited to the Google headquarters at Mountain View, California, on February 2, were among the first to get an in-depth view of Android's Honeycomb eco-system. It has come across as operating system built from scratch with the new form factor of tablet PCs in mind. Most of the widely followed technology blogs have already given it their thumbs-up.

The first of the tablet PCs sporting Honeycomb, Motorola's Xoom, is expected to hit the retail markets soon.

Huge leap

The predominant verdict is that not only has Honeycomb been a huge leap over the previous versions of Android OS, which, to be fair, have been designed for smartphones running on much lower specifications. It also comes across as a good introduction to the Android ecosystem, in ease of use. It also supports multi-tasking, among many other new experiences.

Hardware specifications

The new OS also seems to have been designed keeping in mind the advanced hardware specifications that most Android tablet PCs set to hit the markets world over through the year are expected to sport. Motorola's Xoom tablet PC, previewed at the CES event in Vegas last month, is one such device with fairly advanced specifications: it has a dual core processor as its CPU and full HD support. In many ways, Honeycomb is seen as the OS that would help the Android tablets compete with the next version of iPad.

In-built GPUs

Thanks to a host of next-generation processors that are both capable and low-power consuming, most tablets are expected to have in-built GPUs (graphic processor units) in addition to the CPU. Android Honeycomb has ‘renderscript' for hardware accelerated-3D animation that makes the user experience smooth. This has made it possible for the desktop to have a 3D effect and features the ‘flip experience' that many users have got used to in the Apple ecosystem. Serious geeks will know that such effects have long existed in the Linux ecosystem.At this point, it is still not officially clear whether Honeycomb will also have a separate OS for smartphones. There is speculation that there could be one with a different user-interface as it could allow ‘syncing' without any drastic change in the look and the feel.

Bigger numbers

By virtue of being open source, Honeycomb is most likely to have bigger numbers in terms of deployment because of the number of vendors backing it. But it is still not exactly a two-horse race between Apple's proprietary OS and Android's Honeycomb. Blackberry's Playbook tablet PC, which runs its own OS and is set to hit the markets soon, has received good press so far. This could be the first year of an all-out battle of the tablet PCs.

Corrections and Clarifications

The graphic accompanying the Information Technology Page report, "Honeycomb promises to hot up tablet PC race" (February 6, 2011), gave the time of release of Android 3.0 Honeycomb as January 2010. It should have been January 2011.

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